Joseph Bruno's Blog, page 48
May 21, 2013
The Last Rites of Joe May – A Movie Review
Joe May might be the most pitiful, sad-sack mobster ever portrayed in the cinema, which makes for a wonderful story.
”The Last Rites of Joe May” stars Dennis Farina, usually known for playing mobsters and cops, and usually in his native city of Chicago; which is fine, since Farina was once a Chicago cop himself.
The movie opens with an old Joe May being released from a Chicago hospital, after spending seven weeks on his back due to a bad case of pneumonia. After he is released from the hospital, May returns to his shabby apartment – wearing a ridiculously outdated rust-colored leather jacket – and discovers he’s been evicted because the owner of the building thought he was dead. The new tenants are a 30-somethingish mother, Jenny, played by Jamie Anne Allman, and her 7-year-old daughter, Angelina, played by Meredith Droeger.
After spending one night in the apartment at the request of Jenny, May leaves and tries to assemble what remains of his life. To his dismay, May finds out his 1989 Cutlass has been impounded and sold. Then he goes to his local bank to cash in whatever he money has left: which turns out to be a measly $443.
”That’s all?” May barks at the bank teller.
After being assuring that $443 is all the cash left in his account, May asks for the money as follows: two hundreds, two fifties, five twenties, and 43 single dollar bills.
He puts the hundreds on the top and buries the 43 singles in the middle, folds them in half, and puts a rubber band around his roll; to give the impression to his mob pals that he’s still in the pink, which is far from the truth.
The rest of the movie is Joe May going downhill; doing one ridiculous thing after another to raise some cash – even paying a car service driver $10 to open the back door for him, so that his mob cronies in front of their hangout will think Joe May is still in action, and doing quite well, thank you.
If Joe May’s predicament wasn’t so sad, it would be extremely funny. But it’s not; it’s shake-your-head pathetically miserable.
The scene most indicative of how low May has fallen is when he is given, as a favor from a mob guy, Lenny, a 50-pound New Zealand hunk of lamb to sell, with 20% of the take going to Lenny after the sale is completed. In the dead of Chicago winter, Joe May lugs this lamb all over Chicago; trying to sell it to whoever will listen, but to no avail. Finally, May is cornered in an alley by a pit bull, which ignominiously bites May and takes possession of the lamb. When May informs Lenny the lamb is now dog food, Lenny says he still wants $200 from Joe May, since the lamb’s estimated worth was $1000.
There’s also a subplot concerning pigeons, and the young mother, Jenny, who takes pity on May and invites him to stay in her apartment. Unfortunately, Jenny has a detective boyfriend who beats her like a piñata, and because May is obviously still sick with some kind of oppressive hacking cough, May is powerless to do anything to help her.
May tries to visit his only son, Scotty, but is thrown out on his ear, after getting an earful from Scotty on how May mistreated May’s wife: Scotty’s mother.
I won’t spoil the ending, but the movie closes with Lenny, knocking wood on the table, while he utters the incredulous words, “Joe May.”
The director, Joe Maggio, who also wrote the screenplay, did a wonderful job exhibiting May as just another run-down-gangster, with no place to go, but down the tubes.
The truth is, Joe May would have been better off in jail.
April 30, 2013
Joe Bruno on the Mob – Crooked Lawyer Gets His Own Goose Cooked
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009CGA74M
Another crooked lawyer bites the dust.
You have to wonder why an attorney, who in his profession, makes a decent living, then agrees to launder drug money for drug dealers.
I just think it’s a case of lawyers, especially Ronald E. Partee, thinking they are just smarter than everyone else.
April 30, 2013
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Kansas City lawyer has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiring to launder drug money of an undercover agent posing as a marijuana dealer, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Monday.
Ronald E. Partee, 66, Kansas City, Mo., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of money laundering. In his plea, Partee admitted he conspired with co-defendants Mendy Read-Forbes, 38, of Platte City, Mo., and Laura Shoop, 46, also of Platte City, Mo.
The investigation began in March 2012 when a KBI agent working undercover met Read-Forbes. Read-Forbes was holding herself out as the owner of Forbes & Newhard Credit Solutions, Inc., a nonprofit organization established to provide credit counseling to people who were in bankruptcy proceedings. In fact, she was not the legal owner but exercised control of the company’s bank account along with Partee. Shoop was an acquaintance of Read-Forbes who worked at various times for the company.
The KBI agent was posing as a marijuana dealer. Forbes offered to consult with Partee and to devise a scheme to launder the dealer’s drug proceeds. As part of the scheme, Forbes offered to deposit money given to her by the agent she thought was a drug dealer into the bank accounts of Forbes and Newhard Credit Solutions or related companies and then to return the money to the dealer via checks, money orders or wire transfers. The bank accounts were in Kansas.
