Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm Shits On Andrew McCabe For Trump

In case you missed Chris Hayes' jaw-dropping interview with double (or triple) agent Felix Sater Friday night, MSNBC has actually posted it in embeddable form. That's it above. Sater is the kind of instinctual career criminal who will work for the Mob one day, the FBI or CIA the next day and the Russians the day after-- at the time, of course-- working for no one but Felix Sater. They don't come lower. But they do come as low. Remember Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm? Like Sater, he likes to immunize himself from criticism by screaming how he served in the military. But, like Sater, Grimm has flitted from one thuggish outfit after another, betraying each in turn and always looking out for Number One.

And, like Sater, Grimm is currently out of prison and trying to rehabilitate his image-- except he's going about it by running for his old Staten Island/South Brooklyn congressional seat-- the most Mafia-oriented House seat in the country. Staten Island is the last redoubt of the Italian Mafia and south Brooklyn is America's top Russian Mafia territory. Both areas voted for Trump in 2016. The district as a whole gave Trump 53.6% of the vote to Hillary's 43.8%. The current congressman, Dan Donovan is a conventional mainstream conservative, a Republican whose voting record is pretty much identical to what Grimm's was like before he got hauled away to prison. He's a former district attorney, fighting for his political life in a district that is evenly split between the cops and robbers.

Grimm was Steve Bannon's first House recruit, just before Bannon was unceremoniously banished from Trumpville-- his project to destroy the Republican Party establishment shelved. Grimm, who spent a couple months with his head up Bannon's ass, now routinely denounces him. Long before Grimm ever imagined he would run for Congress, he was an undercover agent for the FBI. And an undercover agent for the Mafia-- a double agent. I started following Mikey Suits before he got into politics, when he was just the lowlife bag man who took the Duke Cunningham long-disappeared and unaccounted for $400,000 bribe from Thomas Kontogiannis to George W. Bush. Funny how Grimm, Cunningham and Kontogiannis all went to prison but the "missing" $400K has never been recovered. So much water under the bridge in the last decade and a half!

And last night, while many of us were watching slime bucket Felix Sater spinning his lies on MSNBC, Grimm-- remember, an ex-FBI agent-- released a statement about Andrew McCabe's firing.

"The firing of Andrew McCabe is the first time I've seen true justice on the federal level since the corrupt witch hunt I personally endured. Don't be shocked when Peter Strzok, Loretta Lynch and James Comey are the next to be revealed for the corrupt partisans that they are. As a former FBI agent that was investigated and fully exonerated by Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of the Inspector General, I can attest to the integrity of that team of watchdogs. The FBI and DOJ's highest echelon of political appointees needs to be cleaned out and this was a necessary step in preserving the faith we all have in the nation's premier law enforcement agency and its brave rank and file."

Interesting perspective from the former Gambino Crime family operative! During the Romney campaign, when Grimm was already in Congress, enough Mikey Suits dirty laundry started leaking out that Romney staffers made the Staten Island congressman a persona non-grata and removed him from his campaign position and took his name off the official Romney website. The specific impetus was when Grimm snuck off from the the GOP frat party at the Sea of Galilee to visit some organized crime connections in Cyprus. The FBI was in hot pursuit and one of Grimm's Cyprus connections, Panayiotis "Peter" Papanicolaou, currently in prison. At the time, both the NY Times and the NY Post ran stories they'd been working on for a very long time... about Grimm's connection to the Mafia here at home, specifically he Gambino connection. Ironically, Grimm's first conversation with then Speaker John Boehner was to demand that Members of Congress be allowed to pack heat on the House floor. Instead Boehner had him banned from his office. The Post got excited about Grimm's Gambino connection.

Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm investigated the Gambino crime family as an FBI agent-- before opening a restaurant with a business partner so close to one of the mob clan’s capos, he considers him an “uncle,” according to sources and court documents.

The first-term Republican’s ex-business partner, Bennett Orfaly, regularly travels to the federal lockup in Fort Dix, NJ, to visit his pal Anthony "Fat Tony" Morelli, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said.

Morelli’s mob assignments included overseeing the family’s investments in pornography, labor racketeering and illegal dumping, law-enforcement sources said.

Late Gambino boss John Gotti put him in charge of the family’s Florida rackets, one source said.

Morelli, who is serving time on several convictions, is “like an uncle” to Orfaly, another source said.

Asked about his Gambino connections, Orfaly declined to comment. Grimm is under investigation for alleged fund-raising irregularities in his 2010 campaign.

As an FBI agent, Grimm was responsible for keeping tabs on John Gotti’s brother Peter. He also worked undercover on a case that resulted in the arrest of Gambino soldier Greg DePalma.

