Free Republic

CHICAGO - Former Gov. George Ryan, who drew international praise when he commuted the sentences of everyone on Illinois' death row, was convicted of racketeering and fraud Monday in a corruption scandal that ended his political career in 2003. Ryan, 72, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read and afterward vowed to appeal. "I believe this decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service that I provided to the people of Illinois over 40 years, and needless to say I am disappointed in the outcome," the former governor said. Ryan faces up to 20 years in...

Many of those on the left who are attacking President Bush for toppling Saddam Hussein were not so particular when Clinton was president. The man who sent American troops into Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, etc, did so with the support of liberal-leaning Congressmen and Senators. This fact needs to be borne in mind because I think provides a clue as to why the same Liberals are now snapping at President Bush’s heels. Taking a look at the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign we find that it provided the means by which those who are deeply hostile to American values and...

Spam king and online drugstore operator Christopher William Smith, aka Rizler, 26, who is awaiting trial at the Sherburne County Jail, Elk River, Minn., used his phone privileges to arrange a hit on a witness and the witness's family. According to the indictment, Smith called an acquaintance from jail March 4 and allegedly stated he intended to threaten and intimidate a witness he expected would testify against him in his upcoming trial on drug and other charges. The indictment alleges Smith also said he intended to have the witness or the witness's family killed....

Curtis Sliwa watched the man he claims ordered a hit on him walk away from court for the second time yesterday - and said it hurt more than the ambush that almost killed him. "I would say this has been even more painful than being shot with three hollow point bullets," he told the Daily News. "It's like taking yet another slug. "I feel I have been robbed. It's like John [Junior] Gotti has been exonerated for all his sins, all his vicious crimes, simply because he announced his retirement. "I see him pictured in the Daily News, in church...

A juror in John A. (Junior) Gotti's federal conspiracy trial bailed out just as deliberations began yesterday, after telling fellow jurors she feared for her safety, the Daily News has learned. Judge Shira Scheindlin granted the woman's request to be excused, which came moments after a jury foreman was picked and the panel was about to begin deliberations. "There's a verdict, Charlie," Gotti joked to attorney Charles Carnesi, when the foreman sent a second note.

A former bartender at John A. Gotti's social club testified yesterday that the club had hot-pink walls and an elaborate buzzer system and that a crucial prosecution witness — a turncoat mobster who claims that he made plans in the club to carry out a kidnapping Mr. Gotti had ordered — was never there. The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony. Was there anything unusual about the décor of the...

John "Junior" Gotti, who insists he quit the mob family run by his late father, the "Dapper Don," watched jury selection start yesterday at his racketeering retrial in Manhattan. One prospective juror was quickly disqualified: a former supervisor of the FBI's organized crime squad. The most serious charge facing Gotti is the 1992 kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, who allegedly was targeted by "Junior" Gotti because of his on-air rants against the late John Gotti.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano pleaded not guilty Monday to racketeering charges contained in an indictment alleging he paid police officers and others to access confidential records and provide him with information. The indictment was unsealed but not immediately released. Attorney Steven Gruel, who represents Pellicano, said the indictment detailed 105 counts against his client. In addition to racketeering, he was charged with unauthorized computer access, interception of wire communications and possession of a wiretapping device, the lawyer said. Gruel declined further comment on the charges. He briefly made a copy of the indictment available to...

Oakland grocers set to fight vandals Police say they will have more details this week in the attacks on two liquor stores By William Brand, STAFF WRITER NATION OF ISLAM minister Tony Muhammad, standing in front of Muhammad Mosque 26 in Oakland on Saturday, says the Nation had no part in the destruction inside two West Oakland liquor stores Wednesday night. (GREG TARCZYNSKI) OAKLAND — The president of the Yemini American Grocery Association said Saturday that grocers have the right to defend themselves if their stores are invaded like two West Oakland markets were hit Wednesday night. The association, which...

<p>Hours before New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass announced his resignation, Tony relayed some hot information he had heard from his Capitol Hill sources. It regarded an FBI investigation currently under way.</p> <p>You can go to the source above and listen to that segment of his radio show.</p>

The jailed son of late mob boss John Gotti neared freedom on Monday after a judge agreed to release him on $7 million bond, less than a week after declaring a mistrial on the bulk of his racketeering case. Under bail conditions approved by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, John A. ``Junior'' Gotti would be released from a federal lockup in lower Manhattan, but remain under house arrest in his home on Long Island until a possible retrial early next year. Gotti, 41, was still in custody Monday as paperwork was finalized. His lawyers said he could be home with...

