A Little Humor: Pharmacist Having A Bad Day

When a man arrived home from work, he saw his wife was crying. 

“It’s the pharmacist,” she said. “I called him for advice, and he insulted me.”

The man jumped in his car and drove to the pharmacy and demand an apology. 

He introduced himself as the husband of the woman the pharmacist had insulted over the phone earlier that day. 

“Now, just a minute – listen to my side of it, the pharmacist explained. “This morning the alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went without breakfast and hurried out to the car, but I’ll be darned if I didn’t lock the house with both house and car keys inside. I had to break a window to get my keys. Driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket. Then, about three blocks from the store, I had a flat tire."

He said that when he finally got to the store, there was a bunch of people waiting for the pharmacy to open. The pharmacist opened the store and started waiting on these people, as the phone rang non-stop.

The pharmacist broke a roll of nickels against the cash register drawer to make change and they fell all over the floor. He got down on my hands and knees to pick up the nickels as the phone was still ringing. When he got up to answer the phone, he cracked his head on the open cash drawer, which made him stagger back against a showcase with a batch of perfume bottles on it, and half of them hit the floor and broke.

The pharmacist said he was finally able to answer the phone. It was the man’s wife and she asked how to use a rectal thermometer. 

“Well, mister, I told her!!!”

Note: The above photo is of Martin Mull, who appeared as a reoccurring pharmacist character on the sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Korean Fat Leonard? Feds Probe New US Navy Corruption Case In Asia

David B. Larter at the Defense News offers a piece on another U.S. Navy corruption case.

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has filed corruption charges against the head of a Busan, Korea,-based husbanding services provider in a case with unmistakable echoes of the Fat Leonard scandal that has rocked the Navy since the investigation was revealed in 2013. 

Sung-Yol “David” Kim, head of DK Marine Service, has been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery, according to documents filed with the Eastern District of Michigan. 

The investigation has already netted the former civilian master of the dry cargo ship Charles Drew, a Military Sealift Command ship that operates in the Pacific. James Driver pled guilty July 16 to one count of conspiracy, according to court documents, and is awaiting sentencing. 

It’s unclear how deep the alleged fraud ran but it is clear that, DK Marine Services performed extensive work for both Military Sealift Command and US Navy assets, including the carriers Reagan and George Washington, the minesweeper Chief, the destroyer Sterett and numerous other support ships, according to images posted on DK Marine Service’s website. 

The news that another husbanding services provider in Asia is at the center of a federal corruption case is a hammer-blow to the Navy, which has been struggling for years as dozens of its officers, including several senior leaders, have come under scrutiny for their dealings with Glenn Defense Marine Asia and its gregarious, corpulent chief executive Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis.  

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

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/07/30/korean-fat-leonard-feds-probe-new-us-navy-corruption-case-in-asia/

Note: The USNS Charles Drew resupplies the French destroyer Jean Bart in the Atlantic Ocean in May. The former civilian master of the Drew is at the center of a Federal corruption probe surrounding a husbanding services provider in Busan, Korea. (U.S. Navy photo by MCSN Jeffery Southerland).

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the “Fat Leonard” U.S. Navy fraud and bribery case via the below link: 

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/03/my-piece-on-fat-leonard-us-navy-bribery.html 

FBI: Military Fraudster Sentenced - Man Lied About Military Record To Swindle Donors To His Purported Charity

The FBI released the below information:

The charity sounded like a worthy and patriotic cause—an organization that would send military families on Disney vacations and pay travel costs for families to see their loved ones graduate from boot camp in South Carolina and California.

But the charity, known as “Marines and Mickey” was simply a front that fraudster John Shannon Simpson used to enrich himself. Thanks to an FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation, Simpson is now serving a prison sentence.

“Simpson presented himself as a retired master sergeant in the Marines, and people believed him. They had no reason to question a U.S. Marine,” said Special Agent Tiffany Baker, who investigated the case out of the FBI’s Bluffton Resident Agency, which is part of the Columbia Field Office.

In fact, Simpson was actually a lower-level rank than he claimed, and he was court-martialed for going AWOL.

