By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

A law enforcement source said Thursday morning that “we’re not aware of any terrorist chatter” around the world hinting of any disruption on New Year’s Eve in the Big Apple where hundreds of thousands of revelers will gather in Times Square to watch the traditional dropping of the Waterford crystal ball at midnight.

“However, due to recent events we’re remaining extremely vigilant,” the law enforcement source said.

The New York police department will lead the security, but the FBI said Thursday that it will deploy more than 100 agents, analysts, professional support and task force members to help out.

” We will be in place to enact our Crisis Response Plan in the event of terrorist incident,” FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in a statement. “Sharing information and intelligence will take place at the FBI’s JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) Command Post, staffed by FBI along NYPD, PAPD and numerous other agencies. Our response teams, including Crisis Response, SWAT, Evidence Response, Hazardous Materials, Crisis Negotiators, Bomb Techs and investigators will be deployed to staging areas.”

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Henry Hill, the real life mobster turned FBI snitch who inspired the movie “Goodfellas”, is in trouble again.

Fairview Heights, Ill. Police arrested Hill, 66, on Sunday at a hotel for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the Associated Press reported.

The paper reports Hill was in the area for a showing of his art work.

Hill told the Belleville News-Democrat he had “one too many” drinks in a hotel lobby and that things “got pretty foggy after that.”

Hill, who was played by actor Ray Liotta in the movie Goodfellas, is free on bond.

The FBI got Hill to snitch on the mob after busting him for drugs. He was booted from the witness protection program after getting busted on drugs in the 1990s.

Earlier this year, in California, Hill was sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of public intoxication.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The Texas FBI agent who shot and killed his neighbor’s 3 pound Chihuahua named “Sassy” with a pellet rifle in the Waco, Tex. area in 2008, is no longer with the FBI.

Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, on Tuesday confirmed that agent Leslie Ledger, 41, was “no longer an employee of the FBI.” He declined to discuss the circumstances behind Ledger’s departure several weeks ago. Ledger had been under internal investigation for the shooting, and had been expected to face some type of discipline, in all likelihood ranging from a suspension to a firing.

“Personnel actions are matters between the FBI and the employee themselves,” Vasys said in a statement. “As such, the Federal Privacy Act prohibits any further comment by the FBI on these matters.”

Ledger, who was assigned to Waco, pleaded no contest this summer in Waco, Texas’ 54th State District Court to felony animal cruelty and was placed on two years probation and ordered to serve 300 hours of community service.

His attorney Rob Swanton did not return a phone call for comment. Attempts to reach Ledger by phone on Tuesday were unsuccessful. One of the numbers listed under his name in Lorena, Tex., was disconnected.

According to media accounts, Ledger shot the dog in front of his rural home in Lorena, Tex. The dog belonged to a young girl down the street. Court documents show he first denied knowing anything about the shooting when sheriff’s investigators began looking into the matter.

The story of Ledger’s departure from the FBI was first reported by the Waco Tribune-Herald.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON — On Monday, for the second time in less than a week, a federal judge declared a mistrial in a high profile Justice Department case that captured the interest of many nationwide.

A federal judge in Brooklyn declared a mistrial in the case against Hal Turner, a New Jersey shock jock,White Supremacist and ex-FBI informant who was accused of threatening the lives of three federal Chicago judges who ruled in favor of a gun control case, the Associated Press reported.

A re-trial for Turner, 47, was set for March 1 in Brooklyn. The case was indicted in Chicago, but was moved to New York as part of a change of venue request.

The bad news for prosecutors came nearly a week after a mistrial was declared in Manhattan in the racketeering trial of John Gotti Jr. It was his fourth mistrial in five years. The prosecution has not yet announced whether it will go for a fifth trial.

After the mistrial in Turner’s case, one juror, Richard Gardiner, spoke to reporters and said the jury voted 9 to 3 in favor of acquittal, the AP reported.

As in the Gotti trial, the majority of the jurors in the Turner case thought the government case was weak, the juror said. The lone juror said he favored conviction.
CNN Special on Hal Tuner

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON – With a magical snap of a finger, we need to make the Salahis, the dashing, photogenic White House party crashers, vanish from our sight. Poof! Go they must into oblivion!

