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From: reallyveryradical <reallyveryradical@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:08 PM
Subject: MOSCOWS MERCHANTS OF DEATH
To: World_Politics <world_politics@googlegroups.com>
MOSCOWS MERCHANTS OF DEATH
Likely PA Prime Minister a Holocaust-Denier By
Rafael Medoff Jewishsf.com | February 26, 2003 While European
Union officials praised Yasser Arafat's decision to appoint his
first-ever prime minister, historians of the Holocaust winced at
the news that a leading candidate for the job is the author of a
book denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. The
candidate is Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Arafat's
second in command, and his book, published in Arabic in 1983,
translates as The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism
and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement. It was originally his
doctoral dissertation, completed at Moscow Oriental College. The
book repeatedly attempts to cast doubt on the fact that the Nazis
slaughtered 6 million Jews, according to a translation provided by
the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Following the war,
he writes, word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the
victims and that a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the
Jews...The truth is that no one can either confirm or deny this
figure. In other words, it is possible that the number of Jewish
victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible
that the figure is much smaller—below one million. Abbas
denies that the gas chambers were used to murder Jews, quoting
a scientific study to that effect by French Holocaust-denier
Robert Faurisson. Abbas' book then asserts: The historian and
author Raoul Hilberg thinks that the figure does not exceed
890,000. That is, of course, utterly false. Hilberg, a
distinguished historian and author of the classic study The
Destruction of the European Jews, has never said or written any
such thing. Abbas believes the 6 million figure is the product of a
Zionist conspiracy: It seems that the interest of the Zionist
movement...is to inflate this figure so that their gains will be
greater, he writes. This led them to emphasize this figure in
order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with
Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and
reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims
at only a few hundred thousand. Another falsehood. In fact, no
serious scholar proposes such a figure. After reducing the
magnitude of the Nazi slaughter so that it no longer seems to have
been a full-scale Holocaust, Abbas seeks to absolve the Nazis by
blaming the Zionist leadership for whatever killings did take
place. According to Abbas, A partnership was established between
Hitler's Nazis and the leadership of the Zionist movement...[the
Zionists gave] permission to every racist in the world, led by
Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wish, so long as it
guarantees immigration to Palestine. In addition to encouraging
the persecution of Jews so they would immigrate to the Holy Land,
the Zionist leaders actually wanted Jews to be murdered, because --
in Abbas' words—having more victims meant greater rights and
stronger privilege to join the negotiation table for dividing the
spoils of war once it was over. However, since Zionism was not a
fighting partner—suffering victims in a battle—it had no
escape but to offer up human beings, under any name, to raise the
number of victims, which they could then boast of at the moment of
accounting. Perhaps sentiments of this sort were common within
Abbas' circle of graduate students in the Soviet Union in the
1970s. But in the free world, such propaganda has never been
accepted as serious scholarship. In most Western countries,
Holocaust-deniers have been treated as pariahs. In Canada and many
European countries, Holocaust-denial is a criminal offense. In New
Zealand, Canterbury University recently issued an apology for
having accepting a master's thesis denying the Holocaust, while the
French minister of education revoked a doctoral degree that was
awarded to a Holocaust- denier by the University of Nantes. A
Polish university professor who denied the Holocaust was suspended
from his position. The Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju shut down
one of its magazines for printing an article denying the Holocaust.
International pressure compelled Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
to publicly retract statements in his book doubting that the
Holocaust had taken place. Austrian Freedom Party leader Jorg
Haider was ostracized by the international community for his
remarks praising members of the SS, as was French politician Jean
Marie Le Pen, for questioning the existence of the gas chambers
and belittling the significance of the Holocaust. A recent poll
found 64 percent of Americans believe world leaders should
likewise refuse to meet with Abbas. Yet some in the media have
treated Abbas with kid gloves, to say the least. The official BCC
News Profile of Abbas reports: A highly intellectual man, Abbas
studied law in Egypt before doing a Ph.D. in Moscow. He is the
author of several books. The New York Times recently characterized
Abbas as a lawyer and historian...He holds a doctorate in history
from the Moscow Oriental College; his topic was Zionism. Neither
the BBC nor the Times offered any further explanation as to the
contents of Abbas' writings. Bestowing the title historian upon
Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a stature they do not deserve,
and deals a grievous insult to every genuine historian. If Abbas
is elevated to the post of prime minister of the Palestinian
Authority, not only the media but the entire international
community will be confronted with the question of whether Abbas
deserves to be treated any differently from Tudjman, Haider and Le
Pen. The writer is visiting scholar in the Jewish studies program
at the State University of New York-Purchase College. His latest
book is A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America and the
Holocaust, co-written with David S. Wyman. Source:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6340
(note we regularly change misnomers such as Palestinian to so-
called palestinian, etc. in articles we quote.) Abbas wins
backing of so-called palestinian gunmen with pledge to stand
by 'fighting brothers' By Eric Silver in Jerusalem 03 January
2005 so-called palestinian gunmen yesterday threw their support
exuberantly behind Mahmoud Abbas, the favourite to succeed the late
Yasser Arafat in next Sunday's presidential election. Mahmoud
Mashabat, a local militia commander, embraced Mr Abbas and kissed
him at a campaign rally in the central Gaza town of Deir el-Balah
after the Fatah frontrunner promised never to abandon the fighters
Israel is still hunting as terrorists. Dozens of gunmen greeted
his pledge with shots in the air. Others welcomed him equally
warmly on Saturday in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, a
scene of frequent battles with Israeli troops. He has also won the
endorsement of Zakaria Zubeidi, a high-profile warlord in the West
Bank city of Jenin. Although Mr Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen,
has said repeatedly that resorting to arms four years ago was a
mistake for which the so-called palestinian people have paid
dearly, he told thousands of supporters in a Deir el-Balah sports
stadium: We say to our fighting brothers that are wanted by
Israel, we will not rest until you can enjoy a life of security,
peace and dignity, so you can live in your country with total
freedom. Mr Abbas, 69, a grey, backroom revolutionary running in
his first election, is striving in campaign meetings throughout
the West Bank and Gaza to raise his profile. Again yesterday, he
vowed to follow in Mr Arafat's footsteps, though his rhetoric
eschews the bombast of the dead leader's million martyrs marching
on Jerusalem. He would not rest, Mr Abbas said, until an
independent so-called palestinian state was established, Israeli
settlements were dismantled and so-called palestinian refugees
receive their rights. The principles of Yasser Arafat, and his
sayings, are his will, and it is our duty to implement it.
Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?
story=597384 Please click on the following url :
http://www.jewishpress.com/images/050404l.gif to see the photo of
Tali Hatuel,pregnant with her 5th child, and her 4 daughters, all
murdered by arafat's GENOCIDAL terrorists . All were shot dead at
pointblank range.
Arafat's actual name was Abd
al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to
obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and ex-Mufti of
Jerusalem,
Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini. Source: Howard M. Sachar, A HISTORY
OF
ISRAEL (New York: Knopf, 1976). BIOGRAPHY 1929, August 24 (?): Born
in Cairo, Egypt. Place of birth is not certain, other sources state
Jerusalem or Gaza. During his childhood Arafat lived in both Cairo
and
Jerusalem. 1947: Arafat fought on the side of the grand mufti of
Jerusalem. Source: Encyclopaedia of the Orient. He uses that alias
because of its significance to Islamic Fundamentalists Arafat a
plain
north of Mecca. It is on this plain that humanity will be raised on
the Day of Judgement for questioning and judgement. During the Hajj
on
the ninth day of the month of Zhu-l-Hijjah, Muslim pilgrims gather on
this plain for one day. SOURCE:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/glossary/term.ARAFAT.html
(When Saddam) Hussein (was) slightly wounded (In 1959 Saddam and a
group of Baathist supporters attempted to assassinate General Qassim
in Iraq by a day-light machine-gun attack.), he fled to Syria. From
Syria, he went to Cairo, Egypt where he would spend the next 4 years.
In 1951, a close relative of the Mufti named Rahman Abdul Rauf
el-Qudwa el-Husseini matriculated to the University of Cairo. The
student decided to conceal his true identity and enlisted as Yasser
Arafat.
Who is the Merchant of Death
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/17/new.york.bout.profile/
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 17, 2010
Alleged international arms dealer Viktor Bout arrives late Tuesday in
New York after being extradited from Thailand.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Alleged international arms dealer Viktor Bout described as a somber
man
Bout is accused of supplying weapons to war zones around the world
Attorney General Eric Holder: "His extradition is a victory for the
rule of law worldwide"
In a 2002 interview, Bout denied the allegations against him
Read more as the accused arms dealer is set make a court appearance
Wednesday in New York.
(CNN) -- He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War"
-- an alleged international arms dealer straight out of a cloak-and-
dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and inspired
Hollywood villains.
But in reality, according to those who have seen or met Viktor Bout,
he is a somber man, sometimes nattily dressed, a wheeler-dealer who
has insisted he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him.
Bout, a Russian citizen and former military officer, speaks six
languages "and I could see him bargaining in all six at the same
time," wrote CNN's Jill Dougherty in 2008, recalling her meeting with
Bout in 2002 in Moscow, Russia.
Bout arrived in New York late Tuesday after being extradited from
Thailand. He faces charges in the United States of conspiring to kill
U.S. nationals, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees,
conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile and conspiring
to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign
terrorist organization. American law enforcement officers have spent
years pursuing him, and the extradition process from Thailand was an
arduous one for them.
"Viktor Bout has been indicted in the United States, but his alleged
arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts in Africa has
been a cause of concern around the world," Attorney General Eric
Holder said Tuesday.
Thai court rules on Bout extradition
RELATED TOPICS
Viktor Bout
Extradition
Thailand
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
Military Weapons
"His extradition is a victory for the rule of law worldwide. Long
considered one of the world's most prolific arms traffickers, Mr. Bout
will now appear in federal court in Manhattan to answer to charges of
conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to a terrorist
organization for use in trying to kill Americans."
When Thai authorities arrested Bout in 2008, he was paraded in front
of the press in Bangkok, said CNN's Dan Rivers at the time. Rivers
said Bout showed no evidence of his swagger and was merely a man in an
orange polo shirt. "He was pretty grim-faced," Rivers said.
Bout is accused of supplying weapons to war zones around the world,
from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan. Before his 2008 arrest, U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents led a sting operation by posing as
members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
officials said.
But in 2002, when he met with Dougherty, Bout was interested in
setting the record straight. He traveled with a bodyguard and a female
aide, Dougherty said, and was "dressed in a well-cut dark jacket with
gold buttons, gray trousers, white shirt and basket-weave-patterned
silk tie." He also sported a wool topcoat.
"His English was quite good," Dougherty recalled. "He seemed
intelligent, canny, serious but nervous."
She said he was "tall, heavyset, a bit rough around the edges, but he
acted like a man who has been wronged."
She asked him about allegations against him -- did he sell arms to the
Taliban? To al Qaeda? Did he supply rebels in Africa and get paid in
blood diamonds? -- and he denied each one.
"It's a false allegation and it's a lie," he said. "I've never touched
diamonds in my life, and I'm not a diamond guy and I don't want that
business."
"I'm not afraid," he told Dougherty. "I didn't do anything in my life
I should be afraid of. And all this looks to me like a witch hunt.
Look, I'm coming to your office, I have no problem. And I said, 'Hey,
who's looking for me?' I'm here. I'm not hiding from nobody. And I
don't want this story going on."
Dougherty asked him if he had ever met Osama bin Laden, and he said
no, adding that if he had, he might have helped prevent the September
11, 2001, attacks.
"Overall Bout impressed me as the type of Russian businessman I know
well," Dougherty wrote. "Born to do deals, ready to sell anything to
make a buck."
Meanwhile, Bout himself -- who reportedly has used names including
"Victor Anatoliyevich Bout," "Victor But," "Viktor Butt," "Viktor
Bulakin" and "Vadim Markovich Aminov" -- is thought to have been the
inspiration for the arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in
the 2005 movie "Lord of War."
"Someone will undoubtedly write a book about this case some day, and I
can tell you that it will read like the very best work of Tom Clancy,
only in this case it won't be fiction," Michael Braun, then assistant
administrator and chief of operations for the DEA, told CNN in 2008.
Russian arms suspect to appear in NYC court
(AP) – NOVEMBER 17TH, 2010 C.E.
NEW YORK (AP) — A Russian labeled the "Merchant of Death" by those who
claim he fueled some of the world's deadly Third World conflicts over
the last decade with powerful weapons has arrived in the United
States. He faces charges he supported terrorists trying to overthrow
the government of Colombia and shared their hatred for Americans.
Viktor Bout arrived late Tuesday at Westchester County Airport, in
White Plains, N.Y., before he was brought to the Metropolitan
Correctional Center in Manhattan to await an initial court appearance
expected Wednesday afternoon. A news conference with federal
prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration was
to occur in late morning.
Bout, 43, a former Soviet military officer and air cargo executive,
was flown from Bangkok, Thailand, to suburban New York on a chartered
U.S. plane just four days before an extradition order would have
expired, permitting him to be freed and returned home to his native
Moscow.
Instead, he was taken in manacles and a bulletproof vest as Russian
diplomats made a final outraged push to persuade Thailand to release
him, according to current and former U.S. officials.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Bout was considered "one of the
world's most prolific arms traffickers."
"Viktor Bout has been indicted in the United States, but his alleged
arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts in Africa has
been a cause of concern around the world," Holder said in a statement.
"His extradition is a victory for the rule of law worldwide."
For several months, U.S. and Russian officials had battled for control
of Bout, flexing muscles in a manner that seemed to threaten
cooperation on arms control, nuclear weapons curbs and the war in
Afghanistan.
In one high-profile meeting in Hanoi last month, a former U.S.
officials said, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Russia's cooperation on
anti-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan might be curtailed unless Bout
was freed.
Lavrov said in remarks broadcast on Russian television Tuesday that
the Thai government's decision was "an example of glaring injustice."
President Barack Obama's administration insisted its efforts to
rebuild relations with Moscow could weather any turbulence caused by
Bout's extradition. Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley
acknowledged possible "ripples" in relations with Moscow but added
that any concerns could be managed.
That confidence could be tested as early as Saturday, when Obama and
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev attend a Russia-NATO meeting in
Lisbon, Portugal.
An indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan labels Bout an
international weapons trafficker who assembled a fleet of cargo planes
to transport weapons and military equipment to various failed states
and to insurgents in Third World countries in Africa, South America
and the Middle East from the 1990s until his arrest in Bangkok in
March 2008.
Estimated to be worth $6 billion, Bout had remained in a Thai jail as
his supporters fought to prevent him from landing in U.S. custody.
Bout insists he's a legitimate businessman.
In Moscow, Bout's lawyer and brother voiced alarm that American
officials would pressure him into incriminating himself or others. The
attorney, Viktor Burobin, said the U.S. had already offered Bout
better treatment in custody in exchange for his cooperation. And
Sergei Bout, a key figure in his brother's global air cargo empire,
warned that the U.S. would "make some kind of injections to get
whatever they want out of him."
After Bout was hustled from a Thai prison to a waiting jet early
Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry branded the extradition
"unlawful," prompted by "unprecedented political pressure from the
USA."
Several U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied Bout,
who wore a bulletproof vest over a blue track suit. His wife, Alla
Bout, had rushed to the prison with his Thai lawyer but was unable to
see him before his departure.
The United Nations has accused Bout of being responsible since at
least 2000 for playing a critical role in arming a number of
international conflicts in areas where the weapons trade has been
embargoed by the United Nations.
In March 2004, the U.N. Security Council Committee imposed travel
restrictions on Bout, saying he supported efforts to destabilize
Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds. Three months later,
the committee also acted to freeze his assets.
Bout has been accused of supplying weapons that fueled civil wars in
South America, the Middle East and Africa, with clients ranging from
Liberia's Charles Taylor and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to the
Taliban government that once ran Afghanistan. He was an inspiration
for an arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film
"Lord of War."
His arrest came at a Bangkok luxury hotel after a DEA sting operation
using informants who posed as officials of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, also known as the FARC, classified by Washington
as a narco-terrorist group.
Bout was charged with conspiracy, accused of agreeing to smuggle
missiles and rocket launchers to the FARC, and conspiring to kill U.S.
officers or employees. If convicted, he could face a maximum penalty
of life in prison and a mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison.
Successful U.S. prosecution could set a precedent for bringing other
international crime kingpin suspects to trial, showing "that we would
not tolerate international scofflaws," said Juan C. Zarate, a former
top Bush administration national security adviser who is now a senior
fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Law enforcement experts say his prosecution would be built around the
federal agents' extensive use of informants and judicially approved
international wiretaps — as well as Bout's own history as a
transporter of arms and other cargos.
"It's going to be damning, especially the wiretaps," said Michael A.
Braun, a former top DEA official and now managing partner of the
Spectre Group International security firm. "The guy is not going to be
able to say he didn't say these things because it's all down on tape."
According to court papers, the wiretaps capture Bout saying that the
FARC's fight against America was also his fight and that he would
supply the group with 700 to 800 surface-to-air missiles, 5,000 AK-47
firearms, unmanned aerial vehicles and ultralight airplanes which
could be outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles.
The papers said he told two confidential sources working with the DEA
that he would sell them weapons to be used to attack U.S. helicopters
in Colombia.
The case is similar to one built to bring down a notorious Syrian-born
arms dealer — Monzer al-Kassar. Convicted in New York in 2007, al-
Kassar was recorded telling undercover DEA agents that he thought were
FARC representatives that he shared their hatred of the United States.
Al-Kassar was sentenced in February 2009 to 30 years in prison at the
age of 63.
Steve Braun reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Grant
Peck and Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok, Vladimir Isachenkov and Yelena
Yegorova in Moscow and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this
report.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hF6VvUlnOvBscImOqj4VcnkckAwQ?docId=39ead780832d4ef4a51b71e771feaeea
At the height of his power, Marat Balagula was a kingpin in a
Brighton Beach Russian mob who traveled with a Paraguayan passport,
traded in diamonds, bought an island off West Africa, owned a Long
Island mansion decorated in pink marble and had a knack for making
his enemies disappear. Marat Balagula was a member and alleged
leader of an organization of criminals made up of Russian and other
Eastern European immigrants based in Brooklyn , New York .
During the mid-1980's Balagula controlled 100% of the bootleg
gasoline which was distributed in New York City . Controlling
terminals from Brooklyn to Westchester County in New York , his ring
sold gasoline among various companies including bogus firms that
reported having paid the excise taxes and then vanished before the
Internal Revenue Service could follow the complicated and cumbersome
paper trails.
In June 1993, he and seven individuals were indicted in the largest
excise tax evasion scheme in United States history. Balagula along
with Joseph Macchia; Macchia's three sons, Joseph, Jr., Larry, and
George; Victor Batuner; Michael Varzar; and John Barberio were
charged in a conspiracy to evade approximately $85 million dollars
in federal excise taxes.
In the fall of 1994 Balagula and his co-defendants plead guilty and
are currently awaiting sentence.
This was not the first case to be brought against Balagula for
excise tax evasion. In July 1992 Balagula, along with three other
individuals, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to evade
approximately $500,000 in federal excise taxes and one count of
excise tax evasion. For this conviction, Balagula received a 10-year
sentence.
Fuel Tax Evasion Highlights, March 1995
Volume 4, Number 1 March 1995
IN THE NEWS
Lawrence Iorizzo, key figure in the NY bootleg gasoline market in
the 1980's who turned government informant and was subsequently
booted out of the witness protection program and is now wanted by
Texas officials, is interviewed. The New Yorker, Talk of the Town,
11/14/94
Marat Balagula pled guilty to conspiring to evade $85 million in
federal gasoline taxes on nearly one billion gallons of fuel sold in
the NY area between 1983-88. The surprise plea came Oct. 18, a month
before he and 7 others were to begin trial. Balagula is already
serving a 10-year sentence for similar bootlegging. On Oct. 27,
Joseph A. Macchia and his sons Lawrence, George and Joseph L. pled
guilty to their role in the scheme. On Nov. 4, John Barberio was the
last to plead guilty. Michael Varzar had pled guilty earlier. An
eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a fugitive. Newsday, 10/24/94,
11/2/94; Dept. of Justice Press Release, 11/4/94
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hl95mar.htm
Fuel Tax Evasion Highlights, March 1995
Volume 4, Number 1 March 1995
IN THE NEWS
Lawrence Iorizzo, key figure in the NY bootleg gasoline market in
the 1980's who turned government informant and was subsequently
booted out of the witness protection program and is now wanted by
Texas officials, is interviewed. The New Yorker, Talk of the Town,
11/14/94
Marat Balagula pled guilty to conspiring to evade $85 million in
federal gasoline taxes on nearly one billion gallons of fuel sold in
the NY area between 1983-88. The surprise plea came Oct. 18, a month
before he and 7 others were to begin trial. Balagula is already
serving a 10-year sentence for similar bootlegging. On Oct. 27,
Joseph A. Macchia and his sons Lawrence, George and Joseph L. pled
guilty to their role in the scheme. On Nov. 4, John Barberio was the
last to plead guilty. Michael Varzar had pled guilty earlier. An
eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a fugitive. Newsday, 10/24/94,
11/2/94; Dept. of Justice Press Release, 11/4/94
Eugene Slusker pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus , Ohio
to a diesel conspiracy that resulted in a federal tax loss of over
$88,000 and a loss of over $117,000 to Ohio during 6 months in 1990.
Slusker, using the alias Semyan Altman and doing business as
Accurate Tank Testing, Inc., used a false Form 637 to purchase over
587,00 gallons of untaxed diesel fuel which was then sold to
numerous truck stops throughout Ohio, tax included. Co-defendant,
Roman Kalika pleaded not guilty to federal tax evasion charges. The
IRS Criminal Investigation Div. and the Ohio Dept. of Taxation
investigated the case. Justice Dept. Press Release 9/30/94; Dayton
Daily News 10/3/94; Columbus Dispatch, 12/24/94
The worldwide activities of Russian organized crime and its ability
to bilk companies, governments and individuals out of billions of
dollars through sophisticated fraud and theft schemes is described
in two recent articles. Wall Street Journal, 12/22/94; Atlantic
Monthly, 6/94
The Wisconsin Dept. of Justice has charged Patrick S. Gedig and Paul
C. Kramer with misappropriating nearly $1 million in motor fuel
taxes during 1990. At the time, Gedig was president of United
Petroleum, Milwaukee , and Kramer ran Ohio Fuel and Supply, Big
Bend . Wisconsin State Journal, 11/1/94
The work of Charles Hurchalla in helping to expose a massive fuel
tax scam masterminded by the Russian mob and involving the La Cosa
Nostra is described in a recent article. Philadelphia Magazine,
10/94
Court documents filed by federal authorities in NJ name John Gotti
as an unindicted co-conspirator in organized crime efforts to
dominate the bootleg motor fuel industry in the NY metropolitan
area. The disclosure came on the eve of the trial of Anthony (Fat
Tony) Morelli, allegedly a capo in the Gambino crime family, and
Gregory Federico, owner of Capitol Fuel Service of Cranford and Igor
(Little Igor) Roizman, a Russian emigre. To date, 20 persons have
been prosecuted on charges growing out of the Operation Red Daisy
investigation conducted jointly by the FBI, IRS, DOT Office of
Inspector General, NJ Div. of Taxation and PA Dept. of Revenue.
Newark Star Ledger, 12/5 and 12/16/94
United States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway
Administration
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE TAX
NOVEMBER 4, 1994 (202)
616-2765
TDD (202)
514-1888
NEW YORK MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN TAX CASE
WASHINGTON , D.C. - A former wholesale gasoline sales
manager
from New Rochelle , New York , pleaded guilty in U. S. District
Court
in Hauppauge , New York , for his role in a conspiracy to evade
more
than $85 million in federal gasoline excise taxes, the Department
of Justice announced today.
John Barberio, 68, the former manager for New York Fuel
Terminal Corp., was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty to
the tax evasion scheme. An eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a
fugitive.
Barberio's plea follows the October 27, 1994, guilty pleas of
former terminal operators Joseph A. Macchia, Lattingtown , N.Y. ,
and
his three sons, Lawrence, George and Joseph L., for their role in
the tax fraud scheme from 1983 through 1988. Joseph A. Macchia and
two of his sons, Lawrence and George, also pleaded guilty to two
counts of excise tax evasion. Michael Varzar pleaded guilty on May
24 of this year for his role in the conspiracy and to two counts of
gasoline excise tax evasion. New York Fuel Terminal Corp. was
registered with the Internal Revenue Service and was
required to pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an
unregistered company. The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold
almost 1 billion gallons of gasoline to unregistered companies
without paying the tax they owed.
On October 13, Marat Balagula, pleaded guilty to five counts
of the indictment charging him with conspiracy and excise tax
evasion. Balagula, who controlled many of the unregistered
companies to which New York Fuel sold gasoline, is currently
serving a 10-year sentence following his 1992 prosecution by the
Tax Division for his involvement in a separate gasoline excise tax
evasion scheme for which Barberio also was convicted. Barberio was
sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
Evidence presented at Balagula's 1992 sentencing in the
earlier case implicated him as a member of a Russian organized
crime group headed by Evsei Agron. According to testimony at the
hearing, on the day following Agron's gangland-style murder,
Balagula moved into Agron's office and took over operation of the
organization. The sentencing court ruled that the probation
department properly concluded that Balagula "was a member of an
organization of criminals made up of Russians and other Eastern
European immigrants based in Brooklyn ."
All of the defendants will be sentenced by Judge Leonard D.
Wexler at a later date. Each faces a maximum of five years in
prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.
Assistant Attorney General Loretta Argrett of the Tax Division
said, "The Tax Division has a strong commitment to prosecute the
criminal elements who would deprive the nation's treasury of
millions of dollars in tax revenue. This is only another step in
our ongoing efforts to eliminate motor fuels tax fraud and to
prosecute those criminals, organized or otherwise, who would
defraud the United States ."
###
94-644
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/November94/644a.txt.html
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
THIS SUMMARY ORDER WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REPORTER AND
MAY NOT BE CITED AS PRECEDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO THIS OR ANY OTHER
COURT, BUT MAY BE CALLED TO THE ATTENTION OF THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT
IN A SUBSEQUENT STAGE OF THIS CASE, IN A RELATED CASE, OR IN ANY
CASE FOR PURPOSES OF COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL OR RES JUDICATA.
At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit, held at the United States Courthouse, Foley Square,
in the City and County of New York, on the 13th day of September,
one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six.
PRESENT: HONORABLE JOSEPH M. McLAUGHLIN,
HONORABLE DENNIS G. JACOBS,
Circuit Judges ,
HONORABLE ROBERT J. KELLEHER, [*]
District Judge .
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee ,
- v. - No. 96-1018
JOSEPH MACCHIA, SR.; LAWRENCE
MACCHIA; GEORGE MACCHIA; VIKTOR
BATUNER; MICHAEL VARZAR; JOHN
BARBERIO; JOSEPH L. MACCHIA, also
known as Joseph Macchia, also known as Joey,
Defendants ,
MARAT BALAGULA,
Defendant-Appellant .
FOR APPELLANT: John L. Pollok, Hoffman & Pollok , New York , NY.
FOR APPELLEE: Robert E. Lindsay, Attorney, Tax Division, Department
of Justice, Washington , DC .
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of New York (Wexler, J. ).
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of record from the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
and was argued.
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, it is hereby ordered, adjudged, and
decreed that the judgment of the district court be and it hereby is
AFFIRMED.
Marat Balagula was a primary player in various conspiracies to evade
federal gasoline excise taxes. Balagula and others purchased or set
up phony "middleman" companies to buy gasoline from one entity and
sell it to another. Under the prevailing tax code -- which assessed
gasoline excise taxes against certain selling companies -- the
middleman company would become liable for an excise tax on the
gasoline sold. Balagula and his cohorts would then cause the phony
company to collapse, leaving the excise tax unpaid. Thus, the
gasoline passed from the original seller to the eventual buyer
without obligating either of those companies to pay the excise
taxes.
The government charged Balagula (under the "Tarricone Indictment")
with one count of conspiring to evade the federal gasoline excise
tax, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 3623, and two counts of
attempted excise tax evasion, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201 and
18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 3623. This conspiracy existed from late 1985 to
early 1986 in the greater New York metropolitan area (including New
Jersey ), and evaded over $400,000 in taxes. After a jury trial in
the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New
York (Wexler, J. ), he was convicted on all three counts. The court
sentenced Balagula to a total of ten years' imprisonment, which he
is presently serving. We affirmed Balagula's conviction and sentence
on appeal. See United States v. Tarricone , 996 F.2d 1414 (2d Cir.
1993).
The government subsequently charged Balagula (under the "Macchia
Indictment") with one count of conspiring to evade the federal
gasoline excise tax, and four counts of attempted excise tax
evasion. This broader conspiracy existed from early 1983 to the
middle of 1988, also in the greater New York metropolitan area.
Through this larger scheme, Balagula and others evaded more than
$85,000,000 in taxes. Balagula moved to dismiss the charges, again
in the Eastern District of New York (Wexler, J. ), arguing that the
conspiracy charged in the Macchia Indictment was, for the purposes
of double jeopardy, the same conspiracy as charged in the Tarricone
Indictment. The district court denied Balagula's motion, see United
States v. Macchia , 845 F. Supp. 953 (E.D.N.Y. 1994), and we
affirmed, see United States v. Macchia , 35 F.3d 662 (2d Cir. 1994).
Balagula then pled guilty to all five counts of the Macchia
Indictment. The district court, using the 1987 version of the
Sentencing Guidelines, [1] set Balagula's base offense level at
eighteen. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2T1.1, 2T4.1. The court increased this by
two levels for sophisticated means, see U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(b)(2), two
levels for conduct intended to encourage others to impede the
Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"), see U.S.S.G. § 2T1.9(b)(2), and
four levels for being an organizer or leader of the criminal
activities, see U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). The court reduced the offense
level by two for acceptance of responsibility, see U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1,
netting a total offense level of twenty-four.
Finding that Balagula's criminal history category ("CHC") of II did
not adequately reflect the seriousness of his past criminal conduct
or propensity for future crime, the district court departed upward
to CHC IV. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3. The court then sentenced Balagula
to a total of seventy-seven months' imprisonment, a $250,000 fine,
and three years' supervised release. The court ordered this sentence
to run consecutively to Balagula's unexpired ten-year sentence from
his prior conviction. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3.
Balagula now appeals, arguing that the district court erred in: (1)
ordering his sentence to run consecutive to, rather than concurrent
with, his ongoing ten-year term; (2) departing upward in his CHC
because of his past criminal conduct and potential for future crime;
(3) enhancing his offense level for encouraging others to impede the
IRS; and (4) imposing so severe a fine. Balagula also asks us to
remand his case to a different judge for resentencing.
We review the district court's findings of fact only for clear
error, and its application of the Guidelines to those facts for
abuse of discretion. See United States v. Santiago , 906 F.2d 867,
871 (2d Cir. 1990).
1. Consecutive Sentences . Balagula first argues that the district
court erroneously ordered his sentence to run consecutive to, rather
than concurrent with, his ongoing ten-year term (from his conviction
on the Tarricone Indictment). We disagree.
Section 5G1.3 provides:
If at the time of sentencing, the defendant is already serving one
or more unexpired sentences, then the sentence for the instant
offense(s) shall run consecutively to such unexpired sentences,
unless one or more of the instant offense(s) arose out of the same
transactions or occurrences as the unexpired sentences. In the
latter case, such instant sentences and the unexpired sentences
shall run concurrently, except to the extent otherwise required by
law.
U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 (emphasis added). "The same transactions or
occurrences" means the same "discrete acts or events," and not
simply an "ongoing operation or course of conduct." United States v.
Vega , 11 F.3d 309, 313-15 (2d Cir. 1993).
Our holding that the conspiracies charged in the Tarricone and
Macchia Indictments were not the "same conspiracies" for double
jeopardy purposes is, of course, not necessarily determinative in a
5G1.3 inquiry. We found in that case, however, that the Tarricone
and Macchia conspiracies were "quite different," Macchia , 35 F.3d
at 670, involving different actors playing different roles; using
different facilities and companies; and employing a different modus
operandi . We also noted that the two conspiracies, as charged,
contained no common overt acts. Id. at 671. Therefore, the district
court did not err in concluding that the Tarricone and Macchia
offenses did not arise out of the same transactions or occurrences --
that is, the same discrete acts or events -- and did not err in
imposing consecutive sentences. See Vega , 11 F.3d at 315.
Balagula also argues that the Commentary to § 5G1.3, which provides
that "departure would be warranted when independent prosecutions
produce anomalous results that circumvent or defeat the intent of
the guidelines," see U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 comment., commands a downward
departure in his case. But the Guidelines' language makes clear that
departure is discretionary, see United States v. Rogers , 897 F.2d
134 (4th Cir. 1990), and a district court's discretionary refusal to
depart downward is not reviewable on appeal, see United States v.
Chabot , 70 F.3d 259, 260 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam).
2. Upward Departure . Balagula argues that the district court based
its upward departure on improper grounds, did not give Balagula
proper notice to contest the departure, and did not sufficiently
articulate its reasons for departing. We reject all of these
contentions.
The guidelines clearly provide for an upward departure when the
district court believes that a defendant's CHC "significantly
underrepresents the seriousness of the defendant's criminal history
or the likelihood that the defendant will commit further crimes."
U.S.S.G § 4A1.3. And, Balagula obviously had notice that such a
departure was possible: he expressly argued against such departure
both in his sentencing letter to the district court, and at the
sentencing hearing.
Although the district court did not explain why a departure to CHC
III (instead of IV) would be insufficient, see United States v.
Deutsch , 987 F.2d 878, 886-88 (2d Cir. 1993), "so long as the
reasons supporting the departure are fully explained, a mechanistic
step-by-step procedure is not required," United States v. Kassar ,
47 F.3d 562, 566 (2d Cir. 1995). The court's recitation of
Balagula's criminal past, and apparent propensity to commit future
crimes, was a sufficient articulation of the reasons supporting
departure, and satisfies the requirement that the departure be
explained. See id. at 566-67; United States v. Adler , 52 F.3d 20,
22 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam).
3. Enhancement for Encouraging Others . Balagula next argues that
the district court improperly increased his offense level by two for
conduct intended to encourage others to impede the IRS. See U.S.S.G.
§ 2T1.9(b)(2). According to Balagula, this encouragement enhancement
does not apply except to tax protest groups and promoters of
fraudulent tax shelters. Balagula is wrong.
It is true that an application note to the 1994 version of § 2T1.9
lists tax protest groups and fraudulent tax shelters as examples of
situations deserving application of the encouragement enhancement.
But, as "examples," these listed schemes are clearly meant to be
illustrative, not exclusive. See United States v. Rosario , 7 F.3d
319, 320-21 (2d Cir. 1993) (per curiam). Here, the undisputed facts
show that Balagula intended to encourage others to prepare false
invoices such that Balagula and his co-conspirators could evade
millions of dollars in gasoline excise taxes. Indeed, when asked at
his plea hearing whether he had encouraged others to prepare false
documents to facilitate his tax evasion, Balagula stated that he
had. The district court did not clearly err in concluding that
Balagula encouraged others to impede the IRS, nor abuse its
discretion in imposing the two-level encouragement enhancement on
these facts.
4. Fine . Finally, Balagula argues that the district court's
imposition of a $250,000 fine constituted "a sua sponte upward
departure" from the Guidelines. Again, Balagula is wrong.
The imposition of a $250,000 fine was not a departure from the
Guidelines at all; rather, it was expressly provided for in U.S.S.G.
§ 5E4.2. That section provides for a maximum fine which is the
greater of the maximum set forth in the fine table ($100,000), or
twice the estimated loss caused by the defendant, or three times the
estimated gain to the defendant. See U.S.S.G. 5E4.2(c)(2). Section
5E4.2(b) sets an absolute maximum fines for felonies at $250,000.
See U.S.S.G. § 5E4.2(b). Balagula pled guilty to criminal activity
resulting in an $85,000,000 loss to the IRS. Thus, the maximum fine
could be as much as $170,000,000, but not more than $250,000. A
$250,000 fine was therefore proper.
Because we affirm Balagula's sentence, we need not reach his request
that this case be remanded to a different judge for resentencing. We
have considered all of the additional arguments raised by Balagula,
and find them to be without merit.
Accordingly, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.
FOOTNOTES
[ ]
* The Honorable Robert J. Kelleher, of the United States District
Court for the Central District of California, sitting by
designation.
[ ] 1 Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to the Sentencing
Guidelines are to the 1987 version under which Balagula was
sentenced.
Tax Fraud
Evsei Agron
Marat Balagula
John Barberio
Viktor Batuner
Joseph L. Macchia
George Macchia
Lawrence Macchia
Joseph A. Macchia
New York Fuel Terminal Corporation
Michael Varzar
Action Date: November 4, 1994
Location: New Rochelle, NY
On November 4, 1994, John Barberio, a former wholesale gasoline
sales manager from New Rochelle , New York , pled guilty in federal
court in Hauppauge , New York , for his role in a conspiracy to
evade more than $85 million in federal gasoline excise taxes.
Barberio was the former manager for New York Fuel Terminal
Corporation. He was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty to
the tax evasion scheme. An eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a
fugitive. Barberio's plea follows the October 27, 1994, guilty pleas
of former terminal operators Joseph A. Macchia, Lattingtown , N.Y. ,
and his three sons, Lawrence, George and Joseph L., for their role
in the tax fraud scheme from 1983 through 1988. Joseph A. Macchia
and two of his sons, Lawrence and George, also pleaded guilty to two
counts of excise tax evasion. Michael Varzar pleaded guilty on May
24, 1994, for his role in the conspiracy and to two counts of
gasoline excise tax evasion. New York Fuel Terminal Corp. was
registered with the Internal Revenue Service and was required to pay
a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an unregistered company.
The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold almost 1 billion gallons
of gasoline to unregistered companies without paying the tax they
owed. On October 13, 1994, Marat Balagula, pleaded guilty to five
counts of the indictment charging him with conspiracy and excise tax
evasion. Balagula, who controlled many of the unregistered companies
to which New York Fuel sold gasoline, is currently serving a 10-year
sentence following his 1992 prosecution by the Tax Division for his
involvement in a separate gasoline excise tax evasion scheme for
which Barberio also was convicted. Barberio was sentenced to three
years' imprisonment. Evidence presented at Balagula's 1992
sentencing in the earlier case implicated him as a member of a
Russian organized crime group headed by Evsei Agron. According to
testimony at the hearing, on the day following Agron's gangland-
style murder, Balagula moved into Agron's office and took over
operation of the organization. The sentencing court ruled that the
probation department properly concluded that Balagula "was a member
of an organization of criminals made up of Russians and other
Eastern European immigrants based in Brooklyn ."
http://frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=1850
JOHN BARBERIO DIED ON DECEMBER 21ST, 1994 THE VERY SAME DAY THAT NEW
YORK SUBWAY BOMBER ED LEARY, WHO HAD WORKED FOR MERRILL LYNCH, WAS
ARRESTED DECEMBER 21ST, 1994.
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE TAX
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1994 (202)
616-2765
TDD (202)
514-1888
"MANAGUA, NICARAGUA By Catherine Elton Special to The Christian
Science Monitor - Weeks after the repeat images of jetliners crashing
into
the twin
towers began to give way to regular programming on TV screens around
the world,
they continue to be broadcast here...in political ads for
Nicaragua's upcoming
presidential elections. The image of the flaming towers and their
victims gives
way to shots of Sandinista revolution leader, former president, and
current
presidential candidate Daniel Ortega with Yasser Arafat, Libya's
Muammar
Qaddafi, and Fidel Castro."
"Mona Charen on Nicaragua in the 1980's: The "Dear Comandante"
Letter from 10
Congressmen. Mona Charen's book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It
Wrong in the
Cold War and Still Blame America First has a good description of the
liberal
love affair with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
The Sandinistas had enjoyed good relations with the Palestinian
Liberation
Organization for a decade. Sandinista militants had received
training in Fatah
camps in Lebanon and Libya during the 1970s and had fought with the
PLO against
Jordan's King Hussein. ... Nicaragua's new rulers made their anti-
Jewish and
anti-Israel views known from the beginning and quickly moved against
Managua's
small Jewish community. In 1978, Sandinista gangsters had set fire
to the doors
of Managua's synagogue while a service was in progress. Those who
attempted to
exit through a side door were forced back by armed men. The fire was
extinguished and there were no deaths. After the revolution, the
Sandinistas
confiscated the synagogue and Jews received death threats and other
harassment.
