Former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, FBI Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) Joseph Demarest Devorah Halberstam and the Honorable Rudolph Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York. Photo credit: Matthew Coleman, FBI

Devorah Halberstam, whose son was killed in a terrorist attack on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994, was honored last week with the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award. It honors individuals and organizations for their efforts in combating crime, terrorism, drugs, and violence.

The New York FBI Office gave her the award.

In a press release, the FBI said:

“On March 1, 1994, Devorah’s son, Ari Halberstam, was murdered in a terrorist attack on the Brooklyn Bridge. Following her son’s murder, Devorah committed herself to the fight against terrorism. She pounded the halls of Congress to change laws on immigration, terrorism and gun control. Working side by side with former Governor of New York George Pataki and other officials, she was instrumental in enacting the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, the first of its kind in New York State.

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder

Before a Sunday church crowd of more than 400 people in Long Island , Atty. General Eric Holder Jr. advocated a “spiritual awakening” among African Americans, saying the community needs to confront violence and other social ills that disproportionately impact blacks, Newsday reported.

Holder, a native of Queens, honed in on the absence of black fathers, which he said has hurt the family unit in  the black community.

“Too many men in the black community have created children and left them to be raised by caring mothers. These women do a wonderful job, but we ask too much of them and too little of our men,” Holder said at the Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt, L.I., on Baldwin Turnpike, according to Newsday. “It should simply be unacceptable for a man to have a child and then not play an integral party in the raising and nurturing of the child.”

Bernie Madoff

The Bernie Madoff brand is wearing thin.

The Regis College in Weston, Mass., held an auction on Sunday and sold four of Madoff’s belongings for a total of $2,025, the Boston Globe reported.

The paper reported that most bidders could have cared less who had owned the items; they simply wanted the items.

“It’s a Bvlgari necklace, and it’s gold,”  Issac Shapiro, a 36-year-old art dealer who does business in Russia said, according to the Globe, which reported that eh paid $1,250 for the piece, and also paid $400 for a sterling silver bracelet.

“I just buy for resale value,” Shapiro said. “I don’t think it will make a big difference.”

To read more click here.

Authorities at Kennedy Airport three years ago stumbled across a little surprise while inspecting shipments from Africa: a package containing monkey meat.

On Friday, a federal judge in Brooklyn gave Staten Island resident Mamie Manneh, a native of Liberia, probation for illegally importing the meat that can carry numerous infectious diseases like tuberculosis and Ebola, the New York Post reported.

In all, authorities found  65 pieces of  meat that included primate parts. Court documents show she imported the meat and resold it from her home.

The New York Post reported that U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie gave Manneh probation because she suffers from mental illness.

She apologized in open court and said, according to the Post, “For a long time  I was not on medication.”

Read Sentencing Memorandum

Stories like this continue to surface, which only reminds us of the growing threat the Mexican drug cartels have become for both Mexico and the U.S. The cartels are not only dealing with drugs, but expanding into other things, just like the American mob did in its hey day.

MALTRATA, Mexico — Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico’s pipelines over the past two years, in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the state-run oil company.

Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S. companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

The widespread theft of Mexico’s most vital national resource by criminal organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe Calderón’s war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are rapidly evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling to activities as diverse as oil theft, transport and sales.

For Full Story

By Allan Lengel

The criminal case against ex-Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich can only get more interesting.

In the latest move, his lawyers have asked for the FBI interviews of then President-elect Barack Obama,his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and others, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The lawyers in a court filing also asked for information regarding an FBI interview with the first lady, but the Sun-Times reported that a source said the FBI never interviewed her.

For more click here.

Read Discovery Motion

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Inter-Agency Rift Between NYPD and FBI Cited in Terror Case (NY Times)
• Web Post Began Tale of Detained Americans in Pakistan (NY Times)
• In Philly Witness Intimidation Makes Cases Crumble (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Gaps in DNA Bank Lead to Tragedy (AP)
• Nigerians Facing Forced Servitude Charges in Texas (AP)
• Federal Court Reverses Conviction of Lawyer and 2 Judges (The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8oxniW_9fI

WEEKEND STORIES OF NOTE

• Pakistani Officials Unraveling Plot to Send D.C. Area Men to Afghanistan (Washington Post)
• FBI Questions 5 Americans Detained in Pakistan (NY Times)