How do you say we accomplish that?

Don’t file criminal charges. It will only drag out their drama, give them more face time on TV and the Internet, give them more ammunition for a book. Right now, they only have enough for a good Vanity Fair piece.

And frankly, the government doesn’t have a slam dunk case, be it trespassing or lying to a federal officer. The Salahis have emails, lots of excuses and some slick charm, which may be enough to undercut a conviction in a federal court in Washington.
click here to read more

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

New York mobster Gregory DePalma, whose friends included celebrities Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Willie Mays, and who was embarrassed when he suggested an undercover Cuban-born FBI agent become a made man in the Gambino crime family, has died in prison at age 77, Gangland News reported.

DePalma became a “made man” under the late Paul Castellano regime, Gangland reported.

To read more click here

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Baltimore’s controversial Mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted Tuesday in state court of a misdemeanor for taking $630 in gift cards designated for the poor, the Baltimore Sun reported.

To read more click here

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

It was hardly shocking.

Just like three times before, a federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday declared a mistrial in John Gotti Jr.'s fourth racketeering trial.

The judge declared the mistrial after the jury remained deadlocked following 11 days of deliberations.

Turns out Gotti junior, the second generation mob boss, is even luckier than his pop, who was nicknamed “Teflon Don” because he was acquitted in three trials. But the father, unlike the son, was convicted in the fourth trial and sent off for life to prison where he died in 2002 at age 61

To Read More click here

By Allan Lengel and Rachel Leven
ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON – As Mark T. Rossini sat at the defendant’s table in the D.C. federal courthouse in May awaiting his fate, you couldn’t help but wonder, if only for a moment, if he saw himself as a tragic figure in a fabled Hollywood film:

Dapper, veteran FBI agent romances pretty actress and foolishly risks career and prestige — not to mention a $140,000-a-year job — to sneak the actress a secret FBI document.

And you couldn’t help but wonder if he remembered the words he uttered to group of Muslims at the Al Badr Mosque in Brooklyn that was captured on a YouTube video dated Oct. 20, 2008:

“We are all equal. None of us is above the law, none of us is under the law.”

In the end, Rossini got a slap on the wrist: one year of probation and a $5,000 fine for digging into confidential FBI records and then lying about it to his supervisor and federal investigators.

To Read More

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

What do you get when you have a cop, a stun gun and an unruly 10-year-old girl who doesn’t want to take a shower?

Answer: An FBI investigation.

The Associated Press is reporting that the Ozark, Ark., Mayor Vernon McDaniel and the city Police Chief Jim Noggle announced on Friday that the FBI was investigating a Nov. 11 incident in which officer Officer Dustin Bradshaw allegedly used a stun gun on a 10-year-old girl.
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By Allan Lengel
For Sphere.com (A New AOL News Site)

Legally, there’s no limit. But all the same, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York working the case of mobster John Gotti Jr. must be wondering: When a defendant gets off thanks to repeated mistrials, how many times can you retry him before it’s time to concede defeat?

Gotti’s ongoing trial, which began Sept. 21, is his fourth in five years; the previous three ended with their juries deadlocked. And on Thursday, prosecutors got some unsettling news. The jury, which has been deliberating for seven days, wrote U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel to inform him that “we are unable to reach a unanimous verdict,” according to the New York Daily News.

To Read More

By Allan Lengel
For Sphere.com (A New AOL News Site)

Legally, there’s no limit. But all the same, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York working the case of mobster John Gotti Jr. must be wondering: When a defendant gets off thanks to repeated mistrials, how many times can you retry him before it’s time to concede defeat?

Gotti’s ongoing trial, which began Sept. 21, is his fourth in five years; the previous three ended with their juries deadlocked. And on Thursday, prosecutors got some unsettling news. The jury, which has been deliberating for seven days, wrote U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel to inform him that “we are unable to reach a unanimous verdict,” according to the New York Daily News.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON – Ever since FBI agents raided his homes in Washington and New Orleans in 2005, little has gone his way. But Wednesday was different for ex-Rep. William Jefferson, who faces a 13 year prison sentence.

In an unexpected move, and against the advice of the prosecution, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Va. ruled that Jefferson, 62, could stay out of prison pending the outcome of an appeal, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He was convicted in August of 11 public corruption counts.

