Posted on 12/04/2018 8:31:08 PM PST by buckalfa
COLUMBIA, SC A prosecutor heatedly told a federal judge Tuesday that South Carolina’s Irish Travelers — with their white-collar crimes that bilk insurance companies and government agencies — operate in a culture of lies, theft and ignorance, and should not be romanticized as modern-day “Robin Hoods.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim May, overseeing a yearslong FBI investigation into the group’s criminal schemes, was reacting to a claim by a defense attorney, seeking a light sentence for an Irish Traveler.
“The whole village” — Aiken County’s Murphy Village, home of the Irish Travelers — “has a Robin Hood-type philosophy,” defense attorney Ralph Kennedy told U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs, a reference to a romantic English outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor during the Middle Ages.
That assertion brought May, the lead prosecutor in the case, to his feet a few minutes later.
Let’s make sure we understand this. This is not a Robin Hood philosophy. It is theft!” May said, his voice rising.
Noting Kennedy’s client, Rose Smith, was going to get probation, instead of a prison sentence like almost two dozen other Irish Travelers, May boomed, “Let’s make sure there is no mistake. If she does this again, she’s going to prison!”
If the Irish Travelers think of themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods, then federal authorities will go to Murphy Village and “set up camp, and we will prosecute everybody,” May continued.
Tuesday’s exchange came during sentencing hearings for two S.C. Irish Travelers and an English Traveler:
▪ Melissa Riley, 42, of Murphy Village was sentenced to six months in federal prison, followed by six months of home detention. Riley pleaded guilty to carrying out four major frauds, including filing false claims to get food stamps and filing false income tax returns to get $5,000 refunds. Judge Childs could have given Riley more time. But Riley and her lawyer, Jason Peavy, told the judge the defendant’s school-age children and disabled parents depend on her to keep their household going.
▪ Harry Smith, a 53-year-old English Traveler who lives in Aiken County and is married to Rose Smith, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for fraudulently taking out a $250,000 life insurance policy on a dying man. Such schemes are common in the Irish Traveler community, according to prosecutors. Smith could have received less prison time, but he has an extensive criminal history, including convictions for forgery, embezzlement, theft and drug offenses, the judge said.
▪ Rose Smith received two years’ probation for misprision of a felony. That means she knew about her husband’s crime but concealed the illegal act.
Tuesday’s hearings are part of a five-plus year investigation into South Carolina’s Irish Travelers. So far, that investigation has resulted in approximately 55 indictments for fraud, prosecutors say. About 50 suspects have pleaded guilty. Of those, 26 have been sentenced, including 22 sent to prison.
I spend a lot of time in Colombia SS...the gypsies, Gitanos, are always running minor scams. Not violent.
“There’s a big nest of them in White Settlement, in west Fort Worth.”
Damn near the whole government structure is an Irish Traveler nest in Chicago.
Nice prose. You have a knack.
We have some around Mobile, Al. They do asphalt work. They live here in the winter and go north for the summer. Some have big, very nice but somewhat gaudy houses. In the winter there will be travel trailers parked all around the houses. They would eat at the restaurant my father managed. They paid with $100 bills, and would leave no tip. My impression was that it was basically a closed community. They did not associate with outside people nor let them in. They were rumored to be scammers but I have direct knowledge of that.
I normally don’t watch porn....<: <: <:
As to the Irish Travelers, they ‘specialize’ in so called Asphalt work, roofing etc, the kind of ‘handy work’ they can get by cruising neighborhoods, find a sucker or two, collect up front.... scammers to say the least BUT could be considered ‘good’ for legitimate firms as someone has to ‘clean up their mess’...
Typical of the crowd/type we used to say would
“Climb that telephone pole and tell a lie rather than sit down here and tell you the truth”
Thanks!
Thanks!
There was a TV series drama/comedy about the a few years ago. It was pretty good, showing them for the thieves they are.
Genetic testing has proven that Irish Travellers are a distinct race which has led to their recognition as an ethnic minority in the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, and other countries. Travellers were a settled race who lived in Castlerea, County Roscommon, Confederate Ireland. After the “Wars of Three Kingdoms,” they were displaced when their homes and lands were confiscated by the English crown and given to the Protestant Aristocracy. As a minority, Travellers were denied education and the ability to produce a written history. I wrote my book, entitled; “Irish Travellers: An Undocumented Journey Through History” to document the history of our ethnic minority. My book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other bookstores. If you are interested in the Irish Travellers, their history, and struggles then read my book.
Genetic testing has proven that Irish Travellers are a distinct race which has led to their recognition as an ethnic minority in the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, and other countries. Travellers were a settled race who lived in Castlerea, County Roscommon, Confederate Ireland. After the “Wars of Three Kingdoms,” they were displaced when their homes and lands were confiscated by the English crown and given to the Protestant Aristocracy. As a minority, Travellers were denied education and the ability to produce a written history. I wrote my book, entitled; “Irish Travellers: An Undocumented Journey Through History” to document the history of our ethnic minority. My book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other bookstores. If you are interested in the Irish Travellers, their history, and struggles then read my book.
The phrase "not worth a tinker's damn" came to mind.
Merriam-Webster finds tinker's damn in print since 1839 and suggests that it derives from tinkers' reputation for swearing.[1] The spelling tinker's dam is attested since 1858,[2] and phrases.org.uk notes the disagreement over whether the term originated from tinkers' swearing or instead from their use of small, single-use dams to hold solder.[3] The latter explanation has been offered since 1877;[3][4] on the other hand, the phrase tinker's curse is attested since 1824 and the phrase worth a tinker's cuss is attested since 1854, for which reason Etymonline considers the "dam" derivation an "ingeniously elaborate but baseless" invention of later writers.[4]
They come out of West Virginia here. Sealing driveways with black paint. Checking your roof and always finding a hole they just made. Selling meat from the back of a truck. Magazine subscriptions. Selling home security systems. One came by with a sign for a security system he had yanked out of someone’s yard.
Show them the shotgun and they move along.
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