Gambling News Blog @newzblogz.com

CHICAGO -- Prosecutors showed jurors Tuesday an FBI mole's shadowy videos of a reputed mobster collecting thousands of dollars in extortion money from an adult bookstore owner.

Anyone else pressuring the store for such protection money will be in trouble with the mob, Frank "The German" Schweihs says on the videotape.

"I don't care if it's Al Capone's brother come back reincarnated, this is a declared joint," Schweihs thunders on the 20-year-old videotape played for jurors at Chicago's biggest mob trial in years.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

COLDWATER — Out of work with a gambling habit resulted in six months of jail for David Swartout, 39.Branch County Circuit Court Judge Michael Cherry placed the Union City man on two years probation to pay restitution to three lake property owners whose aluminum docks he stole late last year.Defense attorney Ralph Kimble called Swartout “a polite crook” who cooperated with Michigan State Police after a chance traffic stop in December 2006.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

The Miami-based preacher who has basked in international attention since declaring himself the second coming of Jesus Christ has used charitable donations to his ministry for personal expenses -- paying $144,000 a year in alimony to his first wife and buying property in his and his relatives' names.

Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda disclosed details of the previously secret financial workings of his church through sworn testimony last month in an increasingly nasty divorce from his second wife.

The revelations from the witness stand, which experts say suggest violations of federal law, prompted a Miami-Dade circuit judge to send a transcript to federal prosecutors this month with a letter saying he was ''ethically compelled'' to bring it to their attention. The U.S. attorney in Miami has confirmed opening an investigation.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

Lawmakers, lobbyists, Bush administration officials, congressional staffers and businessmen caught up in the Jack Abramoff public corruption probe:

-Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the scandal, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for lying to senators. He pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation. He admitted lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Indian tribal clients.

-Former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, sentenced in January to 2 1/2 years in prison, acknowledged taking bribes from Abramoff. Ney was in the traveling party on an Abramoff-sponsored golfing trip to Scotland at the heart of the case against former White House official David Safavian.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

A plumber, who has a history of run-ins with police, was charged Monday with murdering a 50-year-old Washington Township woman whose body still has not been found.

Macomb County District Judge Denis LeDuc entered a not guilty plea on behalf of David J. Wright, assigned him a lawyer and ordered a preliminary exam for July 3.

Wright, 37, who was described by relatives and associates as short-tempered and often abusive, is being held without bond in the Macomb County Jail.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit