New York's Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Arrested on Corruption Charges

The powerful and long-serving speaker of New York's state assembly was arrested by the FBI after turning himself in to authorities last week. Silver, who had been in the state Assembly representing Manhatta in 65th Assembly district since 1976, is also a practicing attorney and close political ally of New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio. Siver's income from the law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg had long been the subject of criticism. US Attorney Preet Bharara accused Silver of collecting more than $3 million in bribes and kickbacks that were disguised as referral fees.

In a criminal complaint, authorities said Silver abused his power and “obtained about $4 million in payments characterized as attorney referral fees solely through the corrupt use of his official position.”

The arrest sent shock waves through New York’s Capitol as a new legislative session began, and it came just a day after Silver shared the stage with Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his State of the State address.

As speaker of the Democrat-controlled Assembly, Silver is one of the most influential people in New York state government. Along with the Senate majority leader and the governor, he plays a major role in creating state budgets, laws and policies in a system long-criticized in Albany as “three men in a room.”

During a press conference, Bharara also hinted that more charges could be waiting in the wings against state officials.

In July 2013, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced the formation of the Moreland Commission to examine New York's weak campaign finance laws and investigate any wrongdoing or suspicious activities among state lawmakers. A few short months after the Commission released their preliminary findings, Cuomo abruptly announced that he was shutting down the Moreland Commission. Some observers believe that any further investigating by the Moreland Commission would've brought to light incriminating information against Cuomo's donors or political allies.

In July 2014, the New York Times published an article further alleging that Gov Cuomo was hindering the Moreland Commission's investigations. Assembly speaker Silver was among those who were subpoenaed by the investigative committee, but accused the Moreland Commission of being nothing more than a 'fishing expedition' and attempting to intimidate state lawmakers.

Although Cuomo shut down the Moreland Commission less than halfway into its stated 18-month lifespan, the US Attorney's office was requesting documents from them back in May 2014.

It wasn't until last month that Silver disclosed that he was earning money from a second law firm- something he withheld from the Moreland Commission.

Muslim Convert Attacks, Beheads Former Co-Worker at Oklahoma Food Distribution Center

A 30-year old Oklahoma man with a criminal background beheaded 54 year old woman at a food distribution warehouse he recently was fired from and attacked another woman in the building before being shot by the company's Chief Operating Officer last week.

The suspect, Alton Nolen, 30, was recently fired from Vaughan Foods in Moore prior to Thursday’s attack. Moore Police Department Sgt. Jeremy Lewis told KFOR that Nolen drove to the front of the business and struck a vehicle before walking inside. He then attacked Colleen Hufford, 54, stabbing her several times before severing her head. He also stabbed another woman, 43-year-old Traci Johnson, at the plant.

Lewis said Mark Vaughan, the company’s chief operating officer and a reserve county deputy, shot Nolen as he was stabbing Johnson, who remains hospitalized in stable condition Friday.

Nolen, who had previously served jail time on drug and assault charges and also goes by the name of Jah'Keem Yisrael, had Islam listed as his religion according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. In addition to tattoos of praying arms and one that spelled 'Jesus Christ', Nolen also had 'As-salam alakyum' ['Peace be upon you' in Arabic- NANESB!] as one of his tattoos. Although it isn't known exactly when Nolen converted to Islam, the content of his Facebook page shifted from sports and rap lyrics to almost exclusively Islamic content in the Spring of 2013- including pictures of masked ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters in Syria and beheading videos.

Before being fired, Nolen was said to have attempted to convert some of his co-workers to Islam- his dismissal came after he reportedly said he supported stoning women for offenses committed under Islamic Shari'a law.

Vaughan Foods Chief Operating Officer and Oklahoma County Reserve Deputy Mark Vaughan grabbed a rifle he kept in his office and fired two shots, striking Nolen as he was stabbing Traci Johnson. Nolen survived and is undergoing treatment for gunshot wounds at a nearby hospital.

Local police and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol have asked the FBI to investigate whether or not the knife attack was linked to any terrorist activity. Intelligence agencies had warned that he Islamic State in Iraq and Syria- better known as ISIS- had called upon supporters in the west via social media to carry out 'lone wolf' attacks in the west. Days before the Moore, OK beheading an 18 year old Muslim named Numen Haider stabbed two police officers outside a police station in Victoria, Australia. Haider, who reportedly unfurled an ISIS banner at a local mall and made plans to travel to Syria, was fatally shot during the altercation while the two policemen are expected to survive.

National Guard Deployed to St Louis Suburb After Week of Protests and Looting

After criticizing the presence of 'militarized' police in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, MO last week, Missouri governor Jay Nixon ordered the National Guard into the city to restore order on Sunday night.

The unrest started last weekend when a Ferguson police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager named Mike Brown. Although some witnesses gave conflicting accounts that claimed Brown was fleeing or surrendering when he was shot, the police claim that there was an altercation before the shooting where Brown tried to take the officer's service weapon.

After the shooting, a number of vigils and protests in Ferguson where demonstrators called for the officer to be charged with homicide took place [there are some unconfirmed reports out of St Louis that seem to corroborate the officer's version of events- NANESB!].

As tensions between citizens and area law enforcement escalated- with looting and clashes with police in riot gear following the shooting- state and local officials decided to hand over authority to the Missouri Highway Patrol and Captain Ron Johnston. Johnson espoused a hands-off approach to de-escalate tensions, in some instances outsourcing public safety to domestic terror groups like the Black Panthers. However, the clashes and looting continued over the next several nights [further agitated by outside groups such as the Revolutionary Communist Party and New Black Panther Party- NANESB!].

Heading into the weekend, Gov Nixon ordered a midnight curfew for the city of Ferguson as the looting and clashes continued. However, looters ignored the curfew and raided a Dominoes Pizza, Family Dollar store, a self-storage unit and an auto parts store. Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson also released surveillance video purportedly showing Brown committing a strong-arm robbery of a nearby convenience store shortly before the shooting took place, despite pleas from the DOJ not to do so.

An autopsy was also conducted that determined Brown was shot six times- none of them in the back, contrary to early eyewitness accounts. US Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered a federal autopsy of Brown and ordered FBI agents to canvas the neighborhood to search for possible additional witnesses to the shooting.

Blue State Graft Watch- California State Senator Who Authored Gun Control Laws Arrested on Charges of Weapons Trafficking, Ties to Organized Crime

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Blue State Graft Watch- Rhode Island Speaker of the House Resigns After Feds Raid Offices

Gordon Fox, a Rhode Island democrat who held the distinction of being the first openly gay speaker of the state house in the USA, abruptly announced that he was resigning from his role as speaker shortly after the FBI, IRS and Rhode Island State Police raided his home and office this week.

The joint effort by Rhode Island state troopers, and investigators from the FBI, the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s office, began in mid-morning, when troopers took up positions outside Fox’s office.

The troopers would not answer questions about why they had closed off access to the speaker’s State House office. They referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which provided no further details. Soon after, FBI and IRS agents arrived.


As to the nature of the documents the investigators took, Berman said: “Business-related. They looked like files, but I am not sure.” When asked if that included legal files, Berman noted that Fox has “a separate law office on Dorrance Street where he practices his law.”