...An Israeli named Ofer Biton, who until recently was jailed on an a charge of immigration fraud.

He was released to house arrest on a $1.5 million bond after Orfaly posted his stake in several restaurants co-owned with Biton, according to court papers.

Biton’s lawyer, John Meringolo, says the feds are threatening his client with more serious charges unless he testifies against Grimm in the fund-raising probe.

...Before his election to Congress in 2010, Grimm and Orfaly had been partners in an Upper East Side eatery, Healthalicious.

McGinley [Grimm's lawyer] says that prior to making his run, Grimm sold his share of that business to Orfaly.

But three sources familiar with the ongoing probe, told The Post the purchaser was Biton. Either way, Biton now owns Healthalicious outright, sources said-- and he is partners with Orfaly in several Manhattan pita restaurants.

As far as Biton goes, prosecutors claim that a decade ago, he was a member of an ecstasy ring in California and was wiretapped talking to a senior Israeli organized-crime associate. Biton was never charged with any drug crime.

In addition to his problems with the feds, Grimm also faces a civil lawsuit by Healthalicious workers, alleging wage violations when he was part-owner.

A lawyer for the workers, Michael Faillace, said they settled with Orfaly, but Grimm asked that an agreement with him be postponed until after the election.

Now keep in mind that before Grimm ran for Congress, he had been kicked out of the FBI, mostly for taking payoffs from Kontogiannis. Kontogiannis' story would be the biggest political blockbuster of our lifetimes. He's been told he'd be found dead in his cell if he ever tries to tell it though-- and it involves Saudis, Greeks, a $400,000 cash bribe to George Bush and... Grimm. In August, 2013, Grimm's fundraiser Ofer Biton plead guilty in a sweet deal that saved Grimm a lot of trouble.

A former fund-raiser for Representative Michael G. Grimm, whose campaign finances are under investigation by federal prosecutors, pleaded guilty on Friday to visa fraud.

The former fund-raiser, Ofer Biton, an Israeli immigrant who helped direct hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters of a revered rabbi to Mr. Grimm’s campaign before his election to Congress in 2010, was arrested last August and charged with lying on his visa application.

Followers of the rabbi, Yoshiyahu Pinto, have said in interviews that Mr. Grimm or Mr. Biton told them that the campaign would find a way to accept donations that were over the legal limit, were given in cash or were given by foreigners who did not have permanent resident status.

Is it any wonder Grimm hates the FBI today. Too bad they don't talk about what he was up to when he was a double agent. It would make the Bureau look too bad.

Two Videos On How Certain Democrats Reacted To The Legitimate Aspirations Of The LGBT Community

In 1995 Bernie was a Member of the House... and so was Duke Cunningham. In fact, one of the reasons we started DWT was to help focus attention of Cunningham and a gaggle of other corrupt California Republicans, none of whom are still in office... Richard Pombo, Jerry Lewis, Buck McKeon, Gary Miller, John Doolittle, Dan Lungren, Jim Rogan, David Dreier, Elton Gallegly, Wally Herger-- all gone, all flushed down the toilet. Anyway, in the video above ole Duke is being harshly called out on the carpet by Bernie for disparaging gay men and women in the military. Bernie seems angry; Cunningham seems defiant and uncontrite for his ugly bigotry against American fighting men and women.

A decade later, Hillary hadn't evolved yet. She was demonstrating some of the tendencies that made her such a successful president of the Wellesley College Young Republicans-- not just a member or the treasurer or the vice president... she was the president. And in 2004 she was still taking umbrage-- as she gave the Republicans some nice homophobic talking points they could use to deny marriage equality. Duke Cunningham still hadn't be convicted of taking $2.4 million in bribery (and a long list of other felonies) and was still serving in Congress when Hillary made this speech-- and must have been so proud of her-- although he went to prison soon after. The video down below is Hillary telling her colleagues how to oppose marriage equality without sounding like a complete homophobe... which wasn't really a good idea in New York, not even in 2004.

In the middle of January, I got an e-mail from her about what a great champion of gay rights she is. "Howard," she wrote, "in 2011, I went to Geneva to tell the UN that 'gay rights are human rights, once and for all.' We’ve seen so much progress since I made that speech, particularly with last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. But there’s still so much at stake for LGBT families in America and around the world, and we need our next president to keep us moving forward. I’ve laid out an ambitious plan to advance LGBT rights in our country." But an examination of her LGBT record, wouldn't make her nearly so attractive to gay voters, although there are a certain subset of gay men who worship tragic women. When it became clear Bill was being unfaithful with other women, those gays started treating her like she was Judy Garland. PolitiFact looked into her flip flops on LGBT issues last summer.