... The fifty families comprising the Nicaraguan Jewish community,
who had lived
in Managua for more than one hundred years, fled."
Source: http://www.rasmusen.org/w/04.05.19d.htm
re item above, we note the long term "party to party" agreement
between Daniel Ortega's Genocidal anti-Semitic Sandinista Terrorists
and arafat's so-called "PLO".
The shocking news that narco-terrorists in Colombia plotted to
assassinate current President George W. Bush on Monday November
22nd, 2004,
the 41st anniversary of the JFK assassination, needs some
examination.
BCCI, the infamous drug-terror-arms bank that allegedly gave former
President Jimmy Carter $10 million for the Carter Library,had
offices in Peru, where
coca leaves are grown, in Colombia, where the coca leaves are
processed into cocaine, and in Castro's Cuba, and Baathist Syria and
Baathist Iraq. Banks
did not get offices in any of those 3 tyrannies without the approval
of the tyrant.
"Colombian Rebels Planned to Kill President Bush
November 27th, 2004 U.S. National - Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - President Bush was
targeted for assassination by Colombia's biggest Marxist rebel group
this week when he visited the Caribbean port city of Cartagena, a
top Colombian official said on Saturday. "According to informants
and various sources, we had information indicating that various
members of the FARC had been instructed by their leaders to make an
attempt against President Bush," Defense Secretary Jorge Alberto
Uribe told reporters. He would not be drawn out on the details of
the threat. The White House had no immediate comment.
The U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president, said it "does
not comment or release information regarding our protective
intelligence and protective methods." "We do not discuss any alleged
threats to our protectees," said Jonathan Cherry, a Secret Service
spokesman.
There was heavy security in Cartagena when Bush visited the city on
Monday(November 22nd, 2004)on his way back from the APEC forum in
Chile. Military helicopters packed with armed soldiers flew over
Bush's motorcade while naval vessels kept watch offshore. Many shops
were shuttered."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041127/us_nm/colombia_bush_plot_dc_5
"In early August, 1991, the Committee was provided with documents
from the Latin American and Caribbean Region Office (LACRO) of BCCI,
describing the offer for sale by the Argentine air force of 22
Mirage aircraft for $110 million. (63) The planned sale was to have
been made to Iraq, as part of Saddam Hussein's massive military
buildup prior to the Gulf war. BCCI was acting as the broker for the
transaction, which was to take place in August or September of
1989...As Robert Mazur, the Customs agent in Tampa who selected BCCI
as the target of the Customs money laundering sting testified, BCCI
bank executives volunteered methods to enhance and improve his
techniques for money laundering, and shortly before the sting ended
the operation, offered to introduce Mazur to other potential "cash"
customers for money laundering services from Bogota, Colombia...."
Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
"An Afghani tends to a field of heroin poppies, the sale of which
provides much of the financing for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
Afghanistan is the world's No. 1 producer and distributor of heroin,
and illicit drug trafficking is the biggest funding source for
By Rachel Ehrenfeld / Special to The Detroit News About the author
Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the New York-based Center for the
Study of Corruption and the author of "Evil Money" (HarperBusiness)
and "Narco-Terrorism" (Basic Books).
Moving the money...
In the welter of events following the bombing of the World Trade
Center in Feb. 26, 1993, few noticed that the first man arrested,
Mohammed Salameh—the poor, unemployed illegal immigrant—
offered $5 million for bail. Where could he get this kind of money?
The judge refused bail. But was the source of Salameh's offer the
same as the one that funded the eight men—arrested shortly
afterward—who planned to blow up Manhattan's tunnels and bridges
and to assassinate public officials?
Were the same money sources behind the final attack on the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11?
... For a long time, there has been evidence that terrorist,
international drug trafficking and criminal organizations use the
same fund-raising methods to enrich themselves.
Yet no one seemed to connect the dots. And no one seriously tried to
crack down on their financing.
…According to a State Department report, the Taliban, who are at bin
Laden's service, has the advantage of controlling the world's
largest heroin production and distribution in the world.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the heroin production
soared to hundreds of tons each year. In 1999 alone, the world
production of heroin was estimated at 500 metric tons; 400 were
produced by the Taliban and available to fund bin Laden and his
associates worldwide. First warning
The writing was on the wall on July 5, 1991, when the Bank of
England shut down what was the most important Islamic bank in the
world, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). This
criminal entity was created by the Pakistani Aaga Hassan Abedi "to
fight the evil influence of the West"; to help with the creation of
the "Islamic Bomb"; to finance all Muslim terrorist organizations;
and to launder the money that was generated mostly by illicit drug
trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms
trafficking.
When BCCI went belly up, we learned from thousands of documents that
Abu Nidal—the notorious Palestinian terrorist organization that
now enjoys the hospitality of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah and bin Laden—had
accounts in the bank. By the end of the 1980s, the "special
services" provided by BCCI included access to Western humanitarian
and international development funds, as well as drug money
laundering, secret transfers of cash and bribes.
A "Black Network," a special enforcement unit supported by Abu Nidal
and other terrorist organizations, operated from Pakistan. The same
Pakistan that harbored bin Laden for many years while its officials
told the United States that they didn't know his whereabouts. And
the same Pakistan that for decades, even according to the State
Department's annual report, had been a major drug trafficking and
money laundering center.
Western blindness
Yet, now more importantly, we also discovered that the American and
British governments knew and kept the bank open for a long time. The
bank "that would bribe God" was able to get away with its criminal
activities for decades due to Abedi's clever portrayal of the Muslim
nations as victims of Western—and particularly U.S.—
"imperialism." And when the bank was shuttered, the accusation in
the Muslim/Arab and Third World countries was that the U.S. and the
United Kingdom governments closed the bank to curtail the growing
fiscal power of Muslim countries.
Like Abedi, anti-American, anti-Western terrorist and radical Muslim
states and organizations, such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas,
Hezbollah, the PLO, Iraq and Iran, use Western democratic rhetoric
to their advantage. But it is the willful blindness, mainly toward
the growing volume of drug money laundering, exercised by Western
bankers on the one hand and Western politicians on the other, that
makes money laundering possible, despite the many laws and
international conventions to control this phenomenon.
The BCCI was the first warning to the West. The second warning about
the abuse of European and American financial markets by terrorist
organizations, as well as their involvement in the illicit arms and
drug trade, was made in February 1994 by the British National
Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).
The Organized Crime Unit of the NCIS warned that Middle East
terrorist groups and states were targeting the financial centers of
London, Frankfurt and other Western countries, and that they favor
illegal drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud....
Clinton appeasement
Despite its stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists, the
Clinton administration went out of its way to appease a few of the
20th century's most notorious terror groups: the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the PLO and the Irish Republican Army.
All are heavily involved in the drug trade.
On the eve of the 1993 handshake on the White House lawn between
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat,
Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service estimated the PLO's
ill-gotten gains to total between $8 billion to $10 billion, with an
annual income of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion from "donations,
extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money
laundering, fraud, etc."
Since then, Washington has only aided and abetted the PLO. Since the
start of the Oslo process, Arafat has received at least $3 billion
more from the United States and the international community, without
any serious demand for accountability, according to a report this
year to Congress. Arafat, in well-documented instances, has been
systematically skimming off portions of these funds, as he has with
monies given to him on behalf of the refugees in the camps.
The PLO was in the drug trafficking business almost from the
beginning. Operating from Lebanon, under Habash's able leadership
and assisted by a PLO-owned shipping company SUMUD, the organization
exported hashish, opium, heroin and cocaine, first to Europe and
later even to the United States and Australia. In return, it
obtained weapons for their war against Israel and the West, and
amassed a massive treasure trove. In addition, the PLO and Arafat,
who enjoy the financial and strategic support of Hussein and bin
Laden, have the distinction of being the organization that
promoted "suicide bombers" as a weapon.
Yet the Clinton administration subsidized a multitude of radical
Palestinian groups, ranging from Arafat's Fatah branch of the PLO
and its military wing, the Tanzim, to the socialist-nationalist
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by
George Habash, all with close ties to bin Laden, Iraq and Iran.
...It was the Clinton White House that, despite evidence to the
contrary, removed Syria from its list of the drug trafficking
countries, to entice Syria to join the "peace process" in the Middle
East.
The failure of that process and the compromises the United States
has made to maintain an illusion of peaceful prospects had no doubt
added to the Muslim radical terrorists' resolve to attack what they
see as a naive and vulnerable America.
In another example of self-delusion, in 1999, then Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright suggested a U.S.-led coalition to negotiate
with the FARC and supported Colombia President Pastrana's "land for
peace" initiative, despite a report from the General Accounting
Office that the FARC is running a major international criminal
enterprise that, among other things, supplies hundreds of tons of
cocaine and heroin to the U.S. black market.
This second Clinton "land for peace" initiative gave half of
Colombia to the narco-terrorist FARC, while doing nothing to
diminish its violence or appetite to control the rest of the
country...."
Source: http://www.detnews.com/2001/editorial/0109/30/a17-306400.htm
THE ITEM BELOW IS EXCERPTED FROM:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Hamas_Endorses_Obama/2008/04/17/887
54.html
Hamas Endorses Obama
Thursday, April 17, 2008 C.E.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has received an
endorsement ...from...Hamas. Ahmed Yousuf, Hamas' top political
adviser in the Gaza Strip, delivered his endorsement in an interview
with WorldNetDaily and WABC Radio in New York.
"We like Mr. Obama, and we hope that he will win the elections,"
Yousuf said.
"I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great
principle. And he has a vision to change America, to [put] it in a
position to lead the world community, but not with humiliation and
arrogance." ...Yousuf said: "I hope Mr. Obama and the Democrats will
change the political discourse when one of them will be the
president."
Note not part of article quoted above, but imagine
what the reaction of the American people would have been
if someone had referred to Churchill, when he was standing
along against Hitler as having been "arrogant". Yet that is
precisely the tone the isolationsits and neo-Bundists who support
the enemies of America and Israel and the rest of the civilized
world take towards anyone who dares to stand up to those
enemies of civilization.
DEFENDANTS PLEAD GUILTY IN GASOLINE EXCISE TAX CASE
Washington , D.C. -- The Department of Justice announced
today that four more defendants in the largest gasoline excise
tax prosecution to date have pleaded guilty. Joseph A. Macchia,
of Lattingtown , N.Y. , and two of his sons, Lawrence Macchia and
George Macchia, admitted conspiring to evade approximately $85
million in federal gasoline excise taxes. They each also pleaded
guilty to two counts of excise tax evasion. A third son, Joseph
L. Macchia, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, the only charge against
him. The four entered their guilty pleas in United States
District Court at Hauppauge , New York in front of the Honorable
Leonard D. Wexler. Each faces a maximum of five years in prison
and a $250,000 fine for each count to which he pleaded guilty.
The Macchias owned and operated a series of wholesale
gasoline companies, including a trucking company and many holding
and management companies, which owned and managed a large number
of gasoline stations, most of which carried the "Citgo" brand.
Their central company was New York Fuel terminal Corporation,
which operated a gasoline storage facility in Brooklyn known as
the "M & Q" Terminal. "M & Q" was short for Manhattan & Queens -
the Macchias also operated Manhattan & Queens Fuel and M & Q
Trucking Corp.
New York Fuel was registered with the IRS and was required
to pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an
unregistered company. The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold
almost one billion gallons of gasoline to unregistered companies
without paying the tax they owed. Many of the unregistered
companies were controlled by the co-defendant Marat Balagula, who
pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him on October 13,
1994.
Most of these illicit sales were purportedly made by "book
transfers" within the M & Q terminal. Book transfers occur when
the title to gasoline within the storage tank passes from one
company to another, but the product itself does not move. The
conspirators created fictitious book transfer records indicate
that the gasoline sold by New York Fuel passed through the
accounts of sever other licensed and unlicensed companies before
being received by the actual purchaser, when in fact, the only
transfer was from New York Fuel to the actual unlicensed
purchaser.
Assistant Attorney General Loretta C. Argrett hailed the
pleas, saying that "the successful prosecution of this complex
case proves our determination to combat excise tax evasion."
The case was prosecuted by attorneys of the Tax Division of
the Department of Justice and was investigated by the Criminal
Investigation and Examination Divisions of the Internal Revenue
Service and the New York State Tax Department.
###
94-619
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/October94/619.txt.html
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE TAX
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1994 (202)
616-2771
TDD (202)
514-1888
FOUR MEN WITH TIES TO WELL KNOWN NEW YORK ORGANIZED CRIME
FAMILIES WERE SENTENCED IN EXCISE TAX FRAUD CASE
WASHINGTON , D.C. -- Four men with ties to well known New
York organized crime families were sentenced today for their
involvement in a $34 million gasoline excise tax evasion scheme.
Judge Leonard D. Wexler of Hauppauge , New York , sentenced Michael
Varzar, Paul Sharp, Frederick "Buddy" Adrion, and Joseph "Chubby"
Audino to the following:
Michael Varzar--52 months imprisonment, $15,000 fine, three
years supervised release and $250 special assessment.
Paul Sharp--35 months imprisonment, three years supervised
release and $150 special assessment.
Frederick Adrion, a Luchese crime family associate--34
months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release and $100
special assessment.
Joseph Audino, soldier in the Colombo crime family--32
months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release and $100
special assessment.
Previously, Vyacheslav Dobrer, a/k/a "Sol Dobrer," was
sentenced to 37 months imprisonment, Frank Sciortino, a/k/a
"Frankie the Bug," was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment and
Victor M. Orena, a/k/a "Vic Jr.," a/k/a "The Little Guy," was
sentenced to 51 months imprisonment for their involvement in the
same conspiracy.
Three additional defendants are fugitives and known to be
hiding in Israel . One of those defendants, Joseph Reisch, a/k/a
"Yosi Reisch," is awaiting trial in Israel for the May 1989
murder of Michael Markowitz, a former colleague of Reisch's in
the gasoline bootleg industry.
The defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion
charges before Judge Wexler several weeks before the trial was
scheduled to proceed in June 1994.
Sharp, also pleaded guilty to a RICO conspiracy count
concerning a motor fuel excise tax scheme in the Northern
District of Georgia. Varzar, pleaded guilty for his involvement
in an $85 million excise tax conspiracy relative to gasoline
distributed by New York Fuel Terminal Corporation, which operated
a gasoline storage facility in Brooklyn , New York , known as the
"M & Q" Terminal.
The charges stem from an elaborate scheme, referred to as a
"daisy chain," in which gasoline is purportedly sold between a
number of wholesale distributors before reaching the retail
level. These sales, in fact, never occur and are mere paper
transactions designed to disguise the identity of the company
responsible for remitting the taxes. These schemes allowed the
defendants to pocket a substantial portion of the excise tax
included in the price paid by motorists at the retail pump.
In an effort to infiltrate the bootleg gasoline industry, a
government undercover business called Rossi Associates was
established to compete directly with the defendants' bootleg
operation. Rossi Associates, which was run in a joint effort by
the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, successfully attracted the attention of the
defendants and resulted in their bringing Rossi Associates into
the daisy chain schemes.
On November 24, 1992, at the conclusion of the undercover
operation, federal agents seized assets of the defendants,
including approximately $1.7 million in cash from various safe
deposit boxes, nearly $1.2 million in bank accounts and $1
million in gasoline stored at various terminals and barges.
Also, Varzar's yacht valued at about $500,000 was seized.
As part of the scheme, the Colombo, Gambino, Luchese and
Genovese crime families collected what was termed a "tribute"
payment of at least a one and one-half cents per gallon from the
proceeds of these transactions. Payments were made to a number
of organized crime representatives, including defendants Frank
Sciortino, a/k/a "Frankie the Bug," and Audino, both of whom were
soldiers in the Colombo crime family, as well as Frank Campione,
a/k/a "Frankie Camp," a Colombo associate and Adrion, a Luchese
associate. These payments were delivered to, among others,
defendant Victor M. Orena, a/k/a "Vic Jr.," a/k/a "The Little
Guy," a Colombo captain.
Assistant Attorney General Loretta C. Argrett of the Tax
Division, hailed the sentences saying that "The successful
prosecution of this complex case proves our determination to
combat excise tax evasion."
This case, which is part of a nationwide motor fuel excise
tax enforcement effort, was investigated jointly by the Long
Island Motor Fuel Task Force and the Office of Zachary W. Carter,
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The task
force includes attorneys from the Department of Justice Tax
Division and agents from the Criminal Investigation and
Examination Divisions of the Internal Revenue Service, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of
Transportation and the New York State Department of Taxation and
Finance.
The case was prosecuted by Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section
of the U.S. Attorney's Office Edward A. Rial and Paulette Wunsch,
Special Attorney, Tax Division, Department of Justice.
###
94-723
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/December94/723.txt.html
WASHINGTON—Organized labor is enormously influential in the
Democratic primary, as the campaigns of 2008 presidential candidates
seek endorsements from the major labor federations and member unions.
In the next week three labor (LIUNA, SEIU, Change to WIn)
presidential forums—two in Chicago—will feature presidential
candidates. There's a lot of schedule jockeying on Monday. Before
heading to Washington, Obama has an economics speech in New York
City in the morning and Clinton delivers her plan to deliver
universal health care coverage in Iowa.
*On Monday and Tuesday, LIUNA-the Laborers' International Union of
North America hosts a Leadership Conference at the Chicago Sheraton
Hotel and Towers. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden speak
on Monday. Bill Richardson on Tuesday. Barack Obama is not scheduled
to attend"
above from
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/09/sweet_blog_special_dem_presid
e.html
In the Matter of Alan D. Wasserman
Laborers' International Union of North America
Independent Hearing Officer
Docket No. 97-57D
Decided October 7, 1998
Order and Memorandum
This Order and Memorandum supercedes the Order and Memorandum of
August 28, 1998 ("August 28 Order"). This Order and Memorandum
addresses objections to the August 28 Order filed by Attorney Arnold
J. Gold on behalf of the Respondent. The procedural history of this
matter is discussed below in detail.
This matter comes before the Laborers' International Union of North
America ("LIUNA") Independent Hearing Officer ("IHO") pursuant to
the LIUNA Constitution and Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure
("EDP").
On December 29, 1997, the LIUNA General Executive Board Attorney
("GEB Attorney") filed Disciplinary Charges against Alan D.
Wasserman ("Wasserman"), alleging violations of federal law and the
EDP. Specifically, Wasserman is charged with knowingly associating
with a La Cosa Nostra ("LCN") organized crime family, racketeering,
demanding labor payoffs from contractors, offering to allow
employers to pay LIUNA members less than union-scale wages and
benefits, and obstructing the GEB Attorney and the Inspector General
("IG").
A hearing was held in Newark, New Jersey on May 27, 1998. Wasserman
did not appear at the hearing, but was represented by counsel,
Arnold Jay Gold ("Gold"). At the hearing, Attorney Gold stated that
his client was depressed and unable to assist him in his defense.
In support, Gold presented a letter of a medical doctor who stated
that Wasserman suffered from a "Major Depressive Disorder,"
resulting in anger and depression. IHO Exhibit 1. The letter gave
no opinion that such a disorder rendered him unable to assist in his
defense but merely indicated that Wasserman's ability to testify was
impaired. Id. No evidence was offered to show Wasserman could not
aid in his defense. I decided to proceed with the hearing but told
Gold that if he desired an additional session to present new
evidence based on the cooperation of his client, he should inform me
and a hearing would be arranged.
At the conclusion of the hearing, I instructed both parties to
inform me by June 15, 1998, whether they wished the record to remain
open pending the submission of additional evidence. The parties
were also instructed to submit post-hearing briefs three weeks
following June 15, 1998. I stated "You have until June 15th to let
me know what other plans you have, whether to close or keep the
record open." Hearing Transcript of May 27, 1998 ("Tr.") 220.
On June 12, 1998, the GEB Attorney requested that the matter remain
open until July 13, 1998. The request was granted. On July 13,
1998, the GEB Attorney filed a motion to admit testimony regarding a
confidential witness. On July 14, 1998, the GEB Attorney filed the
original and one copy of all exhibits presented at the May 27, 1998
hearing. Wasserman filed no response to the motion to admit the
confidential witness testimony.
From the date of the hearing on May 27, 1998, Wasserman made no
communication with my office. Attorney Gold made no effort to
contact my office regarding his client's mental status or his
intention to offer any additional evidence. I filed the August 28
Order which dealt with the merits of the case. On September 2,
1998, Attorney Gold by letter to my office complained of not having
had an opportunity to present a defense or file a post-hearing
brief. Gold's letter was Wasserman's first contact with my office
in over three months. I issued an Order placing the August 28 Order
in suspense and treating the August 28 Order as a proposed Order.
See IHO Order September 4, 1998. I permitted both parties to file
written objections and conclusions to the proposed order with
arguments to support their conclusions. I clearly stated that
objections and arguments were to be filed by September 28, 1998.
Despite the September 4, 1998 Order, Attorney Gold sent my office a
letter indicating he wished to discuss a timetable for the
completion of evidence after October 1, 1998, including the
possibility of having his client testify. I denied Gold's request
to hold the record open until after October 1, 1998, but gave
Attorney Gold until October 2, 1998, to file objections to the
August 28 Order. I also requested Attorney Gold to include an
affidavit outlining the proposed testimony of Wasserman. Gold filed
timely objections. In his objections, Gold asserted that Wasserman
was able to appear and testify; however, he did not submit any
proposed testimony by Wasserman as requested. I find that there is
no credible evidence that Wasserman ever intended to appear.
Qualification Of Expert Witnesses
The GEB Attorney called Jack Elko ("Elko") and Jeffrey Schaffler
("Schaffler") as expert witnesses.
Jack Elko
Elko was a police officer for 25 years. Tr. 104. During the last
14 of those years, Elko specialized in organized crime
investigations for the Division of Criminal Justice of the Office of
the Attorney General of New Jersey. Id. Prior to his employment
with the Division of Criminal Justice, Elko was employed as an
investigator with Morris County in Morristown, New Jersey. He
attended numerous service schools, including the New Jersey State
Police Academy, courses offered by the Division of Criminal Justice,
Seton Hall Law School and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
("FBI") on organized crime and the illegal activity usually
perpetrated by organized crime. Tr. 105. Elko testified in this
proceeding as an expert in the make-up and structure of organized
crime, specifically in the Newark area. This technique has been
accepted in similar union disciplinary matters. See e.g., United
States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico) 745 F. Supp. 908, 914-15 (S.D.N.Y.
1990), aff'd United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 941 F.2d 1292
(2d Cir. 1991).
Elko used tested and accepted investigative techniques to verify the
credibility of the individuals whose information he related at the
hearing. Elko testified as to information and hearsay statements of
five named witnesses. Tr. 109-158. In similar circumstances, the
court in United States v. IBT (Cimino), 964 F.2d 1308 (2d Cir.
1992), at 1312; aff'g 777 F. Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), gave
evidentiary weight to hearsay declarations of three LCN members that
were related by an FBI agent. The court used a number of factors to
evaluate the reliability of the statements. The court noted that
the statements corroborated each other in crucial respects, the
reports painted a consistent picture of the relationship of the
individuals and the statements matched the FBI agent's declaration
in the subject matter. Id. The court held that these declarations
constituted relevant evidence that a reasonable mind might accept on
the subject of association with organized crime. Id.
I find that Elko is a qualified witness, expert in organized crime
matters, and his testimony, in conformance with accepted
investigative techniques, is reliable.
Elko related information given to him by five named individuals
described below, three of whom have cooperated with federal
authorities and two of whom are law enforcement officers.
Rocco Cagno
Rocco Cagno ("Cagno") is a made member of the Colombo organized
crime family and a former member of LIUNA Local Union 342 ("Local
342"). Tr. 109. Cagno became a made member in 1987; thereafter, he
was incarcerated. The record does not reflect the reason for his
incarceration.
He was released from prison in 1990 and his movements were monitored
by an electronic bracelet. As a condition of his release, Cagno was
required to gain employment. He became employed by Local 342
through the influence of Colombo family members and Anthony Proto,
who was then the Business Manager of Local 342. Tr. 114. Cagno is
currently in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Elko had the
opportunity to speak with Cagno in October 1997 concerning the
various organized crime affiliations within Local 342. Tr. 109.
Thomas Ricciardi and Anthony Tumac Accetturo
Thomas Ricciardi ("Ricciardi") and Anthony Accetturo ("Accetturo")
are both made members of the Lucchese organized crime family and are
also in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Tr. 117. Accetturo
had been the acting boss of the New Jersey faction of the Lucchese
family. Id.
Steve Montgomery and Lt. Dennis Masucci
Elko also based his opinion on information supplied to him by two
law enforcement officers, Lieutenant Dennis Masucci ("Masucci") and
Steve Montgomery ("Montgomery"). Masucci is a law enforcement
officer from the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey. Tr.
126-27. The information provided by Masucci is based upon
confidential informant sources proven reliable in the past, who gave
Masucci information which resulted in the arrest of organized crime
members, including Gambino organized crime family members in Essex
County. Tr. 128. Montgomery is an FBI Special Agent in Newark, New
Jersey and had been assigned to the Gambino family organized crime
unit. Tr. 127. Montgomery's information is also based on his
personal investigation and confidential sources.
The testimony of Cagno, Ricciardi and Accetturo are corroborated by
each other and by the information supplied by Masucci and
Montgomery.
Jeffrey Schaffler
Schaffler was a federal agent for approximately 30 years. Tr. 160.
He spent his last years as a special agent with the Office of Labor
Racketeering, United States Department of Labor ("DOL"). Id.
Schaffer has been a supervisory special agent for DOL, and
thereafter, an assistant special agent in charge of a DOL
investigation office. Id. Schaffler is currently under contract to
the Office of the Inspector General of the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey. His duties involve investigation of
contractors who do business with the Port Authority, the operation
of construction projects, the manner in which construction bids are
made, contract fraud and wage and hour issues. Tr. 159-60.
Schaffler testified in this proceeding in the capacity of an expert
in the labor field.
I find that Schaffler is a qualified expert witness in the labor
field.
Findings of Fact
Structure of Organized Crime
1. The LCN is a tightly structured
criminal organization which operates in various cities throughout
the United States. It is in the business of crime for a profit.[1]
2. The LCN is comprised of groups of individuals organized
into entities called families. Tr. 105.
3. A typical LCN family structure consists of the head
(the "boss"), his assistant (the "underboss"), and an advisor
(the "consigliere"). The boss, underboss, and consigliere oversee
the activities of LCN members and their associates. LCN members
within a family operate in small groups called "crews" which are
headed by men called "capos" or "crew bosses." Tr. 106.
4. A "made member" is an individual within an LCN family who
has undergone an initiation process and sworn allegiance to that
family putting the family above everything else. Tr. 106. See also
United States v. Tortona, 922 F.2d 880, 885 (1st Cir. 1990).
5. An "associate" is an individual who works under a capo and
assists made members, but who has not been formally initiated into
the family. Tr. 106. An associate may either earn his living by
performing illegal acts on behalf of an LCN family or he may have an
ostensibly legitimate job while at the same time assisting a
particular LCN family in the acquisition of profits and monies. Tr.
129-30.
6. Both members and associates engage in activities which
bring money to an organized crime family. Tr. 106. Traditionally,
an associate could only become a made member by participating in the
murder of an individual. In more recent times, an associate may
become a made member based upon the benefits he is able to produce
for that family, such as earning large sums of money or exercising
influence in business or politics. Tr. 106-07.
7. A number of LCN families are located in the New York/New
Jersey area, including the Gambino, Lucchese, and Colombo families.
The LCN's History Of Control Over Local 342
8. The evidence presented during the hearing establishes by a
preponderance of the evidence that Local 342 in Newark, New Jersey
has been subject to LCN control for many years.
9. From at least the 1970's, the Gambino and Colombo
organized crime families have shared control of Local 342. Tr.
110. The two families shared illegal profits from contractors
within their jurisdiction by soliciting money for labor peace and
outright extortion. Tr. 110, 114, 131. Members and associates of
both families were placed on the labor payroll with various
contractors through Local 342. Tr. 110, 114. The relationship
between the two families later shifted to an arrangement where the
Colombo family received preferential treatment for placement of
workers at particular contract sites, but no longer shared in
racketeering labor profits. Tr. 111-12.
10. The New Jersey Organized Crime Task Force ("Task Force") was
created by the State of New Jersey in 1986. Tr. 132. From that
time to the present, the Task Force and other law enforcement
entities have documented the Gambino family infiltration of Local
342. Id.
11. Paul Castellano ("Castellano") was the boss of the Gambino
family in New York. After Castellano's murder in December 1985, he
was succeeded by John Gotti ("Gotti") in January 1986. Id.
12. Michael Mandaglia ("Mandaglia") had been the Business
Manager of Local 342 for several years prior to the Task Force's
creation in 1986. Id. According to Elko, court authorized
electronic surveillance revealed that Mandaglia had given Castellano
$5,000 a year from the New Jersey faction of the Gambino family.
Id. Mandaglia gave Robert Bisaccia ("Bisaccia"), the former Vice
President of Local 342, $2,000 a year. Id. Bisaccia was a Gambino
family member later incarcerated for racketeering. Tr. 138.
13. In 1986, Mandaglia retired from Local 342 and was succeeded
as Business Manager by Anthony Proto ("Proto"). Tr. 133. Proto was
a made member of the Gambino family. Tr. 117, 133.
14. In August 1991, Alfred "Al" Andrade ("Andrade") assaulted a
coffee truck vendor in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Tr. 133-34.
The assault was a result of the vendor's failure to pay Andrade $500
a month for permission to park the vendor's vehicle on a particular
street corner in Newark. Tr. 134. The vendor's vehicle was smashed
with a sledgehammer. Id. The police responded and, after a period
of time, Andrade was arrested. Id. Months later, with the victim's
approval, the charges were downgraded to simple assault, not
pursued, and the vendor immediately left New Jersey and moved to
South Carolina. Id.
15. At the time of the assault, Andrade was a shop steward of
Local 342. Tr. 134. Cagno was present at the scene. Cagno stated
that Andrade's accomplice for the assault was Wasserman, who at the
time was an employee of Local 342. Id.
16. In 1987, the Task Force launched an investigation into
organized crime influence in New Jersey. The investigation employed
court authorized electronic surveillance and other investigative
techniques. The investigation resulted in the indictment of
numerous Gambino family members for labor racketeering in New
Jersey, one of whom was Proto, the former Business Manager for Local
342. Tr. 133. Proto was convicted and incarcerated for labor
racketeering in 1993. Tr. 110. Proto was later permanently
expelled from LIUNA in a separate disciplinary action. See In the
Matter of Anthony Proto, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-09D (March 26,
1998).
17. After Proto's incarceration in 1993, he unofficially
appointed his son, James Proto, as the Business Manager of Local
342. Tr. 133. Andrade became a Business Agent of Local 342 at that
time, assisting James Proto with his duties. Tr. 134.
18. While Andrade was Business Agent and James Proto was
Business Manager, Wasserman was appointed as a shop steward for
Local 342. Tr. 147.
19. James Vallaro ("Vallaro") was an associate of the Gambino
family in Staten Island, New York. Vallaro's father was a made
member of the Gambino family and a high volume bookmaker. Tr. 135.
Following the 1993 convictions of other Gambino family members,
Vallaro moved to New Jersey and became a member of Local 342. Id.
20. At the time of his move, Vallaro was unknown to law
enforcement in New Jersey. Tr. 136. Elko became aware of Vallaro's
presence and involvement in the LCN through electronic surveillance
which he supervised for the Organized Crime Bureau. Tr. 135. The
information about Vallero which Elko obtained from the surveillance
was verified by Cagno. Tr. 136.
21. Vincent "Juicy" DiModica ("Juicy DiModica") was a member of
Local 342. Juicy DiModica was also made member of the Gambino
family and responsible for the New Jersey area, including all the
Gambino family members and associates within Local 342. Tr. 109,
113.
22. As a result of the 1993 incarcerations of Proto and Robert
Bisaccia, former Vice President of Local 342, Juicy DiModica was
elevated to acting capo of the Gambino family. Tr. 115-116. Elko
testified that he learned this fact from intelligence sources,
discussions with Cagno and interviews with other organized crime
members, including Ricciardi and Accetturo. Tr. 117-19.
23. After Proto's incarceration, Cagno became concerned about
the distribution of money and work for the Colombo family members
within Local 342. Tr. 116. Cagno related his concerns to members
of the New York City Colombo family. Id. Cagno was approached
within the next week by Andrade at a Local 342 membership meeting.
Id. Andrade requested that Cagno attend a meeting with Juicy
DiModica at the Kenilworth Inn on the Garden State Parkway. Id.
24. Cagno and Juicy DiModica, as representatives of their
respective families, attended certain meetings at the Kenilworth
Inn. Tr. 114-15. At the meetings, Juicy DiModica told Cagno that
his son James DiModica, Wasserman, and Andrade were acting on behalf
of Juicy DiModica and the Gambino family. Tr. 114.
25. Vallaro assisted Juicy DiModica in the day-to-day operations
of Local 342 for the Gambino family. Tr. 135. The now public
electronic surveillance revealed that Vallaro met on a daily basis
with Andrade to discuss labor issues within Local 342. Tr. 138.
During a 30-day period, 30 telephone calls were intercepted, both
incoming and outgoing, from Vallaro's and Andrade's homes regarding
labor issues and Local 342. Id.
26. Conversations over prison telephones of Proto, Casarro, and
Bisaccia were intercepted and monitored. Id.
27. In April 1994, a conversation was intercepted between Joseph
Vallaro and Cassarro who was in state prison. Tr. 140. Joseph
Vallaro told Cassarro that he and Juicy DiModica had met with the
consigliere of the Gambino family in New York. Id. Joseph Vallaro
told Cassarro that James Proto, the Business Manager of Local 342,
was not making any money for them and that they would be broke in
two months. Elko testified that he understood this conversation to
mean that James Proto was not being forceful enough in extracting
money from contractors for Local 342. Id.
28. Elko testified that after the Vallaro/Cassarro telephone
conversation, James Proto remained Business Manager of Local 342 for
approximately one year. Id. James Proto was replaced by
Wasserman. Id.
VHR Construction
Charge I:
In or around December 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and
representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred conduct" in
violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by
committing an act of racketeering, in that Wasserman did request and
demand money or a thing of value from VHR Construction, an employer
engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when Wasserman
asked for a payoff in form of a "Christmas gift" while being a Union
member and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).
Charge II:
From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs from an
employer while being a Union member and representative, in violation
of the "Business and Financial Activities of Union Officials"
Chapter, Introductory Paragraph, Section 2 and Section 4, of the
LIUNA Ethical Practices Code.
29. In 1995, the LIUNA IG's Office in Washington received
information from New Jersey Regional Vice President, Ray Pocino,
that a contractor who desired confidentiality had alleged that
Wasserman had demanded $25,000 from a contractor in New Jersey,
possibly at the Newark International Airport, and had caused the
contractor's equipment to be damaged. The contractor stated
specifically that one piece of equipment was filled with concrete
and another piece was pushed off a floor of a building. Tr. 20.
Although this statement is pure hearsay, the specificity of the
description of the damage is corroborated later in interviews with a
company official.
30. The IG sent investigators to Newark to verify the
allegations. Id.
31. VHR Construction was a general contractor at the Newark
Airport and signatory to a collective bargaining agreement with
Local 342. Tr. 21, 23.
32. Victor Wortman ("Wortman") is the president and owner of VHR
Construction. Tr. 21.
33. In March 1996, IG Inspectors met with Wortman at his office
in Englewood, New Jersey. Tr. 21-23. Wortman told the IG
Inspectors his company was not the victim of the equipment damage,
but he had heard about the incident. Tr. 22.
34. Wortman said he knew Wasserman was working as the shop
steward at Wortman's job site at the Newark Airport. Tr. 22-24.
35. Wortman said that he and his staff had threatened to dock
Wasserman's pay because Wasserman frequently left the job site for
two or three hours at a time. Tr. 24. As a result, Wasserman came
to Wortman's office to discuss the issue during the weeks before
Christmas of 1995. Id.
36. Wasserman was accompanied to the meeting by James DiModica
who was also a member but not an officer or even a steward of Local
342. Tr. 28-29.
37. During Wortman and Wasserman's conversation about
Wasserman's hours, James DiModica suddenly asked Wortman for a
Christmas gift. Tr. 29. Wortman refused. Tr. 37. Wasserman made
no attempt to dissuade James DiModica from his request. Attorney
Gold contends the record is silent as to Wasserman's participation
in the request. Under the circumstances, I find that Wasserman
brought James DiModica to the meeting to make the request and fully
approved of the demand.
38. At the hearing in the instant matter, Schaffler testified
that, in his expert opinion of the construction industry, labor
payoffs are usually made at Christmastime or at the beginning of the
summer or late spring. Tr. 167.
39. It was also Schaffler's expert opinion, based on his
experience, James DiModica's request for a Christmas gift was the
solicitation of a bribe. Tr. 165. I find that under the
circumstances all parties understood that the meaning of the request
was not for a nominal or token gift. Attorney Gold objects to the
hearsay testimony of Wortman. In the Discussion, infra, I concluded
that Wortman's testimony was corroborated by other testimony, and is
reliable.
40. Attorney Gold argues that Wasserman visited Wortman to
discuss the matter of his pay being docked for continually leaving
the job. Gold argues that Wortman is obviously biased against
Wasserman because of Wasserman's legitimate demand for his pay. The
argument has little weight since Wasserman and Wortman entered into
an agreement settling the matter.
B.J. McGlone & Co. Inc.
Charge III:
From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and
representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred conduct" in
violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by
committing an act of racketeering, in that Wasserman did request and
demand money or a thing of value from B.J. McGlone & Co., Inc., an
employer engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when
he demanded labor payoffs from an employer while being a Union
member and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).
Charge IV:
From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs from an
employer and offered to allow that employer to use non-Union labor
or to pay LIUNA members less than Union-scale wages and benefits,
and in so doing violated his obligation as a member of the Union to
refrain from interfering with the proper conduct of Union business,
in violation of Article III, Section 3(d) of LIUNA's Uniform Local
Union Constitution and the "Business and Financial Activities of
Union Officials" Chapter, Introductory Paragraph, Section 2 and
Section 4, of the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code
41. B.J. McGlone ("McGlone") is a company located in New Jersey
which provides fireproof material and services. Tr. 47. McGlone
performed and worked at the Newark Airport job site in 1994.
42. In August 1997, IG Inspectors spoke with an officer at
McGlone who was involved in managing one of the job sites at the
Newark Airport. Id. 47. The officer spoke with them on condition
that his name would not be repeated to anyone outside of the
interview. Although he requested anonymity, the record is clear
that he was an officer of McGlone, that he was involved in the
operation of the site, and that he dealt with Wasserman. The
probative value of this testimony will be discussed below.
43. The officer knew Wasserman was an officer of Local 342 and
the shop steward at the McGlone job site at the Newark Airport. Tr.
47, 55.
44. At the beginning of 1994, the officer and Wasserman had a
conversation about placing safety equipment on the job site. The
officer told Wasserman the equipment was not necessary. Tr. 52.
The company did not install the equipment and the job commenced. Id.
45. Two pieces of equipment were subsequently damaged at the job
site. Id. One spray machine was filled with concrete and another
was pushed off an elevated floor and fell to the ground. Tr. 53.
The resulting damage to the equipment was between $8,000 and
$15,000. Tr. 170. This description corroborates the description of
the damage in the anonymous report made to the IG.
46. Schaffler testified that it is common practice when a
company does not comply with demands for payoffs from LCN controlled
unions, the union may resort to intimidation methods to frighten the
company officials. Id. A common method is to damage equipment. Id.
47. The officer subsequently had a conversation with Wasserman
in which the officer told Wasserman the equipment was damaged and
said "this is not the way for you to put your people to work." Tr.