“They weren’t asking, from what I understand, for legislative documents, which are all on line and available anyway,” Berman said.

While investigators searched Fox’s State House office, more than a dozen FBI and IRS investigators were searching his East Side home. (A Fox confidante said the investigators asked Fox to leave, but allowed his spouse, Marcus LaFond, to remain behind to look after Fox’s 91-year-old mother.)

The investigators emerged from the house shortly before 2 p.m. in single file, carrying boxes and navigating a gauntlet of media. As a few of the investigators in dark suits watched, others wearing windbreakers emblazoned with “Evidence Response Team” quickly loaded the boxes into a white unmarked truck parked across the street and drove off.

Although the US Attorney declined to specify the charges against Fox, the Providence Democrat has had prior legal and ethics violations. Earlier this year, Fox agreed to pay a $1500 fine after he failed to disclose $43,000 he made preparing loan documents for a local economic development agency. A decade prior, Fox was fined $10,000 for voting on a $770 million lottery deal that assured work would be steered towards his law firm at the time, according to the Providence Journal.

Fox's resignation abruptly triggered an internal struggle among Democrats in the Ocean State after then-house majority leader Nicholas Mattiello [D- Cranston] called for a closed-door caucus at the Providence Marriott as soon as Fox stepped down as speaker. However, a number of members of the House weren't even informed of the caucus until well after the fact. By Tuesday, Mattiello was voted in by colleagues as Rhode Island's latest Speaker of the House.

Officials From Philly Ironworkers Union Local Arrested on Racketeering Charges

FBI agents arrested ten officials with Ironworkers Local 401 in Philadelphia on charges of racketeering amd arson that targeted contractors in the Philadelphia area who used non-union labor. Prosecutors claim that longtime Local 401 head Joseph 'Doc' Dougherty orchestrated a campaign of assaults and intimidation against business owners, contractors and laborers and projects using nonunion labor and sabotaging those projects.

According to the 49-page indictment, Dougherty, 72, coordinated the campaign of sabotage and extortion, urging members to picket, threaten, and destroy the property of contractors who ignored threats against hiring nonunion employees.

At the meetinghouse work site, prosecutors said, three union members cut steel beams and set fire to a crane in December 2012, setting the project back weeks and costing the contracting firm, E. Allen Reeves Inc. of Abington, more than $500,000.

At the time, Local 401 business agent Edward Sweeney told reporters that he knew nothing about the fire, saying only that he had asked the company to hire union workers.

Authorities said Tuesday that Sweeney ordered the attack.

Dougherty and others in the Ironworkers 401 were also politically active and enjoyed connections with state and local officials [all of whom likely knew of Local 401's violent tactics- NANESB!] to further their goals. While publicly disavowing violence as a negotiating tactic, members of the Local 401 reportedly referred to themselves as The Helpful Union Guys (i.e. THUGs) and promotion within the ranks was said to rely upon participation of attacks on nonunion workers at jobsites. The Ironworkers Local 401 also reportedly earned the ire of other area unions for 'poaching' lucrative contracts away from them.

Like in many labor strongholds, the tactics used by unions like the Ironworkers 401 were viewed as part of the status quo and the price of doing business in the city. In recent years, however, labor's influence in the Philly are has been on the wane. Beginning in 2012, a pair of Philadelphia-area developers began posting surveillance videos of union workers attacking contractors and nonunion workers from their jobsites online.

Instead of cowering or capitulating, the Pestronks used batteries of video cameras to record the activities of picketing union members, which they posted online at YouTube and a website they dubbed “phillybully.com.” And the effect was galvanic.

For many years, Building Trades has been criticized—usually in fearful whispers—for stifling development and economic growth, shutting out new investors, and undermining this city’s entire political process. But the videos shot and posted by the Pestronks provided something to go with all those allegations: evidence. Footage of leering, chuckling union men spitting profanities—so afraid of losing what they have, they can’t see what they’ve become.

Since the first videos went up in spring, the tide of public sentiment has turned, and the Pestronks won a court order restricting the picketers’ behavior

Investigators say that the 2012 Quaker meeting house jobsite sabotage involved intruders using torches cut through steel beams and torched a crane causing $500,000 in damages. Members of the Local 401 are also accused of smashing windows and slashing tires on the cars of contractors and nonunion workers, forming picket lines to block deliveries of equipment, throwing caltrops in front of vehicles, gluing locks shut and pouring oil in front of construction site entrances.

[Hat tip- Support Your Local Gunfighter; Friends of Ours]

Federal Prosecutors Will Seek Death Penalty Against Surviving Boston Marathon Bomber

The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it will seek the death sentence against Dzhokar Tsarnaev in his upcoming trial for his role in the Patriot's Day bombing of the Boston Marathon finish line.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday announced they will seek the death penalty against 20-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing, instantly raising the stakes in what could be one of the most wrenching trials the city has ever seen.

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to press for Tsarnaev's execution was widely expected. The twin blasts killed three people and wounded more than 260 others, and 17 of the 30 federal charges against him — including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill — carry the possibility of the death penalty.

"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," Holder said in a statement.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty. A trial date has not been set.

According to local, state and federal investigators, 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26 year old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted two bombs fashioned from pressure cookers and loaded with ball bearings and set them a few hundred feet apart at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Patriots Day last year- April 15th. Three people were killed in the blasts and more than 200 were injured by flying shrapnel and the two brothers were seen on surveillance cameras from nearby businesses arriving at the finish line with backpacks and leaving without them shortly before the blasts. During the manhunt after the bombings, the two brothers shot and killed an MIT Campus police officer in an ambush, carjacked a motorist and led police on a wild chase that culminated in a firefight in Watertown, MA. During the shootout, an MBTA Transit police officer was wounded and Tamerlan was run over by his own brother in a bid to escape. The younger Tsarnaev brother initially appeared to have evaded the dragnet, but a Watertown homeowner spotted blood on a tarp covering a boat in his backyard and immediately called police. After a shootout and tense standoff, officers from the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team and Massachusetts State Police Special Tactical Operations (STOP) surrounded the boat and took a wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev into custody.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also thought to be a suspect in a triple homicide in Waltham, MA in September 2011. A friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev- Ibragim Todashev- implicated himself and the older Tsarnaev brother in a statement to the FBI and Massachusetts State Police at his Florida condo. Law enforcement sources then claimed that a previously cooperative Tosahev eventually became belligerent and attempted to stab one of the agents before being fatally shot.

The two brothers originally hailed from Chechnya- a volatile, Islamic majority region in the south of Russia that has been fighting against Russian troops in a bid to break away from the Kremlin. Islamic Chechen fighters have been fighting in Afghanistan as well as the recent conflicts in Libya and Syria while Chechen terrorists are said to be behind a series of suicide attacks on buses and train stations in the Russian city of Volgograd last month that killed more than 30 people.

Kenyan Forces Re-Take Nairobi Mall Attacked By Al Shabaab Terrorists, At Least 39 Still Missing

The death toll in last week's terrorist attack at an upscale shopping mall in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi has reached 67 with aid agencies saying that at least 39 people were still unaccounted for after a withering firefight and series of bomb blasts as Kenyan security forces re-took the building floor by floor.