To make the transactions appear legitimate, Forbes gave the drug dealer a contract titled “Purchase and Sale of Business Agreement.” The contract, bearing the signature of Partee and the drug dealer, made it appear that the marijuana dealer was purchasing assets of FCP, Inc., a corporation controlled by Forbes and Partee.
To make it appear that the drug dealer was engaged in business as a certified credit counselor with Forbes and Newhard Credit Solutions, Forbes gave the drug dealer a certificate saying he had completed training as a bankruptcy specialist.
In addition, Forbes created a fictitious company called Maximum Lawn Care, LLC, and opened bank accounts where cash from the drug dealer was deposited.
Partee was at various times a member of the board of directors for Forbes and Newhard and a signator on FCP’s bank accounts. On April 20, 2012, Partee approved two wire transfers from the FCP account that he believed were drug funds. He sent $5,000 to a bank account of Maximus Lawn Care and $5,000 to the bank account of an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer. During a meeting May 25, 2012, at Partee’s office, the undercover agent posing as a drug dealer sought advice from Partee concerning where he could store marijuana. During the meeting, which was recorded, Partee engaged in the discussion.
Defendants Read-Forbes and Shoop are awaiting trial. In a separate case, Mendy Read-Forbes and Brian Forbeshave been charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering.
Grissom commended the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Oakley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jabari Wamble for their work on the case.
Source: fox4kc.com
Joe Bruno on the Mob – Drug Dealer Goes to Jail After Being Snared by the IRS
When are certain crooks, especially drug dealers, going to realized, you can’t spend millions of dollars on luxuries, if you don’t pay at least a reasonable amount of income taxes to justify such purchases?
I’m amazed by the stupidity.
Anybody ever hear of Al Capone?
Before his arrest in 2011, Kingsley Osemwengie was a high roller who lived in luxury condos and bought four Bentleys, including this one.
Nevada drug kingpin Kingsley Osemwengie, caught up in the fast-lane trappings of Las Vegas and taken down by government agents who pored through his purchases of Bentleys and bling, was sentenced in a Portland courtroom on Monday to more than 17 years in prison.
Osemwengie, 27, was a ringleader in a coast-to-coast oxycodone sales network.
“I gotta apologize for a lot of things,” he told Senior U.S. District Judge Ancer Haggerty, his family seated behind him. “First and foremost, I put my family through a lot of shame.”
Osemwengie said his family suffered because of his actions.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Osemwengie’s mother wept as he jangled out of the courtroom in leg restraints.
Source: oregonlive.com
April 28, 2013
Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks, and Other Creeps – Volume 5 – Girlfriends and Wives
“Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 5″ is the fifth in a series of Joe Bruno’s “Mobster, Gangs…” books. However, Volume 5 features the fairer sex, who for some reason got intimately involved with some of the worst creeps ever to walk the face of the earth. “Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 5″ has a feature on mob moll Virginia Hill, who worked her way up the mobster ladder (mostly on her knees and on her back) until she hooked up with sadistic mob killer, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (nobody ever called him “Bugsy” to his face, not even Virginia Hill). In the long run, this liaison didn’t work out well for either one of them.
On June 10, 1947, Bugsy was blown away by a sniper, while reading the newspaper on the couch in the living room of Hill’s Beverly Hills home. At the time of Siegel’s demise, Hill was partying in France with her newest boyfriend; having been sent there by the Chicago mob so she wouldn’t get hit by a stray bullet meant for Siegel.
On March 24, 1966, Hill was founded dead in a snow bank in Salzburg, Austria, where she had moved after she had become “persona non grata” with the United States Internal Revenue Service. The cause of Virginia Hill’s death is still up for conjecture. The original reports said she died from a heart attack. But after an autopsy, it was discovered Hill died from an overdose of drugs.
The question is, did Hill take those drugs herself, or did angry mobsters shove the drugs down her throat?”
“Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 5″ also features a woman, Ethel Rosenberg, who was the exact opposite of Hill in almost every aspect, except one: she also got involved with a creep, Julius Rosenberg, who some people think is one of the most despicable men of the 20th Century. Julius Rosenberg, a Russian Soviet spy, was responsible for the transfer of American top secret documents to Russia, including the detailed plan for making the atom bomb.
Unlike Hill, Ethel Rosenberg was not an especially attractive woman, and unlike Hill, Ethel Rosenberg was ostensibly a loving wife and mother; or so it seemed on the surface. Both Rosenbergs were executed in the Sing Sing electric chair for treason, but was Ethel as culpable as her husband? Or was she railroaded by the United States government until massive jolts of the electricity rendered her quite dead?
That is for the readers of “Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 5″ to decide.