On the day that the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to hear oral arguments about same-sex marriage April 28, Hillary Clinton changed her "H" logo to rainbow-colored and tweeted: "Every loving couple & family deserves to be recognized & treated equally under the law across our nation. #LoveMustWin #LoveCantWait."


Clinton came out in support of same-sex marriage in 2013 after more than a decade of opposing it. But her views are particularly in the spotlight now that she is a presidential candidate.


We decided to put Clinton’s statements about same-sex marriage on our Flip-O-Meter, which measures whether a candidate has changed their views without making a value judgment about such flips. We found that as public opinion shifted toward support for same-sex marriage, so did Clinton.


She has had plenty of company among members of her own party to change their stance on same-sex marriage. In 2012, we gave Obama a Full Flop when he announced his support for same-sex marriage.


Currently about three dozen states allow same-sex marriage. The outcome of the decision, expected in June, could mean either that same-sex marriage will become legal in all states or that some states will institute new bans on same-sex marriage. (A spokesman for Clinton’s campaign declined to comment for this Flip-O-Meter item.)


Clinton’s statements during her 2000 Senate race


In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that defined federal marriage as a union between one man and one woman.


Hillary Clinton would face questions about same-sex marriage starting with her 2000 campaign for Senate. Let’s look at the highlights of her statements between 1999 and 2015 in a timeline:


December 1999: Clinton told a group of gay contributors at a fundraiser that she was against the "don't ask, don't tell" military policy signed by her husband.


The New York Times reported that Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said she supported the Defense of Marriage Act but added that "same-sex unions should be recognized and that same-sex unions should be entitled to all the rights and privileges that every other American gets."


January 2000: At a news conference in White Plains, Clinton said, "Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman. But I also believe that people in committed gay marriages, as they believe them to be, should be given rights under the law that recognize and respect their relationship."




April 2000: Clinton again expressed support for civil unions. "I have supported the kind of rights and responsibilities that are being extended to gay couples in Vermont," she said.


July 2004: Clinton spoke on the Senate floor against a proposed federal amendment to ban same-sex marriage. (The amendment ultimately failed.) Though she opposed it, she said that she believed that marriage was "a sacred bond between a man and a woman."


However, she said she took "umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman."


October 2006: Clinton told a group of gay elected officials that she would support same-sex marriage in New York if a future governor and Legislature chose to enact such a law.


"I support states making the decision," she said.


As a 2008 presidential candidate


In 2007, all the presidential contenders except for longshot candidates-- both Democrats and GOP-- were against same-sex marriage, the New York Times reported. So were the majority of Americans, polls showed.


May 2007: In a questionnaire for the Human Rights Campaign in 2007, Clinton backed away from the Defense of Marriage Act:


"I support repealing the provision of DOMA that may prohibit the federal government from providing benefits to people in states that recognize same-sex marriage."


In response to a question about whether marriage should be made legally available to two committed adults of the same sex, Clinton marked that she was "opposed" though she stated she supported civil unions.


August 2007: In a Democratic primary debate sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and LOGO Network (a gay-oriented TV station) Clinton was asked "What is at the heart of your opposition to same-sex marriage?"


Clinton replied: "Well, I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions. You know, it’s a personal position. How we get to full equality is the debate we’re having, and I am absolutely in favor of civil unions with full equality of benefits, rights, and privileges."


As a 2016 presidential candidate


As Clinton got ready for her second presidential bid, she again modified her position.


March 2013: After leaving her position as secretary of state, she announced her support for same-sex marriage in a video with the Human Rights Campaign on March 18, 2013.


"LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones. And they are full and equal citizens, and they deserve the rights of citizenship. That includes marriage. That’s why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law, embedded in a broader effort to advance equality and opportunity for LGBT Americans and all Americans." 
The comments put her in line with other Democrats at the time who were mentioned as potential 2016 presidential contenders, including Vice President Joe Biden, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. Obama had announced his support for same-sex marriage in May 2012.


June 2013: Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton issued a joint statement about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. The congratulatory note didn’t mention that Bill Clinton had signed the law back in 1996: "the Court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union."


June 2014: NPR’s Terry Gross grilled Clinton about her past positions’ on gay marriage in what led to a testy exchange. Gross tried to get Clinton to explain if she had truly changed her stance or if the shifting political landscape made it possible for her to announce her support.


At one point Gross asked, "Would you say your view evolved since the '90s or that the American public evolved, allowing you to state your real view?"


Clinton replied: "I think I'm an American. (Laughing) And I think we have all evolved, and it's been one of the fastest, most sweeping transformations."