A twitter account purportedly belonging to the Somali-based Al Shabaab islamist group claimed responsibility for the massacre and threatened further attacks in Kenya, although the ownership of a second, English language account couldn't be independently verified. Twitter reportedly suspended the first Al Shabaab account within hours of the mall attack.

Kenyan soldiers and medical officials said that some of the victim's bodies they found had shown signs of torture and mutilation in addition to those who were shot while trying to flee.

Investigators believe that the assailants or their associates rented a shop in the Westgate mall in the months leading up to the terrorist attack, smuggling in weapons and explosives unnoticed. Kenya's intelligence service reportedly warned lawmakers that Al Shabaab was casing a number of potential targets within the country- including the mall- about a year or so before the attack as part of a routine situational report to that government's legislators.

Reports of some of the terrorists being identified as Americans or at least from the Somali community in and around Minneapolis and St Paul, MN have also reportedly caught the attention of the Minneapolis branch of the FBI, although that has yet to be confirmed. A Somali activist in Minnesota said that his warnings about the Abubakar as-Siddique mosque in the Twin Cities being used as a recruiting center for Al Shabaab or other islamist groups in recent years were either ignored or downplayed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Investigators from both the FBI and Scotland Yard are reportedly on scene in Nairobi to comb through forensic evidence left behind at the Westgate mall.

Meanwhile, Interpol has released a 'Red Notice' arrest bulletin for a British convert to Islam named Samantha Lewthwaite, who was a widow of one of the 7/7 London bombers and was thought to have participated in the attacks- eyewitnesses describe a pale-skinned woman taking part in the attacks early on.

Boston Mob Boss Whitey Bulger Found Guilty of 11 Murders, Racketeering,

Elise Amendola; U.S. Marshals Service/AP Photo

A jury at the Federal Courthouse in Boston, MA found captured fugitive mob boss James 'Whitey' Bulger guilty of racketeering and 11 counts of murder last week.

The elusive Bulger was captured with girlfriend Catherine Greig at a luxury apartment complex in Santa Monica, CA in June 2011 after more than 16 years on the run. Bulger was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for most of those 16 years, was also a source of embarrassment for the agency when it was made public that the Boston office of the FBI allowed Bulger's Winter Hill Gang to continue their criminal activities unimpeded in exchange for information on rival gangs, including the Providence, RI based Patriarcha crime family.

Bulger and his associates in the Winter Hill Gang were hired by former World Jai Alai president and Boston businessman John B Callahan to kill Oklahoma businessman Roger Wheeler- Callahan's successor at World Jai Alai. Callahan was reportedly worried that Wheeler would discover his embezzlement from the organization and report it to the FBI. One of Bulger's FBI handlers had retired and became head of World Jai Alai security, but would instead report on Wheeler's whereabouts to Bulger and the Winter Hill gang. Wheeler was shot and killed in his car outside a Tulsa, OK country club in May 1981.

Another FBI handler warned Bulger that Callahan was unlikely to hold up under questioning and one of the triggermen in Wheeler's killing was offering information to the Feds to try and get out of a separate murder charge. In July 1982, Callahan's bullet-riddled body was found stuffed in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami International Airport. Two months earlier, Bulger and associate Stephen 'the Rifleman' Flemmi shot and killed suspected FBI informant Brian Halloran and a bystander named Michael Donahue in South Boston.

In addition to tipping off Bulger on the whereabouts of potential witnesses or other Winter Hill gang members ready to turn informant, agents from the Boston office of the FBI has been accused of lying to detectives in Oklahoma and Florida investigating the Jai Alai slayings and pressured an eyewitness in the Halloran and Donahue murders to identify the wrong man.

Bulger and Flemmi also extorted Southie liquor store owner Stephen Rakes into selling his business to them and then intimidated him into changing his story when the matter initially went to court in the early 1990s. The 2013 trial of Whitey Bulger took a dramatic turn when  Rakes turned up dead in Lincoln, MA last month. An autopsy showed that Rakes was poisoned and the Middlesex County DA charged a 69 year old man who reportedly owed Rakes a large sum of money with the murder.

Bulger and his girlfriend went into hiding in 1995 after FBI Agent John Connoly Jr tipped him off that a racketeering indictment was coming down. The FBI made hardly any headway until they ran a series of public service announcements focusing on Greig on daytime women's talk shows- within days, a tipster in southern California recognized Greig and Bulger as their neighbors, leading to their arrests.

Friends of Tsarnaev Brother Plead Not Guilty to Obstruction

Two 19 year old UMass Dartmouth students who were friends with surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice after being arrested in early May.

Prosecutors say they tried to thwart the investigation of the deadly April explosions by throwing away fireworks and other items they found in Tsarnaev's dorm room the day before his capture.

Authorities say they found the fireworks in a New Bedford, Mass. landfill.

If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison. Family members of both attended the hearing. According to CBS Boston, federal prosecutors said Tuesday that 15-to-20 witnesses may be called during the trial.

Lawyers for Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov- both exchange students from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan- denied their clients did anything wrong and fully cooperated with the FBI investigation. The two 19 year olds were in the country on a student visa and were taken into custody on charges they had overstayed their visas.

Another acquaintance of the younger Tsarnaev brother arrested around the same time as Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov was scheduled to appear in US District court in Boston last month, but the hearing for 19 year old Robel Phillipos had been postponed and he remains free on $100,000 bond.

Several weeks after the arrest of Phillipos, Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev, FBI agents were interviewing a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in his Orlando, FL-area condo when he allegedly became combative and was shot and killed after attacking one of the agents. Massachusetts State Police believed that Ibragim Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were suspected of a grisly 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, MA.

Middlesex County DA Charges Man With Poisoning of Former Bulger Witness

Police have made an arrest in the death of  59 year old Stephen Rakes, who's body was found in Lincoln, MA last month. Initially ruled a suicide, an autopsy revealed that Rakes had died after drinking an iced coffee laced with cyanide.

William Camuti, 69, of Sudbury, is charged with attempted murder, misleading police, and unlawful disposition of human remains in Rakes' death. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday and was ordered held without bail until a hearing Tuesday.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, Ryan said Camuti lured Rakes to a McDonalds restaurant in Waltham. Ryan said Camuti put two teaspoons of potassium cyanide in Rakes' iced coffee and then drove around with Rakes in the car until he died. Ryan said he then dumped the body and removed all his identification.

Ryan said investigators believe Camuti acted alone and Rakes' death was not connected to the Bulger trial.

Camuti was convicted in 1993 of 11 counts of mail fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud investors. Court records show Camuti was soliciting money from a group of Waltham businessmen, promising to invest their money in mortgages and never following through.

Investigators say that Camuti owed Rakes a substantial amount of money and that was a likely motive in the poisoning. The Middlesex County DA's office believes the Bulger connection was a coincidence, since Rakes wasn't even on the prosecution's witness list for the current trial.

In the 1980s, Rakes owned a South Boston liquor store that he alleged Bulger and his right-hand man Steve Flemmi extorted him into selling for $67,000 in cash one night in 1984. Rakes and his family briefly fled to Florida before being summoned back to Boston by Bulger. Rakes then-wife reported the case to her uncle, a Boston Police detective, who in turn reported the takeover of the store to FBI agent John Connolly- unaware that Bulger and Flemmi were informants for the FBI and that Connolly was their handler.

