Two Charged In 16-Ton, $1B Philly Port Cocaine Bust, ‘One Of Largest Seizures In U.S. History’

Jeremy Roebuck at the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on the 1-billion-dollar cocaine bust at the Port of Philadelphia.

Federal authorities on Tuesday seized more than 16 tons of cocaine from a cargo ship docked at the Port of Philadelphia — a massive haul whose estimated worth of more than $1 billion made it one of the largest cocaine busts in the nation’s history.

Two members of the ship’s crew, including its second mate, were charged with violations of federal maritime drug trafficking laws. According to court filings, both men confessed to helping haul dozens of bales of cocaine aboard from at least 14 smaller boats that approached the vessel while plying waters to and from Peru.

The investigation appeared to be far from over. Investigators from at least six city, state, and federal agencies — including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations — continued to scour the ship Tuesday night, while authorities said others could be charged in the coming days.  

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

https://www.inquirer.com/news/cocaine-seized-philly-port-drug-bust-cargo-ship-customs-and-border-protection-20190618.html 

Aide Pleads Guilty, says Philadelphia Congressman Brady's Campaign Paid Primary Challenger To Quit

Jeremy Roebuck and Chris Brennan at the Philadelphia Inquirer offer a piece on Philadelphia Congressman Bob Brady (seen in the above photo).

Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Bob Brady’s campaign secretly paid a 2012 primary rival $90,000 to abandon his race and that the city’s longtime Democratic power broker later tried to derail an FBI investigation into the payoff by coaching a witness.

Those accusations, in court filings made public for the first time, emerged with the disclosure that an aide to Brady’s challenger, senior Municipal Court Judge Jimmie Moore, had admitted her role in the payoff scheme and pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal it.

Neither Brady nor Moore has been charged with a crime. Nor were they identified by name in the court documents that outlined the plea by Moore’s former political aide, Carolyn Cavaness. But a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia about her guilty plea made clear the crime was related to the 2012 primary campaign for Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District, which Brady has represented for nearly two decades.

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

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/ex-aide-to-brady-rival-admits-scheme-to-pay-off-challenger-20170725.html 

You can also read an earlier post on Carolyn Cavaness via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/07/philadelphia-woman-pleads-guilty-to.html 

Terror Suspect In 'Jihad Jane' Case Extradited To Philly

Jeremy Robuck at the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on the appearance of a terrorist in a Philadelphia court.

An Algerian-born terror suspect accused of recruiting Colleen “Jihad Jane” LaRose of Montgomery County in a 2009 plot to assassinate a Swedish artist made his first public appearance on U.S. soil Friday in Philadelphia, six years after he was indicted and just hours after his extradition from Spain.

Ali Charaf Damache, 52, is the first foreigner brought to the United States to face terrorism charges under the Trump administration, whose officials – including the president himself – had previously argued that suspects like him ought to be prosecuted in military tribunals rather than civilian courts.

Prior to his removal to the U.S. this week, Damache was in the custody of Spanish authorities, who detained him in a hotel room in Barcelona after receiving a phone tip in December 2015.

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

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/philadelphia/terror-suspect-in-jihad-jane-case-extradited-to-philly-20170721.html

FBI Director: Cop Shooter Loyal To ISIS Likely Acted Alone

Jeremy Roebuck at the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on the FBI director's statement that the alleged shooter of a Philadelphia police officer and a confessed supporter of ISIS likely acted alone.

FBI Director James B. Comey said Thursday that investigators were not currently seeking any other suspects in last week's shooting of a Philadelphia police officer by a man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Comey said authorities had found nothing to suggest that confessed shooter Edward Archer was part of an organized terrorist cell or was planning any follow-up attack.

He downplayed the significance of an anonymous tip police received Saturday that Archer, 30, of Yeadon, might have worked with three other men whose religious beliefs were more radical.

"We're not seeking anybody else," Comey said. "We're going to look very hard to untangle this guy's entire life so we can understand what his motivations might have been."

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

http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=/philly/news&id=365306011

Philly Rogue Cops Case: "Nineteen Mutts And A Dirty Cop"

Veteran reporter Ralph Cipriano at bigtrial.net reports on the federal trial of allegedly corrupt Philadelphia police narcotics officers.

A trio of veteran defense lawyers today took turns dismantling the government's case against a band of alleged rogue cops.

Jack McMahon got the party started by describing the government's star witness, former Police Officer Jeffrey Walker, as a "wicked, despicable liar." The rest of the government's stable of witnesses, McMahon said, are a bunch of lying drug dealers who amount to "nineteen bags of trash."

To cap the day, Jimmy Binns, batting third in a lineup of six defense lawyers, described the government's case as "nineteen mutts and a dirty cop."

In the longest opening argument of the day, Binns spent two hours delivering a lengthy, eye-popping recitation of the numerous witnesses in the case that the government supposedly never got around to interviewing. Those witnesses that Binns said would be testifying on behalf of the defendants include a bunch of supervisors in the police department who allegedly were eyewitnesses to many of the incidents in the case, and a couple of young female bartenders who supposedly overheard nightly confessions from a drunken and drooling Officer Walker, before he would pass out.

Most astonishingly, Binns said, the defense plans to call as their witnesses a trio of federal TFOs -- task force operators who work alongside the feds who investigated this case, on the same floor of the office building they share, but somehow were never interviewed by the government.

"This is not a proud day for the Department of Justice," Binns told the jury.

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

http://www.bigtrial.net/2015/03/nineteen-mutts-and-dirty-cop.html#more 

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

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150331_At_trial_of_rogue_narcotics_officers__a_war_of_words.html?nlid=8337531

Feds Hope Wiseguy-Wannabe Ronald Galati Is Ready To Turn

Jeremy Roebuck at the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on organized crime in South Philadelphia.

Andrew Tuono's new girlfriend came with a warning.

Dating Tiffany Galati, daughter of an auto mechanic with long-held ties to the Philadelphia mob, would one day get him killed, friends advised.

That prediction nearly proved prescient last year, with an attack that left Tuono alive, but with three bullets in his gut - and his girlfriend's father accused of ordering the hit.

Now, the details of that attempt on Tuono's life, sketched in government court filings this month, offer the latest account of one facet of Ronald Galati's deepening legal morass. As additional allegations ranging from witness intimidation to insurance fraud have piled up against him, a portrait of the 63-year-old auto-shop owner has emerged.

Friends and law enforcement sources describe Galati as a mob hanger-on, eager to cozy up to Mafia dons and trade quips from Goodfellas, his favorite film.

... And though no "made man" himself, Galati's recent legal problems have authorities salivating. Longtime friendships with current and former Philadelphia mob bosses like Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and Joseph Ligambi make Galati a valuable target to turn.

Now that he faces three separate cases - the Tuono charges in Camden and counts related to insurance fraud and witness intimidation in Philadelphia - officials wonder whether Galati finally has incentive to cooperate.

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

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140824_Feds_hope_wiseguy-wannabe_Ronald_Galati_is_ready_to_turn.html