Missing workers sought after oil rig explosion off Louisiana

The Associated Press

April 21, 2010

NEW ORLEANS

At least 11 people are missing and seven injured after an explosion and fire at an oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana.

Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry says the explosion happened around 10 p.m. Tuesday, 52 miles southeast of Venice, La., while 126 workers were aboard. The rig was still burning Wednesday morning.

Berry says there are conflicting reports coming in but at least 11 -- and possibly as many as 15 -- are missing. Seven workers were airlifted to a Naval air station near New Orleans, then taken to hospitals. He says two of the seven were taken to a burn unit.

Berry says many workers who escaped the rig were being brought to land on a workboat while authorities searched the Gulf of Mexico for any signs of lifeboats.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-oil-rig-explosion-20100422,0,2199577,print.story

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23 arrested in Hemet crime probe

Dozens of searches are made as officers investigate attacks on police, city property.

By Robert J. Lopez and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

April 20, 2010

A Riverside County task force arrested 23 people Tuesday after serving search warrants at dozens of locations as part of an investigation into attacks by a suspected white supremacist group against Hemet police, according to law enforcement authorities.

The operation by a local, state and federal task force took the suspects into custody on suspicion of narcotics, weapons and parole violations, the Hemet Police Department said.

The arrests follow what police said were a series of calculated attacks against officers and city property in the Inland Empire city, a place once favored as a slow-paced retirement community before its crime rate started to inch up.

Hemet Police Capt. Dave Brown said some of the 23 men and women arrested have gang affiliations. But citing the ongoing investigation, he declined to specify whether the suspects were involved with street gangs, prison gangs, motorcycle gangs or white supremacist groups.

A law enforcement source familiar with the probe said task force members believe the attacks — including booby traps set at police facilities and the torching of several city vehicles — appear to be the work of a white supremacist gang.

"We think right now it's tied to a supremacist group …. That's where we're leaning," said the source, who asked not be named because the case is ongoing.

Brown said task force members targeted locations they believe are connected to the attacks. But he cautioned that authorities were still interviewing the suspects Tuesday evening and had not determined whether they took part in the recent string of incidents.

The operation began early Tuesday as more than 200 law enforcement officers fanned out to 35 locations, each believed connected to the attacks, police said. All those taken into custody were adults.

The task force includes members of the Hemet Police Department; the Riverside County district attorney's office; the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the FBI. Members seized about 16 weapons, along with other evidence, officials said.

Last month, authorities arrested 33 alleged members of the Vagos motorcycle gang. After the operation, Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco said in an interview that the Vagos were "an extreme threat to law enforcement."

Authorities launched the massive crackdown against the motorcycle gang because they considered its members a threat against law enforcement. None of the members, however, were named as suspects in the recent string of attacks on officers. Some were arrested on drug and weapons charges, and, as of last week, less than half of those arrested had been formally charged.

Beverly Hills attorney Joseph Yanny, who represents the Vagos and some of its members, said Tuesday that none of the 33 arrested were Vagos members. He also said the group was not involved in the attacks against police.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is nothing but politics," Yanny said. "They know none of the people arrested were Vagos."

In response to the attacks, the Hemet City Council approved an emergency resolution last week to award $165,000 in no-bid contracts to "harden" Police Department headquarters and City Hall with buffers including Plexiglas shields and surveillance equipment.

In recent months, the attacks have involved booby traps set at the headquarters of the Hemet-San Jacinto Valley Gang Task Force, officials said. In December, a utility line was redirected to fill the offices with gas. Officials said a spark could have triggered a devastating explosion.

In February, a "zip gun" was hidden by the gate to the task force office and rigged to fire. When a gang officer opened the gate, the weapon went off and the bullet narrowly missed him, authorities said.

In early March, police said, a "dangerous" device was found near the unmarked car of a task force member. That was followed by an arson attack on four city code enforcement trucks March 23.

