Tag Archives: organized crime

ABC News reports: Trump wants plenty of Trumps to help let Trump be Trump. Donald Trump’s official campaign kickoff on Tuesday night in Orlando, Florida, will showcase the president and Vice President Mike Pence, along with Trump’s adult children, campaign officials told ABC News. Amid flourishes, such as a convention-style balloon drop, there will be the implicit message that what’s …

NBC News reports: In the final months of his life, James “Whitey” Bulger wrote letters from prison offering his thoughts on a range of subjects. His faltering health. His longtime girlfriend. His wish for a peaceful death. But there was another topic that the notorious Boston crime boss returned to again and again: President Donald Trump. In several handwritten letters …

The Washington Post reports: In the years before he was ousted for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses, the leader of the Catholic Church in West Virginia gave cash gifts totaling $350,000 to fellow clergymen, including young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals in the United States and at the Vatican, according to church …

CBS News reports: The U.S. Catholic Church spent $10.6 million on lobbyists to prevent victims of clerical sex abuse from suing for damages. According to a new report, the money was doled out from 2011 through 2018 in eight northeastern states where bills to reform statute of limitations laws were either in the works or being considered. “This report lays …

The Washington Post reports: A new documentary revealing cases of sexual abuse by priests has deeply shaken Poland, one of Europe’s most Roman Catholic societies, eliciting an apology from the church hierarchy and prompting one cleric to leave priestly life. “Tell No One,” a film financed through a crowdfunding campaign, was released on YouTube on Saturday. By Monday, the documentary …

NBC News reports: Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking law Thursday requiring all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-up by their superiors to church authorities, in an important new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for failing to protect their flocks. The new church law provides whistle-blower protections for anyone making a …

NBC News reports: The Archdiocese of New York on Friday named 120 Catholic clergy that it said had been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse or being in possession of pornography. About half of the men on the list were born in the first half of the 20th century and are now dead. The rest have either been removed from ministry …

The Associated Press reports: The man charged with killing the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family wrote pro-Donald Trump slogans on his hand and flashed them to journalists before a court hearing Monday. Anthony Comello, 24, was arrested Saturday in New Jersey in the death of Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali last week in front of his Staten Island home. …

It was Rudy Giuliani’s prosecution of the Gambinos and other mob families that led to his election as New York City mayor. Today’s news is a big flashback to those days. The New York Daily News reports: Gambino crime family boss Frank (Franky Boy) Cali was gunned down Wednesday night in a gory hit in front of his Staten Island …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Pope Francis closed an unprecedented Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse by promising to protect children and help victims of what he called a plague of clerical sex abuse, but he offered few policy specifics. The pope, in his widely awaited closing speech on Sunday, said the church’s response should avoid “defensiveness that fails to …

The New York Times reports: In the early months of the Trump administration, with the president no longer running his family business, his eldest sons embarked on a plan to roll out two new hotel lines in dozens of American cities. It reflected the ambitions of “the next generation of the company,” President Trump’s son Eric said at the time. …

NBC News reports: Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was found guilty on Tuesday of crimes spanning more than a quarter of a century, during which prosecutors said he smuggled more than 200 tons of cocaine into the U.S. After a nearly three-monthlong trial and six days of deliberations, a New York jury found the alleged Sinaloa cartel leader …

CBS News reports: Nuns have suffered and are still suffering sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests and bishops, and even being held as sexual slaves, Pope Francis confirmed on Tuesday. The abuse was so severe in one case that an entire congregation of nuns was dissolved by former Pope Benedict. The scope of the abuse of nuns by …

The Hill reports: Delaware Sen. Chris Coons (D) on Monday said that President Trump is “clearly going after the rule of law” by attacking the FBI and the Department of Justice over investigations into him. “The president is clearly going after the rule of law and our criminal justice system. And he’s undermining it,” Coons said in an appearance on …

We’re not holding our breath, but fingers crossed: Just two days ago, attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted that Donald Trump Jr. will be indicted, in a response to a tweet that Trump Jr. made mocking the idea that Avenatti could run for President. This garnered a lot of attention from the public, as Avenatti has consistently been a thorn in President …

Pope Francis today acknowledged that sexual abuse scandals all over the world are driving people away from the Catholic Church. Francis referred directly to the crisis convulsing his papacy on the fourth and final day of his Baltic pilgrimage, which coincided with the release of a devastating new report into decades of sex abuse and cover-up in Germany. Francis told …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Investigators “have evidence that the Vatican had knowledge of the cover-up,” involving priests accused of sexually abusing thousands of Pennsylvania children over decades, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Tuesday morning on NBC’s Today show. “I can’t speak specifically to Pope Francis, but I think the broader issues here with the Vatican knowing about this, with …

Agence France-Presse reports: Pope Francis has recommended parents seek psychiatric help for children who show homosexual tendencies, during a press conference on his plane taking him back to Rome from Ireland. A journalist asked the pontiff on Sunday what he would say to parents who observe homosexual traits in their children. “I would say first of all pray, not to …

Just in from Catholic League president Bill Donohue: While some Catholics are spinning out of control over cases of sexual abuse committed by the dead and the laicized, MTV will present the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award to Jennifer Lopez on August 21. No one from the media, and certainly no finger-pointing Catholic, will question why there is an award …

Catholic League president Bill Donohue today posted a lengthy “debunking” of media reports about the still-unfolding and massive molestation scandal wracking the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Donohue’s missive includes his usual charges of anti-Catholic bigotry and personal attacks on “salacious” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. There’s also this: Shapiro said that “Church officials routinely and purposely described the abuse as …