Category Archives: Organized Crime

Legal news for Mafia continually updated from thousands of sources on the web – Global Mafia News. News about organized crime. Commentary and archival information about organized crime from Lawstarz.

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

Factbox: Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer has experience with the mob and music

Alan Futerfas, the lawyer Donald Trump Jr. has hired to represent him in connection with Russia-related probes, has over 25 years experience in handling government investigations and criminal cases.

John Moscow, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, described Futerfas as a “top-flight lawyer” who is both “high-powered and low-key.”

Here are some facts about Futerfas:

He became a top mob defense lawyer early on

Miami-born Futerfas joined the law firm of veteran criminal defense lawyer Gerald Shargel after graduating from Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York in 1987, and quickly became a partner. He left to form his own firm in 1994.

In one of his biggest cases from that period, Futerfas won a new trial in 1997 for mob captain Anthony Russo after it was revealed that a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent may have leaked information to fuel an organized crime war in the early 1990s.

He expanded into white-collar cases

Futerfas encountered Moscow in the early 2000s case against former Tyco International chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski. Futerfas represented Christine Berry, Kozlowski’s art consultant, in the sales tax avoidance investigation that led to the larger case over Kozlowski’s corporate “looting.”

In 2010, he represented hedge fund group HFV Management in connection with a wide-ranging probe by the New York attorney general’s office into corruption in the state’s pension fund.

He has also handled cybercrime cases

Futerfas is defending Ziv Orenstein, one of three Israelis charged by federal prosecutors with hacking into JPMorgan Chase & Co and the Wall Street Journal, among other rtargets, as part of a massive “pump and dump” scheme. Orenstein pleaded not guilty.

Another client of Futerfas was Nikita Kuzmin, a Russian national who agreed last year to pay $6.9 million for creating computer malware that made users’ bank accounts vulnerable to cyber criminals.

He worked one summer for a longtime lawyer to Donald Trump

In the summer of 1985, while he was in law school, Futerfas worked for lawyer Jay Goldberg, who went on to become Trump’s divorce lawyer.

Futerfas said he did not come to Trump Jr. through Goldberg.

He studied at Juilliard

Futerfas earned his undergraduate degree from the prestigious performing arts school. He still plays bass trombone for the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony.

(Corrects paragraph 5 to “may have leaked” instead of “deliberately leaked”)

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Anthony Lin and Jonathan Oatis)

Sourced From – https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-factbox-idUSKBN19V2T3

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime, Supreme Court

Super Talkative in Court LEMME TALK TO ALL MY LAWYERS!!!

Suge Knight talked up a storm in court Thursday, begging a judge to let him talk to ALL his lawyers but the judge made it clear — his hands are tied.

The former rap mogul went on a diatribe, the likes of which we haven’t seen since he was arrested on murder charges in January 2015.

Suge was complaining he was not given access to his full team of lawyers and therefore couldn’t adequately prepare for trial. We won’t bore you with the legal mumbo jumbo, but this judge said he didn’t have the power to unleash Suge’s full legal team … another judge has to do that.

It’s interesting to hear Suge … he’s super engaged in the legal process.

Sourced From – http://www.tmz.com/2017/07/06/suge-knight-courtroom-lawyers-murder-robbery-case/

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Fyre Festival founder arrested and charged with wire fraud

By  on Jun 30, 2017

Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was arrested and charged with one count of wire fraud Friday for allegedly defrauding investors with his disastrous music festival that left hundreds of well-heeled millennials stranded in the Bahamas and millions of dollars in investments and ticket sales unaccounted for.

McFarland, the 26-year-old CEO of Magnises, a concierge company, and Fyre Media, an app to book performing artists for private events, will spend the night in jail. He is expected to be arraigned before a judge on Saturday, Joon Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

 “As alleged, William McFarland promised a ‘life changing’ music festival but in actuality delivered a disaster,” Joon said. “McFarland allegedly presented fake documents to induce investors to put over a million dollars into his company and the fiasco called the Fyre Festival. Thanks to the investigative efforts of the FBI, McFarland will now have to answer for his crimes.”