Authorities were also investigating whether an early-morning fire last week at a Hemet police shooting range was another attack. The fire at the remote training facility off Warren Road broke out shortly after 2 a.m. Much of the building was destroyed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hemet-20100421,0,4296623,print.story

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Obama falters on immigration reform promises

Advocates for illegal immigrants fear the White House is doing the bare minimum to appease Latino voters before the midterm elections as it focuses on other issues.

By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times

April 20, 2010

Reporting from Washington

Advocates for illegal immigrants fear the White House is doing the bare minimum to appease Latino voters before the midterm elections in November, while concentrating its efforts on other issues it considers more urgent.

A White House commitment to overhaul the nation's immigration system this year is collapsing, with the Obama administration undecided about the best way to proceed on an issue the president had identified as a top priority.

Immigration advocates who meet regularly with White House officials said the Obama administration had been considering several approaches, including convening a summit meeting devoted to the issue and putting forward its own bill. Those who attended a session Friday with administration officials said they came away with no indication the White House had settled on a course of action.

"He made some commitments that he's supposed to be delivering on," said Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the Obama White House. "And that was over a month ago. So everybody can look at the calendar and make a pretty educated guess about how many days we have to get immigration done."

Immigration advocates fear the White House is doing the bare minimum needed to appease Latino voters before the midterm elections in November, while concentrating its efforts on issues it considers more urgent.

The White House said that Tuesday it still wanted to pass a bill this year and was trying to round up cosponsors. Flying home from a trip to Los Angeles, President Obama telephoned Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) from Air Force One and asked him to consider supporting an immigration bill, according to a Brown aide.

But the conversation wasn't fruitful. Brown told Obama that he would review any legislation that comes up, but that he believes "that the immediate focus should be on fixing the economy and creating jobs," the senator's aide said.

For immigration to pass in the narrow window left before campaign season fully kicks in, Obama needs to step up his involvement, members of Congress and immigration advocates said.

"The critical ingredient for whether we get immigration reform done this year will be whether the president has the courage to step forward and lead," said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, an advocacy group for low-income people and minority groups. "That is the indispensible ingredient."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who met with Obama at the White House last month to discuss progress on immigration, said the president needed to put forward his own plan.

It's not clear Obama intends to do that. In a statement Tuesday, the White House suggested it wanted Congress to take the lead.

Graham and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) have outlined a proposal that combines tough border security with a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants that involves payment of fines and back taxes.

The White House statement said the proposal represents a "framework that the president supports." The White House said the senators should develop a legislative proposal and "identify additional cosponsors from both parties."

Obama's push to line up bipartisan support has foundered to this point. Asked Tuesday whether any Republicans other than Graham had pledged support, one Obama administration aide simply laughed.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), once a proponent of a sweeping immigration overhaul, released a 10-point plan on Monday that focused exclusively on border security.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), a supporter of the 10-point plan, said in an interview: "The prospects this year are not very good" for passage of an immigration bill. He cited as the reason "huge violence" at the border and the lack of consensus on the elements of an immigration bill.

Obama initially had promised to take up the issue in his first year in office. He missed the deadline amid an all-out push to enact a healthcare overhaul. Now, Obama is pushing for new regulations for the financial industry, tighter campaign finance laws and a new Supreme Court justice to replace John Paul Stevens, who is retiring.

Amid disappointment with Obama, Latinos also are anxious over a bill passed by Arizona state lawmakers to crack down on illegal immigration. Critics say the bill will empower police to engage in racial profiling.