Rakes said that Bulger then threatened him into changing his testimony and perjuring himself when an earlier criminal complaint was brought against Bulger in 1991, claiming the sale was voluntary. When Whitey went on the run, Rakes was charged with perjury.

Bulger and his girlfriend Catherine Greig were arrested by the FBI in Santa Monica, CA in June 2011 after more than 15 years on the run. Agents were following up on a tip from one of their neighbors [a former Miss Iceland pageant winner, no less!- NANESB!]. The agency broke the case open shortly after they decided to air a series of announcements focusing in Greig on daytime TV talk shows geared more towards women.

Potential Witness in Whitey Bulger Trial Found Dead in Lincoln, MA

Before the Patriot's Day bombing of the Boston Marathon finish line and capture of Chechen islamist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston's 'Trial of the Century" was supposed to be the prosecution of former Winter Hill capo and FBI informant Whitey Bulger in South Boston's US District Court.

With all the uproar surrounding Rolling Stone's rock-star treatment of the younger Tsarnaev brother on the front cover of their latest edition, the Bulger trial got second billing in Boston until an odd and disturbing development on Thursday.

One of the witnesses who was scheduled to testify against Bulger was found dead on Wednesday along the Mill Street area of Lincoln, MA. Authorities still have to determine a cause of death.

Given the advanced age of some of the participants in the Bulger trial, I'd say this death looks 95% fishy, as opposed to 99.9% fishy. However, Federal Prosecutors claim they had not plans to call Stephen Rakes to the witness stand.

Far from being a reluctant eyewitness, Rakes appeared eager to testify how he was victimized by Bulger and his accomplices.

Rakes, 59, was one of the most determined of Bulger’s alleged victims, still furious at the notorious South Boston gangster and his allies, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi and Kevin Weeks, for allegedly extorting his South Boston liquor store from him at gunpoint in 1984 — while Rakes’s daughters were in the same room.

In a 2001 interview with the Boston Globe, Rakes said that Bulger and his right-hand man Steve 'The Rifleman' Flemmi accosted him at his South Boston liquor store one night in 1984. Rakes claimed the two introduced themselves and said they had been hired to kill him, but wouldn't go through with their contract if he sold the store to them. As the conversation moved into the kitchen, Rakes claimed Flemmi pulled a gun and put it on the table before putting Rakes' infant daughter on his lap while Bulger pulled a switchblade, asking what it would be like for Rakes' daughter to grow up without a father.

Threatened with death if he reported the shakedown, Rakes insisted the sale was voluntary when he testified before federal grand juries targeting Bulger in 1991 and 1995. A jury convicted Rakes of perjury and obstruction of justice in June 1998, but he escaped prison after agreeing to cooperate with authorities.

After losing the store, Rakes said he went to Disney World with his family, only to be ordered back by Bulger, who forced him to stand on a South Boston corner for two days to quell rumors that Bulger had killed him.

Rakes's wife sought help from her uncle, Boston Police Detective Joseph Lundbohm, who reported the takeover of the store to FBI Agent John J. Connolly Jr., unaware that Bulger and Flemmi were informants and Connolly was their handler.

In a 1998 Globe interview, Connolly confirmed that Lundbohm had told him that Bulger and Flemmi had seized the store, but Connolly said he didn't take action because the Rakeses "did not want to get wired up and they did not want to be witnesses. How do you make a case like that?"

A day after Connolly was warned about the shakedown, Rakes said Bulger paid him a visit and warned him that he'd better tell Lundbohm to "back off."

"I was more scared then than I ever was," said Rakes. "I figured he had a pipeline right to the FBI."

After Rakes lied to the grand jury in 1991, Bulger confronted him on his way home from the courthouse and revealed that he knew everything that had happened in the secret, closed-door proceeding, Rakes said.

"He had a piece of paper in front of him and he had all of the questions that the prosecutor had asked me," said Rakes. "I said, `Thank God I went in there and lied like crazy or I'd be dead by now.' "

Bulger fled Boston after a January 1995 racketeering indictment. By that time, Rakes was a track inspector with the MBTA. A few months after Whitey became a wanted fugitive, Rakes said he panicked and fled when he saw Bulger protégé Kevin Weeks standing at a platform at the Red Line's Broadway station, accidently brushing up against the third rail as he fled. Rakes was hospitalized for several days afterwards.

Associates of Bulger claim that Rakes had approached them through an intermediary about selling the store, but threatened him after they said he kept raising the asking price for the liquor store.

Friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Person of Interest in 2011 Waltham Triple Homicide Shot and Killed by FBI

A friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot killed by FBI agents at an apartment complex near Orlando, FL last month.

The shooting happened inside an Orlando apartment complex as an FBI agent and Massachusetts State Police detectives were questioning Ibragim Todashev about his friendship with Tsarnaev.

Law enforcement sources said the two Chechen immigrants once trained together at a Boston area gym. But evidence also suggests a criminal connection, involvement in a grisly triple murder that occurred in September 2011, in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Three men, including one who trained at the same gym, were found with their throats cut, their bodies had been covered with marijuana and thousands of dollars in cash. No one has been charged.

But sources say during questioning Tuesday night, Todashev implicated himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the killings. As investigators pushed at him towards a confession, he snapped, reported Orr.

Law enforcement officials say the 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter made a move that threatened the investigators. The FBI agent, who suffered cuts in the altercation, shot and killed Todashev.

The FBI became interested in him after phone records suggested a connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Over several weeks agents kept tabs on Todashev and questioned him a handful of times. The FBI found nothing connecting Todashev to the Boston attacks.

Todashev, who lived in the u.s. for the past several years, was arrested two weeks ago on an aggravated battery charge. But now investigators want to find out if he had any connections at all to anything worse, including radical extremists overseas.

Earlier, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reported that Todashev was a mixed-martial-arts fighter. Fighting was at least one interest that Todashev shared with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was once a boxer.

Miller also reported that Todashev had been to Chechnya before and was scheduled to return to Chechnya this week but canceled his flight.

While Todashev wasn't considered a suspect in the April 15th bombing of the Boston Marathon finish line, authorities believed that both Todashev and the older Tsarnaev brother were involved in the September 2011 triple slaying of Raphael Teken, Brendan Mess and Erik Weissman at their Waltham, MA apartment.

Todashev was granted permanent legal status to the USA in February, despite a 2010 arrest for assault after a traffic accident. Last month, Todashev was arrested at gunpoint in Florida after allegedly beating up a man in a parking lot.

Three More Arrested in Boston Marathon Bombing Investigation

Three acquaintances of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were arrested on Wednesday afternoon for lying to federal investigators and obstruction of justice after admitting to removing evidence from Tsarnaev's dorm room at UMass-Dartmouth after the Patriot's Day terrorist attack.

BOSTON (AP) — Three college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were arrested and accused Wednesday of removing a backpack containing hollowed-out fireworks from Tsarnaev's dorm room three days after the attack to keep him from getting into trouble.

In court papers, the FBI said one of them threw the backpack in the garbage — it was later found in a landfill by law enforcement officers — after they concluded from news reports that Tsarnaev was one of the bombers.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, who are from Kazakhstan, were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by concealing and destroying evidence. A third man, Robel Phillipos, was charged with lying to investigators about the visit to Tsarnaev's room.