Prosecutors allege McFarland began the criminal scheme in late 2016, right around the time he announced the Fyre Festival through a well-orchestrated marketing campaign involving hundreds of so-called Instagram “influencers,” including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin.

According to the criminal complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, McFarland lied to at least two investors about how much the company was worth, eventually inducing them to invest around $1.2 million in the festival based on assertions that Fyre was making millions of dollars in revenue. In fact, prosecutors say, the company had earned only $60,000 over the past year.

McFarland also allegedly doctored a stock ownership statement to convince one of those unnamed investors that he held more than $2.5 million in shares in an unnamed company to use as collateral in the deal.

Though the complaint doesn’t specifically list the stock or the investor, a brokerage statement purporting to show McFarland as the owner of $2,565,079.18 in Facebook stock is listed as an exhibit in a civil suit filed by investor Oleg Itkin, who gave McFarland a $700,000 loan. Prosecutors say McFarland did own shares of Facebook stock — but only about $1,400 worth.

It’s not clear who is representing McFarland, who was dropped by his legal team Hughes, Hubbard & Reed LLP, on Wednesday. Michael Levine, a Westchester attorney, is listed as McFarland’s incoming attorney in a signed affidavit in the Itkin case. But reached by phone Friday night, Levine denied any involvement in the criminal case and said he was merely involved in the civil case as local counsel for a California firm which he declined to name.

Here’s a promotional video for the ill-fated Fyre Festival, which was canceled soon after it began in April:

Cover: Billy McFarland and Carol Mac attend The 23rd Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit & Auction at The Watermill Center on July 30, 2016 in Water Mill, NY. (Photo by Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via G Images)

Sourced From – https://news.vice.com/story/fyre-festival-founder-arrested-and-charged-with-wire-fraud

Blog, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

No Italy ‘baby bonus’ for Mafia boss’s daughter Lucia Riina

Sicilian authorities have refused to pay Italy’s “baby bonus” to the youngest daughter of jailed Mafia boss Toto Riina, 36-year-old Lucia.

A painter, Lucia lives in Corleone and gave birth earlier this month.

Salvatore “Toto” Riina, former boss of the notorious Cosa Nostra, was jailed in 1993 and now has terminal cancer.

Italy’s top court ruled this month that he had a right to “die with dignity” under house arrest but there were protests and he may not be let out.

A parole board will have to decide in the northern city of Bologna, where 86-year-old Riina is in jail for his role in dozens of Cosa Nostra murders.

Two anti-Mafia judges – Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino – were killed in 1992, in Riina’s “war against the state”.

Read Full – http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40326094

Blog, Criminal, International, Organized Crime

POPE FRANCIS VS. THE MAFIA: WHY REAL-LIFE TONY SOPRANOS MAY HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN ‘THE FAMILY’ AND THE CHURCH

For decades, mafia movies and television shows, from The Godfather to The Sopranos, have extensively detailed not only rampant sin but also devout Catholicism. For real-life Tony Sopranos, though, that connection could soon be a thing of the past, leaving them with a straight choice between organized crime and organized religion.

Pope Francis’ campaign against corruption took a step forward Saturday when the Vatican released a statement announcing its intention to set up a legal doctrine targeting those guilty of corruption and mafia association. The statement came following the Vatican’s hosting of the first ever “International Debate on Corruption,” featuring around 50 people, including anti-mafia magistrates, victims and officials from the United Nations and multiple countries.

“We conceived of this meeting to face a phenomenon that leads to the trampling of the dignity of people,” Cardinal Peter Turkson said. “Therefore it is up to us, and this Dicastery, to be able to protect and promote respect for the dignity of the person. And for this reason we seek to attract attention to this matter.”

On the same day as the conference, Turkson’s book on corruption called Corrosion was published. The foreword was written by the Pope, who in 2014 in a mass in Calabria told mobsters they were excommunicated.

“We must all work together, Christians, non-Christians, people of all faiths and non-believers, to combat this form of blasphemy, this cancer that weighs our lives,” Francis wrote in the foreword.

Read Full – http://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-mafia-corruption-soprano-626976