An Obama aide said the White House is reviewing the bill, which has not yet been signed by Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said: "Latino and immigrant voters remember the promises they heard and are tuned-in enough to see they haven't been kept."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-immigration-20100421,0,5092368,print.story

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ICE attorney who took bribes from immigrants faces up to 250 years in prison

ttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Arizona gives 'birthers' a dim flicker of hope

How 'bout that Arizona legislature? Demonstrating that the best political myths have half lives that rival some radioactive isotopes , the state House of Representatives advanced legislation that would require future presidential candidates -- say, Barack Obama in 2012 -- to prove that they are citizens before their names can appear on the state's ballot. The proposal, which must still be considered by the state Senate, would require national political parties to submit "documents that prove that the candidate is a natural-born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for president of the United States as prescribed in Article II, Section 1, Constitution of the United States." It goes on to give the Arizona secretary of state the discretion to keep a candidate's name off the ballot if he or she has "reasonable cause" to believe the candidate doesn't meet those requirements.

Open season, "birthers"! The proposal -- which was an amendment to a bill modifying how candidates' names appear on Arizona's ballot  -- came from state Rep. Judy Burges of Skull Valley , a sparsely populated ranching community in the central part of the state. Evidently Burges missed the memo from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee  in January that characterized the citizenship issue as a loser for GOP candidates. Meanwhile, mainstream Republicans in California seem to be distancing themselves from birthers -- witness how organizers at a huge "tea party" rally in Pleasanton on April 15 rescinded their invitation to birther litigant Orly Taitz after complaints from the GOP candidates who were scheduled to share the stage with her.

I hope Arizona enacts Burges' proposal, just so birthers could sue the secretary of state in 2012 for refusing to disqualify Obama. (I'm assuming that Arizona's secretary of state at the time will be rational; the current one certainly seems to be , but his term ends this year.) They'll no doubt argue that the certificate of live birth Obama has already made public isn't sufficient proof (or is fictitious), or that a "natural-born citizen" cannot have a Kenyan citizen for a father. See Philip Berg's futile challenge  to Obama's election for more potential birther arguments.

Chances are the federal courts would toss out the law for being an unconstitutional imposition of state eligibility requirements on federal candidates. But if they didn't, we might actually get a federal judge to say in more convincing fashion what Snopes.com laid out clearly  a year and a half ago. Not that birthers would give up, mind you. Anybody who can read the 14th Amendment and argue that someone born in the United States to a U.S. citizen isn't a citizen just won't take "no" for an answer.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/04/arizona-birther-bill-obama-citizenship.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpinionLa+%28L.A.+Times+-+Opinion+Blog%29

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From the New York Times

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Justices Reject Ban on Videos of Animal Cruelty

WASHINGTON — In a major First Amendment ruling , the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a federal law that made it a crime to create or sell dogfight videos and other depictions of animal cruelty.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. , writing for the majority in the 8-to-1 decision, said that the law had created “a criminal prohibition of alarming breadth” and that the government's aggressive defense of the law was “startling and dangerous.”

The decision left open the possibility that Congress could enact a narrower law that would pass constitutional muster. But the existing law, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, covered too much speech protected by the First Amendment.

It has been more than a quarter-century since the Supreme Court placed a category of speech outside the protection of the First Amendment. Tuesday's resounding and lopsided rejection of a request that it do so, along with its decision in Citizens United in January — concluding that corporations may spend freely in candidate elections — suggest that the Roberts Court is prepared to adopt a robustly libertarian view of the constitutional protection of free speech.

And in the next couple of months, the court is set to decide several other important First Amendment cases about anonymous speech, the right of free association and a federal law that limits speech supporting terrorist organizations.

Tuesday's decision arose from the prosecution of Robert J. Stevens, an author and small-time film producer who presented himself as an authority on pit bulls. He did not participate in dogfights, but he did compile and sell videotapes showing the fights, and he received a 37-month sentence under a 1999 federal law that banned trafficking in “depictions of animal cruelty.”

Dogfighting and other forms of animal cruelty have long been illegal in all 50 states. The 1999 law addressed not the underlying activity but rather trafficking in recordings of “conduct in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed.”

It did not matter whether the conduct was legal when and where it occurred so long as it would have been illegal where the recording was sold. Some of Mr. Stevens's videos, for instance, showed dogfighting in Japan, where the practice is legal.