At a court appearance in the afternoon, the Kazakh men did not request bail and will be held for another hearing May 14. Phillipos was held for a hearing on Monday. Their lawyers refused to comment ahead of the proceeding.

All three men charged had been attending UMass-Dartmouth around the same time as the younger Tsarnaev brother. Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev were detained on charges they had violated their student visas last week. Not only was Tazhaykov allowed back into the USA from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan back in January, but Tsarnaev had reportedly bragged to the two Kazakhs that he knew how to make a bomb about a month before the Marathon bombings.

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev were reportedly in communication with Dzhokhar after the FBI press conference on April 18th where images of the two brothers pulled from surveillance cameras were released to the general public. The younger Tsarnaev communicated with the two Kazakhs via text message and reportedly removed a backpack, Vaseline and Dzhokhar's laptop computer from the dorm room and threw the items in the garbage. Police later recovered the items from a nearby landfill.

It was also reported on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia rejected Tamerlan Tsarnaev's visa application to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in 2011 although the Saudi ambassador to the USA denies that the kingdom sent written warnings about the older Boston Marathon bombing suspect to the Department of Homeland Security and officials in the UK.

There were also reports that a woman's DNA was found on one of the pressure cooker IEDs. Federal agents in Rhode Island collected a sample from Katherine Russell- Tamerlan Tsarnaev's American wife- for comparison.

Boston Marathon Bombing Update- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Hospitalized, Charged With Using 'Weapon of Mass Destruction'; Waltham Police Looking at Tsarnaev Bros for Unsolved Triple Homicide; Slain MIT Police Officer, 8 year old Martin Richard Laid to Rest Over the Weekend

A little less than a week after Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody after a dramatic chase and shootout, several new facts about the two brothers are coming to light from investigators and victims alike.

Although Tamerlan Tsarnaev had sustained multiple gunshot wounds during last week's chase and shootout, he was reportedly brought down by his own kid brother who ran him over in a stolen vehicle while attempting to flee the police.

Chief Deveau also disclosed dramatic details of the shoot-out, in which Tamerlan was killed, and revealed how, in the chaos, his death was caused by Dzhokhar.

A single officer was first to encounter the fugitives at 12.30am local time on Friday in a residential street in Watertown, a suburb of Boston.

They were in two separate vehicles, including a four-wheel-drive Mercedes they had carjacked.

Chief Deveau said: “They jump out of the cars and unload on our police officer. They both came out shooting. Shooting guns, handguns. He’s under direct fire, very close by.

“He has to jam it in reverse and try to get himself a little distance.”

As five other officers arrived, 200 shots were fired in 10 minutes. One of the brothers threw exploding devices including a pressure cooker bomb which landed on a car.

Tamerlan then broke cover and walked directly at officers firing a gun. The police chief said: “They were having a gunfight 10 feet apart. And then for us, thank God, he ran out of ammunition. He runs out of ammunition, the bad guy, and so one of my police officers comes off the side and tackles him in the street.”

As they tried to handcuff him, Dzhokhar drove the Mercedes straight at them but missed the police, hitting his own brother and dragging him 20ft before racing off.

Chief Deveau said: “The officers dive out of the way and he (Dzhokhar) drives over his brother and drags him a short distance down the street.”

Doctors said Tamerlan had injuries “head to toe”. There were so many they did not know which one had killed him.

The brothers were found to have had six improvised explosive devices including a satchel bomb, handguns, a rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, and home-made grenades.

This has led to a number of Boston-area sports stations referring to Tamerlan as 'Speed Bump'- a practice that I shall likely emulate.

When their identities were first revealed to the world last week, media outlets had reported that Speed Bump complained on social media that he had no American friends while living in Cambridge. Some had pointed out he had one American friend from the gym, but he was brutally killed a few years ago in an unsolved triple homicide. This was brought up in the context that the murder might've contributed to Speed Bump's increased isolation while in America, even though circumstantial evidence is indicating that Speed Bump may have butally murdered his only American friend along with two others.

Police in Waltham, MA suspect that Tamerlan- the older of the two brothers- may have been responsible for a brutal 2011 triple slaying in that town. The bodies were found on September 12th, 2011 and all three victims had their throats cut. Police say there was no signs of forced entry and the assailant was let in by somebody in the apartment that likely knew the killer. They also ruled out robbery as a motive after the killer left behind several thousand dollars in cash and marijuana at the scene.

One of the victims in the 2011 murders, Brendan Mess, knew the older Tsarnaev brother from the Boston gym where they worked out and was reportedly interested in helping transition Tamerlan from boxing to mixed martial arts. The other victims included Raphael Teken and Erik Weissman. Weissman was a jew and the bodies were discovered the day after the 10 year anniversary of the September 11 attacks [acquaintances and classmates had described Dzhokhar as a happy-go-lucky pothead and Mess was known to have sold pot out of his apartment- leading me to wonder if sometime after had Speed Bump found Allah and decided to kill Mess thinking he sold pot to his kid brother- NANESB!].

Speed Bump wasn't present for Mess' funeral either, which friends and acquaintances thought was unusual at the time. Speed Bump then reportedly flew back to visit family in the Dagestan region of southern Russia a few months after the murders. Mess' ex-girlfriend was initially a suspect, but was out of town when the slayings took place. The Middlesex Country DA's office is reportedly pursuing any leads from the Boston Marathon bombing case that are related to the 2011 Waltham triple murder.

It was also believed that Dzhokhar had apparently attempted to take his own life while he was hiding on a boat surrounded by police at a backyard in Watertown, MA. The younger Tsarnaev brother reportedly sustained a gunshot wound to the throat as well as being shot in the leg- however, they're uncertain whether the throat wound came from police gunfire or if it was an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself as police closed in.

The wounded Dzhokhar was reportedly arrested by the FBI's Hostage Rescue Unit and a Massachusetts State Police Sepcial Tactics and Operations (STOP) unit and remains under guard at Beth Israel Deaconess hospital. Although he is unable to speak, he is said to be responding to written questions from investigators.

Investigators are beginning to piece together the events from the chaotic chase and shootout last week. The two Chechen brothers had reportedly ambushed MIT Campus Patrolman Sean Collier in his cruiser, killing him because they decided they needed an extra gun- although they never were able to figure out how to unholster the slain officer's service pistol.

Almost as chilling was the account from the carjacking victim- he said the two brothers told him they were the Marathon bombers and said the only reason they considered letting him live was because he wasn't American. The carjacking victim said one brother carjacked him and met up with the second brother.

“They basically said we did the Boston Marathon bombing, but the rest of their conversation is in Russian,” Miller said. ”Now, the carjack victim doesn’t speak much English and he doesn’t speak any Russian. So, he was debriefed very carefully about ‘what else could you hear they said?’

“He said the only word I recognized was Manhattan. That tripped a lot. That’s why we saw last week stopping the trains from Boston to New York, searching the trains, and the NYPD flipped on it’s network of license plate readers at all of the bridges and tunnels coming into the city and loaded all of the license plates associated with these guys, because if they were headed to New York, they wanted to make sure that that tripped before they got in.”

Miller told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 the brothers told him, “we’re not going to kill you, because you’re not American.”

