Tuesday, December 14, 2004
In Today’s column: Is There A "Gypsy Mafia?", Some more FBI/Federal Prosecutors Elite Mob Rats, CHICAGO OUTFIT INDICTMENT'S ANY DAY NOW, JOHN A. "JUNIOR" GOTTI, What is the name of the soldier who John Gotti was seeking to protect?
Gypsies are a group of wandering people whose ancestors originally lived in India. Today, Gypsies live in almost every part of the world. Some have settled down, but many are still nomads.
Is It Politically Correct To Refer To A Romany Speaking Person As A "Gypsy?"
Most Gypsies speak the language of the people among whom they live. However, many also speak their own native language, often called Romany, which belongs to the Indo-Iranian group of languages. Romany varies from place to place.
From the very beginning, many different groups of people have assimilated into the Romany speaking people. The first Europeans thought the Romany speaking people were from Turkey or Nubia or Egypt or a host of other non-European locales because they arrived in Europe from the East. The early Romany speaking people claimed to have come from a country called Little Egypt. The term "Gypsies" is a decayed pronunciation of the words "Egyptians" and "'Gyptians." Because of these facts, some people argue it is not politically correct to use the term "Gypsy" to refer to the Romany speaking people.
No one knows how many Gypsies there are, because they are organized into small groups and usually avoid contact with official census agencies. Today, the Romany speaking people are recognized by the U.S. federal government as a distinct ethnic population of Asian origin. In the U.S. Census 2000, forms were circulated for the first time in the Romany language.
Estimates of the Gypsy population throughout the world range from 1 million to more than 6 million. The largest numbers of Gypsies live in eastern Europe. There are many groups of Gypsies, including the Calé of Spain, the Manounches of France, and the Sinte of Germany. The best-known Gypsy groups in the United States belong to the Rom tribes. The Rom are the largest group of Gypsies and live in nearly every part of the world. The terms "Rom," “Romani," and "Roma" are synonymous.
On the one hand, the term "Gypsy" may be defined to denote a behaviorally-defined subgroup (i.e. criminals) within the larger number of law abiding Romany speaking people and, on the other hand, the Romany speaking ethnicity itself. In this view, it is politically correct to use the term "Gypsy" to denote a member of the minority of Romany speaking people who have adopted a criminal lifestyle.
Are Elements of The Gypsy Culture Criminogenic?
A Rom family consists of a husband and wife, their unmarried children, their married sons and the sons' wives and children. In many cases, a group of related families forms a band that lives together and cooperates in economic matters. The highest authority is the kris, a system of rules of conduct based on Rom religious and philosophical beliefs.
Gypsies have long been noted as musicians and dancers. They have borrowed from and added to the music and dance of other peoples. Large numbers of Gypsies follow traditional Gypsy occupations such as fortune telling, metalworking, horse trading, and animal doctoring. However, many have other vocations.
Any reference to an alleged "Gypsy Mafia" is a reference to individuals who constitute the criminal element of the Romany speaking population. Crime among gypsies tends to be an organized family operation. It is their only career and occupation; these people have no real jobs. So how do you explain their nice homes and SUVs?
Sometimes they work with other families in a bigger gang or "gypsy mafia." The players doing the stealing often launder the money to another "innocent" family so that the police won't follow it.
So yes, the traditional Gypsy culture has criminogenic elements.
The Early History of The Romany Speaking People
The Gypsies left India about A.D. 1000 and began to wander westward through the Middle East. They first arrived in western Europe during the early 1400's.
The Europeans welcomed the Gypsies at first. But they soon turned against the Gypsies as the newcomer's wandered through Europe, telling fortunes and begging. The Gypsies stayed in Europe despite growing prejudice against them. After Europeans began to colonize the Americas, some Gypsies settled there.
Prosecutions or Pogroms Against The Romany Speaking People
Throughout European history, there have been many large-scale, state-sponsored persecutions, or pogroms against the Romany speaking people. The Nazi terror of World War II (1939-1945) is the most infamous. The Nazis murdered thousands of European Gypsies in the Holocaust. The sentiment against Romany speaking people in Eastern and Western Europe has been rekindled by the recent collapse of the communist governments. The Romany speaking people remain the least integrated and most persecuted people of Europe.