The government argued that depictions showing harm to animals were of such minimal social worth that they should receive no First Amendment protection at all. Chief Justice Roberts roundly rejected that assertion. “The First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter or its content,” he wrote.

The chief justice acknowledged that some kinds of speech — including obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement and speech integral to criminal conduct — have historically been granted no constitutional protection. But he said the Supreme Court had no “freewheeling authority to declare new categories of speech outside the scope of the First Amendment.”

Chief Justice Roberts rejected the government's analogy to a more recent category of unprotected speech, child pornography , which the court in 1982 said deserved no First Amendment protection. Child pornography, the chief justice said, is “a special case” because the market for it is “intrinsically related to the underlying abuse.”

Having concluded that the First Amendment had a role to play in the analysis, Chief Justice Roberts next considered whether the 1999 law swept too broadly.

The law was enacted mainly to address what a House report called “a very specific sexual fetish” — so-called crush videos.

“Much of the material featured women inflicting the torture with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes,” according to the report. “In some video depictions, the woman's voice can be heard talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter.”

When President Bill Clinton signed the bill, he expressed reservations, prompted by the First Amendment, and instructed the Justice Department to limit prosecutions to “wanton cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex.”

The law, said Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society of the United States , “almost immediately dried up the crush video industry.”

But prosecutions under the law appear to have been pursued only against people accused of trafficking in dogfighting videos.

The federal appeals court in Philadelphia struck down the law in 2008 in Mr. Stevens's case, overturning his conviction. Tuesday's decision in United States v. Stevens, No. 08-769, affirmed the appeals court's ruling.

In it, Chief Justice Roberts said the law was written too broadly. Since all hunting is illegal in the District of Columbia, for instance, he said, the law makes the sale of magazines or videos showing hunting a crime here.

“The demand for hunting depictions exceeds the estimated demand for crush videos or animal fighting depictions by several orders of magnitude,” he wrote.

The law contains an exception for materials with “serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value.” Those exceptions were insufficient to save the statute, the chief justice wrote.

“Most hunting videos, for example, are not obviously instructional in nature,” he said, “except in the sense that all life is a lesson.”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented, saying the majority's analysis was built on “fanciful hypotheticals” and would serve to protect “depraved entertainment.” He said it was implausible to suggest that Congress meant to ban depictions of hunting or that the practice amounted to animal cruelty.

Chief Justice Roberts replied that Justice Alito “contends that hunting depictions must have serious value because hunting has serious value, in a way that dogfights presumably do not. “But, he went on, the 1999 law “addresses the value of the depictions, not of the underlying activity.”

The exchange was unusual, as Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito are almost always on the same side. In the last term, the two justices, both appointed by President George W. Bush , agreed 92 percent of the time, more than any other pair of justices.

Justice Alito said the analogy to child pornography was a strong one. The activity underlying both kinds of depictions are crimes, he wrote. Those crimes are difficult to combat without drying up the marketplace for depictions of them and both kinds of depictions contribute at most minimally to public discourse, he added.

A number of news organizations, including The New York Times Company, filed a brief urging the court to rule in favor of Mr. Stevens.

Chief Justice Roberts concluded his majority opinion by suggesting that a more focused law “limited to crush videos and other depictions of extreme animal cruelty” might survive First Amendment scrutiny.

Mr. Pacelle, of the Humane Society, called for a legislative response to Tuesday's ruling. “Congress should within a week introduce narrowly crafted legislation,” he said, “to deal with animal crush videos and illegal animal fighting activities.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/us/21scotus.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From ICE

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Dallas gang member sentenced to 20 years for assaulting federal officers

Defendant fired shots at ICE special agents during "Operation Community Shield" operation

DALLAS - A local gang member who shot at four law enforcement officers last June during a drive-by shooting was sentenced Monday to 20 years in federal prison. This sentence resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Dallas Police Department (DPD).

