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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: Blibbleblabble]
#535669
03/28/09 03:27 PM
03/28/09 03:27 PM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 5,528 In a van down by the river!
Longneck
OP
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OP
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 5,528
In a van down by the river!
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Nicholas Calabrese admits to 14 murders, gets 12 years. Yeah this could go in the real life OC forum but who'd read it?
Leniency to Calabrese vs. mob and its justice John Kass Chicago Tribune
Chicago Outfit hit man turned star government witness Nicholas Calabrese, who killed at least 14 men and wet his pants on his first murder assignment near Sox Park decades ago, stood in court to talk about fear.
"I chose my path in life," he told U.S. District Judge James Zagel before he was sentenced as the last man in the historic mob prosecution known as Family Secrets. "I was always with fear, and underneath that fear, there was a coward."
Not the Hollywood image of the Outfit hit man, but then Hollywood has always glamorized the mob. American audiences, so numbed by living in an increasingly bureaucratic culture, demand recognizable archetypes to fulfill escapist fantasies. It's Tony Soprano they want, the politically incorrect and unrepentant white guy who takes what he wants.
But that's Hollywood, and Nick Calabrese is from Chicago, and he testified to wetting himself as a grown man, when he strangled Bones Albergo years ago with his brother Frank.
He's been afraid since he was a kid, afraid of Frank, afraid of failing at his work. That fear forced him to become meticulous in his planning of murders, so fussy about details that he sounded more like a grandmother at a quilting convention than some archetypal gangster.
That fear led him to become the first "made man" ever to testify against the Outfit, in the most significant prosecution of the mob in modern Chicago's history.
Outfit bosses Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo and James Marcello have been sentenced, as have enforcer Paul Schiro and Chicago cop Anthony "Twan" Doyle. On Thursday it was Nick Calabrese's turn.
The families of his victims came up first, testifying tearfully about fathers who were shotgunned or strangled or tortured, never to see their kids grow up, graduate, marry and start their own families. Some wept, others spat out their hatred at Calabrese, and all asked Zagel to let him rot in prison.
It would have been the easy thing to do. Yet Zagel's job isn't about emotion, but rather about logic and the law, and he began to speak slowly, eloquently about leniency.
Not leniency to Calabrese, but leniency to all the other families of other victims unknown, future victims of other killers who might receive some small measure of justice if the law showed some mercy on Calabrese, to persuade men like him to testify in court.
"There is a phrase used in state courts, when individuals are charged with murder: 'Against the peace and dignity of the people of the state of Illinois,' " Zagel said. "And murder is a kind of war, and the organization you are involved in engages in that war, with faction against faction, and against the people."
Zagel noted that in another federal courtroom in April, Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose will go on trial for allegedly being an Outfit messenger, guarding Calabrese and sending the bosses information about murder sites visited by Calabrese and FBI agents when the investigation began.
I wrote about the beginning of Family Secrets before it was called Family Secrets, back on Feb. 21, 2003, when Calabrese was quietly swept into the federal witness protection program, when the Outfit began to tremble, and I listed some of the murders that would be solved. I knew the Outfit bosses were worried. What I didn't know was how easily they could penetrate the federal shield.
The Outfit "will not forgive or relent in their pursuit of you," Zagel said to Calabrese, adding that even when he's a free man, Calabrese will never draw a secure breath.
He was sentenced to 148 months in prison, but given the time he's already served, Calabrese will be out in about four years. He should be available to testify in other trials.
Without Calabrese's testimony, there would have been no prosecution, and the big bosses would be out on the street, ordering hits, spreading corruption, sending their political errand boys to carry messages to local governments.
Watching him sitting at the defense table, an old man in jeans, glasses and a gray sweat shirt, trying to keep his lips from quivering and losing, it became clear that while the Chicago Outfit relies upon corrupt politicians to protect it, the Outfit was built on what was obvious in Nick Calabrese's eyes:
Fear. [/quote]
Long as I remember The rain been coming down. Clouds of Mystery pouring Confusion on the ground. Good men through the ages, Trying to find the sun; And I wonder, Still I wonder, Who'll stop the rain.
