For Your Eyes Only: Secret Memo Reveals Ian Fleming's Plans For His First James Bond Film

Kieran Corcoran at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on the Ian Fleming memo that expressed his views on the making of the first James Bond film.

Ian Fleming wanted his first James Bond film to feature Mafia villains and be as fast-paced as possible to distract the audience from unlikely storylines, a previously unseen memo reveals.

You can read the rest of the piece and see the memo via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518726/For-eyes-Secret-memo-reveals-Ian-Flemings-plans-Bond-film-fears-weak-storylines.html

Philly Mob On Trial: Witness Puts Price Tag On Mob Membership

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

An outsider can buy his way into the Philadelphia mob for $10,000.

Cash.

That, at least, is what New York mob informant Anthony Aponick said he was asked to cough up to George Borgesi while they were cellmates in a federal prison in West Virginia back in 2003.

"He said I would become a member of his crew," said Aponick as he testified today at the racketeering conspiracy retrial of Borgesi and his uncle, mob boss Joe Ligambi. "He wanted $10,000."

The membership fee was just 10 percent of what Boston mobster Bobby Luisi said he had to pay Joey Merlino back in the late 1990s to become a made member of the organization. Whether that was a reflection of an economic downturn in the underworld or whether Aponick was getting a special discount could not be determined. Like Aponick, Luisi became a close associate of Borgesi's. And like Aponick, he eventually became an FBI informant.

Aponick said his dealings with Borgesi also came with an ominous warning.

"Listen, no matter what, don't fuck me," he said Borgesi told him as Aponick was about to be released from prison in 2003. "If you fuck me, I'll kill you and your whole family."

Aponick, who was already cooperating with the FBI by that time, disregarded the warning.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/12/witness-puts-price-tag-on-mob-membership.html#more 

Happy Birthday To Walt Disney

As Biography.com notes, today is the birthday of Walt Disney.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa, Illinois. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world. Disney was an innovative animator and created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. He won 22 Academy Awards during his lifetime, and was the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a video clip via the below link:

http://www.biography.com/people/walt-disney-9275533?et_cid=57692204&et_rid=704027439&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.biography.com%2fpeople%2fwalt-disney-9275533

Note: Walt Disney brought entertainment, joy and fun to generations of children and adults. I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s watching Disney on TV. In addition to the cartoons and animated films, I loved his live action TV series like Zorro, Davy Crockett, and Swamp Fox. I also loved watching his TV programs about animals. My children and grandchildren also grew up on Disney TV and films and we have all loved our visits to Disney World.

A Look Back At Former Navy SEAL Marcus Lantrell's 'Lone Survivor'

In light of Peter Berg's Navy SEALs film Lone Survivor coming soon to the big screen, I'd like to offer my Counterterrorism magazine piece on former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.

Peter Berg based his film on Marcus Luttrell's book.

You can read the piece via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LoneSurvMarcusLuttrell1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LoneSurvMarcusLuttrell2.jpg

I also wrote about the U.S. SEAL-UDT Museum in a sidebar to the Luttrell piece.

George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved The American Revolution

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review in the Washington Times of Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger's George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution. 

One of the more telling — and accurate — statements to emerge from the American Revolution came from a British intelligence officer, Maj. Gen. George Beckwith: “Washington did not really outfight the British, he simply outspied us!”

Such was certainly the case in the grim early months of the war, when Gen. George Washington threw an ill-equipped, ill-trained army of volunteers against one of the more formidable military machines of the 18th century. Superior force enabled the British to drive the Revolutionaries from their strongholds in Boston and other parts of New England.

To Washington, retaining a foothold in the New York area represented a make-or-break point for his beleaguered army. British control of the harbor would enable the Royal Navy to bring in reinforcements and bedevil Revolutionary shipping. He also knew that the war would not be a “clash of armies” in traditional European fashion, but a series of maneuvers in which he must ferret out British battle plans and weaknesses.

So Washington’s spymaster, Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge, busied himself organizing intelligence operatives. One of his first recruits, the untrained Lt. Nathan Hale, soon perished on a British gallows, a victim of poor tradecraft. But his bravery earned him eternal fame, including a statue outside the Old Headquarters Building on the CIA campus in Langley.

The story of Tallmadge’s greatest coup is related in “Washington’s Secret Six,” by Brian Kilmeade, a co-host of the morning cable-TV program “Fox & Friends,” and Don Yaeger, a veteran Florida ghostwriter. Although they walk ground already well-trod by historians, their access to TV likely will command a large audience of younger persons who spend scant time with books and who should know about a group of true American heroes.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/3/book-review-george-washingtons-secret-six/?page=all#pagebreak

Former Philadelphia Police Officer Convicted Of Corruption Offences

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information yesterday:

PHILADELPHIA—A federal jury yesterday found 52-year-old Rafael Cordero, a 23-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police force, guilty of interfering with the federal drug investigation of the Christian Serrano/Edwin Medina drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Cordero provided sensitive law enforcement information about drug investigations to his half-brother, David Garcia, a member of the Serrano/Medina DTOs. Cordero told his half-brother about a surveillance camera put up by the DEA to monitor activities occurring at a garage, located at 538 East Indiana Street in Philadelphia, used by the Medina DTO. When the FBI and DEA executed search warrants at several locations associated with the Serrano/Medina DTOs, including the garage, Cordero, after being informed about the searches by his half-brother and without having any official reason to do so, went to the search location on East Indiana Street and began looking in the windows of the garage. When confronted by law enforcement and brought inside the location, Cordero misrepresented his reason for being at the location and offered to assist with the search. At no time did Cordero provide his name to law enforcement.

Immediately after leaving the search location, Cordero placed a call to David Garcia and shared with him, among other things, how many law enforcement officers were conducting the search and what areas of the garage they were searching. Garcia removed a DVR tape that law enforcement had inadvertently failed to seize during the search and viewed it to see if Cordero was recorded at the garage at the time of the search, which he was. At no time did Cordero inform law enforcement that David Garcia had possession of the video tape.

When questioned by federal agents, Cordero denied giving information to Garcia regarding the surveillance camera, denied knowing of anyone associated with the Indiana Street garage, denied having spoken to David Garcia about the search at the garage, and denied passing on information regarding cooperating witnesses to Garcia, all of which were false statements.

Cordero faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Philadelphia Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Maureen McCartney and Kevin Brenner.

Philly Mob On Trial: The Life And Times Of Bent Finger Lou

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello didn't deny that he was cheating on his first wife.

But the mob associate said his business partner, Jack Palermo, was out of line when he told Monacello's wife about it. So he pistol-whipped him, hitting him over the head with the butt of a  revolver.

And when another associate lied about $50,000 in gambling debts that he had secretly run up on Monacello, the martial arts trained wiseguy said he "gave him a little kick in the head."

He also acknowledged that he coached three other associates to lie to a Delaware County grand jury that was investigating him in 2008. And that he once told another deadbeat gambler that if he didn't come up with the money he owed, he would be "dead."

Monacello, testifying for the third day in the retrial of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew George Borgesi, spent most of his time on the witness stand today in a verbal sparring match with Ligambi's lawyer, Edwin Jacobs Jr. What emerged was the life and times of Bent Finger Lou, tales of assaults with baseball bats, kicks in the head, gambling debts, extortions and shakedowns.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/12/the-life-and-times-of-bent-finger-lou.html#more 

You can also read the Philadelphia Inquirer's coverage of the trial via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131203_Mob_informer_sticks_to_his_story_in_Ligambi_retrial.html