Rene Salazar, 20, of Dallas, was sentenced April 19 by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay, Northern District of Texas, to 20 years in prison. Salazar was convicted at trial in January on two counts of assaulting a federal officer, and one count of possessing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

The government presented evidence at trial that on June 24, Salazar, a member of the East Side Homeboys street gang, shot at four law enforcement officers. The officers Salazar shot at included two ICE special agents and two officers from the DPD Gang Unit. All four were taking part in "Operation Community Shield," an ICE operation targeting gang members.

According to evidence presented at trial, that evening, at about 9:45 p.m., these officers had arrested a known gang member in the 400 block of Grandview Ave. The two DPD officers were in a marked squad car, wearing blue police uniforms with a badge on the front, a "Dallas Police Department" insignia on the shoulder, and "GANG UNIT" or "DALLAS POLICE" prominently displayed in large white letters on the front and back of the uniform tops. The two ICE agents were driving an unmarked government vehicle and wearing body armor with the words "POLICE ICE" prominently displayed on the front and rear.

After the arrested gang member was transported from the scene, the two ICE agents and DPD officers remained at the scene to continue the investigation. One DPD officer was inside the squad car and one ICE agent was next to the car speaking with that officer.

The other DPD officer was located on the curb speaking with a citizen about an unrelated incident, while the second ICE agent was near his vehicle providing cover.

A man, later determined to be Rene Salazar, drove down Grandview Ave., past the officers, in a gold four-door sedan with a passenger. Salazar stopped at the Grandview and Santa Fe avenues intersection, pointed a pistol out of his car window, and fired three shots at the officers. He then slowly turned onto Santa Fe Ave. and fired two additional shots at the officers. All four officers took cover to avoid being hit by the gunfire. The two ICE agents and one of the DPD officers drew their weapons and aimed them at Salazar. However, they were unable to safely return fire because of the densely populated neighborhood. This intersection is just down the street from Woodrow Wilson High School.

The DPD officers jumped into the squad car and sped away in pursuit of Salazar and soon thereafter, located the gold four-door sedan, driving with its lights turned off, down Alton Ave. The officers chased Salazar to a residence in the 300 block of South Henderson Ave., where Salazar jumped out of the car and ran into a residence.

After waiting for additional support, officers entered the house and removed the other occupants for their own safety. Officers located Salazar in the shower and arrested him. After obtaining consent to search the house from Salazar's father, officers located the gun in the freezer.

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Hector M. Valle and Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Brown, Northern District of Texas, prosecuted this case.

This investigation was conducted as part of Operation Community Shield, ongoing national ICE effort to target foreign-born violent gang members. As part of this initiative, ICE partners with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to target the significant public safety threat posed by transnational street gangs. Partnerships with local law enforcement agencies are essential to the initiative's success, and they help further ensure officer safety during the operations.

Since ICE began Operation Community Shield in February 2005, more than 16,700 gang members belonging to more than 900 different gangs have been arrested nationwide. Of those arrested, 206 were gang leaders; 196 have been charged criminally, and 9,546 have been charged with immigration violations and processed for removal. Through this initiative, ICE has also seized 1,060 firearms. More information on the National Gang Unit at ICE is available at: www.ice.gov .

The public is encouraged to report suspicious activity by calling ICE's toll-free hotline at: 1-866-347-2423. This hotline is staffed around the clock.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1004/100419dallas.htm

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From the FBI

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Manhattan U.S. Attorney Charges 14 Gambino Crime Family Associates with Racketeering, Murder, Sex Trafficking, and Other Crimes

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and GEORGE VENIZELOS, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced today the arrest of 14 members and associates of the Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra (the "Gambino Family") on charges including racketeering, murder, sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a minor, jury tampering, extortion, assault, narcotics trafficking, wire fraud, loansharking, and illegal gambling.