April 2015: On the day of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about same-sex marriage bans in a handful of states in April, Clinton changed her "H" logo to rainbow-colored and tweeted a message of support: "Every loving couple & family deserves to be recognized & treated equally under the law across our nation. #LoveMustWin #LoveCantWait."


Our conclusion


Clinton opposed same-sex marriage as a candidate for the Senate, while in office as a senator, and while running for president in 2008. She expressed her support for civil unions starting in 2000 and for the rights’ of states to set their own laws in favor of same-sex marriage in 2006.


As polls showed that a majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage, Clinton’s views changed, too. She announced her support for same-sex marriage in March 2013.


It’s up to voters to decide how they feel about her changed stance, but on same-sex marriage we give Clinton a Full Flop.

Is she better than Trumpf or Cruz or Rubio or any of the garbage candidates the GOP is offering? Of course she is! But is she any better than the same old transactional hack politician that is rapidly turning Americans off to our whole system of democracy? No, she isn't. Come November, if she wins the nomination, she'll be the lesser of two evils. But still evil. During the primary, though, there is still an opportunity to vote without picking evil. If you'd like to help Bernie's campaign, you can do so here. The person in this video has evolved since she campaigned for Richard Nixon, since she campaigned for Barry Goldwater, since she campaigned for Nelson Rockefeller. She evolved on something else this week too! She's finally for the public option for health care. Luckily Bernie is pushing her.

Northern San Diego County-- Will They Ever Have Good Representation In Congress?

Though many of the most salient questions about his corruption have never been addressed, Republican former-congressman/DWT star Duke Cunningham is out of prison. Apparently, we will never find out what happened to the $400,000 Thomas "Gus" Kontogiannis gave Cunningham to pay off George W. Bush for a pardon. (Be sure to read the comments at the link; some of these folks have very inside information they're sharing.) Anyway, now that the Dukester is out, the media isn't asking him about the bribes, especially not the big Bush bribe, just about what it was like to be in a Club Fed. Huff Po reports the 72 year old sleazy right-wing sociopath is now an advocate of sentencing reform and rolling back harsh mandatory minimums for drug crimes. "He's active in his church," they report, "he's volunteering with his local fire department, and he even says he's setting up meet-and-greets and fundraisers for Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas." He lives in Arkansas now-- in "the largest gated community in the U.S." Like Cunningham, Hutchinson is a far right extremist who a record that would be labeled "fascist" in any country that has ever experienced the tyranny of fascism.

"Unfortunately, some of my Democrat colleagues were right and I was wrong on some issues as far as criminal justice," Cunningham said, specifically regretting votes for mandatory minimums for drug crimes that take discretion away from federal judges and give federal prosecutors a tremendous amount of leverage over defendants.

"We have taken out of the judge's hands the ability to be merciful in some reasons or to do the right thing," Cunningham said. "I've heard case after case where the judges have said, 'I wish I could help you, but my hands are tied.' I want to untie the hands of our judges."

"I saw kids in there who are 19 to 30. They go into prison, they maybe got caught with cocaine or rock or something like that, and they give them 10 years minimum. What do they do when they get out?" Cunningham said. "There's a lot of very nice guys that got caught up."

…"I'm not going to give you their names, but I've already called some Republican and Democrat friends of mine and told them that I would make myself available to testify if they could protect me from you guys when I come back there," Cunningham told HuffPost, adding that he was worried "you paparazzi would eat me alive" if he ever came back to Capitol Hill.

"Eat me alive," I hope means someone would ask him questions about the Bush bribe and about the other Republicans on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee doing the exact same thing he was doing, particularly Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Virgil Goode, Darrell Issa and Ken Calvert.

Cunningham says he still hasn't forgiven himself for accepting millions in bribes from defense contractors, and again apologized to those whose trust he violated. But he said he wants to use any influence he can still muster to influence changes in what he refers to as the December of his life.

"I got a friend who told me that the only cure for politics is embalming fluid," Cunningham said. "I think that's true."

The infamous "menu" of what Cunningham was offering and for how much

The state of California wasn't waiting for the embalming fluid. At the first opportunity, they chopped up his R+5 district (which Bush won with 54% against Gore and with 55% against Kerry) to erase whatever was left of Cunninghamism from San Diego County. They gave many of the most die-hard Republican parts of the district-- Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas and Carlsbad along the both coast and, inland to Rancho Santa Fe-- to Darrell Issa and other inland chunks like San Marcos to Duncan Hunter, Jr., making both of them safer in seats that were threatened demographically. Issa's district R+10 district was turing blue but the addition of the reddest parts of Cunningham's (plus Steve Israel's tenure at the DCCC) gave him a reprieve in a district that would be a D+2 but is now an R+4. When Duncan Hunter's slow-witted, alcoholic song, Jr., inherited daddy's seat, the district had a PVI of R+9 and was headed bluer. The spoils from the northeast of Cunningham's old district put the brakes on the slide and Hunter's district has a PVI of R+14-- reddest in the state and safe for a few more years, even for a dullard like him.