BOISE, Idaho -- A southwest Idaho county filed a racketeering lawsuit against agricultural companies accused of hiring illegal immigrants -- an attempt to recoup money the county says it has spent on the workers. The lawsuit by Canyon County commissioners alleges four agricultural companies and a nonprofit have taken part in an "illegal immigrant hiring scheme," and that the county has paid the cost of medical care, jails and schools."Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. It has cost Canyon County millions of dollars, and we expect to recover it," said Howard Foster, an attorney representing the county.

A tiny upstart in the cigarette business threatens to topple a comfortable cartel engineered by big tobacco companies and their strange bedfellows, the state attorneys general.Big tobacco was supposed to come under harsh punishment for decades of deception when it acceded to a tort settlement seven years ago. Philip Morris, R.J.Reynolds, Lorillard and Brown & Williamson agreed to pay 46 states $206 billion over 25 years. This was their punishment for burying evidence of cigarettes' health risks. But the much-maligned tobacco giants have subtly and shrewdly turned their penance into a windfall. Using that tort settlement, the big brands have...

Mobtown Beat | Business Hot Contract City Bribery Scandal Tied to Influential Father and Son BOILERPLATE: Allstate Boiler Service, a company owned by Gilbert Sapperstein and housed in a building owned by his son, Mark Sapperstein, is involved in bribery scandal being investigated by the state. By Van Smith Mark Sapperstein owns 113 W. Hamburg St., an 8,000-square-foot commercial building in Sharp-Leadenhall. The South Baltimore property, though devoid of signs, houses Allstate Boiler Service, a company owned by Gilbert Sapperstein, Mark’s 73-year-old father. On Jan. 7, Allstate Boiler’s bookkeeper and office manager, Ida Marie Beran, pled guilty in a bribery...

Death is no obstacle to feeling the long arm of the Recording Industry Ass. of America. Lawyers representing several record companies have filed suit against an 83-year old woman who died in December, claiming that she made more than 700 songs available on the internet. "I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Robin Chianumba told AP. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing." Gertrude Walton, who lived in Beckley, West Virginia hated computers, too,...

A former FBI agent and an Internet penny stock adviser were convicted Monday of mining government computers for confidential information they used to manipulate the stock market. Former agent Jeffrey Royer was convicted of racketeering, securities fraud, obstruction of justice and witness tampering for leaking details of FBI investigations and executives' criminal histories to San Diego stock picker Anthony Elgindy. Elgindy was convicted of racketeering, securities fraud and extortion for his role in the scheme. He dropped his face into his hands and sobbed uncontrollably as the jury foreman read the verdict; U.S. marshals led him weeping from the courtroom....

Divided federation is taking up issue of union consolidation as some leaders thirst for change Changes are brewing in the AFL-CIO. A new committee of union leaders is exploring possible mergers and how to put new life into organizing. And when transformations eventually are made, they are likely to have a significant impact on the labor federation’s Building and Construction Trades Dept. The leadership of long-time AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney is being tested and may be doomed by the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Unions spent more than $100 million in their attempt to send Kerry to...

PAUSING in the foyer of a comfortable suburban home two days before Halloween in 2002, Kevin Barrows, a special agent with the F.B.I., could not bring himself to open the front door. He and a team of agents had just spent several hours searching every room in the house, in New Rochelle, N.Y., but they were leaving empty-handed. Months of investigating had led Mr. Barrows to believe that someone was orchestrating a huge fraud from the house, yet he had not found a single scrap of evidence. Still, something bothered him about the furniture in one of the bedrooms. It...

Linda Vester is currentlly interviewing Chad Clanton, described as a 'senior Kerry campaign advisor.' Discussing the plans of the Sinclair broadcasting group to air "Stolen Honor," the documentary about Kerry's Vietnam war service, Clanton stated: "They [Sinclair] better hope that we're not elected." Vester immediately asked if that was intended as a threat to Sinclair that a Kerry administration would not renew their broadcast licenses. Clanton tried to back off, but the threat was unmistakable. These people are thugs.

French President Jacques Chirac is the latest leader to call for the imposition of an international tax to help fight poverty. Speaking at the United Nations in New York, Chirac praised a report prepared by a French working group that proposed a global tax be levied on arms sales and some financial transactions. The report contains "technically realistic and economically rational solutions," said Chirac, who joined forces with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to push the anti-poverty agenda. They will attempt to push forward the plan with the goal of cutting in half the number of people in...