By Allan Lengel

The FBI on Wednesday arrested an Italian man in Miami Beach who’s suspected of helping a Sicilian Mafia family expand operations in the U.S., the Miami Herald reported.

Agents arrested Roberto Settineri as part of a multi-year international probe into his criminal ties to the Cosa Nostra in Italy, the Gambino crime family and three other suspects, the Herald reported.

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By Allan Lengel

Charges have been dropped against a uniformed FBI police officer who was accused of watching teen girls try on prom gowns  in a dressing room during a fashion show at a West Virginia mall last year, WBOY TV reported Tuesday.

A Marion County magistrate judge last December found FBI police officer Charles Hommema  guilty of criminal invasion of privacy and not guilty of conspiracy, the tv station reported.

Authorities had charged Hommema and fellow FBI police officer Garry Sutton Jr. were working in an FBI satellite control room at the Middletown Mall in Fairmont, W. Va.,  when they positioned a camera on temporary changing rooms and zoomed in for at least 90 minutes on girls dressing for the Cinderella Project fashion show.

Sutton pleaded guilty to conspiracy, but Hommema appealed his conviction.

The station reported that the prosecution decided there was insufficient evidence to retry him.

Anthrax Suspect Bruce Ivins

WASHINGTON – Just weeks before government scientist Bruce Ivins’ suicide, a grand jury was convening on the third floor of the federal courthouse, near the U.S. Capitol, looking into the 2001 anthrax murders. Things weren’t looking good for Ivins, the only suspect in the case.

It was July 2008. His attorney, Paul F. Kemp, according to court documents reviewed by AOL News, had just filed court papers to become a death-penalty-certified attorney in the case — a little-known fact. And the chief U.S. District judge in Washington, Royce C. Lamberth, had approved the request.

“I thought this was a precaution to take. My job is to anticipate anything,” Kemp said.

Paul F. Kemp, an attorney for Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, linked to the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001, said he doesn’t think the case should be closed

He said he had told Ivins the investigation could turn into a death-penalty case. “At some point in the near future I felt the government was probably going to the grand jury and would issue an indictment.”

What Kemp — and the government as well — didn’t anticipate was the unthinkable. On July 27, Ivins, 62, loaded up on Tylenol with codeine in a suicide bid. Two days later, he died.

“I was disturbed over it,” Kemp said in an interview this week . “I never had a client commit suicide. It’s a terrible experience. I’m much more distraught for his family.”

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By Allan Lengel

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn continues to chip away at the Colombo crime family.

On Tuesday, the office announced the indictment of eight people tied to the notorious crime family on charges including fraud and extortion linked to the World Trade Center.

The indictment alleges that the Colombo-controlled trucking company All Around Trucking paid kickbacks to win a subcontract with a demolition company working at Ground Zero.

Authorities also alleged that the defendants threatened employees with the demolition company when it failed to pay on time.

Consensual recordings captured one of the defendants saying that the demolition company employees were ” “shakin’ in their boots over us” when threats were made, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“La Cosa Nostra continues to profit illegally in numerous sectors of our economy, allegedly including the World Trade Center construction site,” U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell said in a statement. “Our office is dedicated to eliminating these crime families, which take a significant economic toll.” U.S. Attorney Campbell praised the outstanding investigative efforts by special agents of the FBI and DOL/OIG.

The defendants included Theodore Persico, Jr., Michael Persico, Thomas Petrizzo, Edward Garofalo, Jr., James Bombino, Louis Romeo, Alicia Dimichelle and Mike LNU.

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By Allan Lengel

A 67-year-old retired FBI agent in Nevada has pleaded guilty to evading about $109,000 in income taxes, authorities said.

Jan Lindsey of Henderson, Nevada, pleaded guilty Friday in Las Vegas to one count of felony tax evasion. Sentencing is set for July 9.

The 26-year-veteran of the FBI retired in 1995 and then went on to work for the next 10 years as a contractor for the FBI performing background investigations, authorities said.

Authorities charged that he failed to timely file or pay federal income tax from 1999 to 2006 and “committed various acts that were designed to hide his income and assets from the IRS, including placing assets in nominee names, presenting or recording fraudulent documents in an attempt to obtain lien and levy releases on his property, filing false returns after liabilities were assessed in an attempt to reduce or eliminate his unpaid liability, and presenting frivolous financial or negotiable instruments to the Department of the Treasury in claimed payment of his outstanding tax liability.”

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OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Owners of NY Strip Club Busted For Mortgage Fraud (AP)
• Long Island Man Convicted in Execution Style Slaying of Business Partner (AP)
• Ex-Atty. Gen. Mukasey Attacks Liz Cheney Over  Lawyer Flap (Huffington Post)
• Rove Recalls Tussles With U.S. Atty. Fitzgerald (Main Justice)

Janet Napolitano

Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano echoed what has been said pretty much all along: Suicide pilot Joseph Stack, 53, who crashed his plane into the IRS building in Austin last month was not a domestic terrorist but simply someone carrying out a personal agenda.

Napolitano made those remarks Tuesday in a radio interview on WAMU-FM’s “Diane Rehm Show”, according to a report in the Washington Post.

“To our belief, he was a lone wolf,” Napolitano said. “He used a terrorist tactic, but an individual who uses a terrorist tactic doesn’t necessarily mean they are part of an organized group attempting an attack on the United States.”

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Ex-Bush officials are stepping up to say that it’s not a good idea to limit terrorism trials to just military tribunals — something some Republicans are pushing for.

The New York Times reports that ex-Bush officials feel limiting the trials to military tribunals would weaken the government’s hand.

“This rush to military commissions is based on premises that are not true,” John B. Bellinger III, a top legal adviser to the National Security Council and the State Department under President George W. Bush told the Times. “I think it is neither appropriate nor necessary to limit terrorism cases to either military commissions alone or federal trials alone.”

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