Posted on 05/01/2003 1:42:36 PM PDT by The FRugitive
Northfield Center - The "boss" of the Nordonia Middle School "mafia" was an elaborate dreamer.
He researched the mob on the Internet and in the library, attracted about a dozen followers and extracted $100 in entry fees to his group.
His plans were even bigger than his actions. He envisioned getting rich quickly off prostitution, computer hacking, robbery, theft or candy sales.
Summit County authorities say Monday's arrest of the "boss" and a fellow eighth-grader, both 14, put a stop to the mixture of plans and fantasy. School officials had found a note outlining some of the scheme.
Police said a note written by the boss suggests he was eager to be in charge of a working organization: "We need to take over the school quick. I want to be the guy that everybody knows. I have a plan to beat the system and make lots of money."
Police said there was no evidence that the boys' plans resulted in anybody being hurt or robbed.
But school officials aren't laughing about the elaborate scheme, which police said was still largely in the planning stages.
"The boys made some very bad choices and waded in behavior that was way over their heads," said school Principal Jennifer Vinson. "School pranks are not kids' stuff in these days and times."
Vinson said each boy has been suspended for 10 days and the district may expel them.
Capt. Larry Momchilov of the Summit County Sheriff's Department said the mastermind was definitely a thinker.
"Some of these things he would never be able to do, but he was thinking about all the things that organized crime does, to see what he could do at his level," Momchilov said. He said the boy is expected to be charged with a felony count of inducing panic.
Besides the second boy arrested, Momchilov said, 11 other boys were involved in the emerging scheme, but none of them was charged.
"The other 11 kids were just tagging along," he said.
He said the boss planned to assign a potential money-making area - such as robbery, theft, prostitution - to each boy. The boss required that he would get 25 percent of any money generated, Momchilov said.
Although there are references in the group's documents to hit men and weapons, Momchilov said he didn't think there were any plans to kill or hurt anyone. But he said the boss of the would-be family was intent upon making money.
"Somewhere down the road I'm sure he was going to try to get some of the girls to be prostitutes for them," Momchilov said.
The other youth who was arrested, described by Momchilov as a very good student with substantial computer abilities, is expected to be charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. Police referred to him yesterday as the "hacker." Neither boy had a previous police record, he said.
Momchilov said the boss wanted the hacker to get into the school's computer system and change the boss' school grades. Police said the youths were also considering an attempt to electronically transfer money out of the account of a church that police declined to identify.
"I doubt seriously that they would have been able to do that," Momchilov said.
Police discovered no weapons but several homemade, plug-in devices that could have disrupted electric power in the school.
Students walking home from the school yesterday told a reporter that they were instructed not to talk to the media. But one eighth-grade boy, who declined to give his name, said the youths deserved to be punished even if they were not serious about their plans. "It wasn't a mafia," the boy said. "It wasn't really anything. Most of it was a prank."
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
So now making plans to run a "mob" within the school is a felony. If that is a felony, then what in Hell are the teacher unions? This is really disturbing what kind of idiots are running this school if the administration quivers in fear and terror because a kid want to score a profit on a skill that he learned in Sex Ed classes; or after looking at the prices of candy in the school vending machines feels that he can under cut the school's monoply; or just shooting the sh** with some computer geek about hacking the gradebooks makes the networkwork Admin soil his pants. These people need to get a life.
There is a simple defense. He and his friends were doing research and were preparing to write a movie script.
As long as the Feds don't hear about this, they don't have to worry about getting slapped with a RICO charge. I hope the "mob boss" paid his taxes.
If these kids had spent HALF the energy, effort etc, on doing something constructive......
Too bad!
Tia
The boss required that he would get 25 percent of any money generated, Momchilov said.
That was a mistake. He should have stuck with 10 unless he got jammed up somehow. Then he could bump it up to cover.
Organized crime is a finesse game, usually. Well, that brings up the next mistake, which is that it’s a finesse game unless things are going badly. And things usually go real bad before they go good. It isn't beneficial to lean on some kid for $200 if his big brother shows up to take you for coffee.
Maybe it’s better that this association ends before he gets injured somehow.
I'll make him an offer he can't refuse....
"It means Kenny Johnson sleeps with the fishsticks...."
"Leave the squirtgun, take the canolis...."
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