By Allan Lengel

Last June, Anthony L. Denunzio, the suspected leader of the New England crime family, met with a senior Gambino mobster.

During the conversation, Dinunzio allegedly discussed the rules for joining the mob, according to the Justice Department.

“You know what I can’t understand?,” he stated. “How the hell did he get made, because he’s half Irish…I don’t understand that…that’s not the rules…you gotta do one hundred percent (Italian).”

At the same meeting, he discussed his leadership style and said: “As soon as I took over I changed everything. One guy… ‘What if nobody wants to listen to you?’ ‘I said you’re shelved.’

“He said ‘What if they don’t wanna get shelved?’ ‘Well then you and I get to watch you die in the ground….I’ll bury you right in the [expletive] ground puts all the dirt. You’re alive. They stay there. I’ll stay there [expletive] 10 hours until you’re dead. And I’ll dig you back up and make sure you’re dead.’”

On Wednesday, the feds  arrested him  on racketeering charges that included allegations that he was involved in extorting protection payments from adult entertainment businesses in Rhode Island, the Justice Department announced.

Dinunzio, 53, of East Boston, Mass., made his initial appearance in Providence, R.I.

“According to the indictment unsealed today, as the leader of the New England LCN for more than two years, Mr. Dinunzio used fear and intimidation to control the corrupt activities of his criminal enterprise,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. “Among other charged criminal conduct, he allegedly asked an LCN member to extort a businessman in the adult entertainment industry and told others he would use violence against insubordinates. These charges are another step in our unrelenting efforts to stamp out the mafia.”

The L.A. Times recently ran a story detailing the apprehension in 2010 of Mexican kingpin Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela and his conversion into one of the FBI’s most valuable informants.

Apparently eager to gain assylum for himself, wife and 3 daughters in the U.S., the 34-year-old Miramontes-Varela willingly confessed his leadership in the Juarez cartel, and accounted for two decades of dirty dealings. In taped sessions at a Colorado safe house, he mapped marijuana and cocaine routes to CA, NY and the Great Lakes, as well as the mass grave where agents proceeded to recover 20 bodies in Palomas, Mexico.

Miramontes-Varela was likely aware the feds were closing in on him when he decided to peacefully surrender. The Times reports that the ATF had tracked $250k in illegal gun purchases to Miramontes-Varela and his brother through its ill-fated Fast and Furious surveillance operation in Arizona, and the FBI knew Miramontes-Varela’s organization had bribed U.S. officials in El Paso and New Mexico when they uneventfully pulled over his BMW returning home from a Walgreens in suburban Denver.

To read more click here.

Shoshanna Utchenik

You can see why former Jersey City assemblyman Louis Manzo thought he might try his luck once more. But this time the only luck he had was bad luck.

The Jersey Journal reports that Manzo lost his bid for reimbursement of $150k worth of legal fees paid over the course of a drawn-out corruption case. A federal judge threw the case out. Twice.

Battling it out with the U.S. Attorney’s Office since his 2009 arrest, according to the Jersey Journal, Manzo slipped free from the massive corruption and money-laundering probe that put a host of other Hudson County politicos behind bars.

In his ruling, the same judge who threw out Manzo’s second indictment, Judge Jose Linares, ruled that Manzo wouldn’t see a dime in reimbursements because the government case against him “was not groundless or without any legal merit” as Manzo tried to prove in court.

To read more click here.

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mi. —  A Detroit FBI official on Tuesday expressed concern as to how Hezbollah, which enjoys support in the Arab community in the Detroit area, might react if Israel or anyone else goes to battle with Iran.

“If Israel or anyone else chooses to act against Iran, what exactly is Hezbollah or Iran going to do? That’s the … $64,000 question,” FBI official Todd Mayberry, head of counterterrorism at the Detroit FBI, told a crowd of about 130 people the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield, a suburb of Detroit, the Detroit Free Press reports. The group represented 58 groups and law enforcement agencies in Michigan.

Mayberry said there currently is “no specific threat to the Jewish community here in Michigan.”

To read more click here.

secret service photo

WASHINGTON — Some Secret Service employees accused of misconduct in the Colombian prostitution scandal are privately contending that their conduct didn’t warrant dismissal because senior managers tolerated similar behavior during official trips, according to people familiar with the employees’ thinking.

Several of the men who agreed to resign under pressure last week are also considering reversing their decisions and fighting to keep their jobs, said the people knowledgeable about the case.

The prospect of Secret Service agents sharing embarrassing tales about rank-and-file employees and superiors partying to the hilt could bring more anguish to an agency reeling from scandal.

To read the full story click here.

Three More Secret Service Agents to Lose Their Jobs (Washington Post) 

Pro football can be a dirty sport on the field, and apparently sometimes off the field.

An FBI-Louisiana State Police task force is investigating allegations that the New Orleans Saints set up general manager Mickey Loomis’ booth at the Superdome so he could eavesdrop on opposing coaches, the Associated Press reported.

State police Col. Mike Edmonson told the AP that investigators were looking to see if state or federal wiretap laws were broken.

To read more click here.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Appellate Court’s Meaning in Bell Case Disputed by Both Sides (L.A. Times)
• Man Stops Cop, Confesses to 25-Year-Old Murder (Reuters)
• FBI, NYPD Conclude Etan Patz Evidence Search In SoHo (Gothamist)
• FBI ‘Safety Net’ Servers Come With Expiration Date (CSO)
• Justice Department Won’t Reopen Probe of 1970 Kent State Shootings (Cleveland.com)