The ruling means Jefferson, who lost a bid for a 10th term in Congress last year, could remain free for at least another year. In court papers filed before sentencing, his attorney acknowledged the possibility that Jefferson might soon have to report to prison, and asked that the judge at least let him spend Christmas with the family.

The government had filed court papers asking the judge to send Jefferson off to prison immediately after sentencing last Friday. The prevailing thought had been that the judge would make him report to prison, possibly in January.

Judge Ellis, who gave the Jefferson the harshest sentenced ever handed down to a member of Congress for a public corruption sentence, ordered that Jefferson wear an electronic monitoring device and not travel outside the eastern district of Louisiana with his permission, the Picayune reported.

Ellis said he didn’t expect the conviction to be reversed on appeal, but acknowledged that the defense was raising questions in the appeal that could result in a new trial or reversal, the Picayune reported.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON — Many decades later, the FBI still won’t let go of the dozens of unsolved racially motivated Civil Rights Era murders.

On Wednesday, at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., the FBI’s Civil Unit Chief Cynthia Deitle announced that the agency was looking for help locating next of kin in 33 cold case murders to let families know what happened to their loved ones and to possibly get more investigative leads.

Deitle’s latest effort was part of the FBI’s initiative launched in 2007 to try and solve more than 100 Civil Rights era murders in the 1950s and 1960s. She spoke at an airing on campus of a documentary film by Keith Beauchamp on a botched prosecution of a 1964 murder.
Agent Cynthia Deitle/fbi photo

Later that day, the FBI released a statement by her in which she said:

“Our agents have worked tirelessly, reaching out to victims’ families and interviewing witnesses, along with police officers, prosecutors and judges.”

“We’ve also received tips and other help from the public, the media, academia, and our partners at organizations like the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Urban League,” she said.

The FBI said of the 108 cold cases it is looking at, three have been referred for state prosecution. Others have gone unsolved for the following reasons:

* The suspects are deceased (47 percent of the cases)
* Individuals who were tried in the state court can’t be prosecuted again in federal court because of double jeapordy,
* Witnesses died and evidence was destroyed.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

It’s no surprise that legendary author and Windy City legend Studs Terkel was on the radar of the FBI for decades. After all, he was a civil rights advocate and suspected of being a communist.

The New York City News Service reported that it had obtained 147 pages of FBI documents showing that the bureau tracked Terkel from 1945 to 1990. He died last year at age 96.

The News Service reported that Terkel applied for an FBI job handling fingerprints in the 1930s. By 1945, the agency suspected him of being a communist.

To read more click here

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Former NFL player Reed Kyle Diehl, who pleaded guilty to clipping investors in a $5 million Ponzi scheme, is headed off to prison.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of Santa Anna, Calif., sentenced the 31-year-old former offensive lineman for the Tennessee Titans on Monday to 4 years and 9 months in prison, saying his scheme had caused “extraordinary” harm, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Diehl of Coto de Caza, Calif., pleaded guilty in July to fraud charges in connection to a Ponzi in which he “collected funds with promises of high rates of returns on investment loans”, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Diehl posed as a banker who made short-term cash loans to businesses or individuals.

“Instead of using investor funds to make loans, he used investors’ money to repay earlier investors and to fund his lifestyle,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release issued in July.

Authorities say Diehl was originally arrested in March 2008 and released on bond. In January, his bond was revoked after he got involved in a real estate transaction involving a $3.5 million home using a false name and social security number, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

By Allan Lengel
For Sphere.com

Down in New Orleans, in Bayou country, the Jefferson family was a political force to be reckoned with.

The patriarch, former Rep. William Jefferson, headed a political machine called the Progressive Democrats. His power base included his sister Betty, a 4th District Assessor; his brother Mose, a political operative; brother-in-law Alan Green, a state judge; and daughter Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, a Harvard-educated lawyer and state representative, who was hoping one day to replace her father in Congress.

Fast-forward to today. The political dynasty is not only dead, but you need a scorecard to track who in the family is off to prison and who is awaiting trial.

Tulane University political science professor Brian J. Brox says that, simply put, the dynasty rose from humble beginnings and showed some of the best aspects of American politics, but ultimately the worst: “power for power’s sake, power for personal gain.”