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: Turnbull]
#535712
03/28/09 09:30 PM
03/28/09 09:30 PM
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 25,984 California
The Italian Stallionette
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 25,984
California
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Is that the citation that takes a picture. My friend's husband was going 60 in a 50 MPR zone and the camera shot the picture and sent it to him with the ticket. There was no getting out of it. While we're on the subject of driving/traffic. Here in CA they banned cell phone use (without a headset), while driving, but I see it everyday. The other day it was kind of stop and go while entering the freeway. The guy next to me has his cell on the steering wheel and was texting while we slowly enter the freeway. That's just one example. I can see accidents happening a whole lot, if people aren't more cautious. TIS
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." JFK
"War is over, if you want it" - John Lennon
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: klydon1]
#535730
03/28/09 11:37 PM
03/28/09 11:37 PM
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Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 22,902 New York
SC
Consigliere
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Consigliere
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 22,902
New York
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Today is the 30th anniversary of the meltdown at Three Mile Island. TMI remains a sobering sight as the three large reactors rise on the horizon, two of which continue to emit billowing steam clouds while the third is forever sealed and dormant. I'll never forget that. My first wife and I had gone to see "The China Syndrome" for my birthday. The next day we heard the news about TMI and almost shit a pickle.
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: Yogi Barrabbas]
#542455
05/28/09 04:38 AM
05/28/09 04:38 AM
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Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 22,902 New York
SC
Consigliere
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Consigliere
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 22,902
New York
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Former NYC mayor, Rudy Guiliani got an order of protection against some guy with whom he had a shouting match here on Long Island. This other guy allegedly threatened bodily harm on Rudy. The guy's name? McCluskey. (I can see it now... he asks, "How's the food in this Italian mayor"?)
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: Mark]
#542473
05/28/09 08:40 AM
05/28/09 08:40 AM
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 25,984 California
The Italian Stallionette
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 25,984
California
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Yea, I heard last night before I went to bed, that he was or could be a hoax. Who would do something like that? Haven't heard anything yet this morning. TIS
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." JFK
"War is over, if you want it" - John Lennon
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: The Italian Stallionette]
#548485
07/11/09 03:26 PM
07/11/09 03:26 PM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 23,296 Throggs Neck
pizzaboy
The Fuckin Doctor
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The Fuckin Doctor
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 23,296
Throggs Neck
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Thank God this kid is okay, so it's almost funny.
A Staten Island teenager fell into a manhole while texting
by Christina Boyle Daily News Staff Writer
A Staten Island teen trying to text while walking fell into an open manhole - and city officials have launched an investigation.
Alexa Longueira, 15, was walking with a friend along Victory Blvd. on Wednesday when she suddenly dropped underground.
"She's all scraped up on her back, under her arms and her shoulders," her mother, Kim Longueira, said.
The schoolgirl had just been passed the phone by her friend and was opening it to send a text message when the ground beneath her feet disappeared.
The manhole had been opened by a Department of Environmental Protection team flushing a high-pressure sewer line, officials said.
DEP has said an investigation is underway.
"We regret that this happened and wish the young woman a speedy recovery," spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla said.
"I got news for you. If it wasn't for the toilet, there would be no books." --- George Costanza.
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: BAM_233]
#550473
07/29/09 01:05 PM
07/29/09 01:05 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,624 AZ
Turnbull
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,624
AZ
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Here's a good one from my hometown newspaper. Whiskey Row, across from the county courthouse, is an Old West street that's the town's main tourist attraction:
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Prescott police made two arrests on prostitution charges after a Monday night incident on Whiskey Row downtown.
A department spokesperson said witnesses saw a man and a woman engaging in sexual activity around 8:50 p.m. in a vehicle with the door open at 150 S. Montezuma, right in front of the Bird Cage Saloon. At least four people, one of whom was a 16-year-old girl, saw the two and heard conversation that led police to suspect prostitution on the woman's part.
Police booked Stephen C. Curran, 57, of Phoenix on charges of indecent exposure, public sexual indecency, soliciting prostitution and disorderly conduct. Police also booked Linda J. Weston, 62, a transient police say is staying in the Prescott area, on charges of prostitution, public sexual indecency and disorderly conduct.
Yavapai County Jail officials said that Curran was due for release Tuesday night. Weston remains in custody.
Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu, E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu... E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
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Re: News from your neck of the woods
[Re: Sicilian Babe]
#550481
07/29/09 02:48 PM
07/29/09 02:48 PM
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Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 22,902 New York
SC
Consigliere
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Consigliere
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 22,902
New York
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The local news is reporting the death of a woman who was killed while crossing the street last night. She was hit by a car at a busy intersection. She was my former landlady, and she offered me an apartment when I REALLY needed one. She and her husband kind of "took me in". They're both dead now. R.I.P. Purabi Nandi, and God bless you for all your kindness!
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