Almost everywhere the fundamental civil rights of the Romany speaking people are threatened. Discrimination against the Romany speaking people in employment, education, health care, administrative and other services is observed in most European societies. Hate speech against the Romany speaking people deepens the negative stereotypes against Romany speaking people which are typical of European public opinion. Negative attitudes also exist in the new world against the Romany speaking people.
Romany speakers are misrepresented in the popular press, books, films and television. This misrepresentation contributes to negative stereotypes and characterizations. In some localities special "Gypsy" units exist to warn the gadje, i.e. the non-Gypsy, population of "Gypsy" activities.
Today. more and more Gypsies are settling down, but they preserve their unique culture.
Is There A "Gypsy Mafia" In The United States?
It is inappropriate to characterize Gypsy organized criminal enterprise in the United States as a "Gypsy Mafia." The Gypsies in the United States are organized criminals but they are not syndicated with the American Mafia.
As such, from the stand point of the American Mafia's status quo, organized Gypsy criminals are Outlaws.
What is an Outlaw? An Outlaw is a criminal entrepreneur whose only "right" to engage in a criminal trade comes from the approval of the American Mafia. Outlaw motorcycle gangs may wish to create or maintain a high public profile.
What is syndicated crime? Syndicated crime is organized crime in which diverse criminals co-exist and co-operate in an environment that is mutually compatible and mutually beneficial in both material and non-material ways. In the syndicated criminal universe, the enemy of my enemy is my friend regardless of our ethnicity, race, religion, social background and social standing.
The involvement of Gypsy organized criminals have an insignificant involvement in traditional organized crime, i.e. drug smuggling and trafficking, various other contraband movement, money laundering, illegal gaming, extortion, loan sharking, prostitution, and stock manipulation. Illegal gaming activities include traditional backroom gaming, sports betting involving the internet and illegal lottery gaming terminals.
There is no example of Gypsy organized criminal who has flipped on a Gypsy criminal organization.
In the United States underworld, a given Outlaw aspires to become a syndicated criminal. Once s/he achieves syndication, s/he has a "right" to ply his/her criminal trade.
Why Gypsy Organized Criminals Are Not Syndicated Criminals
Gypsy criminal predators tend to specialize in confidence crimes. The predator
develops a relationship in which the prey does not realize the true nature of their relationship. Rather, the prey is beguiled into trusting the predator.
To the Gypsy criminal predator, the gadje, or non-Gypsy, is the prey. Gypsy predators typically do not prey upon members of the Gypsy population.
In a confidence crime, criminal predators benefit from their ability to blend into a given setting. Criminal predators avoid exposure of their true motives at all costs. The most successful confidence crime is the one that is perpetrated by the native nomad. One the criminal predator strikes, it becomes necessary for him or her to move on to another setting. Gypsy nomads are compatible with crimes of confidence. But, the Gypsy nomad is incompatible with the achievement of social integration with, and assimilation into the social mainstream of a given host society.
The criminal style of the Gypsy nomad is incompatible to the formation of social bonds between Gypsy organized criminal entrepreneurs and the broader underworld at home and abroad.
The criminal predators are obliged to pay tribute and to "kick-up,"
i.e. to relinquish a percentage of their earnings as an opportunity cost
to the mother organization, the American Mafia. Gypsy criminal nomads resist their obligation. After all, the American Mafia is a gadje organization.
The Gypsy organized criminal has been allowed to survive because of the relatively low media profile the victims of his confidence scams are apt to take. Many times, after s/he realizes that s/he has been conned, the prey is just too embarassed to make a formal complaint with the criminal justice system.
Gypsy confidence scam artists flourish in an environment where people believe that fraud only affects the greedy, gullible, or brain dead; and that "I am far too smart to be taken by some slick con artist."