All that said, the core of Cunninghamland is now much friendlier for Democrats-- with a PVI of D+2. In 2012 the Democrats, tepid and unsure of themselves as always, ran a self-funding multimillionaire from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, conservative New Dem Scott Peters and Peters managed to buy himself a seat (spending $2.8 million of his own dollars) by outspending corrupt Republican lobbyist/incumbent Brian Bilbray nearly two to one. Peters has done nothing to engage the Democratic base and, despite that D+2, he's considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in Congress. His voting record sucks and Democratic base voters have no reason to come out and bolster his career in November other than the DCCC's mantra: "the Republican is worse."

The Republican is, no doubt, worse but he's also more interesting than Peters-- and not that much worse. The GOP is running openly gay Republican Carl DeMaio-- and he's ahead of Peters in the blue district. The latest polling shows DeMaio beating Peters 51-44%. How can that happen in a blue California district?

• DeMaio holds 82% of the Republican base, and gets 88% support from conservatives. Peters holds 85% of the Democratic base, holds 87% of the liberal vote, and edges DeMaio among moderates 54% to 43%.

• DeMaio leads by 17 points among men, trails by 2 points among women, a 19-point Gender Gap.

• DeMaio leads decisively among the less educated and less affluent voters. Peters draws even among the most educated and most affluent voters.

• Union voters break heavily for Peters, non-union voters break for DeMaio. Voters split when asked which of the 2 candidates is more trustworthy. 45% say DeMaio, 41% say Peters.

DeMaio and Peters emerge from a 06/03/14 "Top-2" primary in which DeMaio finished behind Peters, in large part because DeMaio and other Republicans split the Republican vote. Today, those voters who backed Republican Kirk Jorgensen in the primary break 5:1 for DeMaio. Those voters who in 2012 backed Republican Brian Bilbray in CA-52, today back DeMaio 11:1. Those voters who in 2012 backed Democrat Peters, stick today with Peters 11:1.

Wouldn't It Be Ironic If Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm Were Reunited With "Fat Tony" Morelli In Prison?

Most Americans never heard of Michael Grimm until the infamous "I'll break you in half like a boy" incident on the balcony of the Congress. If you're a DWT reader, you've been reading about Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm, Gambino Crime Family mobster turned Staten Island GOP congressman, since 2005 when he had a tangential role in a hushed up case of New York mobster/real estate developer Tom "Gus" Kontogiannis giving Randy "Duke" Cunningham $400,000 to try to buy a pardon from then President George W. Bush. Kontogiannis, a Long Island Republican real estate developer, could have his picture in a dictionary next to the definition of "sleaze." And he knew just where to turn for a presidential pardon after pleading guilty in a serious bribery, kickback and contract-rigging scandal that cheated Queens school students out of $5 million dollars worth of computers: Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Kontogiannis' partner in crime-- who also plead guilty, was the District School Superintendent and a failed Republican candidate for Congress (financed, of course, by Kontogiannis), Celestine Miller who wound up with 4 houses (worth approximately $1 million) + $80,000 in campaign contributions for her participation in the felony. Kontogiannis bought a boat, now abandoned and worthless, from ole "Duke," the "Kelly C." for at least $400,000 more than it was worth, to obtain Duke's help in getting Bush to pardon him.

Grimm later tried getting Kontogiannis off the hook for a life that was basically, like his own, an unending crime spree.

Staten Island  Rep. Michael Grimm urged a federal judge to spare a New York-based developer with three bribery-related convictions from serving a day in prison, the Daily News has learned.

Grimm sought leniency for Thomas Kontogiannis in 2008, before Grimm entered Congress as a Republican and after he had left a career as an FBI agent. Kontogiannis then faced sentencing on his third conviction-- for helping funnel $1 million in bribe money to former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-Calif).

In a three-page letter, Grimm asked California Federal Judge Lawrence Burns to “be as lenient as the law will allow and your conscience accepts, granting him a noncustodial sentence.” Burns sentenced Kontogiannis to eight years [a sentence that has grown over the years].