*****
What people are saying about “Joe Bruno’s Mobster Books
ANOTHER HISTORY LESSON! – I love Joe Bruno’s books. I always say that he’s the NYC true crime historian. NYC has had its share of murder and corruption over the past couple of centuries and the Author is a wealth of knowledge about it. A must read for any true crime book collector – RJ Parker – Best Selling Author of True Crime Books
INFORMATIVE AND JUST PLAIN GREAT! I love reading about mobsters and old New York. Joe Bruno is an awesome author. I highly recommend this book. – Patricia Epps
FIVE-STAR BOOK AND A BARGAIN TO BOOT! Joe Bruno’s Mobster Books are a definitive history of American mobsters, dating as far back as the early 1820′s and continuing until the mid-1900′s- By GinaBeena “Gina”
KNOCK OUT PUNCH! Joe Bruno delivers a hard punch, well researched, no nonsense book. Fear, hatred, and brutality bring to our awareness in a most convincing and stark manner. The reader is an observer as chills run up and down the spine. Joe Bruno brings full realism to play and bear upon our psyches – Joyce Metzger
WOW WHAT A GREAT BOOK! I couldn’t hardly put it down at night. The way Joe Bruno keeps it short and to the point makes it so easy to read and understand. I was very satisfied with this book and the history it portrayed – Dakikle
April 14, 2013
April 12, 2013
April 10, 2013
Joe Bruno on the Mob- Interview for Documentary on Typhoid Mary
I was interviewed on for documentary on Typhoid Mary Mallon, who is a subject in my book “Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks, and Other Creeps – Volume 3 – New York City.”
Click below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSAwMhcfM8M&feature=youtu.be
April 9, 2013
Joe Bruno on the Mob – The Trial of Bartolomeo Vernace
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009CGA74M
I wonder if the government would go to all this trouble and expense ( taxpayer’s money) if the word “Mafia” wasn’t involved (PS — the Mafia only exists in Sicily- in America it should be properly called Italian-American organized crime- But the word “Mafia” makes headlines and advances careers in law enforcement. Ask Rudy Giuliani).
This is a 30 year old case where the defendant was already found not guilty in a state trial.
I don’t know if Vernace’s innocent or guilty of the 1983 murders But I do know if his name didn’t end in a vowel (how about Mohammad, or an Arab last name?), this case would have never gone to trial.
Capo | April 9, 2013 | 0 Comments
Bartolomeo Vernace is taken from the Cold Squad located at the 105th Precinct to central booking.
During closing arguments Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Mace reminded the panel that bartender Patrick Sullivan had feared for his life but finally came forward to help the feds to make a murder-in-aid of racketeering case against the longtime gangster.
A FEDERAL prosecutor urged jurors to “stand up” against fear of the Mafia and convict Gambino capo Bartolomeo Vernace of gunning down two men in a Queens bar more than 30 years ago.
During closing arguments Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Mace reminded the panel that bartender Patrick Sullivan had feared for his life but finally came forward to help the feds to make a murder-in-aid of racketeering case against the longtime gangster.
“Nothing short of terror reigns in a community when three men walk into a bar, shoot two men over a spilled drink then walk out and continue their lives,” Mace said. “The defendant believed he could get away with murder.”
Vernace’s accomplices also beat the rap after witnesses, including Sullivan, recanted their identifications of the killers.
“The violence, the fear, the lies must stop,” Mace said Monday in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Defense lawyer Charles Carnesi labeled the feds’ case a “do-over” because Vernace was previously acquitted of state murder charges.
Carnesi pounded away at inconsistencies in Sullivan’s account of the April 1981 carnage in the Shamrock Bar on Jamaica Ave.
The government must prove that the murders of bar owners Richard Godkin and John D’Agnese helped Vernace climb the mob ladder from lowly associate to a spot on the Gambino family’s ruling panel in 2011.
Carnesi argued that the mob doesn’t condone “stupid” and “senseless” slayings of innocent people because it’s “bad for business.”
Source: nydailynews.com
April 8, 2013
Book Review – Find Big Fat Fanny Fast – By Joe Bruno
Funny Fanny Fans Flames of Familia, March 28, 2013By
Timothy Donahue “History Novice”
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Find Big Fat Fanny Fast (Kindle Edition)
A friend of mine, who is a friend of the author, recommended this book to me, and I couldn’t get enough of this wonderful tongue-in-cheek story. It drips with all of the testosterone of the wise guys who bully the streets of Little Italy, and yet is balanced by the more subtle and disarming view of life of the Chinese racketeers who operate in the nearby combat zone of Chinatown. With an admixture of comedy, wit, irony, and hard-hitting whack jobs, an uneasy but lasting truce is ironed out between the old moustached-Pete’s of Sicily and the growing presence of the Asian crime lords. Joe Bruno puts the smell of the city into the writing, and the result is a delicious slice of New York pie. Well-worth the time spent laughing through the pages, and I am desperately seeking sequel. Va bene!