53. Wasserman made no reply to this accusation and requested a
meeting. Tr. 54
48. Wasserman, James DiModica, and the officer met at a
restaurant in New Jersey. Tr. 54. Wasserman told the officer that
in exchange for $10,000 to $20,000, McGlone would be free to run
the job site without interference and the company need only pay the
workers enough to "buy a ham sandwich." Tr. 54-55. The officer
responded that it was not his decision to pay the money and that he
would have to refer them to his boss. Tr. 55. The evidence does
not indicate whether the money was paid.
49. Schaffler testified that he was familiar with the
terms "give them enough for a sandwich" or "give them enough for a
hat." It was Schaffler's opinion that the statement made by
Wasserman, "pay the workers enough for them to buy a ham sandwich,"
under the circumstances, meant the workers could be paid a moderate
amount for work completed, but the company would not have to adhere
to all terms of the collective bargaining agreement, including
paying fringe benefits such as overtime and adhering to all safety
standards. Tr. 168. In Shaffler's opinion, in return for the
payment, Wasserman and James DiModica would take responsibility for
handling any complaints from the workers. Id.
50. Attorney Gold argues that the testimony of the McGlone
official is not credible. Gold states that the official is biased
against Wasserman because Wasserman came to the meeting to discuss
legitimate safety issues at McGlone, and the official was upset at
being confronted with safety violations. This argument has little
weight because substantial damage had been done to McGlone's
equipment. It would be more cost effective for McGlone to address
legitimate safety issues than to damage its own equipment and blame
Wasserman. I find the official's representation of the events to be
credible, and corroborated by other evidence. See the Discussion,
infra.
E & S Construction
Charge V:
In or around July 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and
representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred conduct" in
violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by
committing an act of racketeering in that Wasserman did request and
demand money or a thing of value from E&S Construction, an employer
engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when he
demanded labor payoffs from an employer while being a Union member
and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).
Charge VI:
In or around July 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs
from an employer and offered to allow that employer to use non-Union
labor or to pay LIUNA members less than Union-scale wages and
benefits, and in so doing violated his obligation as a member of the
Union to refrain from interfering with the proper conduct of Union
business, in violation of Article III, Section 3(d) of LIUNA's
Uniform Local Union Constitution and the "Business and Financial
Activities of Union Officials" Chapter, Introductory Paragraph,
Section 2 and Section 4, of the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code.
51. In August 1996, Ed Taylor ("Taylor") from E&S Construction
contacted the LIUNA New Jersey regional office concerning an
allegation against Wasserman. Tr. 56. IG Inspectors met with
Taylor shortly thereafter. Id.
52. Taylor is a former member of LIUNA Local 472 located in
Newark, New Jersey. Tr. 57. After Taylor suffered an injury and
could not work as a laborer, he formed his own construction company.
Id.
53. In July 1996, Taylor maintained a job site along Routes 1
and 9 in New Jersey. Id.
54. In the same month, Taylor received a call from Wasserman who
identified himself as a representative from Local 342 and requested
a meeting. Id. Taylor agreed to the meeting. Id.
55. The following day, Wasserman arrived at Taylor's job site
accompanied with an individual Taylor later identified as James
DiModica. Id.
56. At the start of the meeting, James DiModica stated that he
had just gotten out of jail. Tr. 60.
57. Wasserman told Taylor he knew Taylor had an upcoming
contract at the Newark Airport with the Brown Matthews Company, and
he requested that Taylor use Local 342 workers on that job site.
Tr. 58.
58. Taylor replied that at the time he had three full-time
workers with his company and the workload was just enough for those
three workers. Taylor said if his workload increased he would
definitely call the Local 342 hiring hall for laborers. Id.
59. Wasserman replied by pointing to the Taylor's three Hispanic
workers, calling them an "eyesore," and telling Taylor he could not
use them because he had to use Local 342 members. Id.
60. Wasserman then made a motion with one of his hands
indicating five fingers. Id. When Wasserman's fingers were waved
at him, Taylor, who was familiar with labor union relationships in
New Jersey, asked if Wasserman was requesting $500 to insure that he
would have no problems with the union. Tr. 59. Wasserman replied
not $500 but $5,000. Id.
61. Taylor told Wasserman he didn't "have that kind of money."
Id. Wasserman replied that in exchange, Taylor would not have to
pay the workers any benefits. Id. Taylor understood this to mean
that the various fringe benefits, pension annuity, and medical
benefits required by the collective bargaining agreement would not
have to be paid if Taylor complied with the demand. Tr. 59-60.
62. Wasserman told Taylor that if Taylor did make the payment,
Wasserman would make him put up a bond for the benefits at his job
site. Tr. 59.
63. Towards the end of the meeting, James DiModica made a
statement to Taylor that "we have connections, we'll get you paid
faster." Tr. 60.
64. Subsequently, Taylor positively identified James DiModica
from photographs shown to him by IG Inspectors. Id.
65. I find that there was no reason for James DiModica, who had
no official union position, to accompany Wasserman to Wasserman's
meetings with Taylor or VHR Construction. The Wasserman/James
DiModica visits to the contractors appears, under these
circumstances, to be a joint venture in extortion.
66. The statements of Taylor as to what the demands meant and
the expert opinion of Schaffler as to the nature of the modus
operandi of extortionate practices are credible and well founded.
67. Attorney Gold contends that the appearance of James DiModica
with Wasserman where money was solicited from employers was not in
itself improper. Gold argues that DiModica might have been a shop
steward on at least one of the jobs, and his appearance on any of
the jobs was not prohibited. As discussed below, James DiModica was
an associate of organized crime. On one occasion he suddenly
requested a Christmas gift from the employer and on another he began
the conversation by informing the employer that he had just been
released from jail. James DiModica's appearance with Wasserman was
intended to serve the purpose of intimidating the contractor.
68. Attorney Gold also contends that since none of the
complaining persons ever alleged that as a result of denying payoffs
they suffered any reprisals. He argues that the LCN would not
permit a refusal to go unpunished. There is no evidence to indicate
whether or not the payments were made. The record is silent on that
matter; however, there is evidence that equipment at McGlone was
heavily damaged after McGlone refused to install the requested
safety apparatus.
Knowing Association With The LCN
Charge VII:
From in or around 1994 through 1997, Alan D. Wasserman, while a
member and representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred
conduct" in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure
by knowingly associating with La Cosa Nostra crime family members or
associates, including Vincent "Juicy" DiModica, a convicted member
of the Gambino crime family and James DiModica, an associate of the
Gambino crime family.
69. Wasserman has been a member of LIUNA Local 342 in Newark,
New Jersey for approximately ten years.
70. At the time of the hearing in this matter, Wasserman was the
Business Manager of Local 342. He was appointed by the Executive
Board to succeed James Proto. Wasserman has also served in the
positions of field representative and a shop steward of Local 342.
71. The GEB Attorney offered the history of Local 342 described
above in paragraphs 8 through 28 and the following testimony of Elko
as evidence of Wasserman's associations with the Gambino family.
72. Based upon his years of investigation, including the
aforementioned information in paragraphs 8 through 28, and
corroborating interviews with Cagno, Accetturo, and Ricciardi, Elko
concluded that Juicy DiModica is a made member of organized crime
and in charge of a Gambino family crew in New Jersey. Tr. 119.
73. Based upon his information, including direct information
from Cagno, Lieutenant Masucci and Special Agent Montgomery and
eleven years of surveillance, Elko concluded that James DiModica is
an associate of the Gambino family. Tr. 120-21, 129. Id.
74. Based upon direct information from Cagno, information from
Masucci and Montgomery, and eleven years of surveillance, Elko
concluded that Wasserman is an associate of the Gambino family. Tr.
123, 129.
Discussion
The IHO must base his decisions on reliable evidence through a
review of what is probative and reliable. Attorney Gold objects to
the use of hearsay evidence in this proceeding. Contrary to his
assertion, however, reliable hearsay evidence is admissible in labor
arbitrations. Associated Cleaning Consultants and International
Brotherhood of Printing and Allied Trades Local 327, 94 LA 1246
(1990); In the Matter of Joseph P. Crincoli, IHO Order and
Memorandum, 97-04D (Oct. 27, 1997); In Re: Trusteeship Proceedings
Chicago District Council, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-30T (Feb. 7,
1998); Elkouri and Elkouri, How Arbitration Works (4th ed. 1994).
Hearsay evidence has been admitted regularly in union disciplinary
proceedings arising under the Teamsters Consent Decree. United
States v. IBT (Cimino), 964 F.2d 1308 (2d Cir. 1992), at 1312, aff'g
United States v. IBT(Cimino), 777 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991);
United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 941 F.2d 1292 (2d Cir.
1991), at 1297, aff'g United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 745
F. Supp. 908 (S.D.N.Y. 1990). The test is whether the evidence is
reliable. Senese & Talerico, 941 F.2d at 1298 (citing Richardson v.
Perales, 402 U.S. 389, 402 (1971)).
The testimony of the IG Inspectors regarding statements of
contractors describing the incidents at VHR Construction, B.J.
McGlone Co., and E & S Construction are hearsay; however, they
demonstrate a similar pattern, and similar demands were related by
three individuals who have neither bias nor reason to falsify. The
individuals knew their statements would eventually be known when
they spoke to the investigating officials, yet they still exposed
themselves to the risk of voluntary cooperation. One of the
individuals initiated contact with officials. I recognize that one
of the individuals has remained unnamed and, standing alone, his
statements would not be probative. Nonetheless, I give evidentiary
weight to his information due to the striking similarity between the
three incidents. The hearsay statements of the unnamed individual
match the hearsay statements of the named individuals. The
statements describe the same modus operandi, the same labor
extortion goals during roughly the same time period, and involve the
same two perpetrators. I find that the hearsay statements of the
contractors corroborate each other and I find the evidence to be
reliable especially given the very similar pattern. See Senese &
Talerico, 745 F. Supp. At 915 (court found hearsay evidence reliable
based upon FBI Agent's information being culled from various sources
and the various sources' corroboration of one another). See also
Cimino, 964 F.2d at 1312 (court used a number of factors to evaluate
reliability giving evidentiary weight to hearsay declarations of
three LCN members related by FBI agent; factors included
corroborating statements in crucial respects, a consistent picture
of the relationship of the individuals and the statements matched
the FBI agent's declaration in the subject matter).
The EDP prohibits members from engaging in barred conduct. Barred
conduct includes, among others, committing any act of racketeering.
See EDP § 1. The EDP also incorporates the Ethical Practices Code
("EPC"). The EPC defines barred conduct to include in pertinent
part: "committing any act of racketeering, as defined in Title 18 of
the United States Code, section 1961(1) …" See EPC, Barred
Conduct. Title 29 U.S.C. § 186 is included as a racketeering
violation in 18 U.S.C. § 1961(a).
Title 29 U.S.C. § 186, makes it illegal for a labor leader to
request and or to receive anything of value from a contractor with
whom he has a collective bargaining agreement:
It shall be unlawful for any person to request, demand, receive, or
accept, or agree to receive or accept, any payment, loan, or
delivery of any money or other thing of value prohibited by
subsection (a) of this section.
29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) (emphasis added). Section 186 (a)(1)
prohibits "giving any money or other thing of value to any labor
organization, or any officer or employee thereof, which represents,
seeks to represent, or would admit to membership, any of the
employees of such employer who are employed in an industry affecting
commerce." Respondent argues that the IG Inspector never asked
Wortman if he believed the request for a gift was an "extortion or a
demand." The argument has no merit; any form of request is
prohibited.
Barred conduct also includes "knowingly associating" with members of
an organized crime family such as the LCN, and knowingly allowing an
LCN member or associate to influence a LIUNA officer. See EDP § 1.
Under the EDP, the term "knowingly associate" means that: (1) the
union member knew the person with whom he or she was associating was
a member or associate of the LCN; (2) the association related
directly or indirectly to the affairs of the union; and (3) the
association was more than fleeting or casual. Id.
In Senese & Talerico, the Court upheld the IBT Independent
Administrator' s determination that "`knowing association' can be
inferred from the duration and quality of the association. " 745
F.Supp at 918. There is no doubt Wasserman knew the persons with
whom he was associating were members of organized crime. The
individuals with whom Wasserman dealt were identified as well known
members of organized crime families by three former organized crime
members. The association was not fleeting or casual. Wasserman
attended meetings with contractors accompanied by James DiModica, a
known associate of organized crime, whose presence was not related
to the ordinary course of union business. Wasserman took James
DiModica along for his intimidation factor. Wasserman had to have
known James DiModica was associated with organized crime; there was
no other reason for DiModica to accompany him. A similar conclusion
was reached by the Independent Administrator in Cimino where the
Independent Administrator found that Cimino had to have known of
Nicodemo Scarfo's Philadelphia organized crime ties during their
association because "the very purpose of that relationship" was
allowing Scarfo to use Cimino and the local union to "further his La
Cosa Nostra interests." Investigations Officer v. Joseph Cimino,
Jr., Decision of the Independent Administrator, IBT Trusteeship (May
28, 1991) at 9); (Cimino), 777 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), aff'd.,
964 F.2d 1308 (2nd Cir. 1992). The relationship between Wasserman
and James DiModica was obviously an illegal joint venture to extort
union contractors with the approval of the Gambino family.
The GEB Attorney offered evidence to demonstrate that Wasserman was
a part time no-show shop steward and argued that being a no-show
shop steward is evidence of being associated with organized crime.
I do not find this evidence to be probative of Wasserman's organized
crime association.
Obstruction
Charge IX:
On or about June 27, 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, on being interviewed
by investigators of LIUNA's Inspector General's Office,
committed "barred conduct" in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and
Disciplinary Procedure and the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code by
refusing to answer questions, terminating the interview, and thereby
obstructing and interfering with an investigation being conducted by
the LIUNA Inspector General's Office.
Findings of Fact
75. In May 1996, IG Inspectors interviewed Wasserman at his
residence in Union, New Jersey. Tr. 61, 64.
76. In June 1996, IG Inspectors attempted to interview Wasserman
a second time at the VHR job site at the Newark Airport to obtain
the additional information about James DiModica. Tr. 64.
77. They met Wasserman as he came out of the security area. The
IG Inspectors offered to speak with him in the coffee shop. Tr.
65. Wasserman stated he preferred to speak at the VHR trailer
outside the parking lot area and the IG Inspectors agreed. Id.
78. The IG Inspectors told Wasserman they needed more
information on the identity of James DiModica. Id. Wasserman
refused to speak with them and stated he was very concerned that
someone had broken into his house three days after the May 1996
interview with the IG Inspectors. Tr. 66.
79. Wasserman refused to reply to questions about James DiModica
and began to leave the area. Id. The IG Inspector told Wasserman
he should remain and speak with them. Tr. 66. Wasserman refused
and left the building. Id.
80. Outside the building, IG Inspectors again requested that
Wasserman speak to them. Tr. 66. Wasserman again refused. Tr. 66-
67.
81. I find that Wasserman purposefully refused to submit to an
IG interview, and thereby obstructed the IG investigation.
CHARGE X
On or about July 8, 1997, Alan D. Wasserman at his deposition
committed "barred conduct" in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and
Disciplinary Procedure and the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code by
falsely testifying that he had been elected by the general
membership to be the Business Agent for Local 342 despite knowing
that the general membership did not elect him and that he instead
was appointed to the position.
82. I find the fact that Wasserman's statements that he was
elected rather than having been appointed, was not a material fact
and was not in violation of the EPC.
CHARGES XI-IV
83. Disciplinary Charges XI-XIII allege that Wasserman falsely
testified at his deposition, that he never demanded a Christmas gift
from a contractor, that he never demanded things of value from a
contractor in exchange for labor peace, that he never attempted to
extort Victor Wortmann or VHR Construction, and that he never met
with or approached contractors with James DiModica. The
preponderance of the evidence proves that Wasserman did perform all
of these acts and when he was asked about them under oath he denied
his participation.
84. Disciplinary Charge XIV alleges Wasserman committed barred
conduct in violation of the EDP and EPC by falsely testifying at his
July 8, 1997 deposition that he never knowingly associated with
members or associates of organized crime. See GEB Ex. 1. The
preponderance of the evidence shows he gave false testimony when he
was asked about his connections with organized crime and he denied
them.
Conclusions
1. During the period of time alleged in the charges, Local
342 was dominated by members or associates of the Gambino crime
family.
2. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by requesting money from VHR Construction
in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) and the EPC.
3. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by demanding money from B.J. McGlone & Co.,
Inc., in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) and the EPC.
4. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by offering to allow B.J. McGlone & Co.,
Inc. to use non-union labor or to pay LIUNA members less than union-
scale wages and benefits in violation of 29 U.S.C. ' 186 (b)(1) and
the EPC.
5. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by demanding money in exchange for labor
peace from E & S Construction, in violation of 29 U.S.C. ' 186 (b)
(1) and the EPC.
6. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by offering to allow E & S Construction to
pay LIUNA members less than union-scale wages and benefits in
violation of 186 ' (b)(1) and the EPC.
7. There is a preponderance of the evidence that
Vincent "Juicy" DiModica is a member of the Gambino family and James
DiModica is an associate of the Gambino family.
8. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
knowingly associated with members of organized crime, thereby
committing barred conduct under the EDP.
9. The evidence clearly demonstrates that Wasserman's
associations with organized crime directly affected the affairs of
the union. Wasserman took a known LCN associate on his visits to
contractors and demanded payments in exchange for labor peace and
permission to use either non-union labor or non-union scale wages
and benefits. The Wasserman/James DiModica venture was an on-going
scheme to extort contractors.
10. There is preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by giving false testimony at his deposition
when questioned about his association with organized crime and his
dealings with VHR Construction, B.J. McGlone & Co., Inc., and E & S
Construction.
11. Wasserman's statement that he was elected to be a Business
Agent of Local 342, rather than appointed was not a material
misstatement and did not obstruct the GEB Attorney.
Decision
Charges I-IX and Charges XI-XIV have been proved by a preponderance
of the evidence. Charge X has not been proved by a preponderance of
the evidence.
Penalty
Wasserman's membership in LIUNA is permanently revoked. Wasserman
is permanently barred from holding an office in or being employed by
Local 342 or from being an officer or being employed by any LIUNA
affiliated entity or fund.
Wasserman has a right to appeal this Order to the LIUNA Appellate
Officer by filing a Notice of Appeal with the Appellate Officer
within 10 days of the date this Order.
Peter F. Vaira
INDEPENDENT HEARING OFFICER
[1]See previous IHO findings pertaining to LCN history in the United
States, In the Matter of Fallacara, IHO Order and Memorandum, 96-65D
(Sep. 25, 1997) at 2-3. See also In Re Trusteeship Proceedings
Chicago District Council, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-30T (Feb
7,1998); In re Bifulco, IHO Order and Memorandum, 95-48D(1-28)
(March 17, 1998).
Noteworthy Contributors to CUOMO, ANDREW M Noteworthy Contributor
Years Records
↓Total↓ INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
Transportation Unions
2006-2010 43 $181,400
BARNES & NOBLE
Retail Sales
2008 2 $50,00
For more on Barnes and Noble and its historical relationship to
Bertlesmann
Google
"BARNES AND NOBLE" BERTELSMANN
For more on Bertelsmann google
Part 2 Follow The Money (as an exact phrase)
And also input Bertelsmann
CENDANT
Miscellaneous Finance, Insurance & Real Estate
2006 2 $50,000
ENTRUST CAPITAL
Securities & Investment
2006 3 $50,00
GABELLI FUNDS
Uncoded
2008 2 $45,000
RFR HOLDINGS
Real Estate
2008 3 $45,000
ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF NEW YORK STATE
General Contractors
2008-2010 5 $41,00
EMPIRE MERCHANTS
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2008-2010 5 $37,800
PEPSI-COLA BOTTLING
Food & Beverage
2008-2010 7 $37,800
UNIFORMED SANITATIONMENS ASSOCIATION LOCAL 831
Transportation Unions
2006-2010 13 $36,000
BLS INVESTMENTS
Securities & Investment
2008 2 $35,000
VERIZON
Telecom Services & Equipment
2008-2010 5 $32,816
For more on Verizon google an article entitled
Cool Wars May Be Heating Up Soon
And another article entitled
Who Rules Our Planet
BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS ASSOCIATION
General Contractors
2010 5 $32,766 BRICKLAYERS & ALLIED CRAFTWORKERS LOCAL 3
Uncoded
2010 2 $31,00
WASTE MANAGEMENT
Waste Management
2008-2010 3 $30,000
FORTRESS INVESTMENT GROUP
Securities & Investment
2006 1 $10,000
FOR MORE ON FORTRESS GOOGLE AN ARTICLE ENTITLED
What Lurks Behind The Edwards For President Façade
AND ANOTHER ARTICLE ENTITLED
Honest John Edwards Or Is It Jon Edwards A Member of The Terrible Trio
GREENLIGHT CAPITAL
Securities & Investment
2006 1 $10,000 ISLIP VENTURES LLC
Uncoded
2008 1 $10,00
GLOBAL STRATEGY GROUP
Business Services
2008 2 $9,182
NEW YORK STATE BEER WHOLESALERS ASSOCIATION
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2008-2010 2 $7,063
EMPIRE STATE PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION
Oil & Gas
2010 2 $6,500
SARATOGA HARNESS RACING
Gambling & Casinos
2008 2 $6,000
CABLE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK
Telecom Services & Equipment
2006 1 $5,000
CIANBRO CORP
General Contractors
2010 1 $5,000
JP MORGAN CHASE & CO
Miscellaneous Finance, Insurance & Real Estate
2006 1 $5,000
DIAGEO
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2006-2010 2 $3,250
DISTILLED SPIRITS COUNCIL OF THE US
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2010 3 $3,000
FERREIRA CONSTRUCTION CO
Uncoded
2010 1 $3,000
GENENTECH
Pharmaceuticals & Health Products
2010 1 $2,500
LABORERS INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA
(LIUNA)
General Trade Unions
2010 2 $2,500
FOR MORE ON LIUNA PLEASE GOOGLE AN ARTICLE ENTITLED
Can We Stop The Demobrocrats
TEAMSTERS LOCAL 456
Transportation Unions
2010 2 $2,500
TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM
TV & Movie Production/Distribution
2006 1 $2,000
SOURCE:
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/uniquecandidate.phtml?uc=13066&so9=a&p9=7\
#sorttable9
the item directly below is excerpted from:
http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/why_some_questions_abou
t_obamas_terrorist_and_communist_fan_club
Why? Some questions about Obama's terrorist and communist fan club...
we're at a tipping point and it is a point that requires the press to
dig a bit deeper.Obama's ties to terrorist Bill Ayers and his
terrorist wife are often played down by the Obama campaign, but they
are only disputed by Obama's chief strategist. In fact, Obama's
present successful political career was started in Bill Ayers's
living room.
"I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill
Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the
senate and running for Congress," said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent
Chicago physician... of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers
and his wife, Dohrn. "[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor."
Then, of course, we have his dealings with Tony Rezko and Saddam
loyalist Nadhmi Auchi, with whom Obama tries to play down his
relationship. Nonetheless, Obama appears to have yet again lied to
cover up his toasting of Nadhmi....We have someone with alleged PLO
links, Rashid Khalidi, holding a fundraiser for Obama.
Then there is this author of the site Electric Intifada who
characterized the old Obama:
Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a
dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events
in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward
Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran
for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a
University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama
was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-
handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
(note, not part of article being quoted, imagine if you will that it
is somewhere between September 1st, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland
and December 7th, 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Should the
United States of America have supported "an even-handed approach" to
the war against Hitler? Those who advocate such an "approach" fail to
recognize that the arabs who misname themselves "palestinians" are
neither related to Jews nor are they descended from natives of the
land of Israel, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or the Golan Heights. The arabs
who misname themselves "palestinians" are in fact descended from
arabs from the neighboring arab nations of the Middle East. They did
not originate as a people in Israel, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or the
Golan Heights.)
The article being quoted continues:
"Naturally he supports the present Obama too. In fact, he believes
Obama is very in tune with [Reverend Wright's] views on Israel. He
even quotes Obama's remarks to a group of Jewish leaders in Cleveland
to comfort his fellow anti-Semites that "Obama implicitly admitted
that Wright's views were rooted in opposition to Israel's deep ties
to apartheid South Africa, and thus entirely reasonable....
"Daniel Ortega is enthralled by the rise of Obama.In statements
broadcast on Sandinista Radio La Primerisima, Ortega said he
has "faith in God and in the North American people, and above all in
the youth, that the moment of great change in the U.S. will come and
it will act differently, with justice and equality toward all
nations." The terrorist group Hamas...are on board the Obama Nation
bandwagon. "We hope he will (win) the election," Ahmed Yusuf said.
We also have the curious affair between Obama and (the)...terrorist
group FARC. It's not exactly clear if FARC associates got time with
Obama, but we know documents seized from FARC show FARC believes
Obama will win the election, which will be good for FARC and
Venezuela and bad for American ally Columbia — ...If that's not
enough, Fidel Castro loves Barack Obama ...And we should remember
that Jimmy Carter, who never met a foe of America without embracing
them as a kindred soul, also likes Obama and is even now considering
an endorsement of Obama.
Carter Endorses Obama
Jimmy Carter, the former president of United States, announced his
vote for Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday. Speaking at the Georgia World
Congress Center Tuesday afternoon, Carter said, "The fact is the Obama
people already know they have my vote when the polls close tonight."
Carter's endorsement came as Obama was on the threshold of final
victory. Carter, a superdelegate, who was officially neutral in the
race, but did offer strong hints that he would end up in Obama's side.
He also urged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to abandon her White House
bid in early June.
The former president also revealed that his children, grandchildren
and their spouses back the Illinois senator. Carter had been one of
the highest profile Democrats who had yet to make a pick in the long
presidential primary.
http://www.topnews.in/usa/carter-endorses-obama-2490
Carter Endorses Park51, Laments Tea Party Rise at Annual Forum
By Christina White Posted: 09/17/2010
At some point we should be concerned that so many enemies of this
country, enemies who are proud to be enemies of this country, and
enemies of liberty are supporting a man like Barack Obama."
Abuses alleged in mob's Wall Street forays 19 charged with extortion,
fraud
use of violence noted
November 27, 1997|By BLOOMBERG NEWSNEW YORK -- Italian and Russian
crime families have introduced an element of violence to some small
companies and Wall Street brokerages, a federal prosecutor said
yesterday.
"Scams used to be done with financial incentives," said Alan Vickery,
the business and securities fraud chief for the U.S. attorney's office
in Brooklyn. "Now the mob has added violence by threatening personal
harm to mainstream brokers who may have found themselves with gambling
debts or some other exposure."
Vickery made his comments a day after 19 people, including members of
the Genovese and Bonanno organized-crime families, were charged in a
federal indictment with securities fraud, wire fraud, extortion and
bank fraud.
The case, brought by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, was the
fourth in eight months that alleges organized-crime abuses on Wall
Street.
One defendant, Rosario "Rossi" Gangi, was a capo in the Genovese
family, and another, Frank "Curly" Lino, was a capo in the Bonanno
family, the indictment alleged. Capos, or bosses, supervise members
known as soldiers, and report to the highest-ranking members of their
crime families.
Another defendant, a stock promoter named Claudio Iodice, was accused
of telling the chairman of HealthTech International Inc., Gordon Hall,
that he would knife members of Hall's family if he wasn't paid
adequately for manipulating the stock. Iodice's attorney couldn't be
reached.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged 13 people
with stock fraud linked to the Gambino crime family in a case
allegedly involving violence.
Globus Group Inc.'s top executives and 14 others, including members of
Russian crime groups, were charged with fraud in April for scheming to
inflate the company's stock price, Vickery said.
One broker, Igor Stolyar, and his father, Alik, were accused of trying
to hire a hit man in Canada to kill people who they thought were
extorting money from the younger Stolyar and other brokers of Globus
stock.
William McLucas, the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement
director, said the SEC, Justice Department, the National Association
of Securities Dealers and other agencies are increasing the resources
they devote to stopping organized crime on Wall Street. The SEC "is
participating in a number of such investigations," he said.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-11-27/business/1997331116_1_organized-crime-securities-fraud-russian-crime
Soviet Emigre Mob Outgrows Brooklyn, and Fear Spreads
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL with CELESTINE BOHLEN
Published: June 04, 1989
A criminal underworld of Soviet emigres, some of them skilled in white-
collar crime and hardened by Soviet prison and labor camps, is
reaching beyond its base in Brooklyn, using extortion and violence in
its own neighborhoods and engaging in multimillion-dollar racketeering
schemes on an international scale.
The network of Russian-speaking criminals is small and loosely grouped
compared with the hierarchies of traditional American organized crime.
But camouflaged within the country's growing Soviet immigrant
communities, the network is fast outstripping the ability of local and
Federal agencies to curb its illegal schemes, some of which are linked
to Mafia crime families, officials of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and other agencies say.
Intelligence reports trace the network to black marketeers and other
professional gangsters, many of whom plied their criminal trade in the
Soviet Union before winning exit visas - or being planted - in the
wave of Jewish emigration.
One mob boss who was said to have spent 10 years in Soviet prisons
before turning up in Brooklyn was known to enforce his threats with an
electric cattle prod he kept in his car. Investigators say he once
extorted $15,000 from another immigrant by threatening to kill the
man's daughter on her wedding day. Another crime kingpin, convicted of
credit card fraud and now facing extradition from West Germany, is
reputed to have amassed a fortune of more than $600 million from
bootlegged gasoline in less than a decade after he arrived from
Odessa.
As Soviet emigration policies loosen up, greater numbers of Jews,
Armenians and ethnic Germans have been given permission to leave.
Since 1975, some 150,000 have come to the United States. About 50,000
have settled in the New York area; another 15,000 are expected to
settle here this year.
Law-enforcement officials say that, while the network comprises no
more than a few hundred active criminals out of all those who arrived,
some of these are highly skilled mob enforcers, forgers and confidence
men.
Their criminal activities range from old-fashioned jewelry swindles on
47th Street to multimillion-dollar schemes involving fake credit cards
and bootlegged gasoline. They have also counterfeited millions of
dollars in currency and bank and corporate checks. In New York City,
the Secret Service is planning to announce soon that it has smashed a
Soviet emigre crime ring charged with counterfeiting $20 million and
fleecing American Express of millions more in bogus travelers checks.
These criminals have also forged antiques, passing some off as
products of Faberge, the famous jewelers of czarist Russia; engineered
insurance frauds; trafficked in illegal drugs, and resorted to
assault, torture and murder where they have found resistance.
Investigators say the crimes typically involve get-rich-quick schemes,
often executed with a contempt for an American criminal justice system
that seems benign compared to the brutalities of life in Soviet labor
camps and prisons. Law-enforcement officials say that the transplanted
criminals, reared in a system where goods are scarce and corruption is
a cost of doing business, can exploit opportunities in the American
system - taking advantage of the credit system and other commercial
relationships based on trust. Hardened Criminals After Soviet Jails,
Little Daunts Them
''They feel we are pussycats,'' said one New York detective monitoring
the network, ''and the United States is one big candy store.''
''The Russians just don't care -they're not afraid of the
consequences,'' said John Good, a retired F.B.I. agent who ran the
Abscam case. He now works for a private security concern, Business
Risks International, which has been hired by victims of some of the
schemes.
Despite the obstacles, law-enforcement agencies have made some
progress against the emigre underworld. Besides the Secret Service
counterfeiting investigation, a grand jury in Brooklyn has been
hearing evidence in an extensive anti-racketeering inquiry into Soviet
immigrant criminals.
In one unpublicized case under F.B.I. investigation, a Soviet emigre
crime ring infiltrated one of the nation's largest jewelry
manufacturers and methodically stole gold and gems valued at $54
million from the Manhattan company, Jardinay Inc. In another case, in
March, the police in Frankfurt, West Germany, arrested Marat Balagula
(pronounced bala-GOOL-a), a 45-year old Soviet emigre and suspected
gasoline bootlegger who fled the United States in November 1986, while
awaiting sentencing for a major charge-card fraud, and led Interpol on
a five-continent chase. Execution-Style Murders
The police in Brooklyn also report a wave of violent crime in the
Russian-speaking communities - including murders with all the
characteristics of organized crime executions. One shootout with
automatic weapons, which took place outside a Brooklyn gasoline
wholesale company in 1986, leaving one dead, and two wounded, involved
associates of Mr. Balagula - including three co-conspirators in the
credit card scheme. In November 1987, Boris Rubinov, a 30-year-old
immigrant, was shot to death in Brooklyn, two months after he was
arrested while loading more than two dozen rifles and other guns into
the back of a car.
The growing economic clout of the emigre crime network is particularly
troublesome, said Laura Brevetti, a Federal prosecutor in Brooklyn who
heads a joint strike force tracking far-flung gasoline tax evasion
schemes. ''Money is power and the fact that they are making so much
money illegally makes them powerful,'' she said.
''The Russians add a zero to anything that anyone else thinks of,''
said Michael Flanagan, the assistant special agent in charge of the
criminal division of the F.B.I. in New York.
Some relocation officials, though, challenge the specter of a
spreading Russian Mafia as painted by law-enforcement agencies.
''It is a quantum leap to jump to a statement that there is an
organized Mafia,'' said Mark Handelman, executive vice president of
the New York Association for New Americans, a Government-supported
Jewish resettlement agency in Manhattan. Since 1972, he said, the
agency had been contacted by the law-enforcement authorities no more
than three or four times about suspected criminals. Soviet Compliance
I.N.S. Is Unable To Screen Felons
Although most of the new arrivals and many of the criminals are
Jewish, investigators say, some of those who arrived as Jews in fact
forged their identity papers in order to leave the Soviet Union. Also,
investigators said, some are undoubtedly K.G.B. agents smuggled into
the United States among legitimate immigrants. They also believe that
the Soviet Union has deliberately rid its prisons of some
troublemakers by sending them here.
Federal agents say the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in the
absence of cooperation from the Soviet authorities, is in no position
to weed out those with forged documents and criminal pasts among the
thousands of immigrants passing through transit camps outside Rome.
The crime network has centered in the bustling Brighton Beach
neighborhood with its Old World shops and restaurants, but police
reports show that criminal offshoots have also surfaced in Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, Cleveland,
Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Dallas, Miami, Wilmington, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Boston, and Providence. Canada has been investigating a
Soviet emigre crime network in Toronto with links to Italian organized
crime.
Groups are often organized by city of origin - Odessa, Kiev,
Leningrad, Moscow - giving some structure to the otherwise loose-knit
network that appears not to be based on turf. Police say the network
is usually subordinate to the deal of the moment.
In many ways, the Soviets follow the pattern of other ethnic organized-
crime groups in America, preying first on their own and then, when
they feel strong enough to evade the law, spreading out. said James
Fox, director of the F.B.I.'s New York office. Educated, Technically
Skilled
But, unlike other immigrant criminal groups, the Soviets generally
arrive well-educated and highly skilled technically, said Lydia
Rosner, a Russian-speaking assistant professor of sociology at New
York City's John Jay College of Criminal Justice who wrote a 1986
book, ''The Soviet Way of Crime.''
''They are often more skilled than Americans themselves at exploiting
the weaknesses in American society,'' she said. For example, she said,
the official Soviet passion for identity documents has long nurtured a
forgery underground that enables criminals, once here, to assume many
identities, thwarting police efforts to keep track of them. Some also
use false documents to collect welfare benefits and build up credit
ratings.
''To them,'' Mrs. Rosner said, ''our police are Mickey Mouse.''
Although United States law bars the deportation of immigrants who can
show they face persecution in their native country, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service says that since 1980 it has returned 101
emigres with criminal records to the Soviet Union. Early Swindles Bags
of Gold Rubles Turn Into Potatoes
A recent report circulated among law-enforcement agencies dates
criminal activities back 15 years to Brighton Beach's ''Potato Bag
Gang,'' a group of confidence artists from Odessa who, posing as
merchant seamen, picked out other immigrant ''marks'' and offered to
sell them antique gold rubles cheap. A sample coin was authentic, but
when the victims paid thousands of dollars for sackfuls of them, the
bags turned out to be full of potatoes.
In a similar swindle involving a supposedly antique necklace, a Long
Island hardware store owner, who took pity on a couple posing as newly
arrived immigrants, was bilked of his life savings of $70,000.
Considerable information on the network's leaders was provided by an
anonymous informant who in 1983 sent Kenneth P. Walton, then a deputy
F.B.I. director in New York, a manuscript in Russian entitled ''All
About Russian Mafia.'' Much of the information was subsequently
corroborated. Bosses Develop Extortionist Toting A Cattle Prod
At the time, the informant said, the head of the network was Evsei
Agron, a 51-year-old Leningrad-born immigrant, killer, extortionist
and thief. With his bodyguards, his cattle prod and the aura of his
Soviet prison time, Mr. Agron was a fearsome figure as he made his
rounds of Brooklyn, with a weekly visit to the Russian baths in the
East Village.
In January 1984, Mr. Agron was shot in the neck outside his apartment
house at 100 Ocean Parkway in Park Slope. He survived, telling a
Russian-speaking detective he would ''take care'' of the attacker
himself. During his recuperation, doctors removed old bullets from
previous shootings. Three sources told the police that the shooting
was linked to a disputed drug deal.
In May 1985, Mr. Agron was shot to death as he came out of his
apartment en route to the baths. His bodyguard and driver, Boris
Nayfeld, who had been waiting downstairs, left mysteriously after the
shooting. Conflicting Explanations
Informants later told the police that Mr. Agron had been killed for
seeking a cut of criminal profits while withdrawing from active
leadership. But other reports said he had been murdered by the Mafia
for poaching on its activities.
Mr. Agron was listed as vice president of a Brooklyn fitness club that
had been the scene of a drug murder in 1982 and that also had distant
links to members of Italian organized crime, including John (Sonny)
Franzese, then listed as the underboss of the Colombo family. Mr.
Franzese also joined forces with Soviet emigres in concocting a highly
profitable gasoline tax evasion scheme exposed by Ms. Brevetti's task
force. One of the conspirators, Michael Markowitz, who assisted the
authorities, was shot to death in his Rolls-Royce in Brooklyn in
March.
No sooner was Mr. Agron out of the picture than his bodyguard, Boris
Nayfeld, turned up in the employ of Mr. Balagula, who investigators
believe succeeded to Mr. Agron's authority.
Born in Odessa on Sept. 8, 1943, Mr. Balagula worked in the Soviet
Union as a storekeeper on passenger ships in the Black Sea, according
to sources within the emigre community. He came to the United States
on Jan. 13, 1977, with his parents and became a citizen in 1984.
Informants cited in intelligence reports say he may have connections
to Soviet intelligence, but Mr. Balagula, in an unusual sworn
statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, flatly denied any
contacts with Soviet secret services. He said he emigrated ''because
of anti-Semitism'' and in order to raise his children ''in a free
society.''
Intelligence files say Mr. Balagula was an owner of one or more
restaurants in Brighton Beach. When he fled the country in 1986, Mr.
Balagula had been convicted, along with several other Soviet
immigrants - including Boris Nayfeld and his brother, Benjamin - in a
scheme that fabricated charge cards with names and real account
numbers of Merrill Lynch customers. The cards were used to run up
fictitious sales with the complicity of several merchants. No goods
changed hands, but Merrill Lynch ended up liable for up to $300,000 in
losses. Balagula 'The Power Broker'
Wiretaps showed Mr. Balagula to be ''the power broker at the
center,''said Assistant United States Attorney John P. Pucci of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
During the trial in Philadelphia, the bald, paunchy Mr. Balagula
rented a suite at the Hershey Hotel and came to court every day in a
stretch limousine.
''You hear all kinds of stories about Mr. Balagula,'' said Ms.
Brevetti. One has Mr. Balagula purchasing an island off South Africa,
or land in Senegal. Another has him masterminding a fleet of
supertankers docking all around the world. Before his arrest in West
Germany, he was sighted in Atlantic City and California, Paraguay,
South Africa and Hong Kong.
Hans-Hermann Eckert, a court spokesman in Frankfurt, West Germany,
where extradition proceedings were nearly complete, said rumors had
circulated of a large bribe about to be paid to free Mr. Balagula.