It is important to note that the success of Gypsy criminal activities and the laundering of the their illicit profits would not be possible without the use of legitimate services and the tacit or indirect cooperation of some legitimate gadje involved in the daily commerce of the host country. The Gypsy disinclination to integrate, to at least nominally assimilate, into the mainstream gadje population is a barrier to the establishment of a lasting relationship with corrupt gadje politicians and officials that is so necessary to the establishment and maintenance of underworld career longevity.
It is recognized that in many cases, these cooperating players are unaware of the criminality of the Gypsies. However, there are others who may be cognizant or suspect such criminality but are either victims of coercion, unconcerned or recipients of largesse.
Until the Gypsy criminal predator settles down for good and integrates his-/her-self into the gadje mainstream, Gypsy organized criminal will remain Outlaws without the "right" to ply their criminal trade.
There is the Hungarian mob and the Romanian mob, but to a people who lack sovereignty, neither constitutes a "Gypsy Mafia."
Whereas Joseph Valachi was the first made man to turn state's evidence and testify against the American Mafia, Tomasso Buscetta was the first major Sicilian Mafioso to become a "pentiti," i.e. turncoat. Tomasso Buscetta was held in extremely high regard within the Mafia throughout Sicily. He was part of the Porta Nuova family, one of the many clans that resided in Palermo, Sicily.
Tomasso Buscetta's anti-mafia testimony had the distinction of being damaging to both the Sicilian Mafia and the American Cosa Nostra. He exposed world authorities to the ways in which the Mafia works on two continents. His testimony resulted in the convictions of major Mafia figures.
Tomasso Buscetta testified in the Maxi Trials in Italy. The information Buscetta divulged to Italian authorities is helping them to build more Maxi Trial prosecutions. Tomasso Buscetta has established a precedent that is detrimental to organized criminals everywhere.
All the entries on the "FBI/Federal Prosecutors Elite Mob Rats" list are the names of men made into the American Mafia. I decided not to add Tomasso Buscetta's name to the list because he was a made into the Sicilian Mafia.
In his career as a part-time elite mob rat, James J. "Whitey" Bulger's testimony rivals the testimony of even Tomasso Buscetta, a full-time elite mob rat.
In a hypothetical plea agreement with the feds, James J. "Whitey" Bulger will rival Angelo Lonardo as the elite rat, living or dead, who has spent the most time ratting out the mob.
Tony Spilotro had long been the Mob’s man in Las Vegas and his brother ran a Chicago restaurant before they were killed. The Spilotros were murdered after Tony Spilotro fell out of favor with his Mob bosses over a notorious skimming trial, in which Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo was convicted and sentenced.
The circumstances surrounding the indictments constitute one of the biggest organized crime stories of 2005.
In June 1986, Anthony Spilotro and his brother Michael left a Chicago location for a meeting, presumably with other mobsters. They were never seen alive again. Days later their battered bodies were found in an Indiana cornfield. There were initial efforts to solve the case, but no one has ever been charged with the murders.
The contract on the lives of the Spilotro brothers was sloppily executed.
Every one of the boys wanted a piece of Tony but Michael was the ruse. What smart people do is one does the "work," the others bury the body. That’s where the problem arose as smart as the Chicago Outfit decision makers thought they were. The hit crew found that out that June is not the best time to dig in a cornfield.
In Casino (1995), the film directed by Martin Scorsese, characters based on Chicago gangster Anthony Spilotro and his brother Michael are lured to a cornfield where their companions savagely beat them with baseball bats, then bury them alive.
For years, that's been the popular view of how the Outfit whacked Spilotro and his younger brother, Michael.
In reality, the beatings took place in the basement of a Bensenville home.
The brothers were punched and kicked, not pounded with bats.
After the pummeling, the brothers' near-lifeless bodies were driven to the Indiana corn field where it was intended that they spend eternity in a shallow grave.
The man revealing all this to the FBI -- mob turncoat Nick Calabrese -- took part in the 1986 killings.