Grimm had been kicked out of the FBI for extracurricular activities, working with the Mob, taking payoffs from Kontogiannis, as well as for shady dealings with Florida real estate and a Texas-based biofuel company. He later went into business serving fake organic food at an unhygienic "health food" restaurant, Healthalicious, a front for Gambino crime family boss Anthony (Fat Tony) Morelli, where he got into trouble with the law for cheating his employees. This is long before he financed his congressional campaign almost entirely with illegal foreign contributions-- and for urging Boehner to allow Members of Congress to pack heat. NY Times ace reporters Alison Cowan and William Rashbaum have been on Grimm's tail for a long time and reported on his unsavory "business dealings" for years, including the Healthalicious scandal that is reportedly part of the current indictment.

Twelve years later, Mr. Grimm was back in business in New York, where he formed a company called Granny Sayz, L.L.C., which operated Healthalicious, a restaurant on Second Avenue near 83rd Street in Manhattan. The company was affiliated with a company now connected to Mr. Biton, the Grimm fund-raiser who is under investigation.

The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board last month ordered Healthalicious to pay $88,000 for not carrying workers’ compensation insurance. And in 2011, two former deliverymen retained a lawyer, Dan Knauth, asserting that the restaurant had paid them less than minimum wage, did not pay for work beyond 40 hours per week and paid cash to evade scrutiny.

Mr. Knauth said he contacted Mr. Grimm’s office about the complaints. Shortly afterward, Mr. Grimm filed papers with the state to dissolve his company, Granny Sayz.

On Dec. 1, the deliverymen sued the restaurant, Mr. Grimm and others.

The defendants have not responded in court. But the restaurant has engaged in maneuvers that make it more difficult to sue.

The restaurant’s legal name originally contained the word Healthalicious, with a C. Then in 2010, it was changed to Healthalitious NYC (with a T).

Finally, right after the lawsuit was filed, the restaurant changed its legal name again, to Healthalicious Upper East Side-- with a C.

He became more famous for campaign finance fraud that included organized crime in Cyprus and Israel and for shocking public escapades like incidents in nightclubs involving guns and sex in toilets.

The indictments that have been filed could involve any of criminal activities that have defined Michael Grimm's life. Maddow got that right in the opening segment of her show last night (above). She did forget to mention that Grimm, who has already paid shady DC law firm/political entrepreneurs Patton Boggs around a quarter million dollars to keep him out of prison, owes them another $417,478. Rashbaum reported in the Times last night that the U.S. Attorney's case was "expected to include mail fraud and wire fraud, and to focus largely on his conduct in connection with a health food restaurant he owned on the Upper East Side of Manhattan after he left the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006, two of the people said. He was also expected to be charged with obstruction of justice, for allegedly lying under oath in a federal lawsuit."

The investigation of the second-term congressman, by the F.B.I. and the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, began more than two years ago with an examination of Mr. Grimm’s fund-raising for his 2010 race and expanded. Two of his fund-raisers have already been charged. One, Diana Durand of Houston, was charged with illegally funneling more than $10,000 into his campaign. The other, Ofer Biton, pleaded guilty to visa fraud charges.

But on Friday, it did not appear that the indictment would include any campaign finance charges or accusations that the congressman had misused his office, although several of the people noted that the investigation was continuing. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity as the charges had not been formally announced and they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Sad, tiny postscript: the two conservative Democrats running for Grimm's seat, Domenic Recchia (a corrupt Steve Israel "mystery meat" pick) and religio-sociopath Erick Salgado, are both so unsavory that even Grimm could beat either of them... campaigning from a prison cell! Recchia's only hope is that the rumors of Grimm be willing to resign as part of a plea bargain are true. Reportedly, it's now too late for the Republicans to get his name off the November ballot.

When Mikey Suits was arrested Monday an FBI spokesman said “As a former FBI agent, Representative Grimm should understand the motto: fidelity, bravery, and integrity."

Mafia's Rep In Congress-- Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm-- Is Still Not In Prison

Ken used to be an opera critic for the NY Times but, that aside, neither of us get many calls from ace Times reporters working on explosive investigative pieces about criminal congressmen. A couple years ago, though, several Times reporters called me because, it turns out, DWT was the first to report anything at all about a rogue FBI agent named "Mikey Suits" who went over to the Dark Side-- first to the Mob and then to the GOP for the Mob. It was 2005 and there was a frantic scramble to coverup a $400,000 payoff from Tom Kontogiannis to George W. Bush via bribe-happy San Diego Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham. Kontogiannis needed a presidential pardon and gave Randy "Duke livin' large free of charge" Cunningham the cash for Bush. No one has ever traced that biggish bundle of dough. But the Gambino Crime Family opertaive, "Mikey Suits" was involved with various "business" dealings with Kontogiannis (now in prison).