Targets Get Bigger Jewelry Industry Proves Vulnerable
The Soviet emigre network's criminal schemes have also focused on the
jewelry industry, court records and investigators say. One of the
largest thefts victimized the workshops and offices of Jardinay, a
manufacturer of watches and gold jewelry at 155 Avenue of the Americas
at Spring Street.
Founded as a small watch-making company some 20 years ago by a
Hungarian family, the company has grown into a $100 million-a-year
business with its own designer line called Helen Z, which is sold to
Bloomingdale's, Saks, Fortunoff, J. C. Penney, and other retailing
giants.
By 1986, investigators said, some 25 emigres had infiltrated the 300
employees and brazenly diverted or stolen nearly $54 million in gold
and diamonds before the scheme was discovered in an inventory the next
year. Only $2 million worth was ever recovered.
''The place was filled with Russians,'' said one astounded
investigator. ''They were taking out finished product and raw
materials and stocking their own jewelry stores in Staten Island, Long
Island and California.''
The jewelry business - where merchants traditionally entrust each
other with millions of dollars in gold and gems on a handshake - is
particularly vulnerable to fraud. In some cases, emigre swindlers have
set up phony jewelry exchanges, where they ostentatiously lock their
customers' valuables in a safe. Once the customer leaves, the safe is
emptied through a hidden door at the back. Sophisticated Forgeries
Bogus Cash, Faberge Eggs
In addition to jewelry, the criminal schemes also include
counterfeiting of currency and bank and corporate checks, Federal
agents say.
In its investigation of what it calls a $20 million counterfeiting
ring, the Secret Service is preparing to announce the arrests of up to
20 suspects, said Richard Ward, the special agent in charge in New
York. Almost all of the money has been recovered, along with many
bogus bank checks and nearly $4.5 million in counterfeit American
Express checks that had been cashed around the world, he said.
The emigre network's members also fabricated bank checks of
Manufacturer's Hanover Trust and Citibank.
Art forgery is also prevalent, investigators and jewelers say.
Delicately bejeweled eggs, made by emigre craftsmen in workshops in
Astoria, Queens, have been passed off as original Faberges and sold to
a major auction house, investigators say.
In May 1987, Itsik Ben-Eli, an emigre who was being sought for
questioning in a homicide in Brighton Beach the month before, was
arrested at Kennedy airport with a woman who had 700 grams of heroin -
about 1 1/2 pounds -taped to her body. Mr. Ben-Eli's fingerprints were
later found on the tape. He was also carrying two freshly minted
counterfeit $100 bills. At his sentencing in Federal court in
Brooklyn, a man claiming to represent an Israeli organization urged
the court to let Mr. Ben-Eli serve his sentence in Israel. The judge
sentenced him to five years in Federal prison. Growing Violence
Desperate Victim Shoots Loan Shark
Much of the violent crime inside Soviet emigre communities can be
traced to protection and loan sharking rackets seen among other
immigrant groups. Often, it is only when these transactions turn
violent that they become known to the authorities. People familiar
with the Russian-speaking community say transplanted ''People's
Courts'' exist, where men of influence settle disputes, some of them
brought over from the old country.
One emigre, Valery Zlotnikov, was repeatedly hounded over a debt by
another emigre, Felix Furman, a convicted killer who had managed not
only to escape prison in Colorado but also to jump bail on a gun
charge in New York. Mr. Furman furthermore was acquitted of attempted
extortion, even though an exchange of money took place under the eyes
of the police. Last December, in despair, Mr. Zlotnikov shot Mr.
Furman dead on the street in Brighton Beach and turned himself in.
In another convoluted case, a grocer named Vyacheslav Lyubarsky was
strung up from a ceiling light in his store when he failed to repay
$40,000 he lost in a card game. He later shot one of his tormentors
and, with two reputed Mafia members, went on to stage a faked jewelry
robbery in Chicago, in an abortive attempt to collect a $750,000
insurance claim. ''They even beat up a woman to add credibility,''
said Detective Peter Grinenko, a Russian-speaking investigator
assigned to Brooklyn District Attorney's squad.
American law-enforcement officials acknowledge they are ill-equipped
to deal with the cultural and language complexities of the Soviet
emigre crime problem. While the F.B.I. has a task force that often
deals with these crimes, their Russian-speaking agents are generally
reserved for counterintelligence work. In New York City, the Police
Department's leading intelligence analyst for Soviet emigre crime,
Joel Campanella, retired this month, and associates are ncncerned that
his expertise has been lost.
Two years ago, the police intelligence section lost another expert, a
Russian-speaking police officer who could answer a police hot line
number circulated in Brighton Beach for tips on criminal activity. One
day recently, when a distraught Russian-speaking woman called twice,
offering information, there was no one at the police desk who could
understand her.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/04/nyregion/soviet-emigre-mob-outgrows-brooklyn-and-fear-spreads.html?pagewanted=print
JOHN BARBERIO DIED ON DECEMBER 21ST, 1994 THE VERY SAME DAY THAT NEW
YORK SUBWAY BOMBER ED LEARY,WHO HAD WORKED FOR MERRILL LYNCH WAS
ARRESTED DECEMBER 21ST, 1994.
Wife Recalls Subway Bomber's Obsessions
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: February 21, 1996
The wife of Edward J. Leary took the witness stand yesterday in her
husband's defense, telling jurors how his behavior became increasingly
bizarre and obsessive in the months and weeks leading up to two subway
firebombings that he carried out 14 months ago.
The wife, Marge Schaller, a pediatric nurse, testified for the defense
as Mr. Leary's lawyer began presenting their case in State Supreme
Court in Manhattan. Mr. Leary, 50, is charged with attempted murder
and assault in the two firebombings that injured 50 people in December
1994.
Although prosecutors say the explosions were part of a plot to extort
money from the Transit Authority, Mr. Leary's lawyers, who do not
dispute that he carried out the attacks, say his behavior stemmed from
his use of a mix of drugs, including Prozac, prescribed to treat his
growing depression.
In answering the questions of his defense lawyer, Robert Fogelnest,
Ms. Schaller recalled how she watched in frustration as her unemployed
husband failed to find another job as a computer technician after
Merrill Lynch dismissed him in January 1994. At times, she said, it
appeared as if he was not even trying to find work.
This lack of ambition was not the only change Ms. Schaller said she
noticed in her husband. Instead of looking for work, she said, Mr.
Leary devoted much of his time to strange, inexplicable activities.
For example, she said her husband spent many days, and some nights,
rummaging through garbage cans and Dumpsters near their home in Scotch
Plains, N.J. She said he brought home a variety of items: a dozen old
suitcases, 12 car batteries, 5 rusty weight-lifting benches, shards of
broken glass and discarded clothes and food. She said he spent many
hours assembling a wooden model car, sanding and painting it over and
over again.
Ms. Schaller also testified that Mr. Leary became obsessed with his
physical appearance, often staring at himself in a mirror, trimming
his hair three or four times a day and picking at blemishes on his
face with a nail clipper.
When she pointed out his odd behavior to him, she said he replied:
"It's O.K. I'm going to someone really good." The reference was to a
psychiatrist named John Steven Weihs, who advertised his services in
The Village Voice. Dr. Weihs had prescribed Prozac and a wide range of
psychotropic drugs to Mr. Leary, she said, adding that her husband had
complete confidence in him.
Mr. Fogelnest asked Ms. Schaller a series of questions seeking to show
that the Leary family had not suffered from financial troubles in
1994, which prosecutors say was the motive for Mr. Leary's extortion
plan.
She testified that they owned three apartments in Park Slope,
Brooklyn, and two houses in New Jersey. "We weren't concerned about
our finances," Ms. Schaller said. Mr. Leary, she said, even turned
down a job offer during the summer months of 1994.
Throughout the day yesterday, Mr. Leary sat at the defense table,
twiddling a pen between his fingers and looking impassively at his
wife. Several times, their eyes met. Each time, Ms. Schaller smiled at
Mr. Leary, but he quickly looked away.
During cross-examination, the prosecutor, Peter Casolaro, focused on
statements that Ms. Schaller made about her husband's behavior several
days after the Dec. 21, 1994, explosion. He tried to show jurors that
she said her husband had not acted despondent or angry when she left
for work that morning.
But Ms. Schaller said she could not recall what she had told reporters
about her husband. "I was under extreme stress when I was having that
press conference and I don't remember what I said or did not say," she
said.
Mr. Casolaro also asked Ms. Schaller whether she had sought help for
Mr. Leary or whether she felt her family was in danger. "I never
thought we were in danger," she said. "In hindsight," she said, she
wished that she had sought more help for her husband.
"Your husband is depressed, exhibiting bizarre behavior, and you did
not find that was sufficient to take action?" Mr. Casolaro asked.
"No, I did not," she said.
In addition, Ms. Schaller said she had originally told reporters that
her husband was not responsible for the subway explosions.
But in later questioning by defense lawyers, Ms. Schaller said that
she believed that he had no role in the bombings because that is what
Mr. Leary had told her from his hospital bed. Mr. Leary's legs were
severely burned in the Dec. 21 explosion.
"He said he dropped his resume to the subway floor," she recalled. "He
said he pulled the resume up off the floor and the bag blew up." She
added that she now knows that he carried the explosive on the train.
Subway Bombing of 1994
There was an interview with Denfield Otto in the Daily News over the
weekend; Otto was the transit cop who helped save people during a
December 21, 1994 bombing on a 4 train at Fulton Street. We realized
that we had forgotten about the 1994 blast's details, and it's just
eerie: Edward Leary, unemployed and faced with various family medical
bills, was carrying a homemade bomb in the 4 train in hopes of
extorting the NYC Transit Authority. The bomb exploded prematurely,
though, and police realized Leary was the culprit after he went to
Brooklyn for medical treatment. We dug up this old USA Today story,
which put the 1994 subway bombing up against the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing and the recent Unabomber attacks. For his defense,
Leary said the combination of drugs he was on (Prozac, Effexor,
Buspar) made him "unaware" of the consequences of bombing the train.
Leary was found guilty and sentenced to 94 years in prison, though
he's currently serving a 25-50 year sentence. Anyway, Otto had been
traveling on the 4 train during the blast (he was headed to Transit
Police chorus rehearsal!) and was able to get an extinguisher from a
token booth. He told the Daily News, "I heard two bangs, the second
louder than the first. The train filled with smoke, and I could see
passengers on fire. I remember touching my chest and face. I was 10
feet away, but I wasn't on fire. I was lucky."
Leary had also planted a bomb on another subway car that exploded
prematurely on December 15, 1994, injuring two teenagers in Harlem.
The New York subway bomber, Edward Leary, who had created his own
encryption system to scramble files on his computer. According to the
report, after Manhattan police "failed to break the encryption, the
files
were sent to outside encryption experts. These experts also failed.
Eventually, the encryption was broken by a federal
agency. The files
contained child pornography and personal information which was not
particularly useful to the case."
http://www.jya.com/crypto-crime.htm
December 22, 1994
THE SUBWAY FIREBOMB: THE SUSPECT; From Burns and Tatters, a Bombing
Suspect
By JOHN KIFNER
The man in the Clark Street subway station in Brooklyn was hurting.
His sneakers and the legs of his blue jeans were singed and shredded,
his legs bloody below the knees, Police Officer Michael Ruiz
remembered later. There were burns on his arm, some of the skin on his
face was peeling away, and through the tatters of his gloves there
were burn marks on his knuckles.
The two encountered each other about 10 minutes after 2 P.M. yesterday
-- about a half-hour after a burst of flame in a crowded No. 4 train
injured 41 people as the subway pulled into the Fulton Street station
in the Manhattan financial district. Officer Ruiz and his partner in
the 84th Precinct, Officer Anthony Roa, were answering a radio call
for aid at the subway station in Brooklyn .
"I'm in pain," the man said, staggering near the token booth. They put
him in an ambulance, although Officer Ruiz recalled that "it seemed a
little odd how he got all the way into Brooklyn ."
Then, as they sped toward the burn unit of New York Hospital-Cornell
Medical Center , a description came over their radios of a suspect in
the subway firebombing. They looked at the man riding with them: a
white man, around 200 pounds, between 40 and 50, burgundy sweater,
dark blue three-quarter-length coat, blue jeans torn below the knees,
burn marks.
The two officers looked at each other. "Wait a minute," Officer Ruiz
said. "That sounds like the guy that we have."
Less than an hour after the explosion, the police said, the man,
identified as Edward Leary, 49, an unemployed computer technician from
Scotch Plains , N.J. , was the target of the investigation not only of
yesterday's explosion but also of a similar incident last week. In
that first incident, a teen-age girl's backpack suddenly caught fire
on a subway train in Harlem , injuring and badly burning a 13-year-old
boy, whose clothes had caught fire.
The main link between the two cases, the police said, were
similarities in the construction of the incendiary devices that
started both subway fires: each consisted of a glass jar about the
size of a mayonnaise jar, filled with gasoline or another flammable
liquid. Both had two wires leading from the liquid to a battery and a
crude timer.
The police's Chief of Department, John Timoney, said the remains of
the firebomb were being scrutinized by the police bomb squad and would
be examined by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
which already has the remains of the first device. After questioning
the two teen-agers burned in the Harlem case, the police said they
concluded that the two had nothing to do with the device.
Mr. Leary, who was believed to have last worked for Merrill Lynch,
lived at 63 Glenside Avenue in Scotch Plains and had co-op apartments
at 10 Plaza Street in Brooklyn, a solid-looking brick building with a
doorman facing Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park .
"We did have an Edward Leary who worked for us," said Bobbie Collins,
a Merrill Lynch spokeswoman. "We don't know if it was the same person.
He worked in our operations department. He was terminated." Ms.
Collins said the man last worked there in January 1994.
At the two-story white frame house in Scotch Plains, decorated with
strings of blinking white Christmas lights, a neighbor said Mr. Leary
had moved there from Brooklyn about a year ago, with his wife, Marge,
a nurse-practitioner, and their son, around 12 years old. The
neighbor, who would not give her name, said it appeared that Mr. Leary
had been unemployed for the last few months.
Detectives who were parked in the driveway had seen gasoline canisters
in the garage and a search warrant was being sought last night, said a
law-enforcement official who asked for anonymity.
At the co-op building where Mr. Leary had lived in Park Slope,
Brooklyn , he had left more distinct impressions. He was once
president of the co-op board, a period recalled by one resident as one
of "incredibly nasty politics" over running the building.
"Ed was weird," said David Elrich, who served on the board with him
and who now lives elsewhere. "He was always involved in computers.
He's your classic computer person, great with machines, not so good
with people."
At one point, Mr. Elrich recalled, the infighting over the question of
spending money to decorate the co-op building grew very emotional. One
day, a mysterious fire erupted outside the apartment of the leader of
the pro-spending faction, who opposed Mr. Leary's efforts to keep down
maintenance costs. Law-enforcement officials said that after hearing
tenants recall that incident last night, they were investigating
whether Mr. Leary might be connected to it.
After he moved to New Jersey , Mr. Leary still kept the three
apartments he owned in the Brooklyn co-op, Mr. Elrich said. One woman
who rented one of the co-ops, Jeannette Goldstein, said she was
involved in a long-running dispute over repairs she said were needed
to the apartment, and produced a sheaf of documents and letters that
she had sent to city officials.
"This man is driving me crazy," she said. "I'm on the phone all day
long. He would not fix the apartment."
Mr. Leary had advertised one of the apartments in The New York Times
on Sunday for $164,000. Last night, no one answered the family's New
Jersey 's phone number, which was listed in the ad.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E2DE1138F931A15751C1A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
The 1994 New York City Subway Bomber Ed Leary worked for Merrill
Lynch.
"A Merrill Lynch official, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
confirmed a report in The Daily News yesterday that Mr. Leary, after
having been told his performance was imperiling his job, had sabotaged
computers at the brokerage.
After the tampering was discovered, this official said, a test was set
up to determine who was responsible, and Mr. Leary was identified as
the culprit. Mr. Leary, who joined Merrill Lynch in September, 1991,
was dismissed on Jan. 28." Please see:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405E7D9163BF936A15751C1A962958260
Merrill Lynch was also targeted by Benjamin "Beba" Nayfield
1986 in organized crime
Benjamin "Beba" Nayfield, a powerful member of Brooklyn's steadily
growing Russian Mafia, is convicted for his involvement in a credit
Benjamin "Beba" Nayfield, a powerful member of Brooklyn's steadily
growing Russian Mafia, is convicted for his involvement in a credit
card scam to steal money from Merrill Lynch customers.
http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/1986_in_organized_crime
June 4, 1989
Soviet Emigre Mob Outgrows Brooklyn , and Fear Spreads
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL WITH CELESTINE BOHLEN
At the time, the informant said, the head of the network was Evsei
Agron, a 51-year-old Leningrad-born immigrant, killer, extortionist
and thief. With his bodyguards, his cattle prod and the aura of his
Soviet prison time, Mr. Agron was a fearsome figure as he made his
rounds of Brooklyn, with a weekly visit to the Russian baths in the
East Village .
In January 1984, Mr. Agron was shot in the neck outside his apartment
house at 100 Ocean Parkway in Park Slope. He survived, telling a
Russian-speaking detective he would ''take care'' of the attacker
himself. During his recuperation, doctors removed old bullets from
previous shootings. Three sources told the police that the shooting
was linked to a disputed drug deal.
In May 1985, Mr. Agron was shot to death as he came out of his
apartment en route to the baths. His bodyguard and driver, Boris
Nayfeld, who had been waiting downstairs, left mysteriously after the
shooting. Conflicting Explanations
Informants later told the police that Mr. Agron had been killed for
seeking a cut of criminal profits while withdrawing from active
leadership. But other reports said he had been murdered by the Mafia
for poaching on its activities.
Mr. Agron was listed as vice president of a Brooklyn fitness club that
had been the scene of a drug murder in 1982 and that also had distant
links to members of Italian organized crime, including John (Sonny)
Franzese, then listed as the underboss of the Colombo family. Mr.
Franzese also joined forces with Soviet emigres in concocting a highly
profitable gasoline tax evasion scheme exposed by Ms. Brevetti's task
force. One of the conspirators, Michael Markowitz, who assisted the
authorities, was shot to death in his Rolls-Royce in Brooklyn in
March.
No sooner was Mr. Agron out of the picture than his bodyguard, Boris
Nayfeld, turned up in the employ of Mr. Balagula, who investigators
believe succeeded to Mr. Agron's authority.
At the height of his power, Marat Balagula was a kingpin in a Brighton
Beach Russian mob who traveled with a Paraguayan passport, traded in
diamonds, bought an island off West Africa, owned a Long Island
mansion decorated in pink marble and had a knack for making his
enemies disappear. Marat Balagula was a member and alleged leader of
an organization of criminals made up of Russian and other Eastern
European immigrants based in Brooklyn , New York .
During the mid-1980's Balagula controlled 100% of the bootleg gasoline
which was distributed in New York City . Controlling terminals from
Brooklyn to Westchester County in New York , his ring sold gasoline
among various companies including bogus firms that reported having
paid the excise taxes and then vanished before the Internal Revenue
Service could follow the complicated and cumbersome paper trails.
In June 1993, he and seven individuals were indicted in the largest
excise tax evasion scheme in United States history. Balagula along
with Joseph Macchia; Macchia's three sons, Joseph, Jr., Larry, and
George; Victor Batuner; Michael Varzar; and John Barberio were charged
in a conspiracy to evade approximately $85 million dollars in federal
excise taxes.
In the fall of 1994 Balagula and his co-defendants plead guilty and
are currently awaiting sentence.
This was not the first case to be brought against Balagula for excise
tax evasion. In July 1992 Balagula, along with three other
individuals, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to evade
approximately $500,000 in federal excise taxes and one count of excise
tax evasion. For this conviction, Balagula received a 10-year
sentence.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:kvpYtRYUSgIJ:www.thememoryhole.org/irs/irs_75_years.rtf+John+Barberio+Jersey+Gambino+Mafia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
JOHN BARBERIO DIED ON DECEMBER 21ST, 1994 THE VERY SAME DAY THAT NEW
YORK SUBWAY BOMBER ED LEARY, WHO HAD WORKED FOR MERRILL LYNCH WAS
ARRESTED DECEMBER 21ST, 1994.
Moscows Man Viktor Bout smuggled arms into the FARC and that the
planes that Bout used to smuggle the guns into the FARC left Colombia
loaded with
drugs establish a link between Moscow and The Mob.
What do you think.
Drug Enforcement Administration-AP - 4 hours ago
When celebrated Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout landed last Tuesday
night ... a saga known to the Drug Enforcement Administration as
Operation Relentless. ...
Newsweek - 2 related articles - Shared by 10+
Accused Arms Dealer Pleads Not Guilty - New York Times - 2650 related
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Viktor Bout: Capturing "The Merchant of Death" - CBS News - 380
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Feds: Russian arms suspect not beyond law's reach - Yahoo! News
Nov 17, 2010 ... Viktor Bout AP – This image provided by the Drug
Enforcement Administration shows Russian arms trafficking suspect
Viktor … ...
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101117/ap_on_re_us/us_arms_suspect - Cached
How the DEA Tracked Viktor Bout - Newsweek
Nov 20, 2010 ... Getting to Bout. Drug Enforcement Administration-AP.
Viktor Bout, center, arrives in New York to face terrorism
charges. ...
www.newsweek.com/2010/11/20/how-the-dea-tracked-viktor-bout.html
Get more results from the past 24 hours
Viktor Bout's Last Deal | Mother Jones
Mar 17, 2008 ... THE CHAIN OF EVENTS that brought Viktor Bout to
Bangkok that morning ... Bout was known to transport small amounts of
drugs between weapons ...
motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/viktor-bouts-last-deal - Cached
[BOT] Viktor Bout Extradited to the United States to Stand Trial ...
Nov 20, 2010 ... Bout arrived this evening on a Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) charter plane ... "Viktor Bout has been indicted
in the United States, ...
www.drugpolicycentral.com/bot/article/ttkn11756.htm
"7th October 1959 A Ba'athist assassination squad fails to kill
Qasim. A member of the team, twenty-two-year old Saddam Hussein,
escapes to Syria and then to Egypt...8th February 1963 A Ba'athist
coup overthrows Quasim amidst several days of terrible street
fighting...18th November 1963 Following bitter infighting
between...factions of the Baath, Arif overthrows the Ba'athist
regime..." Pages 312-313
"Saddam...inherited from his uncle an admiration for Nazi
principles...he was attracted to the ideas of the Ba'ath nationalist
movement. The movement had been established in Damascus in 1943"
(when Syria was a French colony and Hitler ruled France) "by two
Syrians, Greek Orthodox Christian Michel A'flaq and Sunni Muslim
Salah al-Bitar. Their philosophy was based on the ideology of German
national socialism" (Nazism) "and on Italian fascism." Page 199
"After the Ba'ath Party came to power in February 1963...Saddam was
promoted into the Regional Command Council and it was soon found
that this was his metier. He was put in charge of a special force
responsible for terror and assassination and was an interrogator and
torturer in the Qasr al-Nihayyat (`The Palace of the End').
Eyewitnesses say Saddam excelled in creating new methods and
revealed a sadistically inventive mind. He designed new instruments
of torture and then experimentd with them on his victims. ...By the
summer of 1963, Saddam was urging the party to put him in charge of
creating a special security apparatus modelled on the Nazi SS. This
was the Jihaz Haneen....following nationalisation of banks and
certain foreign companies in 1964, the Ba'ath Party instructed
Saddam to assassinate the president Abd al-Salam Arif. The proposed
assassination was designed to trigger off another Ba'ath coup.
Critics say it was a plan on behalf of the CIA but according to some
Ba'athist defectors the CIA did not have direct contact with the
Ba'ath itself but with army officers who were co-ordinating a joint
coup with the party. The main contact with the Americans was Iraq's
own ambassador in Washington, Dr. Nasser al-Hanni." Pages 201-203
"The second part of the plot was carried out by the Jihaz
Haneen...Members of the Iraqi Jewish community...were...arrested.
Eleven of them were among the first fourteen `spies' to be pubicly
hanged on 27th January 1969....The public hangings turned into a
national holiday with live television and radio coverage, and the
Ba'ath Party organized the transport of some hundred
thousand `workers and peasants' from outside Baghdad to join
in...Families picknicked under trees while watching the hangings.
This public orgy of death went on for twenty-four hours..." Page 206
Source: Unholy Babylon-The Secret History of Saddam's War by Adel
Darwish and Gregory Alexander St. Martin's Press, New York 1991
ISBN 0-312-06530-2
"Compare the January 1969 show trial with another spectacle
organized by the first Ba'thi regime in 1963 and designed to counter
the continuing popularity of the ousted president, `Abd al-Karim
Qassem, among certain sectors of the Shi'ite population of Baghdad.
In the first week of the coup, the citizens of al-Thawra, a suburb
of Baghdad, had fought the army and Ba'thist militia in some of the
bloodiest street battles in the history of the country. They refused
to believe that Qassem had been overthrown....The Ba'ath...dealt
with this emotive imagery by televising a lengthy film clip
displaying Qassem's bullet-ridden corpse. Night after night, they
made their gruesome point. The body was propped up on a chair in the
studio. A soldier saunters around, handling its parts. The camera
would cut to scenes of devastation at the Ministry of Defence where
Qassem had made his last stand. There, on location, it lingered on
the mutilated corpses of Qassem's entourage...Back to the studio,
and close-ups now of the entry and exit points of each bullet hole.
The whole macabre sequence closes with a scene that must forever
remain etched on the memory of all those who saw it: the soldier
grabbing the lolling head by the hair, came right up close, and spat
full face into it. The fear that the Ba'th were trying to instill in
this and other instances was brutally direct. The centuries-old
message was simple: he is dead, you had better believe it, we can do
the same to you. The fact that it was on television extended its
reach..." Pages 58-59.
Source: Republic of Fear The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq by Samir
al Khalil Pantheon Books, New York 1989 ISBN 0-679-73502-X
"An Afghani tends to a field of heroin poppies, the sale of which
provides much of the financing for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
Afghanistan is the world's No. 1 producer and distributor of heroin,
and illicit drug trafficking is the biggest funding source for
By Rachel Ehrenfeld / Special to The Detroit News About the author
Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the New York-based Center for the
Study of Corruption and the author of "Evil Money" (HarperBusiness)
and "Narco-Terrorism" (Basic Books).
Moving the money...
In the welter of events following the bombing of the World Trade
Center in Feb. 26, 1993, few noticed that the first man arrested,
Mohammed Salameh—the poor, unemployed illegal immigrant—
offered $5 million for bail. Where could he get this kind of money?
The judge refused bail. But was the source of Salameh's offer the
same as the one that funded the eight men—arrested shortly
afterward—who planned to blow up Manhattan's tunnels and bridges
and to assassinate public officials?
Were the same money sources behind the final attack on the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11?
... For a long time, there has been evidence that terrorist,
international drug trafficking and criminal organizations use the
same fund-raising methods to enrich themselves.
Yet no one seemed to connect the dots. And no one seriously tried to
crack down on their financing.
Bin Laden's is only one among many hostile international criminal
organizations, often state-sponsored, that will do whatever they can
to diminish the status of the United States as the only superpower.
According to a State Department report, the Taliban, who are at bin
Laden's service, has the advantage of controlling the world's
largest heroin production and distribution in the world.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the heroin production
soared to hundreds of tons each year. In 1999 alone, the world
production of heroin was estimated at 500 metric tons; 400 were
produced by the Taliban and available to fund bin Laden and his
associates worldwide. First warning
The writing was on the wall on July 5, 1991, when the Bank of
England shut down what was the most important Islamic bank in the
world, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). This
criminal entity was created by the Pakistani Aaga Hassan Abedi "to
fight the evil influence of the West"; to help with the creation of
the "Islamic Bomb"; to finance all Muslim terrorist organizations;
and to launder the money that was generated mostly by illicit drug
trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms
trafficking.
When BCCI went belly up, we learned from thousands of documents that
Abu Nidal—the notorious Palestinian terrorist organization that
now enjoys the hospitality of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah and bin Laden—had
accounts in the bank. By the end of the 1980s, the "special
services" provided by BCCI included access to Western humanitarian
and international development funds, as well as drug money
laundering, secret transfers of cash and bribes.
A "Black Network," a special enforcement unit supported by Abu Nidal
and other terrorist organizations, operated from Pakistan. The same
Pakistan that harbored bin Laden for many years while its officials
told the United States that they didn't know his whereabouts. And
the same Pakistan that for decades, even according to the State
Department's annual report, had been a major drug trafficking and
money laundering center.
Western blindness
Yet, now more importantly, we also discovered that the American and
British governments knew and kept the bank open for a long time. The
bank "that would bribe God" was able to get away with its criminal
activities for decades due to Abedi's clever portrayal of the Muslim
nations as victims of Western—and particularly U.S.—
"imperialism." And when the bank was shuttered, the accusation in
the Muslim/Arab and Third World countries was that the U.S. and the
United Kingdom governments closed the bank to curtail the growing
fiscal power of Muslim countries.
Like Abedi, anti-American, anti-Western terrorist and radical Muslim
states and organizations, such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas,
Hezbollah, the PLO, Iraq and Iran, use Western democratic rhetoric
to their advantage. But it is the willful blindness, mainly toward
the growing volume of drug money laundering, exercised by Western
bankers on the one hand and Western politicians on the other, that
makes money laundering possible, despite the many laws and
international conventions to control this phenomenon.
The BCCI was the first warning to the West. The second warning about
the abuse of European and American financial markets by terrorist
organizations, as well as their involvement in the illicit arms and
drug trade, was made in February 1994 by the British National
Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).
The Organized Crime Unit of the NCIS warned that Middle East
terrorist groups and states were targeting the financial centers of
London, Frankfurt and other Western countries, and that they favor
illegal drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud....
Clinton appeasement
Despite its stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists, the
Clinton administration went out of its way to appease a few of the
20th century's most notorious terror groups: the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the PLO and the Irish Republican Army.
All are heavily involved in the drug trade.
On the eve of the 1993 handshake on the White House lawn between
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat,
Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service estimated the PLO's
ill-gotten gains to total between $8 billion to $10 billion, with an
annual income of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion from "donations,
extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money
laundering, fraud, etc."
Since then, Washington has only aided and abetted the PLO. Since the
start of the Oslo process, Arafat has received at least $3 billion
more from the United States and the international community, without
any serious demand for accountability, according to a report this
year to Congress. Arafat, in well-documented instances, has been
systematically skimming off portions of these funds, as he has with
monies given to him on behalf of the refugees in the camps.
The PLO was in the drug trafficking business almost from the
beginning. Operating from Lebanon, under Habash's able leadership
and assisted by a PLO-owned shipping company SUMUD, the organization
exported hashish, opium, heroin and cocaine, first to Europe and
later even to the United States and Australia. In return, it
obtained weapons for their war against Israel and the West, and
amassed a massive treasure trove. In addition, the PLO and Arafat,
who enjoy the financial and strategic support of Hussein and bin
Laden, have the distinction of being the organization that
promoted "suicide bombers" as a weapon.
Yet the Clinton administration subsidized a multitude of radical
Palestinian groups, ranging from Arafat's Fatah branch of the PLO
and its military wing, the Tanzim, to the socialist-nationalist
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by
George Habash, all with close ties to bin Laden, Iraq and Iran.
...It was the Clinton White House that, despite evidence to the
contrary, removed Syria from its list of the drug trafficking
countries, to entice Syria to join the "peace process" in the Middle
East.
The failure of that process and the compromises the United States
has made to maintain an illusion of peaceful prospects had no doubt
added to the Muslim radical terrorists' resolve to attack what they
see as a naive and vulnerable America.
In another example of self-delusion, in 1999, then Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright suggested a U.S.-led coalition to negotiate
with the FARC and supported Colombia President Pastrana's "land for
peace" initiative, despite a report from the General Accounting
Office that the FARC is running a major international criminal
enterprise that, among other things, supplies hundreds of tons of
cocaine and heroin to the U.S. black market.
This second Clinton "land for peace" initiative gave half of
Colombia to the narco-terrorist FARC, while doing nothing to
diminish its violence or appetite to control the rest of the
country...."
Source: http://www.detnews.com/2001/editorial/0109/30/a17-306400.htm
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the Palestinian Authority
a "gang of corrupt assassins and terrorists." "There is an obstacle
[to peace] with the gang of corrupt assassins and terrorists that
lead the Palestinian Authority," Sharon said in a televised speech
in Israel. "The only way to peace is to remove this murderous
posse." – Source:
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Sharon raps Arafat `assassins' By KENNETH R. BAZINET DAILY NEWS
WASHINGTON BUREAU Thursday, August 8th, 2002
"Bush back from surprise Iraq trip
President Bush has arrived back in the United States after a
surprise trip to Baghdad, where he spent two hours with US troops
celebrating Thanksgiving Day.
Mr. Bush told troops the US would not be swayed by ongoing attacks
in Iraq.
"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a
bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate
25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and
assassins," he told 600 US soldiers.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3245584.stm
"President Bush and his wife, Laura, along with former president
George H. W.
Bush, welcome the King and Queen of Spain, Juan and Sofia Carlos, to
their ranch
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004, in Crawford, Texas.(AP Photo/Lawrence
Jackson)"
Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/041124/480/txlj10111241820
A small jet chartered to fly former President Bush to Ecuador
Monday,November
22nd, 2004 was well below normal altitude when it clipped a toll
road light
tower and crashed into a muddy field three miles south of Hobby
Airport, killing
the crew of three.The plane, which belonged to Jet Place Inc. of
Tulsa, Okla.,
came from Love Field in Dallas. It was approaching the runway when
the wing and
the landing gear on the right side clipped the pole on a tollway
road....."
"Weeks after the last pile of debris from EgyptAir Flight 990 was
pulled from the sea, investigators say they are more
convinced than ever of their original theory: The jet was crashed
deliberately."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair000121.html "The
co-pilot under scrutiny in the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 uttered
an Arabic prayer not once but as many as 10 times just
before the doomed airliner went down"
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair991121.html
"Aviation Analyst John Nance Talks About Flight 990 When a commercial
aircraft goes into a dive as steep and precipitous as the preliminary
radar data seems to indicate."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/chat_johnnance110199.html
"The White House is bordered on three sides by buildings that are as
tall or taller than itself. (OEOB, Treasury, and Blair House.) Beyond
these buildings there are still more buildings, that also are taller
than the White House. The only flight path that is relatively
unobstructed if making a controlled, straight-in approach, is from
the
south, over the ellipse. Even the Marine helicopter the president
uses comes in from this direction and lands on the South Lawn. The
problem with flying a plane the size of a 757 or 767 in from this
direction is that there's a 555 ft tall structure in the way called
the Washington Monument. The Capitol, although a bigger target, is
similarly situated. There are buildings on all sides except for the
west side, which faces the Mall. Again, for a controlled, straight-in
approach, a pilot first would need to avoid the Washington Monument,
and then fly straight down the Mall. There is more room to do this,
but again, it would take considerable skill. Moreover, the buildings
in Roslyn, just across the river from and to the west of the Mall,
would have to be cleared, which means the plane's altitude would
probably be too high, or the angle of descent too steep to permit a
successful attack by anyone other than a skilled, experienced pilot."
Imagine the rage and fury of Saddam Hussein
"On February 26th, 1982 the Reagan Administration told Congress that
it had dropped Iraq from the list of nations that supported acts of
international terrorism. Baghdad would now be eligible for American
government loan guarantees." source: SPIDER'S WEB: THE SECRET HISTORY
OF HOW THE WHITE HOUSE ILLEGALLY ARMED IRAQ by Alan Friedman ASIN:
0553096508
Imagine Saddam's rage and fury when Kuwait was liberated on February
26th, 1991, 9 years to the day after the event described above! Is it
any wonder that Saddam would launch the first of his 2 attacks on the
World Trade Center on February 26th, 1993, the 2nd anniversary of the
liberation of Kuwait City, and the 11th anniversary of the event
described above, and that he would launch his 2nd attack on the World
Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, the 11th anniversary of the
Bush
I speech to Congress on Iraq. Saddam loves 11th anniversaries, for
instance " Saddam Hussein's speech on the 11th Anniversary of the
Great Victory Day In the Name of God, Most Compassionate, Most
Merciful Great People, The Valiant of Our Brave Armed Forces, Sons of
our Glorious Arab Nation…"
http://www.index.com.jo/iraqtoday/auguste.html
Saddam took credit for the September 11th attacks on America on
Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television. Saddam sent his henchman Osama
bin Laden to attack America and to assassinate former President
Bush, who was at the White House on the morning of September 11th,
2001,just as he had tried to assassinate former President Bush in
Kuwait in 1993. That is why Flight 93 was selected to hit the White
House on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Fortunately the heroes
of Flight 93 stopped that from happening and the plane went down in
Pennsylvania.
Second Attempt to Assassinate President Bush.
We all know that Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate former
President
Bush in Kuwait in 1993. Laura Bush, wife of the current President
Bush,
along with the current President Bush's brothers, his parents, and
former Secretary of State Baker were actually in the air enroute to
Kuwait when the intelligence came in and their plane was turned back.
Then President Clinton later bombed an empty Iraqi intelligence
building
in retaliation for that attempt in which Saddam's homicide bombers
were
caught in Kuwait.
We believe that the Second Attempt to assassinate former President
George Herbert Walker Bush was made by Saddam Hussein using his
henchman Osama bin Laden on September 11th, 2001.
September 11th, 1990 Dubya's Dad Speaks to Congress on Iraq When
September 11th Yes ! September 11th 1990. Exactly 11 years to the
day before the infamous September 11th 2001 attacks on America.
Saddam's Revenge !!! How clear it is!!! "Address Before a Joint
Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal
Budget Deficit September 11, 1990.
We gather tonight, witness to events in the Persian Gulf as
significant as they are tragic. In the early morning hours of August
2d, following negotiations and promises by Iraq's dictator Saddam
Hussein not to use force, a powerful Iraqi army invaded its trusting
and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. *** The crisis in the Persian Gulf,
as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an
historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our
fifth
objective-a new world order-can emerge. ***" READ THE WHOLE OF
DUBYA'S
DADDY'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1990 AT
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ "Note: The President spoke at 9:09
p.m.in
the House Chamber at the Capitol.. The address was broadcast live on
nationwide television and radio." http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ Iraq
Cheers September 11th Attacks on America "Wednesday, September 12,
2001 Baghdad TV Commentary: US `Reaping Fruits of Crimes Against
Humanity' Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television in Arabic 1700 GMT 11
Sep 01 [TV Commentary by Sa'd Yasin Yusuf read by announcer over
footage of explosions in New York] [FBIS Translated Text] [With
thanks
to Laurie Mylorie - Iraq Watch] The American cowboy is reaping the
fruits of his crimes against humanity. It is a black day in the
history of America, which is tasting the bitter defeat of its crimes
and disregard for peoples' will to lead a free, decent life. The
massive explosions in the centers of power in America, notably the
Pentagon, is a painful slap in the face of US politicians to stop
their illegitimate hegemony and attempts to impose custodianship on
peoples. It was no coincidence that the World Trade Center was
destroyed in suicidal operations involving two planes that have
broken
through all US security barriers to carry the operation of the
century
and to express rejection of the reckless US policy. Panic has spread
among US official circles, which evacuated the White House following
a
series of explosions. They also evacuated the Pentagon, the State
Department, and Congress and closed down the airports and government
institutions. The collapse of US centers of power is a collapse of
the
US policy, which deviates from human values and stands by world
Zionism at all international forums to continue to slaughter the
Palestinian Arab people and implement US plans to dominate the world
under the cover of what is called the new [world] order. These are
the
fruits of the new US order. [Video of explosion rocking World Trade
Center] [Description of Source: Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television
in
Arabic-Official television station of the Iraqi Government]"
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3
"BLITZER: That's Osama bin Laden's group. Now you also have some
new information, David, about Mohamed Atta. He's the suspected
ringleader of the September 11th hijackings.
ENSOR: Well, that's right. As you know, he was one of the suicide
hijackers who died on September 11th on one of those aircraft. And we
had previously reported on September 19th that he met with an Iraqi
intelligence official somewhere in Europe. Well, I'm now able to tell
you, based on information from U.S. sources, he met not once but
twice
with Iraqi intelligence officers in Prague in the Czech Republic:
once
last year in June of 2000 and once in April of 2001."