The brothers then forced the victim to make several stops to pick up bombs and cash before he could escape at a gas station.

Officials in New York City believe that Times Square or other New York landmarks were potential targets for the Tsarnaev brothers before police in Massachusetts intercepted them.

Questions also abound over where the two brothers had practiced their bomb-making craft. Although its likely they received some sort of training on one of their trips back to Dagestan, Chechnya or another troubled region in southern Russia, police in Hanover, MA were responding to reports of homemade bombs being set off along Route 53 in late March, just weeks before the Marathon bombing.

The bombs were fashioned using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and ball bearings for maximum effect at close range. Similar devices have been used by terrorists and insurgents in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. In 2010, British SAS commandos raided a Taliban bomb factory in Afghanistan. Among the devices recovered were bombs fashioned out of pressure cookers.

Perhaps most infuriatingly, Speed Bump reportedly collected welfare and unemployment benefits from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts even as he and his kid brother were plotting to kill Americans.

Meanwhile, 26 year old MIT campus police officer Sean Collier was laid to rest over the weekend over the weekend and thousands of mourners and police officers gathered around for a memorial service on Wednesday.

One of the last known images of 8 year old Martin Richard (blue oval). Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (red circle) is seen walking away from a backpack (red oval) believed to carry one of the two deadly bombs that tore through the crowd gathered to watch the Boston Marathon on April 15

Eight year old Martin Richard was also buried in a private funeral for his family in Dorchester on Tuesday. Richard was the youngest of the three victims from the April 15th and his sister Denise was also maimed in the attack. Photos released on twitter and by the FBI show a black backpack believed to carry one of the bombs a few feet away from Martin as he's watching the marathon and man in a white hat identified as Dzhokhar is walking away moments before the deadly bombings.

Friends and classmates also turned out to bid farewell to BU student Lu Lingzi at a memorial service on campus on Monday evening. The funeral for 29 year old Krystle Campbell- the third fatality from the April 15th bombings- was held over the weekend in Medford, MA. Members of the Teamsters Local 25 had gathered across the street to shield the mourners from unwelcome intrusions upon hearing rumors that the hateful freakshow known as the Westboro Baptist Church would be picketing the funeral.

Ricin Son- Mississippi Man In Custody After Allegedly Mailing Ricin to President Obama and US Senator

You know it's been a hell of a week when an Elvis-impersonating conspiracy theorist tries to poison the President of the United States and a US Senator was maybe the fourth or fifth most newsworthy item of the week.

An envelope addressed to Sen Ron Wicker (R- Mississippi) tested positive for the lethal poison ricin twice on Tuesday, according to the FBI. The fact that it came so soon after the Boston Marathon bombings heightened concerns over terrorism.

"This matter is part of an ongoing investigation by the United States Capitol Police and FBI," Wicker said. "I want to thank our law enforcement officials for their hard work and diligence in keeping those of us who work in the Capitol complex safe."

Terrance W. Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, said in an emailed message to Senate offices that the envelope to Wicker, a Republican, had no obviously suspicious outside markings and lacked a return address. It bore a postmark from Memphis, Tenn.

Mail from a broad swath of northern Mississippi, including the Memphis suburbs of DeSoto County, Miss., Tupelo, Oxford and the northern part of the Mississippi Delta region is processed and postmarked in Memphis, according to a Postal Service map. The Memphis center also processes mail for residents of western parts of Tennessee and eastern Arkansas.

Preliminary tests on a letter mailed to President Obama that was intercepted at an off-site facility later that day had also indicated traces of ricin. At a press conference in Tupelo, MS on Wednesday night, the Lee County Sherriff said that a local judge had also recieved a similar suspicious letter.

Authorities reportedly traced back the letters to a 45 year old Corinth, MS man named Paul Kevin Curtis who was arrested at his home by federal agents.

The letters to Obama and Wicker said: "To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance." Both were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message."

Ricky Curtis, who said he was Kevin Curtis' cousin, said the family was shocked by the news of the arrest. He described his cousin as a "super entertainer" who impersonated Elvis and numerous other singers.

"We're all in shock. I don't think anybody had a clue that this kind of stuff was weighing on his mind," Ricky Curtis said in a telephone interview.

Ricky Curtis said his cousin had written about problems he had with a cleaning business and that he felt the government had not treated him well, but he said nobody in the family would have expected this. He said the writings were titled, "Missing Pieces."

In 2000, Curtis was fired from the North Mississippi Medical Center and since then has claimed that he had uncovered a conspiracy by the hospital to harvest organs and body parts and sell them on the black market. Not surprisingly, NMMC denies the allegations made by the suspected ricin mailer.

According to The Hill Curtis once performed at a party attended by Wicker [who represented the district in the House at the time- NANESB!] and when Curtis' activites were less threatening.

Curtis- a registered Democrat- could face up to 15 years on charges of sending mail threatening the President and sending mail "containing threats to injure the person of others".

SURVIVING MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT TAKEN INTO CUSTODY AFTER MASSIVE MANHUNT

A man stepping outside of his Watertown, MA home for a cigarette on Friday afternoon provided the pivotal lead for authorities in the largest-ever manhunt in the city of Boston.

The city of Boston was under lockdown on Friday morning after a chaotic police chase from Cambridge to Watertown, MA and shootout where two men identified as suspects in the Patriot's Day bombing of the Boston marathon opened fire on police and lobbed grenades at them as they were pursued.

The chaos began on Thursday night when an MIT Campus police officer responding to reports of a disturbance was shot and killed and a motorist in Cambridge was carjacked by two men.

Tarek Ahmed, 45, told Fox News that the victim, whose Mercedes-Benz was reportedly stolen by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a young Caucasian man between 20 and 25 years old. Ahmed claimed that he was working at gas station on Memorial Drive, when the man ran into his store screaming, “Call the police! Call the police! These people are trying to kill me!”

"I thought he was drunk. I didn't believe him when he came in, it just sounded very crazy," Ahmed said. Despite his skepticism, Ahmed let the man, who has not been identified, inside to use his phone.

"He came very fast and was nervous and was afraid of the guy. He said they pushed him out of car," he said. "He went inside and closed the door. He was shaking and very nervous. I only believe him when the cops came."

Ahmed said that police collected surveillance videos from the station when they arrived, and also took photos from another store across the street where the suspects might have gone inside to purchase something. Police later released photographs of Dzhokar Tsarnaev exiting a Bank of America ATM in Watertown, Mass., at 11:18 p.m., where he withdrew $800, according to the NY Times.

Ahmed, who told reporters that he believed that the suspects had shoved the man out of the car after stopping to withdraw the money, said he was very shaken up after the encounter.

The gunmen were chased by police into a residential area of nearby Watertown- the FBI later claimed that at least five explosive devices were thrown at pursuing officers and the suspects and officers exchanged more than 200 rounds. One suspect, identified as 27 year old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was hit and later pronounced dead at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The other, known as Suspect 2 since Thursday Afternoon's FBI Press Conference, was identified as 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger brother of Tamerlan. During the firefight, MBTA Police officer Richard Donahue is struck and wounded- he remains in critical-but-stable condition as of Friday night.