But claiming to be associated with the Marine Corps gave Simpson credibility, and donors gave nearly half a million dollars to his charity from its founding in 2014 until 2016.

Simpson befriended a Gold Star mother who had lost her son in a shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2015. Simpson and the Gold Star mother collaborated on fundraisers for Marines and Mickey.

People who knew the mother became suspicious of Marines and Mickey and dug into Simpson’s military record. A friend of hers contacted the FBI, who began looking into the charity.

While the purported charity claimed that 100 percent of funds were directed to help military families, investigators found that less than 20 percent of the donations were actually used for that purpose. Most of the money was simply pocketed for Simpson’s daily living expenses.

“Simpson even hosted a fundraiser that was to send a Marine’s child who was sick with cancer to Disney,” Baker said. “In fact, he did not direct any money toward that family.”

But Simpson was a good salesman. He knew enough about the military to ingratiate himself with Marines and their families. And for a long time, no one, including his volunteers, had any reason to question his military record or how he was spending the money he raised.

“It’s such an affront to the Marine Corps values that someone had the audacity to take advantage of their service members for financial gain—while pretending to have those same military values himself when he did not,” Baker said. “It’s just a really egregious case.”

In April, Simpson pleaded guilty to wire fraud in April 2019 and was sentenced to four years in prison in July 2019.

Baker emphasized the importance of donors investigating charities before they contribute. Legitimate organizations are transparent about how much they take in, what their operating costs are, and who benefits from their work. 

Note: The Federal Trade Commission offers tips on donating wisely. You can read the tips via the below link:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/how-donate-wisely-and-avoid-charity-scams 

Stephen Hunter, Author Of The Former Marine Sniper Bob Lee Swagger Thriller Series, On 6 Rules For Writing Realistic, Meaningful Gunfights

I’m reading Stephen Hunter’s latest Bob Lee Swagger thriller, Game of Snipers, and I plan to review the book in the Washington Times.

Swagger is a former Marine sniper is in his early 70s, but as a gun consultant for the FBI, the old Vietnam veteran stills gets into a lot of action. 

Guns are the trademark of Stephen Hunter (seen in the above photo). As a knowledgeable gun owner and shooter, he writes about guns with professional accuracy. He gets guns – and he gets it right. 

As a military-trained gun owner and shooter, I often cringe and curse novels, movies and TV shows that make silly mistakes about guns, such as someone with a snubnosed revolver shooting up from the ground and hitting someone with a sniper rifle on a third-story roof.

Crimereads.com offers a piece that Stephen Hunter wrote for his publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons on gunfights.  

Gunfights are chaos events. They make no sense, can never make sense. They are over in seconds. The men who fight them do so guided only by instincts that may or may not reflect training and experience. What happens—no matter how unlikely—happens, without recourse to do-overs, odds and the utter whimsey of luck. There are no rules. Nothing is clear, no one is heroic, self-urination is quite common (never shown in the movies). And they are incredibly loud, even though nobody’s hearing is working. Heartbeats go supersonic, blood chemicals mingle beyond any cocktail maker’s wildest imagination, no coherent thought forms in any brain, and luck is better than smarts, cover is more important than concealment, ammo is more important than heroism and too often the good die young.

I have pretty much spent my professional life trying to capture these moments in prose. Ask me why and watch my face go blank: no explanations beyond the fact that such happenings fire off lots of brain electricity, electricity is energy, energy is work, and work is–well, whatever it will be, from glory and dough to failure, ignominy and self-laceration.

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

https://crimereads.com/6-rules-for-writing-realistic-meaningful-gunfights/ 

 You can also read my Washington Times review of The Third Bullet via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/03/my-washington-times-review-of-stephen.html

And you can read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of I, Sniper, below: 

‘We Have A Problem’: Letter From Naval Special Warfare Command CO To Force

The USNI News offers the letter the top Navy SEAL, Rear Admiral Collin Green (seen in the above photo), sent to the Naval Warfare Command regarding the issues and bad press caused by the actions of some Navy SEALs.

