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RidicuList: Pat Sajack drunk on TV

CNN’s Anderson Cooper adds TV host Pat Sajack to the RidicuList after admitting he was drunk on TV.Website: http://www.cnn.com

Bye bye gangsters, Liotta wants romance

CNN  Hollywood actor Ray Liotta says he liked working with Scorcese and DeNiro in Goodfellas , playing gangsters,  bad cops,  and baseball players, but he wants a romantic part next.  Liotta admits working with Al Pacino was on his A-List.  Website: http://www.cnn.com

Haywire Movie review by Betsy Sharkey

 Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey reviews  ’Haywire’ staring Gina Carano, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum. :http://www.latimes.com/videobeta

Inside the NFL: Lawrence Taylor on Inside the NFL: Full Interview

 by    Watch the full sit-down interview with Lawrence Taylor, as the legendary Giants LB talks with James Brown and Cris Collinsworth about his arrest & recent legal troubles plus much more.

 

Lady Luck smiles on wrongfully-convicted Colombo mobster

 Colombo mobster Scott Fappiano’s  luck is  getting better  The hard-luck-hood had done big time for a rape crime he didn’t commit, and he also  fell prey to a pair of Colombo mob rats , one of whom was the nephew of jailed  Mob boss Tommy “Tommy Shots” Gioeli  who was wearing  a wire while Fappiano and his crime partner were planning a  hardcore home invasion with handguns

  He  was  even taped using threats of violence in a mob shake down over a gambling debt. But  lady luck was on his side today in the form of Federal  Judge  Kiyo Matsumoto , who only sentenced the lucky loser to probation on the extortion charges. Read the reason why.

 

 Story by Mitchel Maddux, NY Post  

  A reputed Colombo crime family associate who served more than 20 years in prison on a wrongful conviction escaped a return to jail today when he was sentenced to probation on extortion charges.

Scott Fappiano will have to serve three years probation, pay a $40,000 fine, and hand over $2,000 in forfeiture to the government for participating in the mob-connected shake-down plot.

Brooklyn federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto said Fappiano’s experience as an innocent man who endured the horrors of prison played a “very significant” role in her decision to not send Fappiano back to jail.

Fappiano – who is now 50 – was just 23 years old when he was convicted of raping a NYPD officer’s wife after a trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court back in 1985.

Two decades passed before he was exonerated through DNA evidence that cleared him of the sexual assault.

At today’s hearing, Fappiano recounted some of the chilling ordeals he underwent during his years behind bars.

While serving time in New York’s state prison system, his face was crushed with a pipe, his was cut with a razor blade, and he was stabbed in the back with an ice pick.

Once Fappiano saw a man burn to death in prison after being doused with gasoline and set afire.

To escape such dangers, Fappiano says he voluntarily spent eight years in solitary confinement.

Since his release from prison five years ago, he has struggled with alcohol and drug problems directly linked to his wrongful conviction, said Harlan Protass, his attorney.

But Brooklyn federal prosecutors pointed out that after Fappiano was freed, he returned to his life as a mobster and was involved in a number of crimes. read more  Here

 

Playboy: Naked Lindsay Lohan Made Big Time $$$

 by   Forget Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson — one Playboy big-wig says that Lindsay Lohan’s naked photo spread was the BIGGEST in the company’s history. TMZ.com

Organized Crime Sets its Sights on Peaceful Uruguay

Written by  Geoffrey Ramsey, insight

Uruguay has long been one of the safest countries in Latin America, but some are warning that the influence of organized crime is on the rise, with gang shootouts  in the capital and an increase in large-scale cocaine seizures

“Shootout Between Two Gangs of Narcos” The January 23 story, which describes a 10-minute long gun battle between rival gangs on a city street, would seem more likely to appear in a newspaper in northern Mexico than in Montevideo-based El Pais. read more Here

Deported Mob killer wants to return

Montreal Mafia Figure  Moreno Gallo

Moreno Gallo, a convicted killer and  reputed  ranking  member of  the mafia in Montreal in both the Catroni and Rizzuto regimes of  La Cosa Nostra, who agreed to be deported to Italy,  now wants a Federal Court judge to approve his return to Canada. read the story

By QMI Agency

 

MONTREAL — A suspected adviser to the Rizzuto crime family, who agreed to be deported to Italy, has done an about-face and now wants a Federal Court judge to approve his return to Canada.

Moreno Gallo, a convicted murderer and popular baker in Montreal’s Little Italy neighbourhood, filed the motion days after his expulsion on Jan. 4.

The Canada Border Services Agency says Gallo has an “active implication in organized crime.”

The 66-year-old had said through his lawyer that he’d rather live in Europe than face assassination amid an ongoing purge of top Rizzuto figures.

But in court documents filed in Winnipeg, Gallo says he is known as an upstanding citizen in Montreal, where he immigrated when he was nine years old.