The 14 defendants charged today are:

DANIEL MARINO, (2) THOMAS OREFICE, (3) ONOFRIO MODICA, (4) DOMINICK DIFIORE, (5) ANTHONY MANZELLA, (6) MICHAEL SCOTTO, (7) MICHAEL SCARPACI, (8) THOMAS SCARPACI, (9) DAVID EISLER, (10) SALVATORE BORGIA, (11) STEVE MAIURRO, (12) KEITH DELLITALIA, (13) SUZANNE PORCELLI, and (14) ANTHONY VECCHIONE. MODICA was arrested on April 16, 2010. Twelve defendants were arrested early this morning by the FBI, and MAIURRO remains at large. The arrested defendants are expected to be presented in Manhattan federal court later today before United States Magistrate Judge MICHAEL H. DOLINGER. The case is assigned to United States District Judge LEWIS A. KAPLAN. The initial conference before Judge KAPLAN is scheduled for April 21, 2010, at 11 a.m.

DANIEL MARINO is a longtime member and is currently a Boss of the Gambino Family. In that capacity, MARINO has over 200 fully-inducted or "made" mafia members under his command, as well as hundreds of associates who commit crimes with and for the mafia. THOMAS OREFICE and ONOFRIO MODICA are currently Soldiers of the Gambino Family acting under MARINO's supervision. OREFICE and MODICA each supervise crews that include DOMINICK DIFIORE, ANTHONY MANZELLA, MICHAEL SCOTTO, MICHAEL SCARPACI, THOMAS SCARPACI, DAVID EISLER, and SALVATORE BORGIA, all of whom are charged with racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. The indictment also charges other individuals who committed crimes with and for the Gambino Family, including STEVE MAIURRO, KEITH DELLITALIA, SUZANNE PORCELLI, and ANTHONY VECCHIONE.

In addition to the racketeering charges, the defendants are charged with the following crimes:

Murder of Thomas Spinelli

MARINO is charged with the 1989 murder of THOMAS SPINELLI, a made member of the Gambino Family. In the months leading up to SPINELLI's death, concern arose in the Gambino Family about his testimony in a federal grand jury about many of the mafia's members and activities. As a result, MARINO, working with various co-conspirators, including JOHN J. GOTTI (who was then Boss of the Gambino Family) and SALVATORE GRAVANO (who was then Underboss) set out to kill SPINELLI to prevent him from further testifying. MARINO and his co-conspirators lured SPINELLI to a window company in Brooklyn, where he was shot in the head and killed. MARINO then helped to dispose of SPINELLI's body, which has never been found.

Murder of Frank Hydell

MARINO is also charged for the 1998 murder of FRANK HYDELL. In 1997, suspicion arose within the Gambino Family that FRANK HYDELL, MARINO's nephew, was cooperating with law enforcement which, in fact, was the case. Based on these suspicions, various Gambino Family members and associates plotted to kill HYDELL and sought MARINO's approval for the hit. Upon MARINO's authorization to kill HYDELL, the Gambino Family members and associates lured HYDELL to a strip club in Staten Island where he was shot three times in the face and back. He died in the strip club's parking lot.

Murders of James DiGuglielmo and Richard Sbarra

MODICA is charged with the double murder of JAMES DiGUGLIELMO and RICHARD SBARRA. MODICA and DiGUGLIELMO became involved in a drug-related dispute. As a result, on August 22, 1987, MODICA, drove his motorcycle with a shooter riding on the back to a crowded parking lot where the shooter opened fire at DiGUGLIELMO. DiGUGLIELMO and SBARRA, an innocent bystander, were killed in the drive-by shooting.

