By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
A  man wanted on a warrant for aggravated assault, was shot and wounded Sunday in a Kansas City, Ks., suburb after exchanging gunfire with an FBI Violent Crime Safe Streets Task Force, the Kansas City Star reported.

The paper reported that task force members confronted the man about 7:15 p.m. outside a Subway restaurant  in the town of  Olathe when he drew a gun. Gunfire was exchanged and he was shot in the torso and arm. He was treated at a local hospital.

No law enforcement officers were injured.

John Gotti Jr./youtube

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The New York tabloids are having a blast with a jury dispute in the federal trial of mobster John Gotti Jr.

One juror  wrote a note to the judge voicing concern about a fellow loud mouth juror.

“There’s more infighting on the Gotti jury than at a gangland sitdown – and they’re not even deliberating yet!,”  the New York Daily News reported last week.

A note signed by “A Concerned Juror” said:
“She announced that we the jurors better be prepared to be deliberating until after the Christmas holiday because … she is not going to allow any f—— body to rush her,” the two-page letter said.

The note also complained that the juror, a 34-year-old postal worker — was ogling “defense attorney Mr. Charles Carneglia,” the Daily News reported.

The juror complained that the loud juror also “charged a takeout order of fried calamari to the court’s tab when the panel visited a local restaurant,” the newspaper reported.

The judge has not removed the juror, but did interview all the jurors to determine if the loud-mouthed juror had discussed the case, read  about it or got information from outside the courtroom, the Daily News reported. Gotti faces a variety of charges including racketeering and murder.

It is his fourth trial in five years. The other three ended in a mistrial.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• FBI Reviewing Spending of Maryland Non-Profit (Washington Post)
• al Qaeda Calls for Homemade Bomb Attacks in the West (Reuters)
• Maryland Woman Lost Job Because of Error in FBI Criminal Data Base (Wired)

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
One of the top Mafia dons in Japan donated $1 million to a California medical center and cut a deal to provide info to the FBI to get a special visa to come to America and to get moved up on the list to receive a liver transplant, 60 Minutes reported Sunday night.

The CBS newsmagazine reported that the Yakuza Mafia Crime Boss Tadamasa Goto, who is known in American law enforcement circles as the “John Gotti of Japan”, agreed to rat on other mobsters and donate money to the UCLA Medical Center. It also reported that three other associates donated money to UCLA  to get liver transplants.

The FBI declined to comment for CBS, which also reported that UCLA insisted the medical center had no idea about the background of these people.

Watch CBS News Videos Online