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/10/lkl.00.html
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From: reallyveryradical <reallyveryradical@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:08 PM
Subject: MOSCOWS MERCHANTS OF DEATH
To: World_Politics <world_politics@googlegroups.com>
MOSCOWS MERCHANTS OF DEATH
Likely PA Prime Minister a Holocaust-Denier By
Rafael Medoff Jewishsf.com | February 26, 2003 While European
Union officials praised Yasser Arafat's decision to appoint his
first-ever prime minister, historians of the Holocaust winced at
the news that a leading candidate for the job is the author of a
book denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. The
candidate is Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Arafat's
second in command, and his book, published in Arabic in 1983,
translates as The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism
and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement. It was originally his
doctoral dissertation, completed at Moscow Oriental College. The
book repeatedly attempts to cast doubt on the fact that the Nazis
slaughtered 6 million Jews, according to a translation provided by
the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Following the war,
he writes, word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the
victims and that a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the
Jews...The truth is that no one can either confirm or deny this
figure. In other words, it is possible that the number of Jewish
victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible
that the figure is much smaller—below one million. Abbas
denies that the gas chambers were used to murder Jews, quoting
a scientific study to that effect by French Holocaust-denier
Robert Faurisson. Abbas' book then asserts: The historian and
author Raoul Hilberg thinks that the figure does not exceed
890,000. That is, of course, utterly false. Hilberg, a
distinguished historian and author of the classic study The
Destruction of the European Jews, has never said or written any
such thing. Abbas believes the 6 million figure is the product of a
Zionist conspiracy: It seems that the interest of the Zionist
movement...is to inflate this figure so that their gains will be
greater, he writes. This led them to emphasize this figure in
order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with
Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and
reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims
at only a few hundred thousand. Another falsehood. In fact, no
serious scholar proposes such a figure. After reducing the
magnitude of the Nazi slaughter so that it no longer seems to have
been a full-scale Holocaust, Abbas seeks to absolve the Nazis by
blaming the Zionist leadership for whatever killings did take
place. According to Abbas, A partnership was established between
Hitler's Nazis and the leadership of the Zionist movement...[the
Zionists gave] permission to every racist in the world, led by
Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wish, so long as it
guarantees immigration to Palestine. In addition to encouraging
the persecution of Jews so they would immigrate to the Holy Land,
the Zionist leaders actually wanted Jews to be murdered, because --
in Abbas' words—having more victims meant greater rights and
stronger privilege to join the negotiation table for dividing the
spoils of war once it was over. However, since Zionism was not a
fighting partner—suffering victims in a battle—it had no
escape but to offer up human beings, under any name, to raise the
number of victims, which they could then boast of at the moment of
accounting. Perhaps sentiments of this sort were common within
Abbas' circle of graduate students in the Soviet Union in the
1970s. But in the free world, such propaganda has never been
accepted as serious scholarship. In most Western countries,
Holocaust-deniers have been treated as pariahs. In Canada and many
European countries, Holocaust-denial is a criminal offense. In New
Zealand, Canterbury University recently issued an apology for
having accepting a master's thesis denying the Holocaust, while the
French minister of education revoked a doctoral degree that was
awarded to a Holocaust- denier by the University of Nantes. A
Polish university professor who denied the Holocaust was suspended
from his position. The Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju shut down
one of its magazines for printing an article denying the Holocaust.
International pressure compelled Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
to publicly retract statements in his book doubting that the
Holocaust had taken place. Austrian Freedom Party leader Jorg
Haider was ostracized by the international community for his
remarks praising members of the SS, as was French politician Jean
Marie Le Pen, for questioning the existence of the gas chambers
and belittling the significance of the Holocaust. A recent poll
found 64 percent of Americans believe world leaders should
likewise refuse to meet with Abbas. Yet some in the media have
treated Abbas with kid gloves, to say the least. The official BCC
News Profile of Abbas reports: A highly intellectual man, Abbas
studied law in Egypt before doing a Ph.D. in Moscow. He is the
author of several books. The New York Times recently characterized
Abbas as a lawyer and historian...He holds a doctorate in history
from the Moscow Oriental College; his topic was Zionism. Neither
the BBC nor the Times offered any further explanation as to the
contents of Abbas' writings. Bestowing the title historian upon
Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a stature they do not deserve,
and deals a grievous insult to every genuine historian. If Abbas
is elevated to the post of prime minister of the Palestinian
Authority, not only the media but the entire international
community will be confronted with the question of whether Abbas
deserves to be treated any differently from Tudjman, Haider and Le
Pen. The writer is visiting scholar in the Jewish studies program
at the State University of New York-Purchase College. His latest
book is A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America and the
Holocaust, co-written with David S. Wyman. Source:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6340
(note we regularly change misnomers such as Palestinian to so-
called palestinian, etc. in articles we quote.) Abbas wins
backing of so-called palestinian gunmen with pledge to stand
by 'fighting brothers' By Eric Silver in Jerusalem 03 January
2005 so-called palestinian gunmen yesterday threw their support
exuberantly behind Mahmoud Abbas, the favourite to succeed the late
Yasser Arafat in next Sunday's presidential election. Mahmoud
Mashabat, a local militia commander, embraced Mr Abbas and kissed
him at a campaign rally in the central Gaza town of Deir el-Balah
after the Fatah frontrunner promised never to abandon the fighters
Israel is still hunting as terrorists. Dozens of gunmen greeted
his pledge with shots in the air. Others welcomed him equally
warmly on Saturday in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, a
scene of frequent battles with Israeli troops. He has also won the
endorsement of Zakaria Zubeidi, a high-profile warlord in the West
Bank city of Jenin. Although Mr Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen,
has said repeatedly that resorting to arms four years ago was a
mistake for which the so-called palestinian people have paid
dearly, he told thousands of supporters in a Deir el-Balah sports
stadium: We say to our fighting brothers that are wanted by
Israel, we will not rest until you can enjoy a life of security,
peace and dignity, so you can live in your country with total
freedom. Mr Abbas, 69, a grey, backroom revolutionary running in
his first election, is striving in campaign meetings throughout
the West Bank and Gaza to raise his profile. Again yesterday, he
vowed to follow in Mr Arafat's footsteps, though his rhetoric
eschews the bombast of the dead leader's million martyrs marching
on Jerusalem. He would not rest, Mr Abbas said, until an
independent so-called palestinian state was established, Israeli
settlements were dismantled and so-called palestinian refugees
receive their rights. The principles of Yasser Arafat, and his
sayings, are his will, and it is our duty to implement it.
Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?
story=597384 Please click on the following url :
http://www.jewishpress.com/images/050404l.gif to see the photo of
Tali Hatuel,pregnant with her 5th child, and her 4 daughters, all
murdered by arafat's GENOCIDAL terrorists . All were shot dead at
pointblank range.
Arafat's actual name was Abd
al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to
obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and ex-Mufti of
Jerusalem,
Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini. Source: Howard M. Sachar, A HISTORY
OF
ISRAEL (New York: Knopf, 1976). BIOGRAPHY 1929, August 24 (?): Born
in Cairo, Egypt. Place of birth is not certain, other sources state
Jerusalem or Gaza. During his childhood Arafat lived in both Cairo
and
Jerusalem. 1947: Arafat fought on the side of the grand mufti of
Jerusalem. Source: Encyclopaedia of the Orient. He uses that alias
because of its significance to Islamic Fundamentalists Arafat a
plain
north of Mecca. It is on this plain that humanity will be raised on
the Day of Judgement for questioning and judgement. During the Hajj
on
the ninth day of the month of Zhu-l-Hijjah, Muslim pilgrims gather on
this plain for one day. SOURCE:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/glossary/term.ARAFAT.html
(When Saddam) Hussein (was) slightly wounded (In 1959 Saddam and a
group of Baathist supporters attempted to assassinate General Qassim
in Iraq by a day-light machine-gun attack.), he fled to Syria. From
Syria, he went to Cairo, Egypt where he would spend the next 4 years.
In 1951, a close relative of the Mufti named Rahman Abdul Rauf
el-Qudwa el-Husseini matriculated to the University of Cairo. The
student decided to conceal his true identity and enlisted as Yasser
Arafat.
Who is the Merchant of Death
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/17/new.york.bout.profile/
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 17, 2010
Alleged international arms dealer Viktor Bout arrives late Tuesday in
New York after being extradited from Thailand.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Alleged international arms dealer Viktor Bout described as a somber
man
Bout is accused of supplying weapons to war zones around the world
Attorney General Eric Holder: "His extradition is a victory for the
rule of law worldwide"
In a 2002 interview, Bout denied the allegations against him
Read more as the accused arms dealer is set make a court appearance
Wednesday in New York.
(CNN) -- He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War"
-- an alleged international arms dealer straight out of a cloak-and-
dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and inspired
Hollywood villains.
But in reality, according to those who have seen or met Viktor Bout,
he is a somber man, sometimes nattily dressed, a wheeler-dealer who
has insisted he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him.
Bout, a Russian citizen and former military officer, speaks six
languages "and I could see him bargaining in all six at the same
time," wrote CNN's Jill Dougherty in 2008, recalling her meeting with
Bout in 2002 in Moscow, Russia.
Bout arrived in New York late Tuesday after being extradited from
Thailand. He faces charges in the United States of conspiring to kill
U.S. nationals, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees,
conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile and conspiring
to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign
terrorist organization. American law enforcement officers have spent
years pursuing him, and the extradition process from Thailand was an
arduous one for them.
"Viktor Bout has been indicted in the United States, but his alleged
arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts in Africa has
been a cause of concern around the world," Attorney General Eric
Holder said Tuesday.
Thai court rules on Bout extradition
RELATED TOPICS
Viktor Bout
Extradition
Thailand
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
Military Weapons
"His extradition is a victory for the rule of law worldwide. Long
considered one of the world's most prolific arms traffickers, Mr. Bout
will now appear in federal court in Manhattan to answer to charges of
conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to a terrorist
organization for use in trying to kill Americans."
When Thai authorities arrested Bout in 2008, he was paraded in front
of the press in Bangkok, said CNN's Dan Rivers at the time. Rivers
said Bout showed no evidence of his swagger and was merely a man in an
orange polo shirt. "He was pretty grim-faced," Rivers said.
Bout is accused of supplying weapons to war zones around the world,
from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan. Before his 2008 arrest, U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents led a sting operation by posing as
members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC,
officials said.
But in 2002, when he met with Dougherty, Bout was interested in
setting the record straight. He traveled with a bodyguard and a female
aide, Dougherty said, and was "dressed in a well-cut dark jacket with
gold buttons, gray trousers, white shirt and basket-weave-patterned
silk tie." He also sported a wool topcoat.
"His English was quite good," Dougherty recalled. "He seemed
intelligent, canny, serious but nervous."
She said he was "tall, heavyset, a bit rough around the edges, but he
acted like a man who has been wronged."
She asked him about allegations against him -- did he sell arms to the
Taliban? To al Qaeda? Did he supply rebels in Africa and get paid in
blood diamonds? -- and he denied each one.
"It's a false allegation and it's a lie," he said. "I've never touched
diamonds in my life, and I'm not a diamond guy and I don't want that
business."
"I'm not afraid," he told Dougherty. "I didn't do anything in my life
I should be afraid of. And all this looks to me like a witch hunt.
Look, I'm coming to your office, I have no problem. And I said, 'Hey,
who's looking for me?' I'm here. I'm not hiding from nobody. And I
don't want this story going on."
Dougherty asked him if he had ever met Osama bin Laden, and he said
no, adding that if he had, he might have helped prevent the September
11, 2001, attacks.
"Overall Bout impressed me as the type of Russian businessman I know
well," Dougherty wrote. "Born to do deals, ready to sell anything to
make a buck."
Meanwhile, Bout himself -- who reportedly has used names including
"Victor Anatoliyevich Bout," "Victor But," "Viktor Butt," "Viktor
Bulakin" and "Vadim Markovich Aminov" -- is thought to have been the
inspiration for the arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in
the 2005 movie "Lord of War."
"Someone will undoubtedly write a book about this case some day, and I
can tell you that it will read like the very best work of Tom Clancy,
only in this case it won't be fiction," Michael Braun, then assistant
administrator and chief of operations for the DEA, told CNN in 2008.
Russian arms suspect to appear in NYC court
(AP) – NOVEMBER 17TH, 2010 C.E.
NEW YORK (AP) — A Russian labeled the "Merchant of Death" by those who
claim he fueled some of the world's deadly Third World conflicts over
the last decade with powerful weapons has arrived in the United
States. He faces charges he supported terrorists trying to overthrow
the government of Colombia and shared their hatred for Americans.
Viktor Bout arrived late Tuesday at Westchester County Airport, in
White Plains, N.Y., before he was brought to the Metropolitan
Correctional Center in Manhattan to await an initial court appearance
expected Wednesday afternoon. A news conference with federal
prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration was
to occur in late morning.
Bout, 43, a former Soviet military officer and air cargo executive,
was flown from Bangkok, Thailand, to suburban New York on a chartered
U.S. plane just four days before an extradition order would have
expired, permitting him to be freed and returned home to his native
Moscow.
Instead, he was taken in manacles and a bulletproof vest as Russian
diplomats made a final outraged push to persuade Thailand to release
him, according to current and former U.S. officials.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Bout was considered "one of the
world's most prolific arms traffickers."
"Viktor Bout has been indicted in the United States, but his alleged
arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts in Africa has
been a cause of concern around the world," Holder said in a statement.
"His extradition is a victory for the rule of law worldwide."
For several months, U.S. and Russian officials had battled for control
of Bout, flexing muscles in a manner that seemed to threaten
cooperation on arms control, nuclear weapons curbs and the war in
Afghanistan.
In one high-profile meeting in Hanoi last month, a former U.S.
officials said, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Russia's cooperation on
anti-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan might be curtailed unless Bout
was freed.
Lavrov said in remarks broadcast on Russian television Tuesday that
the Thai government's decision was "an example of glaring injustice."
President Barack Obama's administration insisted its efforts to
rebuild relations with Moscow could weather any turbulence caused by
Bout's extradition. Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley
acknowledged possible "ripples" in relations with Moscow but added
that any concerns could be managed.
That confidence could be tested as early as Saturday, when Obama and
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev attend a Russia-NATO meeting in
Lisbon, Portugal.
An indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan labels Bout an
international weapons trafficker who assembled a fleet of cargo planes
to transport weapons and military equipment to various failed states
and to insurgents in Third World countries in Africa, South America
and the Middle East from the 1990s until his arrest in Bangkok in
March 2008.
Estimated to be worth $6 billion, Bout had remained in a Thai jail as
his supporters fought to prevent him from landing in U.S. custody.
Bout insists he's a legitimate businessman.
In Moscow, Bout's lawyer and brother voiced alarm that American
officials would pressure him into incriminating himself or others. The
attorney, Viktor Burobin, said the U.S. had already offered Bout
better treatment in custody in exchange for his cooperation. And
Sergei Bout, a key figure in his brother's global air cargo empire,
warned that the U.S. would "make some kind of injections to get
whatever they want out of him."
After Bout was hustled from a Thai prison to a waiting jet early
Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry branded the extradition
"unlawful," prompted by "unprecedented political pressure from the
USA."
Several U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied Bout,
who wore a bulletproof vest over a blue track suit. His wife, Alla
Bout, had rushed to the prison with his Thai lawyer but was unable to
see him before his departure.
The United Nations has accused Bout of being responsible since at
least 2000 for playing a critical role in arming a number of
international conflicts in areas where the weapons trade has been
embargoed by the United Nations.
In March 2004, the U.N. Security Council Committee imposed travel
restrictions on Bout, saying he supported efforts to destabilize
Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds. Three months later,
the committee also acted to freeze his assets.
Bout has been accused of supplying weapons that fueled civil wars in
South America, the Middle East and Africa, with clients ranging from
Liberia's Charles Taylor and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to the
Taliban government that once ran Afghanistan. He was an inspiration
for an arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film
"Lord of War."
His arrest came at a Bangkok luxury hotel after a DEA sting operation
using informants who posed as officials of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, also known as the FARC, classified by Washington
as a narco-terrorist group.
Bout was charged with conspiracy, accused of agreeing to smuggle
missiles and rocket launchers to the FARC, and conspiring to kill U.S.
officers or employees. If convicted, he could face a maximum penalty
of life in prison and a mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison.
Successful U.S. prosecution could set a precedent for bringing other
international crime kingpin suspects to trial, showing "that we would
not tolerate international scofflaws," said Juan C. Zarate, a former
top Bush administration national security adviser who is now a senior
fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Law enforcement experts say his prosecution would be built around the
federal agents' extensive use of informants and judicially approved
international wiretaps — as well as Bout's own history as a
transporter of arms and other cargos.
"It's going to be damning, especially the wiretaps," said Michael A.
Braun, a former top DEA official and now managing partner of the
Spectre Group International security firm. "The guy is not going to be
able to say he didn't say these things because it's all down on tape."
According to court papers, the wiretaps capture Bout saying that the
FARC's fight against America was also his fight and that he would
supply the group with 700 to 800 surface-to-air missiles, 5,000 AK-47
firearms, unmanned aerial vehicles and ultralight airplanes which
could be outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles.
The papers said he told two confidential sources working with the DEA
that he would sell them weapons to be used to attack U.S. helicopters
in Colombia.
The case is similar to one built to bring down a notorious Syrian-born
arms dealer — Monzer al-Kassar. Convicted in New York in 2007, al-
Kassar was recorded telling undercover DEA agents that he thought were
FARC representatives that he shared their hatred of the United States.
Al-Kassar was sentenced in February 2009 to 30 years in prison at the
age of 63.
Steve Braun reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Grant
Peck and Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok, Vladimir Isachenkov and Yelena
Yegorova in Moscow and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this
report.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hF6VvUlnOvBscImOqj4VcnkckAwQ?docId=39ead780832d4ef4a51b71e771feaeea
At the height of his power, Marat Balagula was a kingpin in a
Brighton Beach Russian mob who traveled with a Paraguayan passport,
traded in diamonds, bought an island off West Africa, owned a Long
Island mansion decorated in pink marble and had a knack for making
his enemies disappear. Marat Balagula was a member and alleged
leader of an organization of criminals made up of Russian and other
Eastern European immigrants based in Brooklyn , New York .
During the mid-1980's Balagula controlled 100% of the bootleg
gasoline which was distributed in New York City . Controlling
terminals from Brooklyn to Westchester County in New York , his ring
sold gasoline among various companies including bogus firms that
reported having paid the excise taxes and then vanished before the
Internal Revenue Service could follow the complicated and cumbersome
paper trails.
In June 1993, he and seven individuals were indicted in the largest
excise tax evasion scheme in United States history. Balagula along
with Joseph Macchia; Macchia's three sons, Joseph, Jr., Larry, and
George; Victor Batuner; Michael Varzar; and John Barberio were
charged in a conspiracy to evade approximately $85 million dollars
in federal excise taxes.
In the fall of 1994 Balagula and his co-defendants plead guilty and
are currently awaiting sentence.
This was not the first case to be brought against Balagula for
excise tax evasion. In July 1992 Balagula, along with three other
individuals, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to evade
approximately $500,000 in federal excise taxes and one count of
excise tax evasion. For this conviction, Balagula received a 10-year
sentence.
Fuel Tax Evasion Highlights, March 1995
Volume 4, Number 1 March 1995
IN THE NEWS
Lawrence Iorizzo, key figure in the NY bootleg gasoline market in
the 1980's who turned government informant and was subsequently
booted out of the witness protection program and is now wanted by
Texas officials, is interviewed. The New Yorker, Talk of the Town,
11/14/94
Marat Balagula pled guilty to conspiring to evade $85 million in
federal gasoline taxes on nearly one billion gallons of fuel sold in
the NY area between 1983-88. The surprise plea came Oct. 18, a month
before he and 7 others were to begin trial. Balagula is already
serving a 10-year sentence for similar bootlegging. On Oct. 27,
Joseph A. Macchia and his sons Lawrence, George and Joseph L. pled
guilty to their role in the scheme. On Nov. 4, John Barberio was the
last to plead guilty. Michael Varzar had pled guilty earlier. An
eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a fugitive. Newsday, 10/24/94,
11/2/94; Dept. of Justice Press Release, 11/4/94
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hl95mar.htm
Fuel Tax Evasion Highlights, March 1995
Volume 4, Number 1 March 1995
IN THE NEWS
Lawrence Iorizzo, key figure in the NY bootleg gasoline market in
the 1980's who turned government informant and was subsequently
booted out of the witness protection program and is now wanted by
Texas officials, is interviewed. The New Yorker, Talk of the Town,
11/14/94
Marat Balagula pled guilty to conspiring to evade $85 million in
federal gasoline taxes on nearly one billion gallons of fuel sold in
the NY area between 1983-88. The surprise plea came Oct. 18, a month
before he and 7 others were to begin trial. Balagula is already
serving a 10-year sentence for similar bootlegging. On Oct. 27,
Joseph A. Macchia and his sons Lawrence, George and Joseph L. pled
guilty to their role in the scheme. On Nov. 4, John Barberio was the
last to plead guilty. Michael Varzar had pled guilty earlier. An
eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a fugitive. Newsday, 10/24/94,
11/2/94; Dept. of Justice Press Release, 11/4/94
Eugene Slusker pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus , Ohio
to a diesel conspiracy that resulted in a federal tax loss of over
$88,000 and a loss of over $117,000 to Ohio during 6 months in 1990.
Slusker, using the alias Semyan Altman and doing business as
Accurate Tank Testing, Inc., used a false Form 637 to purchase over
587,00 gallons of untaxed diesel fuel which was then sold to
numerous truck stops throughout Ohio, tax included. Co-defendant,
Roman Kalika pleaded not guilty to federal tax evasion charges. The
IRS Criminal Investigation Div. and the Ohio Dept. of Taxation
investigated the case. Justice Dept. Press Release 9/30/94; Dayton
Daily News 10/3/94; Columbus Dispatch, 12/24/94
The worldwide activities of Russian organized crime and its ability
to bilk companies, governments and individuals out of billions of
dollars through sophisticated fraud and theft schemes is described
in two recent articles. Wall Street Journal, 12/22/94; Atlantic
Monthly, 6/94
The Wisconsin Dept. of Justice has charged Patrick S. Gedig and Paul
C. Kramer with misappropriating nearly $1 million in motor fuel
taxes during 1990. At the time, Gedig was president of United
Petroleum, Milwaukee , and Kramer ran Ohio Fuel and Supply, Big
Bend . Wisconsin State Journal, 11/1/94
The work of Charles Hurchalla in helping to expose a massive fuel
tax scam masterminded by the Russian mob and involving the La Cosa
Nostra is described in a recent article. Philadelphia Magazine,
10/94
Court documents filed by federal authorities in NJ name John Gotti
as an unindicted co-conspirator in organized crime efforts to
dominate the bootleg motor fuel industry in the NY metropolitan
area. The disclosure came on the eve of the trial of Anthony (Fat
Tony) Morelli, allegedly a capo in the Gambino crime family, and
Gregory Federico, owner of Capitol Fuel Service of Cranford and Igor
(Little Igor) Roizman, a Russian emigre. To date, 20 persons have
been prosecuted on charges growing out of the Operation Red Daisy
investigation conducted jointly by the FBI, IRS, DOT Office of
Inspector General, NJ Div. of Taxation and PA Dept. of Revenue.
Newark Star Ledger, 12/5 and 12/16/94
United States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway
Administration
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE TAX
NOVEMBER 4, 1994 (202)
616-2765
TDD (202)
514-1888
NEW YORK MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN TAX CASE
WASHINGTON , D.C. - A former wholesale gasoline sales
manager
from New Rochelle , New York , pleaded guilty in U. S. District
Court
in Hauppauge , New York , for his role in a conspiracy to evade
more
than $85 million in federal gasoline excise taxes, the Department
of Justice announced today.
John Barberio, 68, the former manager for New York Fuel
Terminal Corp., was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty to
the tax evasion scheme. An eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a
fugitive.
Barberio's plea follows the October 27, 1994, guilty pleas of
former terminal operators Joseph A. Macchia, Lattingtown , N.Y. ,
and
his three sons, Lawrence, George and Joseph L., for their role in
the tax fraud scheme from 1983 through 1988. Joseph A. Macchia and
two of his sons, Lawrence and George, also pleaded guilty to two
counts of excise tax evasion. Michael Varzar pleaded guilty on May
24 of this year for his role in the conspiracy and to two counts of
gasoline excise tax evasion. New York Fuel Terminal Corp. was
registered with the Internal Revenue Service and was
required to pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an
unregistered company. The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold
almost 1 billion gallons of gasoline to unregistered companies
without paying the tax they owed.
On October 13, Marat Balagula, pleaded guilty to five counts
of the indictment charging him with conspiracy and excise tax
evasion. Balagula, who controlled many of the unregistered
companies to which New York Fuel sold gasoline, is currently
serving a 10-year sentence following his 1992 prosecution by the
Tax Division for his involvement in a separate gasoline excise tax
evasion scheme for which Barberio also was convicted. Barberio was
sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
Evidence presented at Balagula's 1992 sentencing in the
earlier case implicated him as a member of a Russian organized
crime group headed by Evsei Agron. According to testimony at the
hearing, on the day following Agron's gangland-style murder,
Balagula moved into Agron's office and took over operation of the
organization. The sentencing court ruled that the probation
department properly concluded that Balagula "was a member of an
organization of criminals made up of Russians and other Eastern
European immigrants based in Brooklyn ."
All of the defendants will be sentenced by Judge Leonard D.
Wexler at a later date. Each faces a maximum of five years in
prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.
Assistant Attorney General Loretta Argrett of the Tax Division
said, "The Tax Division has a strong commitment to prosecute the
criminal elements who would deprive the nation's treasury of
millions of dollars in tax revenue. This is only another step in
our ongoing efforts to eliminate motor fuels tax fraud and to
prosecute those criminals, organized or otherwise, who would
defraud the United States ."
###
94-644
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/November94/644a.txt.html
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
THIS SUMMARY ORDER WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REPORTER AND
MAY NOT BE CITED AS PRECEDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO THIS OR ANY OTHER
COURT, BUT MAY BE CALLED TO THE ATTENTION OF THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT
IN A SUBSEQUENT STAGE OF THIS CASE, IN A RELATED CASE, OR IN ANY
CASE FOR PURPOSES OF COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL OR RES JUDICATA.
At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit, held at the United States Courthouse, Foley Square,
in the City and County of New York, on the 13th day of September,
one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six.
PRESENT: HONORABLE JOSEPH M. McLAUGHLIN,
HONORABLE DENNIS G. JACOBS,
Circuit Judges ,
HONORABLE ROBERT J. KELLEHER, [*]
District Judge .
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee ,
- v. - No. 96-1018
JOSEPH MACCHIA, SR.; LAWRENCE
MACCHIA; GEORGE MACCHIA; VIKTOR
BATUNER; MICHAEL VARZAR; JOHN
BARBERIO; JOSEPH L. MACCHIA, also
known as Joseph Macchia, also known as Joey,
Defendants ,
MARAT BALAGULA,
Defendant-Appellant .
FOR APPELLANT: John L. Pollok, Hoffman & Pollok , New York , NY.
FOR APPELLEE: Robert E. Lindsay, Attorney, Tax Division, Department
of Justice, Washington , DC .
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of New York (Wexler, J. ).
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of record from the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
and was argued.
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, it is hereby ordered, adjudged, and
decreed that the judgment of the district court be and it hereby is
AFFIRMED.
Marat Balagula was a primary player in various conspiracies to evade
federal gasoline excise taxes. Balagula and others purchased or set
up phony "middleman" companies to buy gasoline from one entity and
sell it to another. Under the prevailing tax code -- which assessed
gasoline excise taxes against certain selling companies -- the
middleman company would become liable for an excise tax on the
gasoline sold. Balagula and his cohorts would then cause the phony
company to collapse, leaving the excise tax unpaid. Thus, the
gasoline passed from the original seller to the eventual buyer
without obligating either of those companies to pay the excise
taxes.
The government charged Balagula (under the "Tarricone Indictment")
with one count of conspiring to evade the federal gasoline excise
tax, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 3623, and two counts of
attempted excise tax evasion, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201 and
18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 3623. This conspiracy existed from late 1985 to
early 1986 in the greater New York metropolitan area (including New
Jersey ), and evaded over $400,000 in taxes. After a jury trial in
the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New
York (Wexler, J. ), he was convicted on all three counts. The court
sentenced Balagula to a total of ten years' imprisonment, which he
is presently serving. We affirmed Balagula's conviction and sentence
on appeal. See United States v. Tarricone , 996 F.2d 1414 (2d Cir.
1993).
The government subsequently charged Balagula (under the "Macchia
Indictment") with one count of conspiring to evade the federal
gasoline excise tax, and four counts of attempted excise tax
evasion. This broader conspiracy existed from early 1983 to the
middle of 1988, also in the greater New York metropolitan area.
Through this larger scheme, Balagula and others evaded more than
$85,000,000 in taxes. Balagula moved to dismiss the charges, again
in the Eastern District of New York (Wexler, J. ), arguing that the
conspiracy charged in the Macchia Indictment was, for the purposes
of double jeopardy, the same conspiracy as charged in the Tarricone
Indictment. The district court denied Balagula's motion, see United
States v. Macchia , 845 F. Supp. 953 (E.D.N.Y. 1994), and we
affirmed, see United States v. Macchia , 35 F.3d 662 (2d Cir. 1994).
Balagula then pled guilty to all five counts of the Macchia
Indictment. The district court, using the 1987 version of the
Sentencing Guidelines, [1] set Balagula's base offense level at
eighteen. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2T1.1, 2T4.1. The court increased this by
two levels for sophisticated means, see U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(b)(2), two
levels for conduct intended to encourage others to impede the
Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"), see U.S.S.G. § 2T1.9(b)(2), and
four levels for being an organizer or leader of the criminal
activities, see U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). The court reduced the offense
level by two for acceptance of responsibility, see U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1,
netting a total offense level of twenty-four.
Finding that Balagula's criminal history category ("CHC") of II did
not adequately reflect the seriousness of his past criminal conduct
or propensity for future crime, the district court departed upward
to CHC IV. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3. The court then sentenced Balagula
to a total of seventy-seven months' imprisonment, a $250,000 fine,
and three years' supervised release. The court ordered this sentence
to run consecutively to Balagula's unexpired ten-year sentence from
his prior conviction. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3.
Balagula now appeals, arguing that the district court erred in: (1)
ordering his sentence to run consecutive to, rather than concurrent
with, his ongoing ten-year term; (2) departing upward in his CHC
because of his past criminal conduct and potential for future crime;
(3) enhancing his offense level for encouraging others to impede the
IRS; and (4) imposing so severe a fine. Balagula also asks us to
remand his case to a different judge for resentencing.
We review the district court's findings of fact only for clear
error, and its application of the Guidelines to those facts for
abuse of discretion. See United States v. Santiago , 906 F.2d 867,
871 (2d Cir. 1990).
1. Consecutive Sentences . Balagula first argues that the district
court erroneously ordered his sentence to run consecutive to, rather
than concurrent with, his ongoing ten-year term (from his conviction
on the Tarricone Indictment). We disagree.
Section 5G1.3 provides:
If at the time of sentencing, the defendant is already serving one
or more unexpired sentences, then the sentence for the instant
offense(s) shall run consecutively to such unexpired sentences,
unless one or more of the instant offense(s) arose out of the same
transactions or occurrences as the unexpired sentences. In the
latter case, such instant sentences and the unexpired sentences
shall run concurrently, except to the extent otherwise required by
law.
U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 (emphasis added). "The same transactions or
occurrences" means the same "discrete acts or events," and not
simply an "ongoing operation or course of conduct." United States v.
Vega , 11 F.3d 309, 313-15 (2d Cir. 1993).
Our holding that the conspiracies charged in the Tarricone and
Macchia Indictments were not the "same conspiracies" for double
jeopardy purposes is, of course, not necessarily determinative in a
5G1.3 inquiry. We found in that case, however, that the Tarricone
and Macchia conspiracies were "quite different," Macchia , 35 F.3d
at 670, involving different actors playing different roles; using
different facilities and companies; and employing a different modus
operandi . We also noted that the two conspiracies, as charged,
contained no common overt acts. Id. at 671. Therefore, the district
court did not err in concluding that the Tarricone and Macchia
offenses did not arise out of the same transactions or occurrences --
that is, the same discrete acts or events -- and did not err in
imposing consecutive sentences. See Vega , 11 F.3d at 315.
Balagula also argues that the Commentary to § 5G1.3, which provides
that "departure would be warranted when independent prosecutions
produce anomalous results that circumvent or defeat the intent of
the guidelines," see U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 comment., commands a downward
departure in his case. But the Guidelines' language makes clear that
departure is discretionary, see United States v. Rogers , 897 F.2d
134 (4th Cir. 1990), and a district court's discretionary refusal to
depart downward is not reviewable on appeal, see United States v.
Chabot , 70 F.3d 259, 260 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam).
2. Upward Departure . Balagula argues that the district court based
its upward departure on improper grounds, did not give Balagula
proper notice to contest the departure, and did not sufficiently
articulate its reasons for departing. We reject all of these
contentions.
The guidelines clearly provide for an upward departure when the
district court believes that a defendant's CHC "significantly
underrepresents the seriousness of the defendant's criminal history
or the likelihood that the defendant will commit further crimes."
U.S.S.G § 4A1.3. And, Balagula obviously had notice that such a
departure was possible: he expressly argued against such departure
both in his sentencing letter to the district court, and at the
sentencing hearing.
Although the district court did not explain why a departure to CHC
III (instead of IV) would be insufficient, see United States v.
Deutsch , 987 F.2d 878, 886-88 (2d Cir. 1993), "so long as the
reasons supporting the departure are fully explained, a mechanistic
step-by-step procedure is not required," United States v. Kassar ,
47 F.3d 562, 566 (2d Cir. 1995). The court's recitation of
Balagula's criminal past, and apparent propensity to commit future
crimes, was a sufficient articulation of the reasons supporting
departure, and satisfies the requirement that the departure be
explained. See id. at 566-67; United States v. Adler , 52 F.3d 20,
22 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam).
3. Enhancement for Encouraging Others . Balagula next argues that
the district court improperly increased his offense level by two for
conduct intended to encourage others to impede the IRS. See U.S.S.G.
§ 2T1.9(b)(2). According to Balagula, this encouragement enhancement
does not apply except to tax protest groups and promoters of
fraudulent tax shelters. Balagula is wrong.
It is true that an application note to the 1994 version of § 2T1.9
lists tax protest groups and fraudulent tax shelters as examples of
situations deserving application of the encouragement enhancement.
But, as "examples," these listed schemes are clearly meant to be
illustrative, not exclusive. See United States v. Rosario , 7 F.3d
319, 320-21 (2d Cir. 1993) (per curiam). Here, the undisputed facts
show that Balagula intended to encourage others to prepare false
invoices such that Balagula and his co-conspirators could evade
millions of dollars in gasoline excise taxes. Indeed, when asked at
his plea hearing whether he had encouraged others to prepare false
documents to facilitate his tax evasion, Balagula stated that he
had. The district court did not clearly err in concluding that
Balagula encouraged others to impede the IRS, nor abuse its
discretion in imposing the two-level encouragement enhancement on
these facts.
4. Fine . Finally, Balagula argues that the district court's
imposition of a $250,000 fine constituted "a sua sponte upward
departure" from the Guidelines. Again, Balagula is wrong.
The imposition of a $250,000 fine was not a departure from the
Guidelines at all; rather, it was expressly provided for in U.S.S.G.
§ 5E4.2. That section provides for a maximum fine which is the
greater of the maximum set forth in the fine table ($100,000), or
twice the estimated loss caused by the defendant, or three times the
estimated gain to the defendant. See U.S.S.G. 5E4.2(c)(2). Section
5E4.2(b) sets an absolute maximum fines for felonies at $250,000.
See U.S.S.G. § 5E4.2(b). Balagula pled guilty to criminal activity
resulting in an $85,000,000 loss to the IRS. Thus, the maximum fine
could be as much as $170,000,000, but not more than $250,000. A
$250,000 fine was therefore proper.
Because we affirm Balagula's sentence, we need not reach his request
that this case be remanded to a different judge for resentencing. We
have considered all of the additional arguments raised by Balagula,
and find them to be without merit.
Accordingly, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.
FOOTNOTES
[ ]
* The Honorable Robert J. Kelleher, of the United States District
Court for the Central District of California, sitting by
designation.
[ ] 1 Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to the Sentencing
Guidelines are to the 1987 version under which Balagula was
sentenced.
Tax Fraud
Evsei Agron
Marat Balagula
John Barberio
Viktor Batuner
Joseph L. Macchia
George Macchia
Lawrence Macchia
Joseph A. Macchia
New York Fuel Terminal Corporation
Michael Varzar
Action Date: November 4, 1994
Location: New Rochelle, NY
On November 4, 1994, John Barberio, a former wholesale gasoline
sales manager from New Rochelle , New York , pled guilty in federal
court in Hauppauge , New York , for his role in a conspiracy to
evade more than $85 million in federal gasoline excise taxes.
Barberio was the former manager for New York Fuel Terminal
Corporation. He was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty to
the tax evasion scheme. An eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a
fugitive. Barberio's plea follows the October 27, 1994, guilty pleas
of former terminal operators Joseph A. Macchia, Lattingtown , N.Y. ,
and his three sons, Lawrence, George and Joseph L., for their role
in the tax fraud scheme from 1983 through 1988. Joseph A. Macchia
and two of his sons, Lawrence and George, also pleaded guilty to two
counts of excise tax evasion. Michael Varzar pleaded guilty on May
24, 1994, for his role in the conspiracy and to two counts of
gasoline excise tax evasion. New York Fuel Terminal Corp. was
registered with the Internal Revenue Service and was required to pay
a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an unregistered company.
The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold almost 1 billion gallons
of gasoline to unregistered companies without paying the tax they
owed. On October 13, 1994, Marat Balagula, pleaded guilty to five
counts of the indictment charging him with conspiracy and excise tax
evasion. Balagula, who controlled many of the unregistered companies
to which New York Fuel sold gasoline, is currently serving a 10-year
sentence following his 1992 prosecution by the Tax Division for his
involvement in a separate gasoline excise tax evasion scheme for
which Barberio also was convicted. Barberio was sentenced to three
years' imprisonment. Evidence presented at Balagula's 1992
sentencing in the earlier case implicated him as a member of a
Russian organized crime group headed by Evsei Agron. According to
testimony at the hearing, on the day following Agron's gangland-
style murder, Balagula moved into Agron's office and took over
operation of the organization. The sentencing court ruled that the
probation department properly concluded that Balagula "was a member
of an organization of criminals made up of Russians and other
Eastern European immigrants based in Brooklyn ."
http://frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=1850
JOHN BARBERIO DIED ON DECEMBER 21ST, 1994 THE VERY SAME DAY THAT NEW
YORK SUBWAY BOMBER ED LEARY, WHO HAD WORKED FOR MERRILL LYNCH, WAS
ARRESTED DECEMBER 21ST, 1994.
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE TAX
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1994 (202)
616-2765
TDD (202)
514-1888
"MANAGUA, NICARAGUA By Catherine Elton Special to The Christian
Science Monitor - Weeks after the repeat images of jetliners crashing
into
the twin
towers began to give way to regular programming on TV screens around
the world,
they continue to be broadcast here...in political ads for
Nicaragua's upcoming
presidential elections. The image of the flaming towers and their
victims gives
way to shots of Sandinista revolution leader, former president, and
current
presidential candidate Daniel Ortega with Yasser Arafat, Libya's
Muammar
Qaddafi, and Fidel Castro."
"Mona Charen on Nicaragua in the 1980's: The "Dear Comandante"
Letter from 10
Congressmen. Mona Charen's book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It
Wrong in the
Cold War and Still Blame America First has a good description of the
liberal
love affair with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
The Sandinistas had enjoyed good relations with the Palestinian
Liberation
Organization for a decade. Sandinista militants had received
training in Fatah
camps in Lebanon and Libya during the 1970s and had fought with the
PLO against
Jordan's King Hussein. ... Nicaragua's new rulers made their anti-
Jewish and
anti-Israel views known from the beginning and quickly moved against
Managua's
small Jewish community. In 1978, Sandinista gangsters had set fire
to the doors
of Managua's synagogue while a service was in progress. Those who
attempted to
exit through a side door were forced back by armed men. The fire was
extinguished and there were no deaths. After the revolution, the
Sandinistas
confiscated the synagogue and Jews received death threats and other
harassment.