Our bakery employs 15 people, including members of my family,” he wrote to the court. “My family and I provide donations through charities. We provide pizza to poor children and give to local campaigns. Personally I help the poor and homeless of the community. They know they can always find food and comfort in our bakery.”  read more  Here

ShowBiz Minute: Moore, Jackson, Pitt

by   911 call from Demi Moore’s home to be released; Michael Jackson immortalized in cement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre; Brad Pitt to attend New Orleans homebuilding group gala. (Jan. 27) Lizzie knight AP showbiz minute

Dustin Hoffman Tries His Luck

by   Celebrities  come out to gamble on the brand new horse racing drama on HBO. Find out why Hollywood stars Dustin  Hoffman and Nick Nolte signed onto the series. eonline.com

Montreal Mafia used informant list as bargaining chip: source

Former Montreal police officer Ian Davidson’s body was found in a Laval hotel on Wednesday.
 
 
By William Marsden, The Gazette
 
 
MONTREAL – The list of police informants stolen by a retired intelligence officer in the Montreal police force was used as a bargaining chip by mafia lawyers to get reduced sentences for their clients, according to a source close to the investigation.

The source told The Gazette that retired police officer Ian Davidson  , who was found dead in a Laval hotel room with his throat cut, had tried to shop the list of 2,000 informants to the mafia.

He said police were able to seize the list and claimed that no informant names were compromised.

According to the coroner’s report, Davidson’s death was a suicide. His body was found by a maid at the Hotel Chateauneuf near the Laurentian Autoroute. Davidson lived in Laval.

Police arrested Davidson in October at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport just before he boarded a flight to Costa Rico. They found the list on his computer. He was later released without charges.

Former Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau remembered Davidson as an honest guy.

“I worked with the guy in the early 80s and he was one of the safest guys I worked with.”

But, he said, “good people do bad things.”

He recalled when he had to arrest his own boss, Henri Marchessault, in 1983 for drug trafficking.

read more  Here

CCTV captures thief shooting his own foot during robbery

by   A clumsy thief shoots himself in the foot while guarding the door of a bank during a robbery in a small Brazilian town. Report by Mark Morris itn.co.uk

The Daily Show: 01/26/12 Recap

 by   The Supreme Court debates prime time nudity, Newt Gingrich intends to abandon the Earth for the moon, and Tilda Swinton shares her work ethic. Watch new episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Monday – Thursday at 11/10c.

Mob Wives” Star Once Conviced As Cocaine Dealer

Angela “Big Ang” Raiola,  niece of late Genovese Capo  Sally Dogs” Lombardi

JANUARY 27–This season’s breakout star on “Mob Wives,” VH1’s hit reality series about big-mouthed mob molls, is a convicted felon who was caught repeatedly selling cocaine during the course of an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration probe targeting a mob-tied drug ring operating in New York City, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Angela Raiola, nicknamed “Big Ang,” was one of 15 defendants indicted–and later convicted–for their roles in the narcotics operation, which distributed crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, and marijuana in Brooklyn and Manhattan, according to court records.  read more Here

‘Dutch godfather’ of crime released from prison

The Heineken Kidnapping is a fictional adaptation of a true story

By Anna Holligan, BBC

The man known as the godfather of Dutch crime has been released from prison in the Netherlands.    Willem Holleeder served six years of a nine-year sentence for extortion. He has been a hugely powerful, notorious and influential figure on the Dutch underworld for decades.

Holleeder’s most infamous crime has recently been turned into a movie  soon to be released across Europe and there is a new Hollywood version in the making.  read more Here  

 

Crime sweep nets five New York Bonanno mob members

Bonanno Capo Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora

 Jonathan Allen, Chicago Tribune

Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Five accused mobsters from two of New York City’s organized crime families were arrested on Friday on multiple charges including racketeering and extortion, federal law enforcement officials said.

Vincent Badalamenti, known as Vinny TV and described as a member of the Bonanno crime family’s “administration,” was the highest-ranking mafia member arrested in the sweep  He was apprehended at his home on New York City’s Staten Island, said Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Badalamenti, 53, and his mafia colleagues are charged with using violent threats to extort money and property from eight unidentified men between 1999 and 2011, according to an indictment filed at the federal courthouse in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on Friday.
In one incident, Badalamenti is accused of forcing a man to turn over control of his bar on Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue for failing to repay a debt, the indictment says.

Badalamenti was previously convicted in 2003 of extortion before being released from prison in 2005, prosecutors said.

In another incident, Anthony Calabrese, who prosecutors said holds the rank of soldier in the Bonanno family, is accused of intimidating a Staten Island pizzeria into handing over profits.

The arrests followed a years-long investigation by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration that included surveillance and covert recordings made with the help of convicted former crime-family members. They were secretly helping the government in exchange for lenient sentences, the U.S. attorney’s statement said

The same indictment resulted in the arrests of Vito Balsamo, 55, and Nicholas Santora, 69, at their homes in Staten Island and on Long Island, New York, and a Bonanno captain Anthony Graziano, 71, already in custody on an earlier extortion charge–to read the rest click   Here

 

Today in History for January 28

by  Space Shuttle Challenger explodes;  Vince Lombardi  is named head coach of the Green Bay Packers; Sir Francis Drake, English mariner who circumnavigated the globe dies off the coast of Panama. (Jan. 28)  

Diddy Ridiculous Party — Hot Models Galore

by  Tickets for Diddy’s Grammy party may seem expensive at $50k — but wait until you see the smoking hot babes that are part of the package. It may just be worth TMZ.com

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