Read More

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
More details are emerging about a potential scandal at the FBI’s Washington field office centering around a test.

Sources familiar with situation say the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has launched an internal investigation focusing on allegations that three high ranking agents not only worked together on a mandatory FBI test online, a violation of department policy, but may have received the answers from an FBI lawyer. Agents are required to take the test on their own.

Two of the agents declined to comment. A third did not return a phone call.

Speculation as to what might happen to the agents has been circulating in law enforcement circles in recent days. Generally punishments in the FBI can range from a reprimand to a demotion to a firing.

The test, which is on the bureau’s Domestic Investigation and Operations Guide (DIOG), is given to all FBI agents including FBI Director Robert Mueller III and to some support staff on the operational side. Agents attend a class on the subject before the test and have to take it over again if they flunk.

The test is an open book exam, but can be time consuming and requires that it be done individually. The FBI also expects agents to find the answers themselves and not rely on others to provide them. The test can easily take 2 or 3 hours to complete.

The DIOG, according to the FBI website “establishes the FBI’s internal rules and procedures to implement the Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations (AGG-Dom), which are posted on the Department of Justice’s website, www.usdoj.gov.”

“These rules, which will be audited and enforced through a rigorous compliance mechanism, are designed to ensure that FBI assessments and investigations are subject to responsible review and approval and do not target anyone or any group on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or the exercise of any other right guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Michael Kortan, the FBI’s chief spokesman, declined comment last week.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON – Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is leaving behind more than just a shaky legacy.

The Atty. General, now a professor and administrator at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Tex., has put his McLean, Va. hamlet up for sale for 1.075 mil, according to the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

The Post reports that the home, which was purchased for $1.05 million in 2005, has five bedrooms, four-bathrooms “two-car garage, gorgeous views, finished basement, granite countertops — and a sophisticated security system with video-monitored entrances, and a safe room off the master bedroom, behind a thick metal door.”

By ALLAN LENGEL
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON – It’s almost judgment day for ex-Rep. William Jefferson, the New Orleans congressman who at one time seemed invincible.

That was at one time. Last year, he lost his seat in a bid for a 10th term. Then this past summer he was convicted of 11 of 16 public corruption charges in Alexandria, Virgina.

This Friday the 13th, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III will sentence him in Alexandria. The government is asking for a sentence of 27 to 33 years. It says that’s what the federal sentencing guidelines call for. Still, I’ll be shocked if the sentence comes any where near that. I’m predicting something closer to 10 to 12 years. OK, maybe 15 tops. But no more.

I could be off, but here’s my thoughts. Jefferson is 62. That’s got to be taken into consideration. A long sentence would essentially amount to a life sentence. His crimes are egregious and an insult to the public, but they’re not worthy of a life sentence.

Secondly, some of the biggest crooked politicians have gotten sentences far less than 33 years. California Congressman Duke Cunningham got eight years and four months for taking more than $2.4 million in bribes, which is apparently the most any congress member has gotten for public corruption.

Ohio’s Congressman Jim Traficant (a guy who never had a good hair day) got eight years after being convicted on public corruption charges.

Now here’s why Jefferson certainly can’t get less than nine years. His former aide, Brett Pfeffer got eight years in prison for bribing Jefferson. And businessman Vernon Jackson got seven years and three months. And both of them pleaded and agreed to cooperate.

Granted, the judge figured at some point (he hasn’t yet) he’d cut their sentence for cooperating. Still, he set the bar high with those tough sentences. So essentially, it would be a sham and injustice if Jefferson got a lesser sentence than those two guys.

It all could have been different. Way back, months after the FBI raided Jefferson’s homes homes in Washington and New Orleans in August of 2005 and found $90,000 in his freezer, Jefferson’s attorney explored the possibility of a plea agreement.

In all likelihood, he could have hammered out a plea agreement that would have sent him off to prison for four to six years. But the talks never went very far. Jefferson was not all that interested.

So on Friday he’ll feel the full weight of the judicial system. No matter what he gets – 10 years or 30 years – it won’t be pretty. This final chapter in this long, drawn out legal battle will be a sad one, particularly for those many folks in New Orleans who invested so much hope in him over the years.