Sex Trafficking and Sex Trafficking of a Minor

OREFICE, DIFIORE, MANZELLA, SCOTTO, EISLER, MAIURRO, and PORCELLI are charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking of a minor. From 2008 to 2009, the defendants operated a prostitution business where young women and girls—including an underage girl who was 15 years old at the time—were exploited and sold for sex. The defendants first recruited various young women and girls—ages 15 through 19—to work as prostitutes. The defendants then advertised the prostitution business on Craigslist and other websites. The defendants drove the women to appointments in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Staten Island to have sex with clients. The defendants then took approximately 50 percent of the money paid to the young women. The defendants also made the women available for sex to gamblers at a weekly, high-stakes poker games that OREFICE and his crew ran.

Jury Tampering

In 1992, then-Boss JOHN J. GOTTI was on trial for federal racketeering and murder charges in the Eastern District of New York. MODICA, along with various other Gambino Family members, took part in a plot to locate the anonymous, sequestered jurors sitting on that trial. MODICA and the others eventually penetrated various security measures, and located the jury at the hotel where it was sequestered. The plan to tamper with the jury was called off, however, when GOTTI came to believe that the jury would not convict him, even without outside interference.

Extortions and Assaults

MARINO is charged with extorting broad swaths of the construction industry in and around New York City from at least the 1980s to the present. Through the use of violence and threats, MARINO and the Gambino Family have extorted millions of dollars annually from unions, contractors, developers, and suppliers.

OREFICE, DIFIORE, MANZELLA, SCOTTO, MICHAEL SCARPACI, THOMAS SCARPACI, DELLITALIA, EISLER, and VECCHIONE are charged with extorting payments from various businesses and individuals through the use of violence and threats. The defendants targeted businesses in the home heating oil industry and the financial services industry, as well as various individuals in and around New York City.

Several of the extortions resulted in serious beatings. For example:

• In December 2005, after an extortion victim failed to make a payment, OREFICE, DIFIORE, and DELLITALIA punched and used a baseball bat to beat the victim.
• In 2008, OREFICE and DIFIORE tracked down another extortion victim who failed to make a payment, beat him viciously, and left him on the street.
• In the summer of 2009, members of OREFICE's crew went to the office of a business owner in an attempt to shake him down, demanded to see their extortion victim, and, when refused, threatened the business owner's office staff.

Wire Fraud

OREFICE and MANZELLA are charged with defrauding various high-end restaurants in New York City by inflating invoices for meat orders placed with MANZELLA's company and paying kickbacks to the chefs responsible for ordering the meat. The invoices were sometimes inflated by as much as 40 percent of actual costs. To ensure that the chefs at the restaurants would continue ordering meat from MANZELLA's company, and to encourage them to turn a blind eye to the scam, OREFICE and MANZELLA kicked back about 5 percent of the proceeds back to them.

Narcotics Trafficking

OREFICE, DIFIORE, and BORGIA are charged with trafficking in narcotics —including cocaine, oxycontin, an marijuana—for and on behalf of the Gambino Family.

Loansharking

MARINO, OREFICE, DIFIORE, SCOTTO, MICHAEL SCARPACI, and THOMAS SCARPACI are charged with making and collecting extortionate extensions of credit—commonly known as "loansharking." When debtors became unable to keep up their repayment obligations, the defendants threatened them. In one series of consensually-recorded discussions about the loansharking operation, a loanshark victim was said to have been "roughed up" and put in the trunk of a car. The participants then agreed that, if necessary, firearms, including AK-47s and AR-14s, could be obtained to help ensure repayment from debtors.

Gambling

MARINO, OREFICE, MODICA, DIFIORE, MANZELLA, MICHAEL SCARPACI, THOMAS SCARPACI, EISLER, BORGIA, and DELLITALIA are charged with running illegal gambling operations for the Gambino Family. These operations included an Internet-based sports betting, or "bookmaking," operation, and a regular, high-stakes card game.

* * *

The charges contained in the indictment against each defendant and the corresponding maximum potential penalties are contained in charts below. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of the proceeds of the alleged crimes, including of $20 million as to Counts One and Two.