During the Romney campaign, enough Grimm dirty laundry started leaking out that Romney staffers made the Staten Island congressman a persona non-grata and removed him from his campaign position and took his name off the official Romney website. The specific impetus was when Grimm snuck off from the the GOP frat party in the Sea of Galilee to visit some organized crime connections in Cyprus. The FBI was in hot pursuit and one of Rep. Grimm's Cyprus connections, Panayiotis “Peter” Papanicolaou, is in jail now.

At the time, both the NY Times and the NY Post ran stories they'd been working on for a very long time... about Grimm's connection to the Mafia here at home, specifically he Gambino connection. Ironically, Grimm's first conversation with Boehner was to demand that Members of Congress be allowed to pack heat on the House floor. Wisely, Boehner has avoided him ever since. The Post got excited about Grimm's Gambino connection.

Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm investigated the Gambino crime family as an FBI agent-- before opening a restaurant with a business partner so close to one of the mob clan’s capos, he considers him an “uncle,” according to sources and court documents.

The first-term Republican’s ex-business partner, Bennett Orfaly, regularly travels to the federal lockup in Fort Dix, NJ, to visit his pal Anthony “Fat Tony’’ Morelli, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said.

Morelli’s mob assignments included overseeing the family’s investments in pornography, labor racketeering and illegal dumping, law-enforcement sources said.

Late Gambino boss John Gotti put him in charge of the family’s Florida rackets, one source said.

Morelli, who is serving time on several convictions, is “like an uncle” to Orfaly, another source said.

Asked about his Gambino connections, Orfaly declined to comment. Grimm is under investigation for alleged fund-raising irregularities in his 2010 campaign.

As an FBI agent, Grimm was responsible for keeping tabs on John Gotti’s brother Peter. He also worked undercover on a case that resulted in the arrest of Gambino soldier Greg DePalma.

...An Israeli named Ofer Biton, who until recently was jailed on an a charge of immigration fraud.

He was released to house arrest on a $1.5 million bond after Orfaly posted his stake in several restaurants co-owned with Biton, according to court papers.

Biton’s lawyer, John Meringolo, says the feds are threatening his client with more serious charges unless he testifies against Grimm in the fund-raising probe.

...Before his election to Congress in 2010, Grimm and Orfaly had been partners in an Upper East Side eatery, Healthalicious.

McGinley [Grimm's lawyer] says that prior to making his run, Grimm sold his share of that business to Orfaly.

But three sources familiar with the ongoing probe, told The Post the purchaser was Biton. Either way, Biton now owns Healthalicious outright, sources said-- and he is partners with Orfaly in several Manhattan pita restaurants.

As far as Biton goes, prosecutors claim that a decade ago, he was a member of an ecstasy ring in California and was wiretapped talking to a senior Israeli organized-crime associate. Biton was never charged with any drug crime.

In addition to his problems with the feds, Grimm also faces a civil lawsuit by Healthalicious workers, alleging wage violations when he was part-owner.

A lawyer for the workers, Michael Faillace, said they settled with Orfaly, but Grimm asked that an agreement with him be postponed until after the election.

That's what Staten Island elected to Congress in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. The NY Times piece, where, unlike The Post, they reject sensationalistic reporting, sounds at least as tawdry as The Post's! Investigative powerhouse Alison Cowan asserts that the role of Healthalicious in the Grimm story was to "burnish his image as an entrepreneur" in his political biography.

It could not be determined whether Mr. Grimm ever had dealings with Mr. ["Fat Tony"] Morelli before or after he resigned from the F.B.I. in 2006.

New York City records indicate that Mr. Grimm’s ties to Mr. Orfaly begin as early as 2006, when Mr. Grimm began laying the legal framework for the restaurant that the two men would jointly operate at Second Avenue and 83rd Street.

Their work together continued for at least three years. In June 2009, both men signed a city health department application to renew a license for the restaurant, documents show.

A few months later, the accountant for the restaurant, Wayne Muratore, was listed in campaign finance documents as the first treasurer of Mr. Grimm’s 2010 campaign for the House. Mr. Muratore did not respond to phone calls or e-mails.

Mr. Grimm has said that he sold his interest in Healthalicious before taking office in January 2011, although he has given varying accounts of how and when the deal transpired.

Pictured below is Grimm's partner, Orfaly, leaving the U.S. Courthouse with Grimm fundraiser, Ofer Biton. Not sure who's daughter is being used as a shield.

Now keep in mind that before Grimm ran for Congress in Staten Island, he had been kicked out of the FBI, mostly for taking payoffs from Kontogiannis. Kontogiannis' story would be the biggest political blockbuster of our lifetimes. He's been told he'd be found dead in his cell if he ever tries to tell it though-- and it involves Saudis, Greeks, a $400,000 cash bribe to George Bush and... the freshman crook who represents Staten Island in Congress today. This past Friday, Biton plead guilty in a sweet deal that saves Grimm a lot of trouble.

