Free Republic

Illegal Worker Hiring Sites Promote Racketeering by Bridget Geegan Blanton Mexico is notorious for corruption... ...and is nearly unresponsive to a persistent, staggering poverty suffered by millions of Mexicans. At the top of the Mexican power structure is an elitist, wealthy ruling class that vehemently resists even a modest level of taxation while supporting the status of Mexico as a nation dependent on American financial aid. Onerous taxation and big government is never a solution, but at the other extreme is the Mexican ruling class who has shunned any responsibility for the dire economic state of their country. In a...

Sheriff's Lt. Rosie Enriquez chats with day laborers at 47th Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. She believes a day labor center could help cut crime by getting job seekers off the streets. Florence Low / flow@sacbee.com Sacramento day laborers who gather in a parking lot at 47th Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in hopes of getting work, cluster around a motorist who stops to hire someone Lt. Rosie Enriquez sat in a parking lot in her unmarked cruiser, looking out at a small sea of about 50 men waiting for the promise of work to...

53 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A woman accused of running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital is free to distribute thousands of pages of phone records after a federal judge lifted a restraining order on Thursday. U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler's order granted the request of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 51, of Vallejo, Calif., to quash restrictions by government prosecutors that prohibited her from giving away the list. "As a result, Jeane has determined to release those records under certain conditions to qualified individuals or organizations," wrote her attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, in an e-mail. Palfrey and her attorney...

A Los Angeles grocery chain entrepreneur was charged with running a lucrative criminal enterprise that orchestrated murders, bribed city officials, laundered money and aided drug traffickers, according to an indictment unsealed today. George Torres, 50, who owns the Numero Uno grocery stores scattered throughout low-income parts of Los Angeles, was arrested Tuesday ... on charges of racketeering, violence in aid of racketeering, tax evasion and fraud. ... If convicted, Torres could face more than 60 years in prison. More than $100 million of the defendants' assets are subject to seizure. Torres was the longtime business partner of Horacio Vignali, who...

"Two dozen people cheated casinos in several U.S. states and Canada out of at least $3.3 million over five years by using technology and bribes to rig card games, federal prosecutors alleged in unsealed indictments." (snip) "The three indictments unsealed name 24 defendants, including the son of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, in an alleged racketeering enterprise dating from March 2002. The so-called Tran Organization allegedly was based in California."

Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: 'Would I call my mother a 'ho' or my sister a 'bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?" In a line of work that dangles riches...

Is 'Making Available' Copyright Infringement?January 22, 2007 By Ray Beckerman In 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America began a massive litigation campaign on behalf of the four major record companies against end users of peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, alleging widespread infringement of their sound recording copyrights. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000-25,000 suits have been brought to date, with hundreds of new complaints filed monthly. While at first blush this battle might appear to be a simple fight between record companies and some alleged music file-sharers, it is actually much more significant because the litigation campaign rests upon a...

HOUSTON — A few short weeks ago, Garden Guy was just a mom-and-pop landscaping business that promoted itself as "making Houston beautiful since 1991" and promised to treat its customers with respect and honesty. Since then, though, the business has been vilified around the world as a bunch of bigots because its Christian conservative owners refused to do work for a gay couple. Michael Lord and Gary Lackey, a gay couple requesting bids for a landscaping job at their new house, received a polite _ and, well, honest _ e-mail from Sabrina Farber, a co-owner of Garden Guy: "I need...

NEW YORK - The president of the nation's largest municipal labor council was arrested on federal racketeering charges Tuesday, accused of stealing more than $2 million from the state, labor unions and even a Little League fund. Brian M. McLaughlin, a seven-term Democratic state assemblyman and president of the New York City Central Labor Council, has been under investigation for several years. He surrendered Tuesday morning and was released on $250,000 bail after a brief appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis. McLaughlin and his lawyer, Jonathan Bach, declined to comment as they left U.S. District Court in Manhattan....

A jury convicted four alleged leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang Friday on charges of murder, conspiracy and racketeering in a federal case aimed at dismantling the violent white supremacist organization. The four defendants did not show any reaction when the verdicts were read in a 15-minute proceeding. Most jurors, who deliberated for two weeks, either looked down or away from the defendants. The trial is part of one of the largest federal capital cases, with more than a dozen people potentially facing the death penalty. More defendants face trials in Los Angeles later this year. Barry "The Baron"...

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

In the first of a series, John A. (Junior) Gotti gives his first ever in-depth interview to Daily News staff writer Thomas Zambito He has tried to renounce the life, walk away from the Gotti legacy of greed, intimidation and murder. Yet even as John A. (Junior) Gotti says these things, he still cannot separate his newfound perspective on the Mafia from his love and respect for his father. "To this day, my father is a god to me," he said. Gotti has kept his relationship with the press to a few stray quotes and the occasional news story. But...

NEW YORK -- Prosecutors are accusing John "Junior" Gotti and his family of living lavishly on Long Island with a swimming pool, a horse barn and a staff of gardeners, drivers and housekeepers, while Gotti claims he is going broke. Prosecutors wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin that the lifestyle is especially surprising since Gotti has been in jail or on home detention for the last eight years and his wife does not appear to have a full-time job outside the home.

SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors here announced the indictment Friday of a San Diego gang founder and other leaders of the Mexican Mafia prison gang on charges of running a massive crime syndicate in Southern California. Authorities said the notorious prison gang ran organized crime out of the state's highest-security prison, ordered murders, dealt drugs and demanded money from Latino street gangs, including many in San Diego, in return for protection and guidance. The local U.S. Attorney's Office is using anti-racketeering laws to go after 22 members, associates and affiliates of the prison gang. An additional 14 people were indicted...

Thugs chanting "John Gotti rules" have leveled death threats at Curtis Sliwa and his young son, the radio host says, prompting him to beg help from his mob scion enemy to stop the goons, the Daily News has learned. The worst incident occurred Sunday when a gang of young men approached the Guardian Angels founder on Third Ave. while he was playing with his only child, 2-1/2-year-old Anthony Chester, Sliwa said. "They said that both my son and I deserved to have bullets put into our heads and they walked on," Sliwa wrote in a letter to Gotti obtained by...

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Jurors viewed a videotape Tuesday showing then-state Treasurer Robert Vigil accepting cash payments last year of $11,500 from an investment adviser seeking business from the treasurer’s office. Federal prosecutors allege the payments were kickbacks to Vigil in exchange for steering state business to California-based investment adviser Kent Nelson. Vigil’s defense team contends the payments were campaign contributions. The videotape was shown during Vigil’s trial on racketeering and extortion charges. Nelson was cooperating with federal investigators when he secretly taped the meeting with Vigil last May 2nd. Vigil resigned last October. He has pleaded not guilty to 28...

A few blocks down the main road from this small downtown in the north Georgia hills, the Matul family from Guatemala has opened a grocery selling fresh exotic fruits, canned juice from Mexico and international telephone calling cards. Owner Brenda Matul, 29, counts on the influx of Hispanic immigrants to the community to seal the success of her 5-month-old Tienda la Guadalupana — and her life's journey from Central America to become a naturalized U.S. citizen with U.S.-born, bilingual children. "One day we can grow more if immigrants keep coming to us for imports," Matul said about her clientele. "But...

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....