You can read the letter via the below link:

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/01/we-have-a-problem-letter-from-naval-special-warfare-command-co-to-force

Former Philadelphia Sheriff John Green Sentenced To Five Years In Prison

The U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Pennsylvania released the below information:

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that former Philadelphia Sheriff John Green, 72, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was sentenced today to sixty months’ imprisonment, one year supervised release, forfeiture of $76,581, and a $17,500 fine by United States District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone.

Green pled guilty in April 2019 to conspiring to defraud the citizens of Philadelphia while serving as Sheriff by receiving and accepting a stream of hidden personal benefits from co-defendant James Davis, in exchange for giving Davis millions of dollars of business from the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office. 

From 2002 to 2011, Green accepted bribes and kickbacks from Davis totaling over $675,000.  The bribes and kickbacks included: (1) a move-in ready home in Philadelphia for Green and his new wife in 2003; (2) employment of Green’s wife as a subcontractor when she started a business in 2004, paying her over $89,000; (3) facilitation of over $65,000 in hidden campaign contributions to Green’s 2007 re-election campaign; (4) payment of over $148,000 in advertising for Green’s 2007 re-election campaign and falsely reporting the payments on the campaign finance reports; and (5) over $320,000 in payments to Green to assist him with the purchase of his retirement home in Florida in 2010. 

In exchange, Green gave his Davis over $35 million in business at the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office through the sale of homes at Sheriff’s sales. Green left office at the end of 2010, over one year before the expiration of his term, after the City of Philadelphia, Office of the Controller, issued an audit report in October 2010 expressing concern about potential irregularities with respect to the funds from Sheriff’s sales held by the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office.  The Controller’s Office hired Deloitte Financial Advisory Services, which conducted a forensic investigation of the Sheriff’s Office.  Deloitte issued a final report in October 2011 that revealed the extent of the hidden business that Green had given to Davis and provided its findings to the government.   

“Public officials hold office to serve the public good, not to line their own pockets” said U.S. Attorney McSwain.  “When public servants abuse their authority and flout the rule of law, they disgrace themselves and the offices they hold.  That is what Green did here and he is now paying the price.  Every public official should be on notice after today’s sentence: federal law enforcement is watching and we will hold you accountable to the law and to the public that you are supposed to serve.”

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, and the City of Philadelphia Office of Inspector General, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah L. Grieb and Christopher Diviny, and U.S. Department of Justice Trial Attorney Jennifer A. Clarke.

Netflix Releases Trailer For Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ & The South Philly Connection

Netflix has released a trailer for its much-anticipated Martin Scorsese film, The Irishman, staring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel and a host of other fine actors.

The film, which will have a limited run in movie theaters (to be eligible for Oscar Awards) is based a supposedly true crime book called I Heard You Paint Houses, by the late Frank Sheeran, a Philadelphia hit man and Teamster official, and Charles Brant. 

You can watch the trailer, which features the technical “de-aging” of the actors, via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaQ6tHK4yq8 

There is a South Philly connection to this story, as Sheeran is from Philadelphia and he received his first murder contract in South Philly from Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Angelo Bruno. 

De Niro portrays Sheeran, Al Pacino portrays former Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa, Joe Pesci portrays Pennsylvania Cosa Nostra boss Russell Bufalino, Harvey Keitel portrays Angelo Bruno and Bobby Cannavale portrays South Philly Cosa Nostra captain “Skinny Razor” DiTullio.

I look forward to watching the film, as I’m a huge fan of Scorsese’s crime classics, such as Goodfellas, Casino and Mean Streets, but I’ll consider the film to be a largely fictional story, as I doubt that much of what Sheeran told Brant was true. 

I don’t believe he killed Hoffa. I don’t believe he killed Crazy Joe Gallo. And I don’t believe his involvement in President Kennedy’s murder or that he had any real knowledge of a bribery scheme between President Nixon and Hoffa. 

I interviewed former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss and federal cooperating witness Ralph Natale, and he said Sheeran didn’t kill Hoffa and he didn't kill Galo, as he was in Prison with two of Gallo's three killers. I confirmed the names of the killers with former law enforcement officers. 

You can read my Crime Beat column on the Frank Sheeran book via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/05/i-heard-you-paint-houses-man-who.html 

And you can read my Q&A with Ralph Natale via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/04/my-crime-beat-column-my-q-with-ralph.html