... The fifty families comprising the Nicaraguan Jewish community,
who had lived
in Managua for more than one hundred years, fled."
Source: http://www.rasmusen.org/w/04.05.19d.htm
re item above, we note the long term "party to party" agreement
between Daniel Ortega's Genocidal anti-Semitic Sandinista Terrorists
and arafat's so-called "PLO".
The shocking news that narco-terrorists in Colombia plotted to
assassinate current President George W. Bush on Monday November
22nd, 2004,
the 41st anniversary of the JFK assassination, needs some
examination.
BCCI, the infamous drug-terror-arms bank that allegedly gave former
President Jimmy Carter $10 million for the Carter Library,had
offices in Peru, where
coca leaves are grown, in Colombia, where the coca leaves are
processed into cocaine, and in Castro's Cuba, and Baathist Syria and
Baathist Iraq. Banks
did not get offices in any of those 3 tyrannies without the approval
of the tyrant.
"Colombian Rebels Planned to Kill President Bush
November 27th, 2004 U.S. National - Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - President Bush was
targeted for assassination by Colombia's biggest Marxist rebel group
this week when he visited the Caribbean port city of Cartagena, a
top Colombian official said on Saturday. "According to informants
and various sources, we had information indicating that various
members of the FARC had been instructed by their leaders to make an
attempt against President Bush," Defense Secretary Jorge Alberto
Uribe told reporters. He would not be drawn out on the details of
the threat. The White House had no immediate comment.
The U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president, said it "does
not comment or release information regarding our protective
intelligence and protective methods." "We do not discuss any alleged
threats to our protectees," said Jonathan Cherry, a Secret Service
spokesman.
There was heavy security in Cartagena when Bush visited the city on
Monday(November 22nd, 2004)on his way back from the APEC forum in
Chile. Military helicopters packed with armed soldiers flew over
Bush's motorcade while naval vessels kept watch offshore. Many shops
were shuttered."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041127/us_nm/colombia_bush_plot_dc_5
"In early August, 1991, the Committee was provided with documents
from the Latin American and Caribbean Region Office (LACRO) of BCCI,
describing the offer for sale by the Argentine air force of 22
Mirage aircraft for $110 million. (63) The planned sale was to have
been made to Iraq, as part of Saddam Hussein's massive military
buildup prior to the Gulf war. BCCI was acting as the broker for the
transaction, which was to take place in August or September of
1989...As Robert Mazur, the Customs agent in Tampa who selected BCCI
as the target of the Customs money laundering sting testified, BCCI
bank executives volunteered methods to enhance and improve his
techniques for money laundering, and shortly before the sting ended
the operation, offered to introduce Mazur to other potential "cash"
customers for money laundering services from Bogota, Colombia...."
Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
"An Afghani tends to a field of heroin poppies, the sale of which
provides much of the financing for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
Afghanistan is the world's No. 1 producer and distributor of heroin,
and illicit drug trafficking is the biggest funding source for
By Rachel Ehrenfeld / Special to The Detroit News About the author
Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the New York-based Center for the
Study of Corruption and the author of "Evil Money" (HarperBusiness)
and "Narco-Terrorism" (Basic Books).
Moving the money...
In the welter of events following the bombing of the World Trade
Center in Feb. 26, 1993, few noticed that the first man arrested,
Mohammed Salameh—the poor, unemployed illegal immigrant—
offered $5 million for bail. Where could he get this kind of money?
The judge refused bail. But was the source of Salameh's offer the
same as the one that funded the eight men—arrested shortly
afterward—who planned to blow up Manhattan's tunnels and bridges
and to assassinate public officials?
Were the same money sources behind the final attack on the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11?
... For a long time, there has been evidence that terrorist,
international drug trafficking and criminal organizations use the
same fund-raising methods to enrich themselves.
Yet no one seemed to connect the dots. And no one seriously tried to
crack down on their financing.
…According to a State Department report, the Taliban, who are at bin
Laden's service, has the advantage of controlling the world's
largest heroin production and distribution in the world.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the heroin production
soared to hundreds of tons each year. In 1999 alone, the world
production of heroin was estimated at 500 metric tons; 400 were
produced by the Taliban and available to fund bin Laden and his
associates worldwide. First warning
The writing was on the wall on July 5, 1991, when the Bank of
England shut down what was the most important Islamic bank in the
world, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). This
criminal entity was created by the Pakistani Aaga Hassan Abedi "to
fight the evil influence of the West"; to help with the creation of
the "Islamic Bomb"; to finance all Muslim terrorist organizations;
and to launder the money that was generated mostly by illicit drug
trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms
trafficking.
When BCCI went belly up, we learned from thousands of documents that
Abu Nidal—the notorious Palestinian terrorist organization that
now enjoys the hospitality of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah and bin Laden—had
accounts in the bank. By the end of the 1980s, the "special
services" provided by BCCI included access to Western humanitarian
and international development funds, as well as drug money
laundering, secret transfers of cash and bribes.
A "Black Network," a special enforcement unit supported by Abu Nidal
and other terrorist organizations, operated from Pakistan. The same
Pakistan that harbored bin Laden for many years while its officials
told the United States that they didn't know his whereabouts. And
the same Pakistan that for decades, even according to the State
Department's annual report, had been a major drug trafficking and
money laundering center.
Western blindness
Yet, now more importantly, we also discovered that the American and
British governments knew and kept the bank open for a long time. The
bank "that would bribe God" was able to get away with its criminal
activities for decades due to Abedi's clever portrayal of the Muslim
nations as victims of Western—and particularly U.S.—
"imperialism." And when the bank was shuttered, the accusation in
the Muslim/Arab and Third World countries was that the U.S. and the
United Kingdom governments closed the bank to curtail the growing
fiscal power of Muslim countries.
Like Abedi, anti-American, anti-Western terrorist and radical Muslim
states and organizations, such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas,
Hezbollah, the PLO, Iraq and Iran, use Western democratic rhetoric
to their advantage. But it is the willful blindness, mainly toward
the growing volume of drug money laundering, exercised by Western
bankers on the one hand and Western politicians on the other, that
makes money laundering possible, despite the many laws and
international conventions to control this phenomenon.
The BCCI was the first warning to the West. The second warning about
the abuse of European and American financial markets by terrorist
organizations, as well as their involvement in the illicit arms and
drug trade, was made in February 1994 by the British National
Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).
The Organized Crime Unit of the NCIS warned that Middle East
terrorist groups and states were targeting the financial centers of
London, Frankfurt and other Western countries, and that they favor
illegal drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud....
Clinton appeasement
Despite its stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists, the
Clinton administration went out of its way to appease a few of the
20th century's most notorious terror groups: the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the PLO and the Irish Republican Army.
All are heavily involved in the drug trade.
On the eve of the 1993 handshake on the White House lawn between
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat,
Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service estimated the PLO's
ill-gotten gains to total between $8 billion to $10 billion, with an
annual income of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion from "donations,
extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money
laundering, fraud, etc."
Since then, Washington has only aided and abetted the PLO. Since the
start of the Oslo process, Arafat has received at least $3 billion
more from the United States and the international community, without
any serious demand for accountability, according to a report this
year to Congress. Arafat, in well-documented instances, has been
systematically skimming off portions of these funds, as he has with
monies given to him on behalf of the refugees in the camps.
The PLO was in the drug trafficking business almost from the
beginning. Operating from Lebanon, under Habash's able leadership
and assisted by a PLO-owned shipping company SUMUD, the organization
exported hashish, opium, heroin and cocaine, first to Europe and
later even to the United States and Australia. In return, it
obtained weapons for their war against Israel and the West, and
amassed a massive treasure trove. In addition, the PLO and Arafat,
who enjoy the financial and strategic support of Hussein and bin
Laden, have the distinction of being the organization that
promoted "suicide bombers" as a weapon.
Yet the Clinton administration subsidized a multitude of radical
Palestinian groups, ranging from Arafat's Fatah branch of the PLO
and its military wing, the Tanzim, to the socialist-nationalist
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by
George Habash, all with close ties to bin Laden, Iraq and Iran.
...It was the Clinton White House that, despite evidence to the
contrary, removed Syria from its list of the drug trafficking
countries, to entice Syria to join the "peace process" in the Middle
East.
The failure of that process and the compromises the United States
has made to maintain an illusion of peaceful prospects had no doubt
added to the Muslim radical terrorists' resolve to attack what they
see as a naive and vulnerable America.
In another example of self-delusion, in 1999, then Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright suggested a U.S.-led coalition to negotiate
with the FARC and supported Colombia President Pastrana's "land for
peace" initiative, despite a report from the General Accounting
Office that the FARC is running a major international criminal
enterprise that, among other things, supplies hundreds of tons of
cocaine and heroin to the U.S. black market.
This second Clinton "land for peace" initiative gave half of
Colombia to the narco-terrorist FARC, while doing nothing to
diminish its violence or appetite to control the rest of the
country...."
Source: http://www.detnews.com/2001/editorial/0109/30/a17-306400.htm
THE ITEM BELOW IS EXCERPTED FROM:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Hamas_Endorses_Obama/2008/04/17/887
54.html
Hamas Endorses Obama
Thursday, April 17, 2008 C.E.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has received an
endorsement ...from...Hamas. Ahmed Yousuf, Hamas' top political
adviser in the Gaza Strip, delivered his endorsement in an interview
with WorldNetDaily and WABC Radio in New York.
"We like Mr. Obama, and we hope that he will win the elections,"
Yousuf said.
"I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great
principle. And he has a vision to change America, to [put] it in a
position to lead the world community, but not with humiliation and
arrogance." ...Yousuf said: "I hope Mr. Obama and the Democrats will
change the political discourse when one of them will be the
president."
Note not part of article quoted above, but imagine
what the reaction of the American people would have been
if someone had referred to Churchill, when he was standing
along against Hitler as having been "arrogant". Yet that is
precisely the tone the isolationsits and neo-Bundists who support
the enemies of America and Israel and the rest of the civilized
world take towards anyone who dares to stand up to those
enemies of civilization.
DEFENDANTS PLEAD GUILTY IN GASOLINE EXCISE TAX CASE
Washington , D.C. -- The Department of Justice announced
today that four more defendants in the largest gasoline excise
tax prosecution to date have pleaded guilty. Joseph A. Macchia,
of Lattingtown , N.Y. , and two of his sons, Lawrence Macchia and
George Macchia, admitted conspiring to evade approximately $85
million in federal gasoline excise taxes. They each also pleaded
guilty to two counts of excise tax evasion. A third son, Joseph
L. Macchia, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, the only charge against
him. The four entered their guilty pleas in United States
District Court at Hauppauge , New York in front of the Honorable
Leonard D. Wexler. Each faces a maximum of five years in prison
and a $250,000 fine for each count to which he pleaded guilty.
The Macchias owned and operated a series of wholesale
gasoline companies, including a trucking company and many holding
and management companies, which owned and managed a large number
of gasoline stations, most of which carried the "Citgo" brand.
Their central company was New York Fuel terminal Corporation,
which operated a gasoline storage facility in Brooklyn known as
the "M & Q" Terminal. "M & Q" was short for Manhattan & Queens -
the Macchias also operated Manhattan & Queens Fuel and M & Q
Trucking Corp.
New York Fuel was registered with the IRS and was required
to pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an
unregistered company. The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold
almost one billion gallons of gasoline to unregistered companies
without paying the tax they owed. Many of the unregistered
companies were controlled by the co-defendant Marat Balagula, who
pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him on October 13,
1994.
Most of these illicit sales were purportedly made by "book
transfers" within the M & Q terminal. Book transfers occur when
the title to gasoline within the storage tank passes from one
company to another, but the product itself does not move. The
conspirators created fictitious book transfer records indicate
that the gasoline sold by New York Fuel passed through the
accounts of sever other licensed and unlicensed companies before
being received by the actual purchaser, when in fact, the only
transfer was from New York Fuel to the actual unlicensed
purchaser.
Assistant Attorney General Loretta C. Argrett hailed the
pleas, saying that "the successful prosecution of this complex
case proves our determination to combat excise tax evasion."
The case was prosecuted by attorneys of the Tax Division of
the Department of Justice and was investigated by the Criminal
Investigation and Examination Divisions of the Internal Revenue
Service and the New York State Tax Department.
###
94-619
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/October94/619.txt.html
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE TAX
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1994 (202)
616-2771
TDD (202)
514-1888
FOUR MEN WITH TIES TO WELL KNOWN NEW YORK ORGANIZED CRIME
FAMILIES WERE SENTENCED IN EXCISE TAX FRAUD CASE
WASHINGTON , D.C. -- Four men with ties to well known New
York organized crime families were sentenced today for their
involvement in a $34 million gasoline excise tax evasion scheme.
Judge Leonard D. Wexler of Hauppauge , New York , sentenced Michael
Varzar, Paul Sharp, Frederick "Buddy" Adrion, and Joseph "Chubby"
Audino to the following:
Michael Varzar--52 months imprisonment, $15,000 fine, three
years supervised release and $250 special assessment.
Paul Sharp--35 months imprisonment, three years supervised
release and $150 special assessment.
Frederick Adrion, a Luchese crime family associate--34
months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release and $100
special assessment.
Joseph Audino, soldier in the Colombo crime family--32
months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release and $100
special assessment.
Previously, Vyacheslav Dobrer, a/k/a "Sol Dobrer," was
sentenced to 37 months imprisonment, Frank Sciortino, a/k/a
"Frankie the Bug," was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment and
Victor M. Orena, a/k/a "Vic Jr.," a/k/a "The Little Guy," was
sentenced to 51 months imprisonment for their involvement in the
same conspiracy.
Three additional defendants are fugitives and known to be
hiding in Israel . One of those defendants, Joseph Reisch, a/k/a
"Yosi Reisch," is awaiting trial in Israel for the May 1989
murder of Michael Markowitz, a former colleague of Reisch's in
the gasoline bootleg industry.
The defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion
charges before Judge Wexler several weeks before the trial was
scheduled to proceed in June 1994.
Sharp, also pleaded guilty to a RICO conspiracy count
concerning a motor fuel excise tax scheme in the Northern
District of Georgia. Varzar, pleaded guilty for his involvement
in an $85 million excise tax conspiracy relative to gasoline
distributed by New York Fuel Terminal Corporation, which operated
a gasoline storage facility in Brooklyn , New York , known as the
"M & Q" Terminal.
The charges stem from an elaborate scheme, referred to as a
"daisy chain," in which gasoline is purportedly sold between a
number of wholesale distributors before reaching the retail
level. These sales, in fact, never occur and are mere paper
transactions designed to disguise the identity of the company
responsible for remitting the taxes. These schemes allowed the
defendants to pocket a substantial portion of the excise tax
included in the price paid by motorists at the retail pump.
In an effort to infiltrate the bootleg gasoline industry, a
government undercover business called Rossi Associates was
established to compete directly with the defendants' bootleg
operation. Rossi Associates, which was run in a joint effort by
the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, successfully attracted the attention of the
defendants and resulted in their bringing Rossi Associates into
the daisy chain schemes.
On November 24, 1992, at the conclusion of the undercover
operation, federal agents seized assets of the defendants,
including approximately $1.7 million in cash from various safe
deposit boxes, nearly $1.2 million in bank accounts and $1
million in gasoline stored at various terminals and barges.
Also, Varzar's yacht valued at about $500,000 was seized.
As part of the scheme, the Colombo, Gambino, Luchese and
Genovese crime families collected what was termed a "tribute"
payment of at least a one and one-half cents per gallon from the
proceeds of these transactions. Payments were made to a number
of organized crime representatives, including defendants Frank
Sciortino, a/k/a "Frankie the Bug," and Audino, both of whom were
soldiers in the Colombo crime family, as well as Frank Campione,
a/k/a "Frankie Camp," a Colombo associate and Adrion, a Luchese
associate. These payments were delivered to, among others,
defendant Victor M. Orena, a/k/a "Vic Jr.," a/k/a "The Little
Guy," a Colombo captain.
Assistant Attorney General Loretta C. Argrett of the Tax
Division, hailed the sentences saying that "The successful
prosecution of this complex case proves our determination to
combat excise tax evasion."
This case, which is part of a nationwide motor fuel excise
tax enforcement effort, was investigated jointly by the Long
Island Motor Fuel Task Force and the Office of Zachary W. Carter,
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The task
force includes attorneys from the Department of Justice Tax
Division and agents from the Criminal Investigation and
Examination Divisions of the Internal Revenue Service, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of
Transportation and the New York State Department of Taxation and
Finance.
The case was prosecuted by Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section
of the U.S. Attorney's Office Edward A. Rial and Paulette Wunsch,
Special Attorney, Tax Division, Department of Justice.
###
94-723
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/December94/723.txt.html
WASHINGTON—Organized labor is enormously influential in the
Democratic primary, as the campaigns of 2008 presidential candidates
seek endorsements from the major labor federations and member unions.
In the next week three labor (LIUNA, SEIU, Change to WIn)
presidential forums—two in Chicago—will feature presidential
candidates. There's a lot of schedule jockeying on Monday. Before
heading to Washington, Obama has an economics speech in New York
City in the morning and Clinton delivers her plan to deliver
universal health care coverage in Iowa.
*On Monday and Tuesday, LIUNA-the Laborers' International Union of
North America hosts a Leadership Conference at the Chicago Sheraton
Hotel and Towers. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden speak
on Monday. Bill Richardson on Tuesday. Barack Obama is not scheduled
to attend"
above from
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/09/sweet_blog_special_dem_presid
e.html
In the Matter of Alan D. Wasserman
Laborers' International Union of North America
Independent Hearing Officer
Docket No. 97-57D
Decided October 7, 1998
Order and Memorandum
This Order and Memorandum supercedes the Order and Memorandum of
August 28, 1998 ("August 28 Order"). This Order and Memorandum
addresses objections to the August 28 Order filed by Attorney Arnold
J. Gold on behalf of the Respondent. The procedural history of this
matter is discussed below in detail.
This matter comes before the Laborers' International Union of North
America ("LIUNA") Independent Hearing Officer ("IHO") pursuant to
the LIUNA Constitution and Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure
("EDP").
On December 29, 1997, the LIUNA General Executive Board Attorney
("GEB Attorney") filed Disciplinary Charges against Alan D.
Wasserman ("Wasserman"), alleging violations of federal law and the
EDP. Specifically, Wasserman is charged with knowingly associating
with a La Cosa Nostra ("LCN") organized crime family, racketeering,
demanding labor payoffs from contractors, offering to allow
employers to pay LIUNA members less than union-scale wages and
benefits, and obstructing the GEB Attorney and the Inspector General
("IG").
A hearing was held in Newark, New Jersey on May 27, 1998. Wasserman
did not appear at the hearing, but was represented by counsel,
Arnold Jay Gold ("Gold"). At the hearing, Attorney Gold stated that
his client was depressed and unable to assist him in his defense.
In support, Gold presented a letter of a medical doctor who stated
that Wasserman suffered from a "Major Depressive Disorder,"
resulting in anger and depression. IHO Exhibit 1. The letter gave
no opinion that such a disorder rendered him unable to assist in his
defense but merely indicated that Wasserman's ability to testify was
impaired. Id. No evidence was offered to show Wasserman could not
aid in his defense. I decided to proceed with the hearing but told
Gold that if he desired an additional session to present new
evidence based on the cooperation of his client, he should inform me
and a hearing would be arranged.
At the conclusion of the hearing, I instructed both parties to
inform me by June 15, 1998, whether they wished the record to remain
open pending the submission of additional evidence. The parties
were also instructed to submit post-hearing briefs three weeks
following June 15, 1998. I stated "You have until June 15th to let
me know what other plans you have, whether to close or keep the
record open." Hearing Transcript of May 27, 1998 ("Tr.") 220.
On June 12, 1998, the GEB Attorney requested that the matter remain
open until July 13, 1998. The request was granted. On July 13,
1998, the GEB Attorney filed a motion to admit testimony regarding a
confidential witness. On July 14, 1998, the GEB Attorney filed the
original and one copy of all exhibits presented at the May 27, 1998
hearing. Wasserman filed no response to the motion to admit the
confidential witness testimony.
From the date of the hearing on May 27, 1998, Wasserman made no
communication with my office. Attorney Gold made no effort to
contact my office regarding his client's mental status or his
intention to offer any additional evidence. I filed the August 28
Order which dealt with the merits of the case. On September 2,
1998, Attorney Gold by letter to my office complained of not having
had an opportunity to present a defense or file a post-hearing
brief. Gold's letter was Wasserman's first contact with my office
in over three months. I issued an Order placing the August 28 Order
in suspense and treating the August 28 Order as a proposed Order.
See IHO Order September 4, 1998. I permitted both parties to file
written objections and conclusions to the proposed order with
arguments to support their conclusions. I clearly stated that
objections and arguments were to be filed by September 28, 1998.
Despite the September 4, 1998 Order, Attorney Gold sent my office a
letter indicating he wished to discuss a timetable for the
completion of evidence after October 1, 1998, including the
possibility of having his client testify. I denied Gold's request
to hold the record open until after October 1, 1998, but gave
Attorney Gold until October 2, 1998, to file objections to the
August 28 Order. I also requested Attorney Gold to include an
affidavit outlining the proposed testimony of Wasserman. Gold filed
timely objections. In his objections, Gold asserted that Wasserman
was able to appear and testify; however, he did not submit any
proposed testimony by Wasserman as requested. I find that there is
no credible evidence that Wasserman ever intended to appear.
Qualification Of Expert Witnesses
The GEB Attorney called Jack Elko ("Elko") and Jeffrey Schaffler
("Schaffler") as expert witnesses.
Jack Elko
Elko was a police officer for 25 years. Tr. 104. During the last
14 of those years, Elko specialized in organized crime
investigations for the Division of Criminal Justice of the Office of
the Attorney General of New Jersey. Id. Prior to his employment
with the Division of Criminal Justice, Elko was employed as an
investigator with Morris County in Morristown, New Jersey. He
attended numerous service schools, including the New Jersey State
Police Academy, courses offered by the Division of Criminal Justice,
Seton Hall Law School and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
("FBI") on organized crime and the illegal activity usually
perpetrated by organized crime. Tr. 105. Elko testified in this
proceeding as an expert in the make-up and structure of organized
crime, specifically in the Newark area. This technique has been
accepted in similar union disciplinary matters. See e.g., United
States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico) 745 F. Supp. 908, 914-15 (S.D.N.Y.
1990), aff'd United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 941 F.2d 1292
(2d Cir. 1991).
Elko used tested and accepted investigative techniques to verify the
credibility of the individuals whose information he related at the
hearing. Elko testified as to information and hearsay statements of
five named witnesses. Tr. 109-158. In similar circumstances, the
court in United States v. IBT (Cimino), 964 F.2d 1308 (2d Cir.
1992), at 1312; aff'g 777 F. Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), gave
evidentiary weight to hearsay declarations of three LCN members that
were related by an FBI agent. The court used a number of factors to
evaluate the reliability of the statements. The court noted that
the statements corroborated each other in crucial respects, the
reports painted a consistent picture of the relationship of the
individuals and the statements matched the FBI agent's declaration
in the subject matter. Id. The court held that these declarations
constituted relevant evidence that a reasonable mind might accept on
the subject of association with organized crime. Id.
I find that Elko is a qualified witness, expert in organized crime
matters, and his testimony, in conformance with accepted
investigative techniques, is reliable.
Elko related information given to him by five named individuals
described below, three of whom have cooperated with federal
authorities and two of whom are law enforcement officers.
Rocco Cagno
Rocco Cagno ("Cagno") is a made member of the Colombo organized
crime family and a former member of LIUNA Local Union 342 ("Local
342"). Tr. 109. Cagno became a made member in 1987; thereafter, he
was incarcerated. The record does not reflect the reason for his
incarceration.
He was released from prison in 1990 and his movements were monitored
by an electronic bracelet. As a condition of his release, Cagno was
required to gain employment. He became employed by Local 342
through the influence of Colombo family members and Anthony Proto,
who was then the Business Manager of Local 342. Tr. 114. Cagno is
currently in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Elko had the
opportunity to speak with Cagno in October 1997 concerning the
various organized crime affiliations within Local 342. Tr. 109.
Thomas Ricciardi and Anthony Tumac Accetturo
Thomas Ricciardi ("Ricciardi") and Anthony Accetturo ("Accetturo")
are both made members of the Lucchese organized crime family and are
also in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Tr. 117. Accetturo
had been the acting boss of the New Jersey faction of the Lucchese
family. Id.
Steve Montgomery and Lt. Dennis Masucci
Elko also based his opinion on information supplied to him by two
law enforcement officers, Lieutenant Dennis Masucci ("Masucci") and
Steve Montgomery ("Montgomery"). Masucci is a law enforcement
officer from the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey. Tr.
126-27. The information provided by Masucci is based upon
confidential informant sources proven reliable in the past, who gave
Masucci information which resulted in the arrest of organized crime
members, including Gambino organized crime family members in Essex
County. Tr. 128. Montgomery is an FBI Special Agent in Newark, New
Jersey and had been assigned to the Gambino family organized crime
unit. Tr. 127. Montgomery's information is also based on his
personal investigation and confidential sources.
The testimony of Cagno, Ricciardi and Accetturo are corroborated by
each other and by the information supplied by Masucci and
Montgomery.
Jeffrey Schaffler
Schaffler was a federal agent for approximately 30 years. Tr. 160.
He spent his last years as a special agent with the Office of Labor
Racketeering, United States Department of Labor ("DOL"). Id.
Schaffer has been a supervisory special agent for DOL, and
thereafter, an assistant special agent in charge of a DOL
investigation office. Id. Schaffler is currently under contract to
the Office of the Inspector General of the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey. His duties involve investigation of
contractors who do business with the Port Authority, the operation
of construction projects, the manner in which construction bids are
made, contract fraud and wage and hour issues. Tr. 159-60.
Schaffler testified in this proceeding in the capacity of an expert
in the labor field.
I find that Schaffler is a qualified expert witness in the labor
field.
Findings of Fact
Structure of Organized Crime
1. The LCN is a tightly structured
criminal organization which operates in various cities throughout
the United States. It is in the business of crime for a profit.[1]
2. The LCN is comprised of groups of individuals organized
into entities called families. Tr. 105.
3. A typical LCN family structure consists of the head
(the "boss"), his assistant (the "underboss"), and an advisor
(the "consigliere"). The boss, underboss, and consigliere oversee
the activities of LCN members and their associates. LCN members
within a family operate in small groups called "crews" which are
headed by men called "capos" or "crew bosses." Tr. 106.
4. A "made member" is an individual within an LCN family who
has undergone an initiation process and sworn allegiance to that
family putting the family above everything else. Tr. 106. See also
United States v. Tortona, 922 F.2d 880, 885 (1st Cir. 1990).
5. An "associate" is an individual who works under a capo and
assists made members, but who has not been formally initiated into
the family. Tr. 106. An associate may either earn his living by
performing illegal acts on behalf of an LCN family or he may have an
ostensibly legitimate job while at the same time assisting a
particular LCN family in the acquisition of profits and monies. Tr.
129-30.
6. Both members and associates engage in activities which
bring money to an organized crime family. Tr. 106. Traditionally,
an associate could only become a made member by participating in the
murder of an individual. In more recent times, an associate may
become a made member based upon the benefits he is able to produce
for that family, such as earning large sums of money or exercising
influence in business or politics. Tr. 106-07.
7. A number of LCN families are located in the New York/New
Jersey area, including the Gambino, Lucchese, and Colombo families.
The LCN's History Of Control Over Local 342
8. The evidence presented during the hearing establishes by a
preponderance of the evidence that Local 342 in Newark, New Jersey
has been subject to LCN control for many years.
9. From at least the 1970's, the Gambino and Colombo
organized crime families have shared control of Local 342. Tr.
110. The two families shared illegal profits from contractors
within their jurisdiction by soliciting money for labor peace and
outright extortion. Tr. 110, 114, 131. Members and associates of
both families were placed on the labor payroll with various
contractors through Local 342. Tr. 110, 114. The relationship
between the two families later shifted to an arrangement where the
Colombo family received preferential treatment for placement of
workers at particular contract sites, but no longer shared in
racketeering labor profits. Tr. 111-12.
10. The New Jersey Organized Crime Task Force ("Task Force") was
created by the State of New Jersey in 1986. Tr. 132. From that
time to the present, the Task Force and other law enforcement
entities have documented the Gambino family infiltration of Local
342. Id.
11. Paul Castellano ("Castellano") was the boss of the Gambino
family in New York. After Castellano's murder in December 1985, he
was succeeded by John Gotti ("Gotti") in January 1986. Id.
12. Michael Mandaglia ("Mandaglia") had been the Business
Manager of Local 342 for several years prior to the Task Force's
creation in 1986. Id. According to Elko, court authorized
electronic surveillance revealed that Mandaglia had given Castellano
$5,000 a year from the New Jersey faction of the Gambino family.
Id. Mandaglia gave Robert Bisaccia ("Bisaccia"), the former Vice
President of Local 342, $2,000 a year. Id. Bisaccia was a Gambino
family member later incarcerated for racketeering. Tr. 138.
13. In 1986, Mandaglia retired from Local 342 and was succeeded
as Business Manager by Anthony Proto ("Proto"). Tr. 133. Proto was
a made member of the Gambino family. Tr. 117, 133.
14. In August 1991, Alfred "Al" Andrade ("Andrade") assaulted a
coffee truck vendor in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Tr. 133-34.
The assault was a result of the vendor's failure to pay Andrade $500
a month for permission to park the vendor's vehicle on a particular
street corner in Newark. Tr. 134. The vendor's vehicle was smashed
with a sledgehammer. Id. The police responded and, after a period
of time, Andrade was arrested. Id. Months later, with the victim's
approval, the charges were downgraded to simple assault, not
pursued, and the vendor immediately left New Jersey and moved to
South Carolina. Id.
15. At the time of the assault, Andrade was a shop steward of
Local 342. Tr. 134. Cagno was present at the scene. Cagno stated
that Andrade's accomplice for the assault was Wasserman, who at the
time was an employee of Local 342. Id.
16. In 1987, the Task Force launched an investigation into
organized crime influence in New Jersey. The investigation employed
court authorized electronic surveillance and other investigative
techniques. The investigation resulted in the indictment of
numerous Gambino family members for labor racketeering in New
Jersey, one of whom was Proto, the former Business Manager for Local
342. Tr. 133. Proto was convicted and incarcerated for labor
racketeering in 1993. Tr. 110. Proto was later permanently
expelled from LIUNA in a separate disciplinary action. See In the
Matter of Anthony Proto, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-09D (March 26,
1998).
17. After Proto's incarceration in 1993, he unofficially
appointed his son, James Proto, as the Business Manager of Local
342. Tr. 133. Andrade became a Business Agent of Local 342 at that
time, assisting James Proto with his duties. Tr. 134.
18. While Andrade was Business Agent and James Proto was
Business Manager, Wasserman was appointed as a shop steward for
Local 342. Tr. 147.
19. James Vallaro ("Vallaro") was an associate of the Gambino
family in Staten Island, New York. Vallaro's father was a made
member of the Gambino family and a high volume bookmaker. Tr. 135.
Following the 1993 convictions of other Gambino family members,
Vallaro moved to New Jersey and became a member of Local 342. Id.
20. At the time of his move, Vallaro was unknown to law
enforcement in New Jersey. Tr. 136. Elko became aware of Vallaro's
presence and involvement in the LCN through electronic surveillance
which he supervised for the Organized Crime Bureau. Tr. 135. The
information about Vallero which Elko obtained from the surveillance
was verified by Cagno. Tr. 136.
21. Vincent "Juicy" DiModica ("Juicy DiModica") was a member of
Local 342. Juicy DiModica was also made member of the Gambino
family and responsible for the New Jersey area, including all the
Gambino family members and associates within Local 342. Tr. 109,
113.
22. As a result of the 1993 incarcerations of Proto and Robert
Bisaccia, former Vice President of Local 342, Juicy DiModica was
elevated to acting capo of the Gambino family. Tr. 115-116. Elko
testified that he learned this fact from intelligence sources,
discussions with Cagno and interviews with other organized crime
members, including Ricciardi and Accetturo. Tr. 117-19.
23. After Proto's incarceration, Cagno became concerned about
the distribution of money and work for the Colombo family members
within Local 342. Tr. 116. Cagno related his concerns to members
of the New York City Colombo family. Id. Cagno was approached
within the next week by Andrade at a Local 342 membership meeting.
Id. Andrade requested that Cagno attend a meeting with Juicy
DiModica at the Kenilworth Inn on the Garden State Parkway. Id.
24. Cagno and Juicy DiModica, as representatives of their
respective families, attended certain meetings at the Kenilworth
Inn. Tr. 114-15. At the meetings, Juicy DiModica told Cagno that
his son James DiModica, Wasserman, and Andrade were acting on behalf
of Juicy DiModica and the Gambino family. Tr. 114.
25. Vallaro assisted Juicy DiModica in the day-to-day operations
of Local 342 for the Gambino family. Tr. 135. The now public
electronic surveillance revealed that Vallaro met on a daily basis
with Andrade to discuss labor issues within Local 342. Tr. 138.
During a 30-day period, 30 telephone calls were intercepted, both
incoming and outgoing, from Vallaro's and Andrade's homes regarding
labor issues and Local 342. Id.
26. Conversations over prison telephones of Proto, Casarro, and
Bisaccia were intercepted and monitored. Id.
27. In April 1994, a conversation was intercepted between Joseph
Vallaro and Cassarro who was in state prison. Tr. 140. Joseph
Vallaro told Cassarro that he and Juicy DiModica had met with the
consigliere of the Gambino family in New York. Id. Joseph Vallaro
told Cassarro that James Proto, the Business Manager of Local 342,
was not making any money for them and that they would be broke in
two months. Elko testified that he understood this conversation to
mean that James Proto was not being forceful enough in extracting
money from contractors for Local 342. Id.
28. Elko testified that after the Vallaro/Cassarro telephone
conversation, James Proto remained Business Manager of Local 342 for
approximately one year. Id. James Proto was replaced by
Wasserman. Id.
VHR Construction
Charge I:
In or around December 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and
representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred conduct" in
violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by
committing an act of racketeering, in that Wasserman did request and
demand money or a thing of value from VHR Construction, an employer
engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when Wasserman
asked for a payoff in form of a "Christmas gift" while being a Union
member and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).
Charge II:
From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs from an
employer while being a Union member and representative, in violation
of the "Business and Financial Activities of Union Officials"
Chapter, Introductory Paragraph, Section 2 and Section 4, of the
LIUNA Ethical Practices Code.
29. In 1995, the LIUNA IG's Office in Washington received
information from New Jersey Regional Vice President, Ray Pocino,
that a contractor who desired confidentiality had alleged that
Wasserman had demanded $25,000 from a contractor in New Jersey,
possibly at the Newark International Airport, and had caused the
contractor's equipment to be damaged. The contractor stated
specifically that one piece of equipment was filled with concrete
and another piece was pushed off a floor of a building. Tr. 20.
Although this statement is pure hearsay, the specificity of the
description of the damage is corroborated later in interviews with a
company official.
30. The IG sent investigators to Newark to verify the
allegations. Id.
31. VHR Construction was a general contractor at the Newark
Airport and signatory to a collective bargaining agreement with
Local 342. Tr. 21, 23.
32. Victor Wortman ("Wortman") is the president and owner of VHR
Construction. Tr. 21.
33. In March 1996, IG Inspectors met with Wortman at his office
in Englewood, New Jersey. Tr. 21-23. Wortman told the IG
Inspectors his company was not the victim of the equipment damage,
but he had heard about the incident. Tr. 22.
34. Wortman said he knew Wasserman was working as the shop
steward at Wortman's job site at the Newark Airport. Tr. 22-24.
35. Wortman said that he and his staff had threatened to dock
Wasserman's pay because Wasserman frequently left the job site for
two or three hours at a time. Tr. 24. As a result, Wasserman came
to Wortman's office to discuss the issue during the weeks before
Christmas of 1995. Id.
36. Wasserman was accompanied to the meeting by James DiModica
who was also a member but not an officer or even a steward of Local
342. Tr. 28-29.
37. During Wortman and Wasserman's conversation about
Wasserman's hours, James DiModica suddenly asked Wortman for a
Christmas gift. Tr. 29. Wortman refused. Tr. 37. Wasserman made
no attempt to dissuade James DiModica from his request. Attorney
Gold contends the record is silent as to Wasserman's participation
in the request. Under the circumstances, I find that Wasserman
brought James DiModica to the meeting to make the request and fully
approved of the demand.
38. At the hearing in the instant matter, Schaffler testified
that, in his expert opinion of the construction industry, labor
payoffs are usually made at Christmastime or at the beginning of the
summer or late spring. Tr. 167.
39. It was also Schaffler's expert opinion, based on his
experience, James DiModica's request for a Christmas gift was the
solicitation of a bribe. Tr. 165. I find that under the
circumstances all parties understood that the meaning of the request
was not for a nominal or token gift. Attorney Gold objects to the
hearsay testimony of Wortman. In the Discussion, infra, I concluded
that Wortman's testimony was corroborated by other testimony, and is
reliable.
40. Attorney Gold argues that Wasserman visited Wortman to
discuss the matter of his pay being docked for continually leaving
the job. Gold argues that Wortman is obviously biased against
Wasserman because of Wasserman's legitimate demand for his pay. The
argument has little weight since Wasserman and Wortman entered into
an agreement settling the matter.
B.J. McGlone & Co. Inc.
Charge III:
From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and
representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred conduct" in
violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by
committing an act of racketeering, in that Wasserman did request and
demand money or a thing of value from B.J. McGlone & Co., Inc., an
employer engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when
he demanded labor payoffs from an employer while being a Union
member and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).
Charge IV:
From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs from an
employer and offered to allow that employer to use non-Union labor
or to pay LIUNA members less than Union-scale wages and benefits,
and in so doing violated his obligation as a member of the Union to
refrain from interfering with the proper conduct of Union business,
in violation of Article III, Section 3(d) of LIUNA's Uniform Local
Union Constitution and the "Business and Financial Activities of
Union Officials" Chapter, Introductory Paragraph, Section 2 and
Section 4, of the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code
41. B.J. McGlone ("McGlone") is a company located in New Jersey
which provides fireproof material and services. Tr. 47. McGlone
performed and worked at the Newark Airport job site in 1994.
42. In August 1997, IG Inspectors spoke with an officer at
McGlone who was involved in managing one of the job sites at the
Newark Airport. Id. 47. The officer spoke with them on condition
that his name would not be repeated to anyone outside of the
interview. Although he requested anonymity, the record is clear
that he was an officer of McGlone, that he was involved in the
operation of the site, and that he dealt with Wasserman. The
probative value of this testimony will be discussed below.
43. The officer knew Wasserman was an officer of Local 342 and
the shop steward at the McGlone job site at the Newark Airport. Tr.
47, 55.
44. At the beginning of 1994, the officer and Wasserman had a
conversation about placing safety equipment on the job site. The
officer told Wasserman the equipment was not necessary. Tr. 52.
The company did not install the equipment and the job commenced. Id.
45. Two pieces of equipment were subsequently damaged at the job
site. Id. One spray machine was filled with concrete and another
was pushed off an elevated floor and fell to the ground. Tr. 53.
The resulting damage to the equipment was between $8,000 and
$15,000. Tr. 170. This description corroborates the description of
the damage in the anonymous report made to the IG.
46. Schaffler testified that it is common practice when a
company does not comply with demands for payoffs from LCN controlled
unions, the union may resort to intimidation methods to frighten the
company officials. Id. A common method is to damage equipment. Id.
47. The officer subsequently had a conversation with Wasserman
in which the officer told Wasserman the equipment was damaged and
said "this is not the way for you to put your people to work." Tr.