U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA stated: "As today's case demonstrates, the mafia is not dead. It is alive and kicking. Modern mobsters may be less colorful, less flamboyant, and less glamorous than some of their predecessors, but they are still terrorizing businesses, using baseball bats, and putting people in the hospital. Today, the Gambino Family has lost one of its leaders, and many of its rising stars have now fallen. We will continue to work with our partners at the FBI to eradicate the mafia, and to keep organized crime from victimizing the businesses, and the people, of this city."

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge GEORGE VENIZELOS stated: "In some ways, this is not the Gambino Family of John J. Gotti. But while the leadership may maintain a lower profile, this case shows that it's still about making money illegally, by whatever means. No crime seemed too depraved to be exploited if it was a money-maker, including the sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old. In truth, despite the popular fascination, it was never really about the thousand-dollar suits. It was—and is—about murder, mayhem, and money."

Mr. BHARARA praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI. Mr. BHARARA also noted that the investigation is continuing.

Assistant United States Attorneys ELIE HONIG, STEVE KWOK, and JASON HERNANDEZ are in charge of the prosecution. The case is being handled by the Office's Organized Crime Unit.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/nyfo042010.htm

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From the ATF

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6 Year Missing Persons Case Turns Into Joint Homicide Investigation

Remains of Ryan Guitron of Fort Collins, Colo. Are Uncovered

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — James A. Alderden, Sheriff of Larimer County Sheriff's Office, Fort Collins, Colo.; Danny L. Glick, Sheriff of Laramie County Sheriff's Office, Cheyenne, Wyo.; Colonel Bryan Tuma of the Nebraska State Patrol; James A. “Tony” Rose, U.S. Marshal for the District of Wyoming; and Special Agent in Charge Marvin G. Richardson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) Denver Field Division announced today that skeletal remains of Ryan Guitron of Fort Collins, Colo., missing since Nov. 4, 2003, were uncovered in southwest Kimball County, Neb.

On April 8, 2010, a team of investigators served a state of Nebraska search warrant at an abandoned farmstead in southwest Kimball County, Neb. The search warrant was the result of information gathered in a joint effort by the Nebraska State Patrol Troop E Headquarters- Scottsbluff, Larimer County Sheriff's Office, Fort Collins, Colo., the Laramie County Sheriff's Department, Cheyenne, Wyo., the U.S. Marshals Service, and ATF Cheyenne Field Office. The joint investigation revealed information in the potential homicide of Ryan Guitron of Fort Collins. Guitron was 30-years old when he was reported missing to the Larimer County Sheriff's Office on Nov. 4, 2003.

New information in the more than six-year-old missing person's case was uncovered the first week of April 2010, when officers from the Cheyenne Police Department and deputies from the Laramie County Sheriff's Office responded to a domestic disturbance that occurred in Cheyenne, Wyo. A male identified as Vencil Leo Ash III, 38, of Cheyenne, Wyo., was taken into custody as a result of the incident. During a joint investigation into this incident, Laramie County Deputies, Cheyenne Police Department Officers, and ATF Agents recovered .45 caliber ammunition and a .270 caliber rifle from Ash's residence. Ash was later charged with being a prior convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

During the course of the investigation, information was developed that Ash and Guitron had previously been roommates and that on or about September 2003, Ash allegedly took Guitron to an abandoned farmstead in southwest Kimball County, shot him, and buried his body in a woodpile at the farm.

A search through a woodpile on the farmstead led to the discovery of human remains. The remains were taken to Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Neb. for forensic examination and identification.

On April 14, 2010, through the use of dental records, the remains were identified to be those of Ryan Guitron.

Ash is currently in the custody of the U. S. Marshal Service being held on a federal complaint filed on April 6 relating to his federal firearms violations. This is an ongoing homicide investigation and the case against Ash is currently under review at both the federal and state levels for prosecution.

Any identified individuals that have been arrested and or charged with a criminal violation, and the circumstances surrounding their arrests are allegations, and those persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/04/041910-denv-missing-persons-becomes-homicide-investigation.html

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