Police immediately set up a perimiter around the Laurel Street area in Watertown and began searching for the subject. Gov Deval Patrick ordered MBTA buses, subways and commuter rail service closed down and area residents were warned to stay inside. Schools in the area- both public schools and the numerous colleges- were shut down as a precaution and a number of events scheduled for Friday night, including both the Bruins and Red Sox home games, are postponed.

By early Friday evening the lockout was lifted and the Massachusetts State Police hold a press conference where they infer that Dzhokhar has likely escaped the dragnet, but was likely still in the state of Massachusetts. That's when Dave Henneberry stepped out for a smoke in the backyard of his Franklin Street home and noticed that one of the straps covering the tarp on his boat was askew and went in for a closer look. That's when he noticed blood streaked along the side of the boat that was parked on a trailer in his backyard. After grabbing a stepladder, Henneberry grabbed the tarp and peered inside, spotting more bloodstains and reportedly seeing a body crumpled inside.

That's when Henneberry retreated back into his house and dialed 911. Not only had Dzhokhar been wounded in the shootout with police, but the 19 year old reportedly ran over his wounded brother in an attempt to get away.

By 8:58 PM ET, the following message was sent over the Boston Police Department's twitter account:

CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.
— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 20, 2013

The announcement led to widespread spontaneous celebrations throughout a city that had been on edge since Monday.


The two brothers were identified as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia. According to the FBI, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was interviewed by the FBI at the behest of a foreign agency in 2011- many speculate Russia owing to the longstanding conflict between Moscow and the breakaway, predominantly muslim Chehcen republic in the south. Tamerlan had reportedly returned to the area 10 years ago using a passport from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzistan while Dzhokhar was sworn in as a US citizen on September 11, 2012. The brothers had reportedly been in the country since 2003.

With one suspect dead and the other in custody, police in New Bedford took three people into custody for questioning and searched off-campus housing at UMass-Dartmouth on Friday on reports that the younger Tsarnaev brother may have resided there at one time.

Monday's bombing killed 29 year old Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, MA, Eight year old Martin Martin Richard of Dorchester, MA and a 23 year old BU grad student from China named Lu Lingzi.

BREAKING- 3 KILLED, MORE THAN 100 INJURED AFTER MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS AT BOSTON MARATHON FINISH LINE

 

John Tlumacki/Getty Images

Boston police are reporting that at least 2 people have been killed and 23 injured after multiple blasts at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon. However, that is just a preliminary estimate and some media outlets are reporting a much higher number of fatalities.
The first explosion took place at the finish line across the street from the Boston Public Library while the second explosion took place 10 seconds later and about 500 feet to the west on Boylston Street- the final approach to the Marathon's finish line. Smoke hung in the air and blood was visible on the sidewalk as runners, spectators and marathon officials scattered and first responders rushed to evacuate the wounded. Spouses, family members and friends of the wounded rushed to area hospitals to try and reunite with their loved ones.

The race had already finished about three hours earlier [Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa Benti was the men's winner while Kenya's Rita Jeptoo won the women's race- NANESB] but thousands of runners had yet to cross the finish line when the explosions took place. The Red Sox, who traditionally play a day game to coincide with the running of the Boston Marathon, rallied in the bottom of the 9th to beat Tampa Bay some 40 minutes before the blasts.

There were reports of additional explosions after the area had been cleared Boston Fire and Boston Police, although a police spokesman said that at least two of those were controlled blasts designed to disable suspicious devices that were found in the area. EOD units were called to the UMass-Boston's JFK center for reports of an incendiary device found there. The Boston Police is treating the UMass-Boston device and that devices at the marathon as related. Police have also advised people in the area to stay off cellphones, concerned that additional devices could be triggered via cellphones.

Meanwhile, the MBTA announces they were suspending service on the B and C lines, which runs underneath Copley Plaza. Reports were circulating that an unnamed 20 year old person of interest was under guard at an unnamed Boston-area hospital and that authorities are also searching for a Penske rental van that was reportedly turned away from the area shortly after the blast. The FAA has established a no-fly zone over the site of the explosion.

The FBI is treating the marathon explosions as a terrorist incident and the NYPD has reportedly beefed up security around New York area landmarks. A White House official said that the President was being appraised of developments in Boston and has offered Gov Patrick and Mayor Menino any neccesary federal assistance as the Secret Service and National Parks Police stepped up security around the White House and other government installations in Washignton DC.

The fact that the bombing took place on April 15th has led some media pundits to speculate the explosions were the work of unspecified right-wing groups. However, between the marathon and Red Sox day game, Boston is virtually shut down for Patriot's Day. Patriot's Day takes place on the third Monday in April and commemorates the Battles of Concord and Lexington- it just happened to fall on April 15th this year.

Patriot's Day is a state holiday in Massachusetts and a huge sports holiday in Boston with a morning Red Sox game followed by the Boston Marathon wrapping up- with the occasional Boston Bruins home game at night [this would normally be time for the Stanley Cup playoffs, but that was delayed due to the NHL lockout- NANESB!]. The Bruins announced that Monday night's home game against the Ottawa Senators at the TD Garden has been postponed.

UPDATE 1- WHDH is reporting that at least one of those killed in the explosions is an unidentified 8 year old.

UPDATE 2- FOX News is reporting that ball bearings were found at the blast sites at the finish line, indicating that the devices were designed to maximize casualties in the immediate area.



UPDATE 3- The Boston Globe posted this video of the explosions taken from the finish line. The second blast is briefly visible in the background at the 21 second mark.

Finished #BostonMarathon in 4:08:03! Congrats to the other runners, & thank you to our MA veterans, the #TrueHeroes bit.ly/112meBE
— Gabriel Gomez (@GomezForMA) April 15, 2013

UPDATE 4- Gabriel Gomez, the Republican Candidate for the US Senate seat left vacant when John Kerry resigned to serve as Secretary of State, ran the Boston Marathon today and reportedly crossed the finish line shortly before the first blast.

UPDATE 5- Boston police and federal agents are now combing through surveillance videos and asking witnesses and survivors for any footage that they may have filmed at the time. Bomb sniffing dogs from the Air Force and Amtrak Police department have been brought in to help clear the remainder of the marathon route of any suspect parcels.

UPDATE 6- Police and federal agents from the DHS and Immigration are searching an apartment in nearby Revere, MA. Eyewitnesses report crime scene technicians from the Boston police were hauling away potential evidence in bags. A Revere fire engine and ladder was also on hand at the complex. Authorities declined to specify whether or not the raid was related to the Marathon bombing.

FBI Says They Have Identified Theives From 1990 Gardner Art Muesum Heist

In recent years, Hollywood seems to have spawned a sub-genre of New England crime dramas with films like The Departed, Mystic River or The Town. But between the Whitey Bulger saga, the Bonded Vault heist and the Gardner Art Museum robbery, truth is stranger than fiction.

For those of you who didn't know, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Art Museum heist was the biggest art theft in modern history. On St Patrick's Day in 1990, two men dressed as Boston police officers overpowered security guards working the graveyard shift at the museum and after 81 minutes, made off with an estimated $500 million in artwork from Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet and Degas among others. According to investigators and art experts, while the theives expertly circumvented the museum's alarm system they did considerable damage to some of the paintings when they were removed from their frames. The stolen paintings included Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Gallillee, the artists only nautically themed work.