He's not just helping rewrite the script of the Spilotro murders -- among the most notorious mob hits since the St. Valentine's Day massacre. His cooperation is expected to close the books on as many as 18 Mafia-related killings, making Calabrese the most valuable Windy City hoodlum to flip for the FBI -- in recent times at least.
Nick Calabrese's cooperation was secured largely by authorities tying him, through DNA, to the 1986 murder of "Big John" Fecarotta, who messed up during an initial attempt on Anthony Spilotro's life.
Albert Tocco, convicted in 1989, partly on the testimony of his estranged wife, Betty, of extortion, racketeering, and tax evasion was sentenced to prison for 200 years.
Betty Tocco split with her husband and became a fount of information about Mob activities, including the 1986 murders of Tony The Ant and his brother Michael.
Betty Tocco maintains the Spilotros were killed by her husband Albert, Laborers’ officials Nick Guzzino and Dominick Palermo and a fourth Mob guy, Albert “Chickie” Roviere. The Spilotros were thrown into a shallow grave off Route 41 in Northwest Indiana, she says, where they died as their assailants buried them. Then, Betty Tocco says, the killers split up, leaving Albert Tocco without a getaway car. In Betty Tocco's account, there is no mention of Nick Cal.
Her husband called her from a phone booth about a mile from the farm field where the Spilotros were buried. Then, almost before Tocco could ditch the dirty blue work clothes that he wore for the killings and burial, the farmer who owned the field found the grave and alerted police.
Although the Betty Tocco version of the Spilotro murders has become fairly well known in law enforcement circles, it failed to prompt the filing of any charges in connection with the brothers’ deaths.
In their efforts to convict Joey the Clown and Jimmy the Man et al., the feds are interested in more than just solving golden oldie homicide cases. They hope to upset the Chicago Outfit's multimillion dollar gambling and money laundering empires. Some estimates have it that the Chicago Outfit makes from $10-to-$15 million a year in gambling profits alone.
It will be interesting to find out to what extent, if any at all, Betty Tocco and Nick Cal’s testimonies are consonant.
In terms of impression management, the relationship of media coverage of the interaction between Junior Gotti's defense and his prosecution is an inverse one. The higher the media profile that Curtis Sliwa can generate around Junior Gotti, the better for the conspiracy trial prosecution, e.g. the better for the people who sponsor Curtis Sliwa's WABC-AM radio show, and, the better for that show's ratings.
For Junior Gotti, the lower public profile he can maintain in the face of the barrage of media attention surrounding his defense in the federal conspiracy trial, the better, e.g. for the John A. Gotti defense, the John A. Gotti public persona and Junior Gotti's confederates in the Gambino Crime Family.
Junior Gotti's attorney asked Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin to muffle Sliwa's on-air comments about Gotti, which have included calling his relatives "criminals" because it could prejudice potential jurors at Gotti's federal conspiracy trial.
Scheindlin said the WABC-AM host can talk all he wants about the mobsters who allegedly tried to have him killed in 1992.
The Gambino Cosa Nostra Family has been blinded by the light of Scheindlin's decision. No made man in his right mind will advocate whacking Curtis Sliwa for the time being. Whacking Sliwa will only generate more unwanted public scrutiny.
According to Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, the mob rat, the late John J. "Dapper Don" Gotti asked Mickey Rourke, the bad-boy actor, to bow out of his role in a movie based on the THE WESTIES, the T. J. English (March 15, 1991) novel, St. Martin's Paperbacks; Reissue edition, ISBN: 0312924291. John Gotti made the request because in the movie there was an unflattering mention of a Gambino soldier.
John Gotti "feared the flick would reflect badly on one of his trusted soldiers." Mickey Rourke complied with John Gotti's wishes.
What is the name of the soldier who John Gotti was seeking to protect? Is that soldier Edmund "Eddie" Boyle, the Irish-American Gambino Crime Family associate? Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/260419p-223001c.html
Eddie Boyle is a member of the Brooklyn-based mob crew headed by Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro, the Gambino soldier, before the onset of Huck's legal problems as a co-defendant in Peter Gotti's current federal conspiracy trial.