53. Wasserman made no reply to this accusation and requested a
meeting. Tr. 54
48. Wasserman, James DiModica, and the officer met at a
restaurant in New Jersey. Tr. 54. Wasserman told the officer that
in exchange for $10,000 to $20,000, McGlone would be free to run
the job site without interference and the company need only pay the
workers enough to "buy a ham sandwich." Tr. 54-55. The officer
responded that it was not his decision to pay the money and that he
would have to refer them to his boss. Tr. 55. The evidence does
not indicate whether the money was paid.
49. Schaffler testified that he was familiar with the
terms "give them enough for a sandwich" or "give them enough for a
hat." It was Schaffler's opinion that the statement made by
Wasserman, "pay the workers enough for them to buy a ham sandwich,"
under the circumstances, meant the workers could be paid a moderate
amount for work completed, but the company would not have to adhere
to all terms of the collective bargaining agreement, including
paying fringe benefits such as overtime and adhering to all safety
standards. Tr. 168. In Shaffler's opinion, in return for the
payment, Wasserman and James DiModica would take responsibility for
handling any complaints from the workers. Id.
50. Attorney Gold argues that the testimony of the McGlone
official is not credible. Gold states that the official is biased
against Wasserman because Wasserman came to the meeting to discuss
legitimate safety issues at McGlone, and the official was upset at
being confronted with safety violations. This argument has little
weight because substantial damage had been done to McGlone's
equipment. It would be more cost effective for McGlone to address
legitimate safety issues than to damage its own equipment and blame
Wasserman. I find the official's representation of the events to be
credible, and corroborated by other evidence. See the Discussion,
infra.
E & S Construction
Charge V:
In or around July 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and
representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred conduct" in
violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by
committing an act of racketeering in that Wasserman did request and
demand money or a thing of value from E&S Construction, an employer
engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when he
demanded labor payoffs from an employer while being a Union member
and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).
Charge VI:
In or around July 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs
from an employer and offered to allow that employer to use non-Union
labor or to pay LIUNA members less than Union-scale wages and
benefits, and in so doing violated his obligation as a member of the
Union to refrain from interfering with the proper conduct of Union
business, in violation of Article III, Section 3(d) of LIUNA's
Uniform Local Union Constitution and the "Business and Financial
Activities of Union Officials" Chapter, Introductory Paragraph,
Section 2 and Section 4, of the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code.
51. In August 1996, Ed Taylor ("Taylor") from E&S Construction
contacted the LIUNA New Jersey regional office concerning an
allegation against Wasserman. Tr. 56. IG Inspectors met with
Taylor shortly thereafter. Id.
52. Taylor is a former member of LIUNA Local 472 located in
Newark, New Jersey. Tr. 57. After Taylor suffered an injury and
could not work as a laborer, he formed his own construction company.
Id.
53. In July 1996, Taylor maintained a job site along Routes 1
and 9 in New Jersey. Id.
54. In the same month, Taylor received a call from Wasserman who
identified himself as a representative from Local 342 and requested
a meeting. Id. Taylor agreed to the meeting. Id.
55. The following day, Wasserman arrived at Taylor's job site
accompanied with an individual Taylor later identified as James
DiModica. Id.
56. At the start of the meeting, James DiModica stated that he
had just gotten out of jail. Tr. 60.
57. Wasserman told Taylor he knew Taylor had an upcoming
contract at the Newark Airport with the Brown Matthews Company, and
he requested that Taylor use Local 342 workers on that job site.
Tr. 58.
58. Taylor replied that at the time he had three full-time
workers with his company and the workload was just enough for those
three workers. Taylor said if his workload increased he would
definitely call the Local 342 hiring hall for laborers. Id.
59. Wasserman replied by pointing to the Taylor's three Hispanic
workers, calling them an "eyesore," and telling Taylor he could not
use them because he had to use Local 342 members. Id.
60. Wasserman then made a motion with one of his hands
indicating five fingers. Id. When Wasserman's fingers were waved
at him, Taylor, who was familiar with labor union relationships in
New Jersey, asked if Wasserman was requesting $500 to insure that he
would have no problems with the union. Tr. 59. Wasserman replied
not $500 but $5,000. Id.
61. Taylor told Wasserman he didn't "have that kind of money."
Id. Wasserman replied that in exchange, Taylor would not have to
pay the workers any benefits. Id. Taylor understood this to mean
that the various fringe benefits, pension annuity, and medical
benefits required by the collective bargaining agreement would not
have to be paid if Taylor complied with the demand. Tr. 59-60.
62. Wasserman told Taylor that if Taylor did make the payment,
Wasserman would make him put up a bond for the benefits at his job
site. Tr. 59.
63. Towards the end of the meeting, James DiModica made a
statement to Taylor that "we have connections, we'll get you paid
faster." Tr. 60.
64. Subsequently, Taylor positively identified James DiModica
from photographs shown to him by IG Inspectors. Id.
65. I find that there was no reason for James DiModica, who had
no official union position, to accompany Wasserman to Wasserman's
meetings with Taylor or VHR Construction. The Wasserman/James
DiModica visits to the contractors appears, under these
circumstances, to be a joint venture in extortion.
66. The statements of Taylor as to what the demands meant and
the expert opinion of Schaffler as to the nature of the modus
operandi of extortionate practices are credible and well founded.
67. Attorney Gold contends that the appearance of James DiModica
with Wasserman where money was solicited from employers was not in
itself improper. Gold argues that DiModica might have been a shop
steward on at least one of the jobs, and his appearance on any of
the jobs was not prohibited. As discussed below, James DiModica was
an associate of organized crime. On one occasion he suddenly
requested a Christmas gift from the employer and on another he began
the conversation by informing the employer that he had just been
released from jail. James DiModica's appearance with Wasserman was
intended to serve the purpose of intimidating the contractor.
68. Attorney Gold also contends that since none of the
complaining persons ever alleged that as a result of denying payoffs
they suffered any reprisals. He argues that the LCN would not
permit a refusal to go unpunished. There is no evidence to indicate
whether or not the payments were made. The record is silent on that
matter; however, there is evidence that equipment at McGlone was
heavily damaged after McGlone refused to install the requested
safety apparatus.
Knowing Association With The LCN
Charge VII:
From in or around 1994 through 1997, Alan D. Wasserman, while a
member and representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed "barred
conduct" in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure
by knowingly associating with La Cosa Nostra crime family members or
associates, including Vincent "Juicy" DiModica, a convicted member
of the Gambino crime family and James DiModica, an associate of the
Gambino crime family.
69. Wasserman has been a member of LIUNA Local 342 in Newark,
New Jersey for approximately ten years.
70. At the time of the hearing in this matter, Wasserman was the
Business Manager of Local 342. He was appointed by the Executive
Board to succeed James Proto. Wasserman has also served in the
positions of field representative and a shop steward of Local 342.
71. The GEB Attorney offered the history of Local 342 described
above in paragraphs 8 through 28 and the following testimony of Elko
as evidence of Wasserman's associations with the Gambino family.
72. Based upon his years of investigation, including the
aforementioned information in paragraphs 8 through 28, and
corroborating interviews with Cagno, Accetturo, and Ricciardi, Elko
concluded that Juicy DiModica is a made member of organized crime
and in charge of a Gambino family crew in New Jersey. Tr. 119.
73. Based upon his information, including direct information
from Cagno, Lieutenant Masucci and Special Agent Montgomery and
eleven years of surveillance, Elko concluded that James DiModica is
an associate of the Gambino family. Tr. 120-21, 129. Id.
74. Based upon direct information from Cagno, information from
Masucci and Montgomery, and eleven years of surveillance, Elko
concluded that Wasserman is an associate of the Gambino family. Tr.
123, 129.
Discussion
The IHO must base his decisions on reliable evidence through a
review of what is probative and reliable. Attorney Gold objects to
the use of hearsay evidence in this proceeding. Contrary to his
assertion, however, reliable hearsay evidence is admissible in labor
arbitrations. Associated Cleaning Consultants and International
Brotherhood of Printing and Allied Trades Local 327, 94 LA 1246
(1990); In the Matter of Joseph P. Crincoli, IHO Order and
Memorandum, 97-04D (Oct. 27, 1997); In Re: Trusteeship Proceedings
Chicago District Council, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-30T (Feb. 7,
1998); Elkouri and Elkouri, How Arbitration Works (4th ed. 1994).
Hearsay evidence has been admitted regularly in union disciplinary
proceedings arising under the Teamsters Consent Decree. United
States v. IBT (Cimino), 964 F.2d 1308 (2d Cir. 1992), at 1312, aff'g
United States v. IBT(Cimino), 777 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991);
United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 941 F.2d 1292 (2d Cir.
1991), at 1297, aff'g United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 745
F. Supp. 908 (S.D.N.Y. 1990). The test is whether the evidence is
reliable. Senese & Talerico, 941 F.2d at 1298 (citing Richardson v.
Perales, 402 U.S. 389, 402 (1971)).
The testimony of the IG Inspectors regarding statements of
contractors describing the incidents at VHR Construction, B.J.
McGlone Co., and E & S Construction are hearsay; however, they
demonstrate a similar pattern, and similar demands were related by
three individuals who have neither bias nor reason to falsify. The
individuals knew their statements would eventually be known when
they spoke to the investigating officials, yet they still exposed
themselves to the risk of voluntary cooperation. One of the
individuals initiated contact with officials. I recognize that one
of the individuals has remained unnamed and, standing alone, his
statements would not be probative. Nonetheless, I give evidentiary
weight to his information due to the striking similarity between the
three incidents. The hearsay statements of the unnamed individual
match the hearsay statements of the named individuals. The
statements describe the same modus operandi, the same labor
extortion goals during roughly the same time period, and involve the
same two perpetrators. I find that the hearsay statements of the
contractors corroborate each other and I find the evidence to be
reliable especially given the very similar pattern. See Senese &
Talerico, 745 F. Supp. At 915 (court found hearsay evidence reliable
based upon FBI Agent's information being culled from various sources
and the various sources' corroboration of one another). See also
Cimino, 964 F.2d at 1312 (court used a number of factors to evaluate
reliability giving evidentiary weight to hearsay declarations of
three LCN members related by FBI agent; factors included
corroborating statements in crucial respects, a consistent picture
of the relationship of the individuals and the statements matched
the FBI agent's declaration in the subject matter).
The EDP prohibits members from engaging in barred conduct. Barred
conduct includes, among others, committing any act of racketeering.
See EDP § 1. The EDP also incorporates the Ethical Practices Code
("EPC"). The EPC defines barred conduct to include in pertinent
part: "committing any act of racketeering, as defined in Title 18 of
the United States Code, section 1961(1) …" See EPC, Barred
Conduct. Title 29 U.S.C. § 186 is included as a racketeering
violation in 18 U.S.C. § 1961(a).
Title 29 U.S.C. § 186, makes it illegal for a labor leader to
request and or to receive anything of value from a contractor with
whom he has a collective bargaining agreement:
It shall be unlawful for any person to request, demand, receive, or
accept, or agree to receive or accept, any payment, loan, or
delivery of any money or other thing of value prohibited by
subsection (a) of this section.
29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) (emphasis added). Section 186 (a)(1)
prohibits "giving any money or other thing of value to any labor
organization, or any officer or employee thereof, which represents,
seeks to represent, or would admit to membership, any of the
employees of such employer who are employed in an industry affecting
commerce." Respondent argues that the IG Inspector never asked
Wortman if he believed the request for a gift was an "extortion or a
demand." The argument has no merit; any form of request is
prohibited.
Barred conduct also includes "knowingly associating" with members of
an organized crime family such as the LCN, and knowingly allowing an
LCN member or associate to influence a LIUNA officer. See EDP § 1.
Under the EDP, the term "knowingly associate" means that: (1) the
union member knew the person with whom he or she was associating was
a member or associate of the LCN; (2) the association related
directly or indirectly to the affairs of the union; and (3) the
association was more than fleeting or casual. Id.
In Senese & Talerico, the Court upheld the IBT Independent
Administrator' s determination that "`knowing association' can be
inferred from the duration and quality of the association. " 745
F.Supp at 918. There is no doubt Wasserman knew the persons with
whom he was associating were members of organized crime. The
individuals with whom Wasserman dealt were identified as well known
members of organized crime families by three former organized crime
members. The association was not fleeting or casual. Wasserman
attended meetings with contractors accompanied by James DiModica, a
known associate of organized crime, whose presence was not related
to the ordinary course of union business. Wasserman took James
DiModica along for his intimidation factor. Wasserman had to have
known James DiModica was associated with organized crime; there was
no other reason for DiModica to accompany him. A similar conclusion
was reached by the Independent Administrator in Cimino where the
Independent Administrator found that Cimino had to have known of
Nicodemo Scarfo's Philadelphia organized crime ties during their
association because "the very purpose of that relationship" was
allowing Scarfo to use Cimino and the local union to "further his La
Cosa Nostra interests." Investigations Officer v. Joseph Cimino,
Jr., Decision of the Independent Administrator, IBT Trusteeship (May
28, 1991) at 9); (Cimino), 777 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), aff'd.,
964 F.2d 1308 (2nd Cir. 1992). The relationship between Wasserman
and James DiModica was obviously an illegal joint venture to extort
union contractors with the approval of the Gambino family.
The GEB Attorney offered evidence to demonstrate that Wasserman was
a part time no-show shop steward and argued that being a no-show
shop steward is evidence of being associated with organized crime.
I do not find this evidence to be probative of Wasserman's organized
crime association.
Obstruction
Charge IX:
On or about June 27, 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, on being interviewed
by investigators of LIUNA's Inspector General's Office,
committed "barred conduct" in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and
Disciplinary Procedure and the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code by
refusing to answer questions, terminating the interview, and thereby
obstructing and interfering with an investigation being conducted by
the LIUNA Inspector General's Office.
Findings of Fact
75. In May 1996, IG Inspectors interviewed Wasserman at his
residence in Union, New Jersey. Tr. 61, 64.
76. In June 1996, IG Inspectors attempted to interview Wasserman
a second time at the VHR job site at the Newark Airport to obtain
the additional information about James DiModica. Tr. 64.
77. They met Wasserman as he came out of the security area. The
IG Inspectors offered to speak with him in the coffee shop. Tr.
65. Wasserman stated he preferred to speak at the VHR trailer
outside the parking lot area and the IG Inspectors agreed. Id.
78. The IG Inspectors told Wasserman they needed more
information on the identity of James DiModica. Id. Wasserman
refused to speak with them and stated he was very concerned that
someone had broken into his house three days after the May 1996
interview with the IG Inspectors. Tr. 66.
79. Wasserman refused to reply to questions about James DiModica
and began to leave the area. Id. The IG Inspector told Wasserman
he should remain and speak with them. Tr. 66. Wasserman refused
and left the building. Id.
80. Outside the building, IG Inspectors again requested that
Wasserman speak to them. Tr. 66. Wasserman again refused. Tr. 66-
67.
81. I find that Wasserman purposefully refused to submit to an
IG interview, and thereby obstructed the IG investigation.
CHARGE X
On or about July 8, 1997, Alan D. Wasserman at his deposition
committed "barred conduct" in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and
Disciplinary Procedure and the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code by
falsely testifying that he had been elected by the general
membership to be the Business Agent for Local 342 despite knowing
that the general membership did not elect him and that he instead
was appointed to the position.
82. I find the fact that Wasserman's statements that he was
elected rather than having been appointed, was not a material fact
and was not in violation of the EPC.
CHARGES XI-IV
83. Disciplinary Charges XI-XIII allege that Wasserman falsely
testified at his deposition, that he never demanded a Christmas gift
from a contractor, that he never demanded things of value from a
contractor in exchange for labor peace, that he never attempted to
extort Victor Wortmann or VHR Construction, and that he never met
with or approached contractors with James DiModica. The
preponderance of the evidence proves that Wasserman did perform all
of these acts and when he was asked about them under oath he denied
his participation.
84. Disciplinary Charge XIV alleges Wasserman committed barred
conduct in violation of the EDP and EPC by falsely testifying at his
July 8, 1997 deposition that he never knowingly associated with
members or associates of organized crime. See GEB Ex. 1. The
preponderance of the evidence shows he gave false testimony when he
was asked about his connections with organized crime and he denied
them.
Conclusions
1. During the period of time alleged in the charges, Local
342 was dominated by members or associates of the Gambino crime
family.
2. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by requesting money from VHR Construction
in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) and the EPC.
3. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by demanding money from B.J. McGlone & Co.,
Inc., in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) and the EPC.
4. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by offering to allow B.J. McGlone & Co.,
Inc. to use non-union labor or to pay LIUNA members less than union-
scale wages and benefits in violation of 29 U.S.C. ' 186 (b)(1) and
the EPC.
5. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by demanding money in exchange for labor
peace from E & S Construction, in violation of 29 U.S.C. ' 186 (b)
(1) and the EPC.
6. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by offering to allow E & S Construction to
pay LIUNA members less than union-scale wages and benefits in
violation of 186 ' (b)(1) and the EPC.
7. There is a preponderance of the evidence that
Vincent "Juicy" DiModica is a member of the Gambino family and James
DiModica is an associate of the Gambino family.
8. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
knowingly associated with members of organized crime, thereby
committing barred conduct under the EDP.
9. The evidence clearly demonstrates that Wasserman's
associations with organized crime directly affected the affairs of
the union. Wasserman took a known LCN associate on his visits to
contractors and demanded payments in exchange for labor peace and
permission to use either non-union labor or non-union scale wages
and benefits. The Wasserman/James DiModica venture was an on-going
scheme to extort contractors.
10. There is preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman
committed barred conduct by giving false testimony at his deposition
when questioned about his association with organized crime and his
dealings with VHR Construction, B.J. McGlone & Co., Inc., and E & S
Construction.
11. Wasserman's statement that he was elected to be a Business
Agent of Local 342, rather than appointed was not a material
misstatement and did not obstruct the GEB Attorney.
Decision
Charges I-IX and Charges XI-XIV have been proved by a preponderance
of the evidence. Charge X has not been proved by a preponderance of
the evidence.
Penalty
Wasserman's membership in LIUNA is permanently revoked. Wasserman
is permanently barred from holding an office in or being employed by
Local 342 or from being an officer or being employed by any LIUNA
affiliated entity or fund.
Wasserman has a right to appeal this Order to the LIUNA Appellate
Officer by filing a Notice of Appeal with the Appellate Officer
within 10 days of the date this Order.
Peter F. Vaira
INDEPENDENT HEARING OFFICER
[1]See previous IHO findings pertaining to LCN history in the United
States, In the Matter of Fallacara, IHO Order and Memorandum, 96-65D
(Sep. 25, 1997) at 2-3. See also In Re Trusteeship Proceedings
Chicago District Council, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-30T (Feb
7,1998); In re Bifulco, IHO Order and Memorandum, 95-48D(1-28)
(March 17, 1998).
Noteworthy Contributors to CUOMO, ANDREW M Noteworthy Contributor
Years Records
↓Total↓ INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
Transportation Unions
2006-2010 43 $181,400
BARNES & NOBLE
Retail Sales
2008 2 $50,00
For more on Barnes and Noble and its historical relationship to
Bertlesmann
"BARNES AND NOBLE" BERTELSMANN
For more on Bertelsmann google
Part 2 Follow The Money (as an exact phrase)
And also input Bertelsmann
CENDANT
Miscellaneous Finance, Insurance & Real Estate
2006 2 $50,000
ENTRUST CAPITAL
Securities & Investment
2006 3 $50,00
GABELLI FUNDS
Uncoded
2008 2 $45,000
RFR HOLDINGS
Real Estate
2008 3 $45,000
ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF NEW YORK STATE
General Contractors
2008-2010 5 $41,00
EMPIRE MERCHANTS
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2008-2010 5 $37,800
PEPSI-COLA BOTTLING
Food & Beverage
2008-2010 7 $37,800
UNIFORMED SANITATIONMENS ASSOCIATION LOCAL 831
Transportation Unions
2006-2010 13 $36,000
BLS INVESTMENTS
Securities & Investment
2008 2 $35,000
VERIZON
Telecom Services & Equipment
2008-2010 5 $32,816
For more on Verizon google an article entitled
Cool Wars May Be Heating Up Soon
And another article entitled
Who Rules Our Planet
BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS ASSOCIATION
General Contractors
2010 5 $32,766 BRICKLAYERS & ALLIED CRAFTWORKERS LOCAL 3
Uncoded
2010 2 $31,00
WASTE MANAGEMENT
Waste Management
2008-2010 3 $30,000
FORTRESS INVESTMENT GROUP
Securities & Investment
2006 1 $10,000
FOR MORE ON FORTRESS GOOGLE AN ARTICLE ENTITLED
What Lurks Behind The Edwards For President Façade
AND ANOTHER ARTICLE ENTITLED
Honest John Edwards Or Is It Jon Edwards A Member of The Terrible Trio
GREENLIGHT CAPITAL
Securities & Investment
2006 1 $10,000 ISLIP VENTURES LLC
Uncoded
2008 1 $10,00
GLOBAL STRATEGY GROUP
Business Services
2008 2 $9,182
NEW YORK STATE BEER WHOLESALERS ASSOCIATION
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2008-2010 2 $7,063
EMPIRE STATE PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION
Oil & Gas
2010 2 $6,500
SARATOGA HARNESS RACING
Gambling & Casinos
2008 2 $6,000
CABLE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK
Telecom Services & Equipment
2006 1 $5,000
CIANBRO CORP
General Contractors
2010 1 $5,000
JP MORGAN CHASE & CO
Miscellaneous Finance, Insurance & Real Estate
2006 1 $5,000
DIAGEO
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2006-2010 2 $3,250
DISTILLED SPIRITS COUNCIL OF THE US
Beer, Wine & Liquor
2010 3 $3,000
FERREIRA CONSTRUCTION CO
Uncoded
2010 1 $3,000
GENENTECH
Pharmaceuticals & Health Products
2010 1 $2,500
LABORERS INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA
(LIUNA)
General Trade Unions
2010 2 $2,500
FOR MORE ON LIUNA PLEASE GOOGLE AN ARTICLE ENTITLED
Can We Stop The Demobrocrats
TEAMSTERS LOCAL 456
Transportation Unions
2010 2 $2,500
TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM
TV & Movie Production/Distribution
2006 1 $2,000
SOURCE:
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/uniquecandidate.phtml?uc=13066&so9=a&p9=7\
#sorttable9
the item directly below is excerpted from:
http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/why_some_questions_abou
t_obamas_terrorist_and_communist_fan_club
Why? Some questions about Obama's terrorist and communist fan club...
we're at a tipping point and it is a point that requires the press to
dig a bit deeper.Obama's ties to terrorist Bill Ayers and his
terrorist wife are often played down by the Obama campaign, but they
are only disputed by Obama's chief strategist. In fact, Obama's
present successful political career was started in Bill Ayers's
living room.
"I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill
Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the
senate and running for Congress," said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent
Chicago physician... of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers
and his wife, Dohrn. "[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor."
Then, of course, we have his dealings with Tony Rezko and Saddam
loyalist Nadhmi Auchi, with whom Obama tries to play down his
relationship. Nonetheless, Obama appears to have yet again lied to
cover up his toasting of Nadhmi....We have someone with alleged PLO
links, Rashid Khalidi, holding a fundraiser for Obama.
Then there is this author of the site Electric Intifada who
characterized the old Obama:
Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a
dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events
in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward
Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran
for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a
University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama
was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-
handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
(note, not part of article being quoted, imagine if you will that it
is somewhere between September 1st, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland
and December 7th, 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Should the
United States of America have supported "an even-handed approach" to
the war against Hitler? Those who advocate such an "approach" fail to
recognize that the arabs who misname themselves "palestinians" are
neither related to Jews nor are they descended from natives of the
land of Israel, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or the Golan Heights. The arabs
who misname themselves "palestinians" are in fact descended from
arabs from the neighboring arab nations of the Middle East. They did
not originate as a people in Israel, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or the
Golan Heights.)
The article being quoted continues:
"Naturally he supports the present Obama too. In fact, he believes
Obama is very in tune with [Reverend Wright's] views on Israel. He
even quotes Obama's remarks to a group of Jewish leaders in Cleveland
to comfort his fellow anti-Semites that "Obama implicitly admitted
that Wright's views were rooted in opposition to Israel's deep ties
to apartheid South Africa, and thus entirely reasonable....
"Daniel Ortega is enthralled by the rise of Obama.In statements
broadcast on Sandinista Radio La Primerisima, Ortega said he
has "faith in God and in the North American people, and above all in
the youth, that the moment of great change in the U.S. will come and
it will act differently, with justice and equality toward all
nations." The terrorist group Hamas...are on board the Obama Nation
bandwagon. "We hope he will (win) the election," Ahmed Yusuf said.
We also have the curious affair between Obama and (the)...terrorist
group FARC. It's not exactly clear if FARC associates got time with
Obama, but we know documents seized from FARC show FARC believes
Obama will win the election, which will be good for FARC and
Venezuela and bad for American ally Columbia — ...If that's not
enough, Fidel Castro loves Barack Obama ...And we should remember
that Jimmy Carter, who never met a foe of America without embracing
them as a kindred soul, also likes Obama and is even now considering
an endorsement of Obama.
Carter Endorses Obama
Jimmy Carter, the former president of United States, announced his
vote for Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday. Speaking at the Georgia World
Congress Center Tuesday afternoon, Carter said, "The fact is the Obama
people already know they have my vote when the polls close tonight."
Carter's endorsement came as Obama was on the threshold of final
victory. Carter, a superdelegate, who was officially neutral in the
race, but did offer strong hints that he would end up in Obama's side.
He also urged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to abandon her White House
bid in early June.
The former president also revealed that his children, grandchildren
and their spouses back the Illinois senator. Carter had been one of
the highest profile Democrats who had yet to make a pick in the long
presidential primary.
http://www.topnews.in/usa/carter-endorses-obama-2490
Carter Endorses Park51, Laments Tea Party Rise at Annual Forum
By Christina White Posted: 09/17/2010
At some point we should be concerned that so many enemies of this
country, enemies who are proud to be enemies of this country, and
enemies of liberty are supporting a man like Barack Obama."
Abuses alleged in mob's Wall Street forays 19 charged with extortion,
fraud
use of violence noted
November 27, 1997|By BLOOMBERG NEWSNEW YORK -- Italian and Russian
crime families have introduced an element of violence to some small
companies and Wall Street brokerages, a federal prosecutor said
yesterday.
"Scams used to be done with financial incentives," said Alan Vickery,
the business and securities fraud chief for the U.S. attorney's office
in Brooklyn. "Now the mob has added violence by threatening personal
harm to mainstream brokers who may have found themselves with gambling
debts or some other exposure."
Vickery made his comments a day after 19 people, including members of
the Genovese and Bonanno organized-crime families, were charged in a
federal indictment with securities fraud, wire fraud, extortion and
bank fraud.
The case, brought by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, was the
fourth in eight months that alleges organized-crime abuses on Wall
Street.
One defendant, Rosario "Rossi" Gangi, was a capo in the Genovese
family, and another, Frank "Curly" Lino, was a capo in the Bonanno
family, the indictment alleged. Capos, or bosses, supervise members
known as soldiers, and report to the highest-ranking members of their
crime families.
Another defendant, a stock promoter named Claudio Iodice, was accused
of telling the chairman of HealthTech International Inc., Gordon Hall,
that he would knife members of Hall's family if he wasn't paid
adequately for manipulating the stock. Iodice's attorney couldn't be
reached.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged 13 people
with stock fraud linked to the Gambino crime family in a case
allegedly involving violence.
Globus Group Inc.'s top executives and 14 others, including members of
Russian crime groups, were charged with fraud in April for scheming to
inflate the company's stock price, Vickery said.
One broker, Igor Stolyar, and his father, Alik, were accused of trying
to hire a hit man in Canada to kill people who they thought were
extorting money from the younger Stolyar and other brokers of Globus
stock.
William McLucas, the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement
director, said the SEC, Justice Department, the National Association
of Securities Dealers and other agencies are increasing the resources
they devote to stopping organized crime on Wall Street. The SEC "is
participating in a number of such investigations," he said.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-11-27/business/1997331116_1_organized-crime-securities-fraud-russian-crime
Soviet Emigre Mob Outgrows Brooklyn, and Fear Spreads
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL with CELESTINE BOHLEN
Published: June 04, 1989
A criminal underworld of Soviet emigres, some of them skilled in white-
collar crime and hardened by Soviet prison and labor camps, is
reaching beyond its base in Brooklyn, using extortion and violence in
its own neighborhoods and engaging in multimillion-dollar racketeering
schemes on an international scale.
The network of Russian-speaking criminals is small and loosely grouped
compared with the hierarchies of traditional American organized crime.
But camouflaged within the country's growing Soviet immigrant
communities, the network is fast outstripping the ability of local and
Federal agencies to curb its illegal schemes, some of which are linked
to Mafia crime families, officials of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and other agencies say.
Intelligence reports trace the network to black marketeers and other
professional gangsters, many of whom plied their criminal trade in the
Soviet Union before winning exit visas - or being planted - in the
wave of Jewish emigration.
One mob boss who was said to have spent 10 years in Soviet prisons
before turning up in Brooklyn was known to enforce his threats with an
electric cattle prod he kept in his car. Investigators say he once
extorted $15,000 from another immigrant by threatening to kill the
man's daughter on her wedding day. Another crime kingpin, convicted of
credit card fraud and now facing extradition from West Germany, is
reputed to have amassed a fortune of more than $600 million from
bootlegged gasoline in less than a decade after he arrived from
Odessa.
As Soviet emigration policies loosen up, greater numbers of Jews,
Armenians and ethnic Germans have been given permission to leave.
Since 1975, some 150,000 have come to the United States. About 50,000
have settled in the New York area; another 15,000 are expected to
settle here this year.
Law-enforcement officials say that, while the network comprises no
more than a few hundred active criminals out of all those who arrived,
some of these are highly skilled mob enforcers, forgers and confidence
men.
Their criminal activities range from old-fashioned jewelry swindles on
47th Street to multimillion-dollar schemes involving fake credit cards
and bootlegged gasoline. They have also counterfeited millions of
dollars in currency and bank and corporate checks. In New York City,
the Secret Service is planning to announce soon that it has smashed a
Soviet emigre crime ring charged with counterfeiting $20 million and
fleecing American Express of millions more in bogus travelers checks.
These criminals have also forged antiques, passing some off as
products of Faberge, the famous jewelers of czarist Russia; engineered
insurance frauds; trafficked in illegal drugs, and resorted to
assault, torture and murder where they have found resistance.
Investigators say the crimes typically involve get-rich-quick schemes,
often executed with a contempt for an American criminal justice system
that seems benign compared to the brutalities of life in Soviet labor
camps and prisons. Law-enforcement officials say that the transplanted
criminals, reared in a system where goods are scarce and corruption is
a cost of doing business, can exploit opportunities in the American
system - taking advantage of the credit system and other commercial
relationships based on trust. Hardened Criminals After Soviet Jails,
Little Daunts Them
''They feel we are pussycats,'' said one New York detective monitoring
the network, ''and the United States is one big candy store.''
''The Russians just don't care -they're not afraid of the
consequences,'' said John Good, a retired F.B.I. agent who ran the
Abscam case. He now works for a private security concern, Business
Risks International, which has been hired by victims of some of the
schemes.
Despite the obstacles, law-enforcement agencies have made some
progress against the emigre underworld. Besides the Secret Service
counterfeiting investigation, a grand jury in Brooklyn has been
hearing evidence in an extensive anti-racketeering inquiry into Soviet
immigrant criminals.
In one unpublicized case under F.B.I. investigation, a Soviet emigre
crime ring infiltrated one of the nation's largest jewelry
manufacturers and methodically stole gold and gems valued at $54
million from the Manhattan company, Jardinay Inc. In another case, in
March, the police in Frankfurt, West Germany, arrested Marat Balagula
(pronounced bala-GOOL-a), a 45-year old Soviet emigre and suspected
gasoline bootlegger who fled the United States in November 1986, while
awaiting sentencing for a major charge-card fraud, and led Interpol on
a five-continent chase. Execution-Style Murders
The police in Brooklyn also report a wave of violent crime in the
Russian-speaking communities - including murders with all the
characteristics of organized crime executions. One shootout with
automatic weapons, which took place outside a Brooklyn gasoline
wholesale company in 1986, leaving one dead, and two wounded, involved
associates of Mr. Balagula - including three co-conspirators in the
credit card scheme. In November 1987, Boris Rubinov, a 30-year-old
immigrant, was shot to death in Brooklyn, two months after he was
arrested while loading more than two dozen rifles and other guns into
the back of a car.
The growing economic clout of the emigre crime network is particularly
troublesome, said Laura Brevetti, a Federal prosecutor in Brooklyn who
heads a joint strike force tracking far-flung gasoline tax evasion
schemes. ''Money is power and the fact that they are making so much
money illegally makes them powerful,'' she said.
''The Russians add a zero to anything that anyone else thinks of,''
said Michael Flanagan, the assistant special agent in charge of the
criminal division of the F.B.I. in New York.
Some relocation officials, though, challenge the specter of a
spreading Russian Mafia as painted by law-enforcement agencies.
''It is a quantum leap to jump to a statement that there is an
organized Mafia,'' said Mark Handelman, executive vice president of
the New York Association for New Americans, a Government-supported
Jewish resettlement agency in Manhattan. Since 1972, he said, the
agency had been contacted by the law-enforcement authorities no more
than three or four times about suspected criminals. Soviet Compliance
I.N.S. Is Unable To Screen Felons
Although most of the new arrivals and many of the criminals are
Jewish, investigators say, some of those who arrived as Jews in fact
forged their identity papers in order to leave the Soviet Union. Also,
investigators said, some are undoubtedly K.G.B. agents smuggled into
the United States among legitimate immigrants. They also believe that
the Soviet Union has deliberately rid its prisons of some
troublemakers by sending them here.
Federal agents say the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in the
absence of cooperation from the Soviet authorities, is in no position
to weed out those with forged documents and criminal pasts among the
thousands of immigrants passing through transit camps outside Rome.
The crime network has centered in the bustling Brighton Beach
neighborhood with its Old World shops and restaurants, but police
reports show that criminal offshoots have also surfaced in Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, Cleveland,
Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Dallas, Miami, Wilmington, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Boston, and Providence. Canada has been investigating a
Soviet emigre crime network in Toronto with links to Italian organized
crime.
Groups are often organized by city of origin - Odessa, Kiev,
Leningrad, Moscow - giving some structure to the otherwise loose-knit
network that appears not to be based on turf. Police say the network
is usually subordinate to the deal of the moment.
In many ways, the Soviets follow the pattern of other ethnic organized-
crime groups in America, preying first on their own and then, when
they feel strong enough to evade the law, spreading out. said James
Fox, director of the F.B.I.'s New York office. Educated, Technically
Skilled
But, unlike other immigrant criminal groups, the Soviets generally
arrive well-educated and highly skilled technically, said Lydia
Rosner, a Russian-speaking assistant professor of sociology at New
York City's John Jay College of Criminal Justice who wrote a 1986
book, ''The Soviet Way of Crime.''
''They are often more skilled than Americans themselves at exploiting
the weaknesses in American society,'' she said. For example, she said,
the official Soviet passion for identity documents has long nurtured a
forgery underground that enables criminals, once here, to assume many
identities, thwarting police efforts to keep track of them. Some also
use false documents to collect welfare benefits and build up credit
ratings.
''To them,'' Mrs. Rosner said, ''our police are Mickey Mouse.''
Although United States law bars the deportation of immigrants who can
show they face persecution in their native country, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service says that since 1980 it has returned 101
emigres with criminal records to the Soviet Union. Early Swindles Bags
of Gold Rubles Turn Into Potatoes
A recent report circulated among law-enforcement agencies dates
criminal activities back 15 years to Brighton Beach's ''Potato Bag
Gang,'' a group of confidence artists from Odessa who, posing as
merchant seamen, picked out other immigrant ''marks'' and offered to
sell them antique gold rubles cheap. A sample coin was authentic, but
when the victims paid thousands of dollars for sackfuls of them, the
bags turned out to be full of potatoes.
In a similar swindle involving a supposedly antique necklace, a Long
Island hardware store owner, who took pity on a couple posing as newly
arrived immigrants, was bilked of his life savings of $70,000.
Considerable information on the network's leaders was provided by an
anonymous informant who in 1983 sent Kenneth P. Walton, then a deputy
F.B.I. director in New York, a manuscript in Russian entitled ''All
About Russian Mafia.'' Much of the information was subsequently
corroborated. Bosses Develop Extortionist Toting A Cattle Prod
At the time, the informant said, the head of the network was Evsei
Agron, a 51-year-old Leningrad-born immigrant, killer, extortionist
and thief. With his bodyguards, his cattle prod and the aura of his
Soviet prison time, Mr. Agron was a fearsome figure as he made his
rounds of Brooklyn, with a weekly visit to the Russian baths in the
East Village.
In January 1984, Mr. Agron was shot in the neck outside his apartment
house at 100 Ocean Parkway in Park Slope. He survived, telling a
Russian-speaking detective he would ''take care'' of the attacker
himself. During his recuperation, doctors removed old bullets from
previous shootings. Three sources told the police that the shooting
was linked to a disputed drug deal.
In May 1985, Mr. Agron was shot to death as he came out of his
apartment en route to the baths. His bodyguard and driver, Boris
Nayfeld, who had been waiting downstairs, left mysteriously after the
shooting. Conflicting Explanations
Informants later told the police that Mr. Agron had been killed for
seeking a cut of criminal profits while withdrawing from active
leadership. But other reports said he had been murdered by the Mafia
for poaching on its activities.
Mr. Agron was listed as vice president of a Brooklyn fitness club that
had been the scene of a drug murder in 1982 and that also had distant
links to members of Italian organized crime, including John (Sonny)
Franzese, then listed as the underboss of the Colombo family. Mr.
Franzese also joined forces with Soviet emigres in concocting a highly
profitable gasoline tax evasion scheme exposed by Ms. Brevetti's task
force. One of the conspirators, Michael Markowitz, who assisted the
authorities, was shot to death in his Rolls-Royce in Brooklyn in
March.
No sooner was Mr. Agron out of the picture than his bodyguard, Boris
Nayfeld, turned up in the employ of Mr. Balagula, who investigators
believe succeeded to Mr. Agron's authority.
Born in Odessa on Sept. 8, 1943, Mr. Balagula worked in the Soviet
Union as a storekeeper on passenger ships in the Black Sea, according
to sources within the emigre community. He came to the United States
on Jan. 13, 1977, with his parents and became a citizen in 1984.
Informants cited in intelligence reports say he may have connections
to Soviet intelligence, but Mr. Balagula, in an unusual sworn
statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, flatly denied any
contacts with Soviet secret services. He said he emigrated ''because
of anti-Semitism'' and in order to raise his children ''in a free
society.''
Intelligence files say Mr. Balagula was an owner of one or more
restaurants in Brighton Beach. When he fled the country in 1986, Mr.
Balagula had been convicted, along with several other Soviet
immigrants - including Boris Nayfeld and his brother, Benjamin - in a
scheme that fabricated charge cards with names and real account
numbers of Merrill Lynch customers. The cards were used to run up
fictitious sales with the complicity of several merchants. No goods
changed hands, but Merrill Lynch ended up liable for up to $300,000 in
losses. Balagula 'The Power Broker'
Wiretaps showed Mr. Balagula to be ''the power broker at the
center,''said Assistant United States Attorney John P. Pucci of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
During the trial in Philadelphia, the bald, paunchy Mr. Balagula
rented a suite at the Hershey Hotel and came to court every day in a
stretch limousine.
''You hear all kinds of stories about Mr. Balagula,'' said Ms.
Brevetti. One has Mr. Balagula purchasing an island off South Africa,
or land in Senegal. Another has him masterminding a fleet of
supertankers docking all around the world. Before his arrest in West
Germany, he was sighted in Atlantic City and California, Paraguay,
South Africa and Hong Kong.
Hans-Hermann Eckert, a court spokesman in Frankfurt, West Germany,
where extradition proceedings were nearly complete, said rumors had
circulated of a large bribe about to be paid to free Mr. Balagula.
