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News and Features about Organized Crime, Mafia and La Cosa Nostra taken from National and Local News Sources. In an attempt to get you this type of coverage in a timely manner we can not be responsible for the content of the following material. |
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1-21-01 Reputed Mafia Associates Among Those Pardoned By President Clinton.
By J. R. de Szigethy Among the 140 people Pardoned by Bill Clinton in his final act as President were two public figures, Bill Fugazy and William Borders, both of whom have been accused of having ties to the American Mafia. Bill Fugazy pleaded guilty in 1997 after the Feds in Manhattan charged he hid assets from creditors during the bankruptcy of his limousine service company. Fugazy, who is close to New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, received national attention in 1999 when the New York Post’s Neil Travis revealed that Fugazy was planning to stage a protest outside the Manhattan offices of the Producers of the hit HBO series THE SOPRANOS. Fugazy, the head of the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations claimed that the acclaimed series re-inforced negative stereotypes about Italian-Americans. Former Village Voice investigative reporter Bill Bastone publicly responded by reporting that "Fugazy has been fingered as an organized crime "associate" by turncoat gangster Al D’Arco, former acting boss of the Luchese crime family." D’Arco, who has been a powerful and effective co-operating witness for the Feds, testified in a 1997 trial that Fugazy was once associated with Vinnie "The Chin" Gigante’s Genovese Mafia Family. Fugazy has never faced racketeering charges. After the denunciation of Fugazy by Bastone, and after it was revealed New York fans of THE SOPRANOS planned to stage a counter-demonstration in favor of the HBO series, Fugazy announced he was withdrawing his plans for the Demonstration. According to the website of Fugazy’s organization (neco.org), among its members have been singers Frank Sinatra and Vic Damone, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, and Mob attorney John Climaco, most recently in the news for his defense of Youngstown, Ohio convicted criminal Ed Flask. Also listed is entertainer Kathy Lee Gifford. President Clinton also Pardoned criminal attorney William Borders, who was convicted of bribery in the FBI sting of Federal Judge Alcee Hastings in the early 1980s. In a scenario eerily similar to that of "Whitewater" figure Susan McDougal, who also received a Presidential Pardon from Clinton, Borders was jailed for refusing to testify as to his alleged knowledge of a conspiracy headed by Southern Mafia figure Santo Trafficante to bribe Judge Hastings. Unlike Borders, Hastings was acquitted in his Federal trial but was later Impeached, convicted, and removed from office by the United States Senate. Borders also refused to co-operate with the Impeachment proceedings against Judge Hastings. As in the case of Youngstown, Ohio elected official James Traficant, Hastings turned the notoriety of his Federal trial to his advantage and was elected to Congress. As a Congressman, Hastings was a staunch supporter of President Clinton during his Impeachment proceedings. Also Pardoned by Clinton was John Deutch, Clinton’s former Director of Central Intelligence, who had mistakenly taken secret CIA files to review on his home computer which was connected to the Internet, not realizing the potential for computer hackers to access that information. In 1996, Clinton had sent Deutch to Colombia, after drug lord Jose Londono bribed his way out of prison. Londono had ordered the execution of crusading journalist Manuel de Dios in New York in 1992. Once the full resources of the U. S. government were engaged in finding Londono, the drug lord was located and died in a shoot out with the authorities. Clinton also reduced the prison sentence of Manhattan attorney Harvey Weinig, who pleaded guilty in 1995 to laundering money on behalf of Colombian druglords. President Clinton is by no means the first President to issue Pardons to associates of the Mafia; the most notorious example of the last century involved the Pardon by President Richard Nixon of convicted Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, who had been Prosecuted by the office of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the brother of the man who defeated Nixon for the Presidency in 1960. A condition attached to Hoffa’s Pardon was that he not again seek election as President of the Teamsters. Hoffa waged a legal fight against this condition, but disappeared without a trace before he could resume control of his Union and is presumed murdered.
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