The museum offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen artwork, but the trail quickly went cold despite all signs pointing to the heist being planned and carried out by locals. Carmello Merlino and Robert Guarente- two Quincy, MA-based mobsters- were considered suspects early on and were reportedly recorded on wiretaps discussing returning the stolen artwork to the museum to collect the reward- if they could only find it first. Interestingly, when the Feds had arrested Merlino on unrelated drug trafficking charges, the mobster offered to recover a $5000 painting stolen from the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Museum in Cambridge, MA in exchange for leniency. Guarente passed away in 2004 and Merlino is also deceased.

However, there was never enough evidence to charge either Merlino or Guarente with the heist. Some journalists and investigators belive that the two were not intially involved, but were going to steal the paintings from the robbers and return it to the musuem.

But last weekend, the FBI had announced they had identified the theives from the 1990 heist and say that the stolen artwork had changed hands a number of times between east coast organized crime groups in the last decade.

In a stunning twist in a case that had frustrated investigators for decades, federal law enforcement officials said today that they had identified the people who stole $500 million worth of masterworks in a daring heist from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990.

The officials also said they had determined where the artworks had traveled in the years after the robbery, which is considered the greatest art theft in history. But the officials said they did not know where they were now and were appealing to the public for their help in finding them.

“The FBI believes with a high degree of confidence in the years after the theft the art was transported to Connecticut and the Philadelphia region and some of the art was taken to Philadelphia where it was offered for sale by those responsible for the theft. With that confidence, we have identified the thieves, who are members of a criminal organization with a base in the mid-Atlantic states and New England,” Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the Boston office of the FBI, said.

DesLauriers said that after the attempted sale of the paintings about a decade ago, the FBI did not know where the artworks — which included three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a portrait by Edouard Manet, and sketches by Renoir — had been taken.

Officials said at a Boston news conference they would not release the names of the individuals who masqueraded as police officers to gain entry in the early-morning robbery at the Gardner exactly 23 years ago.

Although the statute of limitations has run out on the original theft, the art theives or parties who purchased the stolen artwork could face federal charges of transporting stolen property across state lines.

My first thought is that a little like the Whitey Bulger manhunt- the Winter Hill Gang leader had eluded the FBI for decades, but the fugitive mobster and his girlfriend were arrested in Santa Monica, CA within days of an FBI Public Service ad airing on daytime talk shows showing girlfriend Catherine Greig. Like the Bulger PSA, there wasn't really any significant new information or developments in the Garder Museum heist announced at the press conference, but the FBI was using the internet and social networking in an attempt to steer the investigation towards something that might've been overlooked earlier that could ultimately break the case open.

The FBI also seems to be placing an emphasis on recovering the artwork- to that end, they've set up a dedicated website with more information on the heist, the investigation and the missing paintings.

BREAKING- Manhunt Underway For Former Los Angeles Police Officer Suspected in Multiple Homicides

Aftermath of fatal ambush in which former LAPD officer Chris Dorner (inset) is suspected of opening fire on two Riverside police officers.

A 33 year old former Naval Reservist and LAPD officer is the subject of an intense, multi-state manhunt on the West Coast Thursday night after allegedly killing two people in Irvine, CA this month and opening fire on police officers in at least two southern California cities this week.

Police in California and Nevada are searching for 33 year old Chris Dorner after being named as a 'person of interest' in a double homicide in Orange County over the weekend. 28 year old Monica Quan and her fiancee Keith Lawrence, 27, were found shot to death in their car in a parking structure in Irvine, CA in the early morning hours on Sunday. Quan was an assistant coach for the UC Irvine Anteaters women's basketball team and also the daughter of the retired LAPD Captain who represented Dorner at his disciplinary hearings that led to Dorner's 2008 dismissal from the force.

Within hours of the double-homicide in Irvine, Dorner posted a lengthy manifesto online promising revenge on those he claimed were responsible for his dismissal from the LAPD. On Monday morning, a citizen in the San Diego suburb of National City reportedly finds 'police equipment' in a dumpster- although investigators at the time declined to elaborate- just that it wasn't immediately identified as belonging to Dorner or the LAPD. Police in National City send a bulleitin to other law enforcement agenices inquiring about the lost equipment.

Dorner, an ex-Navy reservist, reportedly checked into a hotel on the San Diego Naval Base earlier this week before somebody matching his description attempted to steal a boat from a yacht club in the Point Loma area of San Diego. The would-be theif was thwarted by mechanical problems and left the boat's 81 year old owner tied up.

Hours after the unsuccsessful boat theft, LAPD officers in Corona, CA assigned to guard one of the individuals named in the manifesto exchanged gunfire with an individual believed to be Dorner. That same morning, two police officers in Riverside, CA were ambushed while their marked police cruiser was sitting at a traffic light- one of the policemen died from his injuries while the second is expected to recover. As the search was being expanded into Nevada and northern California, two women delivering newspapers in a truck similar to Dorner's were shot by LAPD officers- one in the hand and the other in the back.

On Thursday afternoon, Dorner's truck was discovered engulfed in the mountain resort town of Big Bear- about 110 miles northeast of Los Angeles- as authorities locked down nearby schools and conducted door to door searches. However, searchers conceded that he could've stashed another vehicle in the area or carjacked another motorist after disposing of his truck. Meanwhile federal agents and a Las Vegas Police bomb squad combed through a home that Clark County, NV records showed was owned by Dorner. While FBI agents and the Nevada Highway Patrol issued bulleteins warning law enforcement to be on the lookout for anybody matching Dorner's description, investogators found no concrete evidence that he was planning on heading back to Las Vegas.

There are a number of disconcerning aspects about Dorner's manifesto- a portion apparently addressed to retired Lt Quan says that while it may be "too late" for Dorner to have a family of his own, he promises to take away Quon's. Dorner also hinted that he may have more to his arsenal than pistols or 5.56mm rifles.

Do not deploy airships or gunships. SA-7 Manpads will be waiting. As you know I also own Barrett .50's so your APC are defunct and futile.

What seems to have gotten little notice outside the social media and the conservative blogosphere is Dorner's gushing praise of President Obama, California Senator Dianne Feinstein as well as media and entertainment figures like Mia Farrow or CNN's Piers Morgan for their efforts on gun control while criticizing NRA president Wayne LaPierre, Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his family.

“Mr. Morgan, the problem that many American gun owners have with you and your continuous discussion of gun control is that you are not an American citizen and have an accent that is distinct and clarifies that you are a foreigner. I want you to know that I agree with you 100% on enacting stricter firearm laws. … If you had [sic] a well regulated AWB [assault-weapons ban], this would not happen. The time is now to reinstate a ban that will save lives. Why does any sportsman need a 30 round magazine for hunting? Why does anyone need a suppressor? Why does anyone need a AR15 rifle?”

Curiously, many of the same individuals who attempted to falsely link the Tea Party with the 2011 mass killings in Tuscon, AZ or 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, CO suddenly bristled when it was pointed out they were being praised by a suspected mass murderer.

In a 2009 shooting in Pittsburgh, PA that killed three police officers, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette felt it was worth pointing out that the shooter- Richard Poplawski- voted for Sen John McCain during the 2008 presidential election. Yet not quite four years later, a number of media outlets has decided that Dorner's political leanings were irrelevant and unimportant.