Targets Get Bigger Jewelry Industry Proves Vulnerable
The Soviet emigre network's criminal schemes have also focused on the
jewelry industry, court records and investigators say. One of the
largest thefts victimized the workshops and offices of Jardinay, a
manufacturer of watches and gold jewelry at 155 Avenue of the Americas
at Spring Street.
Founded as a small watch-making company some 20 years ago by a
Hungarian family, the company has grown into a $100 million-a-year
business with its own designer line called Helen Z, which is sold to
Bloomingdale's, Saks, Fortunoff, J. C. Penney, and other retailing
giants.
By 1986, investigators said, some 25 emigres had infiltrated the 300
employees and brazenly diverted or stolen nearly $54 million in gold
and diamonds before the scheme was discovered in an inventory the next
year. Only $2 million worth was ever recovered.
''The place was filled with Russians,'' said one astounded
investigator. ''They were taking out finished product and raw
materials and stocking their own jewelry stores in Staten Island, Long
Island and California.''
The jewelry business - where merchants traditionally entrust each
other with millions of dollars in gold and gems on a handshake - is
particularly vulnerable to fraud. In some cases, emigre swindlers have
set up phony jewelry exchanges, where they ostentatiously lock their
customers' valuables in a safe. Once the customer leaves, the safe is
emptied through a hidden door at the back. Sophisticated Forgeries
Bogus Cash, Faberge Eggs
In addition to jewelry, the criminal schemes also include
counterfeiting of currency and bank and corporate checks, Federal
agents say.
In its investigation of what it calls a $20 million counterfeiting
ring, the Secret Service is preparing to announce the arrests of up to
20 suspects, said Richard Ward, the special agent in charge in New
York. Almost all of the money has been recovered, along with many
bogus bank checks and nearly $4.5 million in counterfeit American
Express checks that had been cashed around the world, he said.
The emigre network's members also fabricated bank checks of
Manufacturer's Hanover Trust and Citibank.
Art forgery is also prevalent, investigators and jewelers say.
Delicately bejeweled eggs, made by emigre craftsmen in workshops in
Astoria, Queens, have been passed off as original Faberges and sold to
a major auction house, investigators say.
In May 1987, Itsik Ben-Eli, an emigre who was being sought for
questioning in a homicide in Brighton Beach the month before, was
arrested at Kennedy airport with a woman who had 700 grams of heroin -
about 1 1/2 pounds -taped to her body. Mr. Ben-Eli's fingerprints were
later found on the tape. He was also carrying two freshly minted
counterfeit $100 bills. At his sentencing in Federal court in
Brooklyn, a man claiming to represent an Israeli organization urged
the court to let Mr. Ben-Eli serve his sentence in Israel. The judge
sentenced him to five years in Federal prison. Growing Violence
Desperate Victim Shoots Loan Shark
Much of the violent crime inside Soviet emigre communities can be
traced to protection and loan sharking rackets seen among other
immigrant groups. Often, it is only when these transactions turn
violent that they become known to the authorities. People familiar
with the Russian-speaking community say transplanted ''People's
Courts'' exist, where men of influence settle disputes, some of them
brought over from the old country.
One emigre, Valery Zlotnikov, was repeatedly hounded over a debt by
another emigre, Felix Furman, a convicted killer who had managed not
only to escape prison in Colorado but also to jump bail on a gun
charge in New York. Mr. Furman furthermore was acquitted of attempted
extortion, even though an exchange of money took place under the eyes
of the police. Last December, in despair, Mr. Zlotnikov shot Mr.
Furman dead on the street in Brighton Beach and turned himself in.
In another convoluted case, a grocer named Vyacheslav Lyubarsky was
strung up from a ceiling light in his store when he failed to repay
$40,000 he lost in a card game. He later shot one of his tormentors
and, with two reputed Mafia members, went on to stage a faked jewelry
robbery in Chicago, in an abortive attempt to collect a $750,000
insurance claim. ''They even beat up a woman to add credibility,''
said Detective Peter Grinenko, a Russian-speaking investigator
assigned to Brooklyn District Attorney's squad.
American law-enforcement officials acknowledge they are ill-equipped
to deal with the cultural and language complexities of the Soviet
emigre crime problem. While the F.B.I. has a task force that often
deals with these crimes, their Russian-speaking agents are generally
reserved for counterintelligence work. In New York City, the Police
Department's leading intelligence analyst for Soviet emigre crime,
Joel Campanella, retired this month, and associates are ncncerned that
his expertise has been lost.
Two years ago, the police intelligence section lost another expert, a
Russian-speaking police officer who could answer a police hot line
number circulated in Brighton Beach for tips on criminal activity. One
day recently, when a distraught Russian-speaking woman called twice,
offering information, there was no one at the police desk who could
understand her.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/04/nyregion/soviet-emigre-mob-outgrows-brooklyn-and-fear-spreads.html?pagewanted=print
JOHN BARBERIO DIED ON DECEMBER 21ST, 1994 THE VERY SAME DAY THAT NEW
YORK SUBWAY BOMBER ED LEARY,WHO HAD WORKED FOR MERRILL LYNCH WAS
ARRESTED DECEMBER 21ST, 1994.
Wife Recalls Subway Bomber's Obsessions
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: February 21, 1996
The wife of Edward J. Leary took the witness stand yesterday in her
husband's defense, telling jurors how his behavior became increasingly
bizarre and obsessive in the months and weeks leading up to two subway
firebombings that he carried out 14 months ago.
The wife, Marge Schaller, a pediatric nurse, testified for the defense
as Mr. Leary's lawyer began presenting their case in State Supreme
Court in Manhattan. Mr. Leary, 50, is charged with attempted murder
and assault in the two firebombings that injured 50 people in December
1994.
Although prosecutors say the explosions were part of a plot to extort
money from the Transit Authority, Mr. Leary's lawyers, who do not
dispute that he carried out the attacks, say his behavior stemmed from
his use of a mix of drugs, including Prozac, prescribed to treat his
growing depression.
In answering the questions of his defense lawyer, Robert Fogelnest,
Ms. Schaller recalled how she watched in frustration as her unemployed
husband failed to find another job as a computer technician after
Merrill Lynch dismissed him in January 1994. At times, she said, it
appeared as if he was not even trying to find work.
This lack of ambition was not the only change Ms. Schaller said she
noticed in her husband. Instead of looking for work, she said, Mr.
Leary devoted much of his time to strange, inexplicable activities.
For example, she said her husband spent many days, and some nights,
rummaging through garbage cans and Dumpsters near their home in Scotch
Plains, N.J. She said he brought home a variety of items: a dozen old
suitcases, 12 car batteries, 5 rusty weight-lifting benches, shards of
broken glass and discarded clothes and food. She said he spent many
hours assembling a wooden model car, sanding and painting it over and
over again.
Ms. Schaller also testified that Mr. Leary became obsessed with his
physical appearance, often staring at himself in a mirror, trimming
his hair three or four times a day and picking at blemishes on his
face with a nail clipper.
When she pointed out his odd behavior to him, she said he replied:
"It's O.K. I'm going to someone really good." The reference was to a
psychiatrist named John Steven Weihs, who advertised his services in
The Village Voice. Dr. Weihs had prescribed Prozac and a wide range of
psychotropic drugs to Mr. Leary, she said, adding that her husband had
complete confidence in him.
Mr. Fogelnest asked Ms. Schaller a series of questions seeking to show
that the Leary family had not suffered from financial troubles in
1994, which prosecutors say was the motive for Mr. Leary's extortion
plan.
She testified that they owned three apartments in Park Slope,
Brooklyn, and two houses in New Jersey. "We weren't concerned about
our finances," Ms. Schaller said. Mr. Leary, she said, even turned
down a job offer during the summer months of 1994.
Throughout the day yesterday, Mr. Leary sat at the defense table,
twiddling a pen between his fingers and looking impassively at his
wife. Several times, their eyes met. Each time, Ms. Schaller smiled at
Mr. Leary, but he quickly looked away.
During cross-examination, the prosecutor, Peter Casolaro, focused on
statements that Ms. Schaller made about her husband's behavior several
days after the Dec. 21, 1994, explosion. He tried to show jurors that
she said her husband had not acted despondent or angry when she left
for work that morning.
But Ms. Schaller said she could not recall what she had told reporters
about her husband. "I was under extreme stress when I was having that
press conference and I don't remember what I said or did not say," she
said.
Mr. Casolaro also asked Ms. Schaller whether she had sought help for
Mr. Leary or whether she felt her family was in danger. "I never
thought we were in danger," she said. "In hindsight," she said, she
wished that she had sought more help for her husband.
"Your husband is depressed, exhibiting bizarre behavior, and you did
not find that was sufficient to take action?" Mr. Casolaro asked.
"No, I did not," she said.
In addition, Ms. Schaller said she had originally told reporters that
her husband was not responsible for the subway explosions.
But in later questioning by defense lawyers, Ms. Schaller said that
she believed that he had no role in the bombings because that is what
Mr. Leary had told her from his hospital bed. Mr. Leary's legs were
severely burned in the Dec. 21 explosion.
"He said he dropped his resume to the subway floor," she recalled. "He
said he pulled the resume up off the floor and the bag blew up." She
added that she now knows that he carried the explosive on the train.
Subway Bombing of 1994
There was an interview with Denfield Otto in the Daily News over the
weekend; Otto was the transit cop who helped save people during a
December 21, 1994 bombing on a 4 train at Fulton Street. We realized
that we had forgotten about the 1994 blast's details, and it's just
eerie: Edward Leary, unemployed and faced with various family medical
bills, was carrying a homemade bomb in the 4 train in hopes of
extorting the NYC Transit Authority. The bomb exploded prematurely,
though, and police realized Leary was the culprit after he went to
Brooklyn for medical treatment. We dug up this old USA Today story,
which put the 1994 subway bombing up against the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing and the recent Unabomber attacks. For his defense,
Leary said the combination of drugs he was on (Prozac, Effexor,
Buspar) made him "unaware" of the consequences of bombing the train.
Leary was found guilty and sentenced to 94 years in prison, though
he's currently serving a 25-50 year sentence. Anyway, Otto had been
traveling on the 4 train during the blast (he was headed to Transit
Police chorus rehearsal!) and was able to get an extinguisher from a
token booth. He told the Daily News, "I heard two bangs, the second
louder than the first. The train filled with smoke, and I could see
passengers on fire. I remember touching my chest and face. I was 10
feet away, but I wasn't on fire. I was lucky."
Leary had also planted a bomb on another subway car that exploded
prematurely on December 15, 1994, injuring two teenagers in Harlem.
The New York subway bomber, Edward Leary, who had created his own
encryption system to scramble files on his computer. According to the
report, after Manhattan police "failed to break the encryption, the
files
were sent to outside encryption experts. These experts also failed.
Eventually, the encryption was broken by a federal
agency. The files
contained child pornography and personal information which was not
particularly useful to the case."
http://www.jya.com/crypto-crime.htm
December 22, 1994
THE SUBWAY FIREBOMB: THE SUSPECT; From Burns and Tatters, a Bombing
Suspect
By JOHN KIFNER
The man in the Clark Street subway station in Brooklyn was hurting.
His sneakers and the legs of his blue jeans were singed and shredded,
his legs bloody below the knees, Police Officer Michael Ruiz
remembered later. There were burns on his arm, some of the skin on his
face was peeling away, and through the tatters of his gloves there
were burn marks on his knuckles.
The two encountered each other about 10 minutes after 2 P.M. yesterday
-- about a half-hour after a burst of flame in a crowded No. 4 train
injured 41 people as the subway pulled into the Fulton Street station
in the Manhattan financial district. Officer Ruiz and his partner in
the 84th Precinct, Officer Anthony Roa, were answering a radio call
for aid at the subway station in Brooklyn .
"I'm in pain," the man said, staggering near the token booth. They put
him in an ambulance, although Officer Ruiz recalled that "it seemed a
little odd how he got all the way into Brooklyn ."
Then, as they sped toward the burn unit of New York Hospital-Cornell
Medical Center , a description came over their radios of a suspect in
the subway firebombing. They looked at the man riding with them: a
white man, around 200 pounds, between 40 and 50, burgundy sweater,
dark blue three-quarter-length coat, blue jeans torn below the knees,
burn marks.
The two officers looked at each other. "Wait a minute," Officer Ruiz
said. "That sounds like the guy that we have."
Less than an hour after the explosion, the police said, the man,
identified as Edward Leary, 49, an unemployed computer technician from
Scotch Plains , N.J. , was the target of the investigation not only of
yesterday's explosion but also of a similar incident last week. In
that first incident, a teen-age girl's backpack suddenly caught fire
on a subway train in Harlem , injuring and badly burning a 13-year-old
boy, whose clothes had caught fire.
The main link between the two cases, the police said, were
similarities in the construction of the incendiary devices that
started both subway fires: each consisted of a glass jar about the
size of a mayonnaise jar, filled with gasoline or another flammable
liquid. Both had two wires leading from the liquid to a battery and a
crude timer.
The police's Chief of Department, John Timoney, said the remains of
the firebomb were being scrutinized by the police bomb squad and would
be examined by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
which already has the remains of the first device. After questioning
the two teen-agers burned in the Harlem case, the police said they
concluded that the two had nothing to do with the device.
Mr. Leary, who was believed to have last worked for Merrill Lynch,
lived at 63 Glenside Avenue in Scotch Plains and had co-op apartments
at 10 Plaza Street in Brooklyn, a solid-looking brick building with a
doorman facing Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park .
"We did have an Edward Leary who worked for us," said Bobbie Collins,
a Merrill Lynch spokeswoman. "We don't know if it was the same person.
He worked in our operations department. He was terminated." Ms.
Collins said the man last worked there in January 1994.
At the two-story white frame house in Scotch Plains, decorated with
strings of blinking white Christmas lights, a neighbor said Mr. Leary
had moved there from Brooklyn about a year ago, with his wife, Marge,
a nurse-practitioner, and their son, around 12 years old. The
neighbor, who would not give her name, said it appeared that Mr. Leary
had been unemployed for the last few months.
Detectives who were parked in the driveway had seen gasoline canisters
in the garage and a search warrant was being sought last night, said a
law-enforcement official who asked for anonymity.
At the co-op building where Mr. Leary had lived in Park Slope,
Brooklyn , he had left more distinct impressions. He was once
president of the co-op board, a period recalled by one resident as one
of "incredibly nasty politics" over running the building.
"Ed was weird," said David Elrich, who served on the board with him
and who now lives elsewhere. "He was always involved in computers.
He's your classic computer person, great with machines, not so good
with people."
At one point, Mr. Elrich recalled, the infighting over the question of
spending money to decorate the co-op building grew very emotional. One
day, a mysterious fire erupted outside the apartment of the leader of
the pro-spending faction, who opposed Mr. Leary's efforts to keep down
maintenance costs. Law-enforcement officials said that after hearing
tenants recall that incident last night, they were investigating
whether Mr. Leary might be connected to it.
After he moved to New Jersey , Mr. Leary still kept the three
apartments he owned in the Brooklyn co-op, Mr. Elrich said. One woman
who rented one of the co-ops, Jeannette Goldstein, said she was
involved in a long-running dispute over repairs she said were needed
to the apartment, and produced a sheaf of documents and letters that
she had sent to city officials.
"This man is driving me crazy," she said. "I'm on the phone all day
long. He would not fix the apartment."
Mr. Leary had advertised one of the apartments in The New York Times
on Sunday for $164,000. Last night, no one answered the family's New
Jersey 's phone number, which was listed in the ad.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E2DE1138F931A15751C1A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
The 1994 New York City Subway Bomber Ed Leary worked for Merrill
Lynch.
"A Merrill Lynch official, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
confirmed a report in The Daily News yesterday that Mr. Leary, after
having been told his performance was imperiling his job, had sabotaged
computers at the brokerage.
After the tampering was discovered, this official said, a test was set
up to determine who was responsible, and Mr. Leary was identified as
the culprit. Mr. Leary, who joined Merrill Lynch in September, 1991,
was dismissed on Jan. 28." Please see:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405E7D9163BF936A15751C1A962958260
Merrill Lynch was also targeted by Benjamin "Beba" Nayfield
1986 in organized crime
Benjamin "Beba" Nayfield, a powerful member of Brooklyn's steadily
growing Russian Mafia, is convicted for his involvement in a credit
Benjamin "Beba" Nayfield, a powerful member of Brooklyn's steadily
growing Russian Mafia, is convicted for his involvement in a credit
card scam to steal money from Merrill Lynch customers.
http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/1986_in_organized_crime
June 4, 1989
Soviet Emigre Mob Outgrows Brooklyn , and Fear Spreads
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL WITH CELESTINE BOHLEN
At the time, the informant said, the head of the network was Evsei
Agron, a 51-year-old Leningrad-born immigrant, killer, extortionist
and thief. With his bodyguards, his cattle prod and the aura of his
Soviet prison time, Mr. Agron was a fearsome figure as he made his
rounds of Brooklyn, with a weekly visit to the Russian baths in the
East Village .
In January 1984, Mr. Agron was shot in the neck outside his apartment
house at 100 Ocean Parkway in Park Slope. He survived, telling a
Russian-speaking detective he would ''take care'' of the attacker
himself. During his recuperation, doctors removed old bullets from
previous shootings. Three sources told the police that the shooting
was linked to a disputed drug deal.
In May 1985, Mr. Agron was shot to death as he came out of his
apartment en route to the baths. His bodyguard and driver, Boris
Nayfeld, who had been waiting downstairs, left mysteriously after the
shooting. Conflicting Explanations
Informants later told the police that Mr. Agron had been killed for
seeking a cut of criminal profits while withdrawing from active
leadership. But other reports said he had been murdered by the Mafia
for poaching on its activities.
Mr. Agron was listed as vice president of a Brooklyn fitness club that
had been the scene of a drug murder in 1982 and that also had distant
links to members of Italian organized crime, including John (Sonny)
Franzese, then listed as the underboss of the Colombo family. Mr.
Franzese also joined forces with Soviet emigres in concocting a highly
profitable gasoline tax evasion scheme exposed by Ms. Brevetti's task
force. One of the conspirators, Michael Markowitz, who assisted the
authorities, was shot to death in his Rolls-Royce in Brooklyn in
March.
No sooner was Mr. Agron out of the picture than his bodyguard, Boris
Nayfeld, turned up in the employ of Mr. Balagula, who investigators
believe succeeded to Mr. Agron's authority.
At the height of his power, Marat Balagula was a kingpin in a Brighton
Beach Russian mob who traveled with a Paraguayan passport, traded in
diamonds, bought an island off West Africa, owned a Long Island
mansion decorated in pink marble and had a knack for making his
enemies disappear. Marat Balagula was a member and alleged leader of
an organization of criminals made up of Russian and other Eastern
European immigrants based in Brooklyn , New York .
During the mid-1980's Balagula controlled 100% of the bootleg gasoline
which was distributed in New York City . Controlling terminals from
Brooklyn to Westchester County in New York , his ring sold gasoline
among various companies including bogus firms that reported having
paid the excise taxes and then vanished before the Internal Revenue
Service could follow the complicated and cumbersome paper trails.
In June 1993, he and seven individuals were indicted in the largest
excise tax evasion scheme in United States history. Balagula along
with Joseph Macchia; Macchia's three sons, Joseph, Jr., Larry, and
George; Victor Batuner; Michael Varzar; and John Barberio were charged
in a conspiracy to evade approximately $85 million dollars in federal
excise taxes.
In the fall of 1994 Balagula and his co-defendants plead guilty and
are currently awaiting sentence.
This was not the first case to be brought against Balagula for excise
tax evasion. In July 1992 Balagula, along with three other
individuals, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to evade
approximately $500,000 in federal excise taxes and one count of excise
tax evasion. For this conviction, Balagula received a 10-year
sentence.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:kvpYtRYUSgIJ:www.thememoryhole.org/irs/irs_75_years.rtf+John+Barberio+Jersey+Gambino+Mafia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
JOHN BARBERIO DIED ON DECEMBER 21ST, 1994 THE VERY SAME DAY THAT NEW
YORK SUBWAY BOMBER ED LEARY, WHO HAD WORKED FOR MERRILL LYNCH WAS
ARRESTED DECEMBER 21ST, 1994.
Moscows Man Viktor Bout smuggled arms into the FARC and that the
planes that Bout used to smuggle the guns into the FARC left Colombia
loaded with
drugs establish a link between Moscow and The Mob.
What do you think.
Drug Enforcement Administration-AP - 4 hours ago
When celebrated Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout landed last Tuesday
night ... a saga known to the Drug Enforcement Administration as
Operation Relentless. ...
Newsweek - 2 related articles - Shared by 10+
Accused Arms Dealer Pleads Not Guilty - New York Times - 2650 related
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Feds: Russian arms suspect not beyond law's reach - Yahoo! News
Nov 17, 2010 ... Viktor Bout AP – This image provided by the Drug
Enforcement Administration shows Russian arms trafficking suspect
Viktor … ...
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101117/ap_on_re_us/us_arms_suspect - Cached
How the DEA Tracked Viktor Bout - Newsweek
Nov 20, 2010 ... Getting to Bout. Drug Enforcement Administration-AP.
Viktor Bout, center, arrives in New York to face terrorism
charges. ...
www.newsweek.com/2010/11/20/how-the-dea-tracked-viktor-bout.html
Get more results from the past 24 hours
Viktor Bout's Last Deal | Mother Jones
Mar 17, 2008 ... THE CHAIN OF EVENTS that brought Viktor Bout to
Bangkok that morning ... Bout was known to transport small amounts of
drugs between weapons ...
motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/viktor-bouts-last-deal - Cached
[BOT] Viktor Bout Extradited to the United States to Stand Trial ...
Nov 20, 2010 ... Bout arrived this evening on a Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) charter plane ... "Viktor Bout has been indicted
in the United States, ...
www.drugpolicycentral.com/bot/article/ttkn11756.htm
"7th October 1959 A Ba'athist assassination squad fails to kill
Qasim. A member of the team, twenty-two-year old Saddam Hussein,
escapes to Syria and then to Egypt...8th February 1963 A Ba'athist
coup overthrows Quasim amidst several days of terrible street
fighting...18th November 1963 Following bitter infighting
between...factions of the Baath, Arif overthrows the Ba'athist
regime..." Pages 312-313
"Saddam...inherited from his uncle an admiration for Nazi
principles...he was attracted to the ideas of the Ba'ath nationalist
movement. The movement had been established in Damascus in 1943"
(when Syria was a French colony and Hitler ruled France) "by two
Syrians, Greek Orthodox Christian Michel A'flaq and Sunni Muslim
Salah al-Bitar. Their philosophy was based on the ideology of German
national socialism" (Nazism) "and on Italian fascism." Page 199
"After the Ba'ath Party came to power in February 1963...Saddam was
promoted into the Regional Command Council and it was soon found
that this was his metier. He was put in charge of a special force
responsible for terror and assassination and was an interrogator and
torturer in the Qasr al-Nihayyat (`The Palace of the End').
Eyewitnesses say Saddam excelled in creating new methods and
revealed a sadistically inventive mind. He designed new instruments
of torture and then experimentd with them on his victims. ...By the
summer of 1963, Saddam was urging the party to put him in charge of
creating a special security apparatus modelled on the Nazi SS. This
was the Jihaz Haneen....following nationalisation of banks and
certain foreign companies in 1964, the Ba'ath Party instructed
Saddam to assassinate the president Abd al-Salam Arif. The proposed
assassination was designed to trigger off another Ba'ath coup.
Critics say it was a plan on behalf of the CIA but according to some
Ba'athist defectors the CIA did not have direct contact with the
Ba'ath itself but with army officers who were co-ordinating a joint
coup with the party. The main contact with the Americans was Iraq's
own ambassador in Washington, Dr. Nasser al-Hanni." Pages 201-203
"The second part of the plot was carried out by the Jihaz
Haneen...Members of the Iraqi Jewish community...were...arrested.
Eleven of them were among the first fourteen `spies' to be pubicly
hanged on 27th January 1969....The public hangings turned into a
national holiday with live television and radio coverage, and the
Ba'ath Party organized the transport of some hundred
thousand `workers and peasants' from outside Baghdad to join
in...Families picknicked under trees while watching the hangings.
This public orgy of death went on for twenty-four hours..." Page 206
Source: Unholy Babylon-The Secret History of Saddam's War by Adel
Darwish and Gregory Alexander St. Martin's Press, New York 1991
ISBN 0-312-06530-2
"Compare the January 1969 show trial with another spectacle
organized by the first Ba'thi regime in 1963 and designed to counter
the continuing popularity of the ousted president, `Abd al-Karim
Qassem, among certain sectors of the Shi'ite population of Baghdad.
In the first week of the coup, the citizens of al-Thawra, a suburb
of Baghdad, had fought the army and Ba'thist militia in some of the
bloodiest street battles in the history of the country. They refused
to believe that Qassem had been overthrown....The Ba'ath...dealt
with this emotive imagery by televising a lengthy film clip
displaying Qassem's bullet-ridden corpse. Night after night, they
made their gruesome point. The body was propped up on a chair in the
studio. A soldier saunters around, handling its parts. The camera
would cut to scenes of devastation at the Ministry of Defence where
Qassem had made his last stand. There, on location, it lingered on
the mutilated corpses of Qassem's entourage...Back to the studio,
and close-ups now of the entry and exit points of each bullet hole.
The whole macabre sequence closes with a scene that must forever
remain etched on the memory of all those who saw it: the soldier
grabbing the lolling head by the hair, came right up close, and spat
full face into it. The fear that the Ba'th were trying to instill in
this and other instances was brutally direct. The centuries-old
message was simple: he is dead, you had better believe it, we can do
the same to you. The fact that it was on television extended its
reach..." Pages 58-59.
Source: Republic of Fear The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq by Samir
al Khalil Pantheon Books, New York 1989 ISBN 0-679-73502-X
"An Afghani tends to a field of heroin poppies, the sale of which
provides much of the financing for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
Afghanistan is the world's No. 1 producer and distributor of heroin,
and illicit drug trafficking is the biggest funding source for
By Rachel Ehrenfeld / Special to The Detroit News About the author
Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the New York-based Center for the
Study of Corruption and the author of "Evil Money" (HarperBusiness)
and "Narco-Terrorism" (Basic Books).
Moving the money...
In the welter of events following the bombing of the World Trade
Center in Feb. 26, 1993, few noticed that the first man arrested,
Mohammed Salameh—the poor, unemployed illegal immigrant—
offered $5 million for bail. Where could he get this kind of money?
The judge refused bail. But was the source of Salameh's offer the
same as the one that funded the eight men—arrested shortly
afterward—who planned to blow up Manhattan's tunnels and bridges
and to assassinate public officials?
Were the same money sources behind the final attack on the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11?
... For a long time, there has been evidence that terrorist,
international drug trafficking and criminal organizations use the
same fund-raising methods to enrich themselves.
Yet no one seemed to connect the dots. And no one seriously tried to
crack down on their financing.
Bin Laden's is only one among many hostile international criminal
organizations, often state-sponsored, that will do whatever they can
to diminish the status of the United States as the only superpower.
According to a State Department report, the Taliban, who are at bin
Laden's service, has the advantage of controlling the world's
largest heroin production and distribution in the world.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the heroin production
soared to hundreds of tons each year. In 1999 alone, the world
production of heroin was estimated at 500 metric tons; 400 were
produced by the Taliban and available to fund bin Laden and his
associates worldwide. First warning
The writing was on the wall on July 5, 1991, when the Bank of
England shut down what was the most important Islamic bank in the
world, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). This
criminal entity was created by the Pakistani Aaga Hassan Abedi "to
fight the evil influence of the West"; to help with the creation of
the "Islamic Bomb"; to finance all Muslim terrorist organizations;
and to launder the money that was generated mostly by illicit drug
trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms
trafficking.
When BCCI went belly up, we learned from thousands of documents that
Abu Nidal—the notorious Palestinian terrorist organization that
now enjoys the hospitality of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah and bin Laden—had
accounts in the bank. By the end of the 1980s, the "special
services" provided by BCCI included access to Western humanitarian
and international development funds, as well as drug money
laundering, secret transfers of cash and bribes.
A "Black Network," a special enforcement unit supported by Abu Nidal
and other terrorist organizations, operated from Pakistan. The same
Pakistan that harbored bin Laden for many years while its officials
told the United States that they didn't know his whereabouts. And
the same Pakistan that for decades, even according to the State
Department's annual report, had been a major drug trafficking and
money laundering center.
Western blindness
Yet, now more importantly, we also discovered that the American and
British governments knew and kept the bank open for a long time. The
bank "that would bribe God" was able to get away with its criminal
activities for decades due to Abedi's clever portrayal of the Muslim
nations as victims of Western—and particularly U.S.—
"imperialism." And when the bank was shuttered, the accusation in
the Muslim/Arab and Third World countries was that the U.S. and the
United Kingdom governments closed the bank to curtail the growing
fiscal power of Muslim countries.
Like Abedi, anti-American, anti-Western terrorist and radical Muslim
states and organizations, such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas,
Hezbollah, the PLO, Iraq and Iran, use Western democratic rhetoric
to their advantage. But it is the willful blindness, mainly toward
the growing volume of drug money laundering, exercised by Western
bankers on the one hand and Western politicians on the other, that
makes money laundering possible, despite the many laws and
international conventions to control this phenomenon.
The BCCI was the first warning to the West. The second warning about
the abuse of European and American financial markets by terrorist
organizations, as well as their involvement in the illicit arms and
drug trade, was made in February 1994 by the British National
Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).
The Organized Crime Unit of the NCIS warned that Middle East
terrorist groups and states were targeting the financial centers of
London, Frankfurt and other Western countries, and that they favor
illegal drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud....
Clinton appeasement
Despite its stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists, the
Clinton administration went out of its way to appease a few of the
20th century's most notorious terror groups: the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), the PLO and the Irish Republican Army.
All are heavily involved in the drug trade.
On the eve of the 1993 handshake on the White House lawn between
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat,
Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service estimated the PLO's
ill-gotten gains to total between $8 billion to $10 billion, with an
annual income of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion from "donations,
extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money
laundering, fraud, etc."
Since then, Washington has only aided and abetted the PLO. Since the
start of the Oslo process, Arafat has received at least $3 billion
more from the United States and the international community, without
any serious demand for accountability, according to a report this
year to Congress. Arafat, in well-documented instances, has been
systematically skimming off portions of these funds, as he has with
monies given to him on behalf of the refugees in the camps.
The PLO was in the drug trafficking business almost from the
beginning. Operating from Lebanon, under Habash's able leadership
and assisted by a PLO-owned shipping company SUMUD, the organization
exported hashish, opium, heroin and cocaine, first to Europe and
later even to the United States and Australia. In return, it
obtained weapons for their war against Israel and the West, and
amassed a massive treasure trove. In addition, the PLO and Arafat,
who enjoy the financial and strategic support of Hussein and bin
Laden, have the distinction of being the organization that
promoted "suicide bombers" as a weapon.
Yet the Clinton administration subsidized a multitude of radical
Palestinian groups, ranging from Arafat's Fatah branch of the PLO
and its military wing, the Tanzim, to the socialist-nationalist
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by
George Habash, all with close ties to bin Laden, Iraq and Iran.
...It was the Clinton White House that, despite evidence to the
contrary, removed Syria from its list of the drug trafficking
countries, to entice Syria to join the "peace process" in the Middle
East.
The failure of that process and the compromises the United States
has made to maintain an illusion of peaceful prospects had no doubt
added to the Muslim radical terrorists' resolve to attack what they
see as a naive and vulnerable America.
In another example of self-delusion, in 1999, then Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright suggested a U.S.-led coalition to negotiate
with the FARC and supported Colombia President Pastrana's "land for
peace" initiative, despite a report from the General Accounting
Office that the FARC is running a major international criminal
enterprise that, among other things, supplies hundreds of tons of
cocaine and heroin to the U.S. black market.
This second Clinton "land for peace" initiative gave half of
Colombia to the narco-terrorist FARC, while doing nothing to
diminish its violence or appetite to control the rest of the
country...."
Source: http://www.detnews.com/2001/editorial/0109/30/a17-306400.htm
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the Palestinian Authority
a "gang of corrupt assassins and terrorists." "There is an obstacle
[to peace] with the gang of corrupt assassins and terrorists that
lead the Palestinian Authority," Sharon said in a televised speech
in Israel. "The only way to peace is to remove this murderous
posse." – Source:
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Sharon raps Arafat `assassins' By KENNETH R. BAZINET DAILY NEWS
WASHINGTON BUREAU Thursday, August 8th, 2002
"Bush back from surprise Iraq trip
President Bush has arrived back in the United States after a
surprise trip to Baghdad, where he spent two hours with US troops
celebrating Thanksgiving Day.
Mr. Bush told troops the US would not be swayed by ongoing attacks
in Iraq.
"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a
bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate
25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and
assassins," he told 600 US soldiers.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3245584.stm
"President Bush and his wife, Laura, along with former president
George H. W.
Bush, welcome the King and Queen of Spain, Juan and Sofia Carlos, to
their ranch
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004, in Crawford, Texas.(AP Photo/Lawrence
Jackson)"
Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/041124/480/txlj10111241820
A small jet chartered to fly former President Bush to Ecuador
Monday,November
22nd, 2004 was well below normal altitude when it clipped a toll
road light
tower and crashed into a muddy field three miles south of Hobby
Airport, killing
the crew of three.The plane, which belonged to Jet Place Inc. of
Tulsa, Okla.,
came from Love Field in Dallas. It was approaching the runway when
the wing and
the landing gear on the right side clipped the pole on a tollway
road....."
"Weeks after the last pile of debris from EgyptAir Flight 990 was
pulled from the sea, investigators say they are more
convinced than ever of their original theory: The jet was crashed
deliberately."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair000121.html "The
co-pilot under scrutiny in the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 uttered
an Arabic prayer not once but as many as 10 times just
before the doomed airliner went down"
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair991121.html
"Aviation Analyst John Nance Talks About Flight 990 When a commercial
aircraft goes into a dive as steep and precipitous as the preliminary
radar data seems to indicate."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/chat_johnnance110199.html
"The White House is bordered on three sides by buildings that are as
tall or taller than itself. (OEOB, Treasury, and Blair House.) Beyond
these buildings there are still more buildings, that also are taller
than the White House. The only flight path that is relatively
unobstructed if making a controlled, straight-in approach, is from
the
south, over the ellipse. Even the Marine helicopter the president
uses comes in from this direction and lands on the South Lawn. The
problem with flying a plane the size of a 757 or 767 in from this
direction is that there's a 555 ft tall structure in the way called
the Washington Monument. The Capitol, although a bigger target, is
similarly situated. There are buildings on all sides except for the
west side, which faces the Mall. Again, for a controlled, straight-in
approach, a pilot first would need to avoid the Washington Monument,
and then fly straight down the Mall. There is more room to do this,
but again, it would take considerable skill. Moreover, the buildings
in Roslyn, just across the river from and to the west of the Mall,
would have to be cleared, which means the plane's altitude would
probably be too high, or the angle of descent too steep to permit a
successful attack by anyone other than a skilled, experienced pilot."
Imagine the rage and fury of Saddam Hussein
"On February 26th, 1982 the Reagan Administration told Congress that
it had dropped Iraq from the list of nations that supported acts of
international terrorism. Baghdad would now be eligible for American
government loan guarantees." source: SPIDER'S WEB: THE SECRET HISTORY
OF HOW THE WHITE HOUSE ILLEGALLY ARMED IRAQ by Alan Friedman ASIN:
0553096508
Imagine Saddam's rage and fury when Kuwait was liberated on February
26th, 1991, 9 years to the day after the event described above! Is it
any wonder that Saddam would launch the first of his 2 attacks on the
World Trade Center on February 26th, 1993, the 2nd anniversary of the
liberation of Kuwait City, and the 11th anniversary of the event
described above, and that he would launch his 2nd attack on the World
Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, the 11th anniversary of the
Bush
I speech to Congress on Iraq. Saddam loves 11th anniversaries, for
instance " Saddam Hussein's speech on the 11th Anniversary of the
Great Victory Day In the Name of God, Most Compassionate, Most
Merciful Great People, The Valiant of Our Brave Armed Forces, Sons of
our Glorious Arab Nation…"
http://www.index.com.jo/iraqtoday/auguste.html
Saddam took credit for the September 11th attacks on America on
Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television. Saddam sent his henchman Osama
bin Laden to attack America and to assassinate former President
Bush, who was at the White House on the morning of September 11th,
2001,just as he had tried to assassinate former President Bush in
Kuwait in 1993. That is why Flight 93 was selected to hit the White
House on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Fortunately the heroes
of Flight 93 stopped that from happening and the plane went down in
Pennsylvania.
Second Attempt to Assassinate President Bush.
We all know that Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate former
President
Bush in Kuwait in 1993. Laura Bush, wife of the current President
Bush,
along with the current President Bush's brothers, his parents, and
former Secretary of State Baker were actually in the air enroute to
Kuwait when the intelligence came in and their plane was turned back.
Then President Clinton later bombed an empty Iraqi intelligence
building
in retaliation for that attempt in which Saddam's homicide bombers
were
caught in Kuwait.
We believe that the Second Attempt to assassinate former President
George Herbert Walker Bush was made by Saddam Hussein using his
henchman Osama bin Laden on September 11th, 2001.
September 11th, 1990 Dubya's Dad Speaks to Congress on Iraq When
September 11th Yes ! September 11th 1990. Exactly 11 years to the
day before the infamous September 11th 2001 attacks on America.
Saddam's Revenge !!! How clear it is!!! "Address Before a Joint
Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal
Budget Deficit September 11, 1990.
We gather tonight, witness to events in the Persian Gulf as
significant as they are tragic. In the early morning hours of August
2d, following negotiations and promises by Iraq's dictator Saddam
Hussein not to use force, a powerful Iraqi army invaded its trusting
and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. *** The crisis in the Persian Gulf,
as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an
historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our
fifth
objective-a new world order-can emerge. ***" READ THE WHOLE OF
DUBYA'S
DADDY'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1990 AT
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ "Note: The President spoke at 9:09
p.m.in
the House Chamber at the Capitol.. The address was broadcast live on
nationwide television and radio." http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ Iraq
Cheers September 11th Attacks on America "Wednesday, September 12,
2001 Baghdad TV Commentary: US `Reaping Fruits of Crimes Against
Humanity' Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television in Arabic 1700 GMT 11
Sep 01 [TV Commentary by Sa'd Yasin Yusuf read by announcer over
footage of explosions in New York] [FBIS Translated Text] [With
thanks
to Laurie Mylorie - Iraq Watch] The American cowboy is reaping the
fruits of his crimes against humanity. It is a black day in the
history of America, which is tasting the bitter defeat of its crimes
and disregard for peoples' will to lead a free, decent life. The
massive explosions in the centers of power in America, notably the
Pentagon, is a painful slap in the face of US politicians to stop
their illegitimate hegemony and attempts to impose custodianship on
peoples. It was no coincidence that the World Trade Center was
destroyed in suicidal operations involving two planes that have
broken
through all US security barriers to carry the operation of the
century
and to express rejection of the reckless US policy. Panic has spread
among US official circles, which evacuated the White House following
a
series of explosions. They also evacuated the Pentagon, the State
Department, and Congress and closed down the airports and government
institutions. The collapse of US centers of power is a collapse of
the
US policy, which deviates from human values and stands by world
Zionism at all international forums to continue to slaughter the
Palestinian Arab people and implement US plans to dominate the world
under the cover of what is called the new [world] order. These are
the
fruits of the new US order. [Video of explosion rocking World Trade
Center] [Description of Source: Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television
in
Arabic-Official television station of the Iraqi Government]"
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3
"BLITZER: That's Osama bin Laden's group. Now you also have some
new information, David, about Mohamed Atta. He's the suspected
ringleader of the September 11th hijackings.
ENSOR: Well, that's right. As you know, he was one of the suicide
hijackers who died on September 11th on one of those aircraft. And we
had previously reported on September 19th that he met with an Iraqi
intelligence official somewhere in Europe. Well, I'm now able to tell
you, based on information from U.S. sources, he met not once but
twice
with Iraqi intelligence officers in Prague in the Czech Republic:
once
last year in June of 2000 and once in April of 2001."
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/10/lkl.00.html
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Palash Biswas
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