A former fund-raiser for Representative Michael G. Grimm, whose campaign finances are under investigation by federal prosecutors, pleaded guilty on Friday to visa fraud.

The former fund-raiser, Ofer Biton, an Israeli immigrant who helped direct hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters of a revered rabbi to Mr. Grimm’s campaign before his election to Congress in 2010, was arrested last August and charged with lying on his visa application.

Followers of the rabbi, Yoshiyahu Pinto, have said in interviews that Mr. Grimm or Mr. Biton told them that the campaign would find a way to accept donations that were over the legal limit, were given in cash or were given by foreigners who did not have permanent resident status.

Congressional campaigns are not allowed to accept cash donations of more than $100 and foreigners without resident status are barred by law from donating to political campaigns. At the time of Mr. Biton’s arrest, lawyers not involved in the case said that the charges appeared to have been meant to persuade him to cooperate with the authorities in the investigation of Mr. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

There are rumors, completely unconfirmed, that Biton has promised to cooperate with DOJ prosecutors in the probe of Grimm. I'll believe it when I see it. The New York Daily News is reporting that the plea agreement does not mention cooperation as a condition, but the government and the judge agreed to spring him from house arrest, which he's been serving for the past 10 months. "After Biton was arrested a year ago, the feds said he was refusing to cooperate with their probe into whether Grimm received illegal campaign contributions."

Grimm has refused to take questions related to his Mafia connections and right now he's too busy picking fights with Rand Paul anyway. Grimm is tight with another Mafia-related Republican politician, New Jersey's corrupt governor, Chris Christie.

No, that's not Fat Tony; it's another Grimm Mafia pal

Accountability In Politics Is Not Very Strong-- Not Here And Not In Italy Either

I thought Italian former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire with criminal, perverted and fascist tendencies, was in prison. I was wrong. And he wants to be prime minister again. In October of 2011, Berlusconi, suffering from a series of scandals around underage call girls, was convicted of tax fraud. With Italy's economy cascading out of control, he resigned-- in disgrace-- the next month. Ironically, now he and his right-wing party will run against Mario Monti's failed Austerity Agenda.

Berlusconi confirmed the long-expected news almost casually on Saturday, telling reporters at a training field of his AC Milan soccer club that he had reluctantly decided to run. In an entry on his Facebook page, he said he had tried in vain to find a worthy successor.

"It's not that we haven't looked. We have, and how! But there isn't one," he wrote.

The popularity of his People of Freedom (PDL) party is at an all-time low of around 15 percent and his international credibility is still in tatters a year after he was driven from office by his inability to tackle a mounting debt crisis.

Berlusconi's advisers urged him not to return, yet after a year of political, business and legal setbacks the scandal-plagued media tycoon probably felt he had nothing to lose.

He was sentenced in October to four years in prison for tax fraud, although a long appeals process will keep him out of jail and may overturn the ruling, and risks another sentence in an ongoing trial for having sex with an under-aged prostitute.

The share price of his Mediaset broadcasting company has lost around 40 percent since he left office, deprived of his political protection.

Even physically, Berlusconi seems a shadow of his former self. He has stayed in the background for most of the last year and, after several face lifts and hair transplants, often appears puffy and is finally starting to look his age.

Yet for all this, the aged gun-slinger should not be completely written off.

He still enjoys a hard-core of support among millions of Italians, and if there is one thing Berlusconi is good at it is fighting elections.

He has won three out of five since he first shook up Italian politics in 1994 and has always performed better than expected, unlike the centre-left which is famous for polling below forecasts at national ballots.

Another victory will almost certainly be beyond him but he may just garner enough support to deprive the centre-left of a clear majority, giving him a say in the make-up of whatever government can be formed after the election expected in March.

He is now likely to run on a platform that seeks to tap discontent towards the austerity policies of technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti whom he has supported in parliament for the last year.

"I cannot let my country fall into a recessive spiral without end, it's not possible to go on like this," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Today Italy is on the edge of an abyss: the economy is exhausted, a million more are unemployed, purchasing power has collapsed, tax pressure is rising to intolerable levels."

The market reaction to his announcement was a measure of how he is mistrusted by investors, with Italian shares turning negative and its bond yields immediately rising.

Berlusconi doubtless knows his international reputation is irredeemable, but he cares much more about resurrecting his appeal to the self-employed, small businessmen and relatively uneducated masses who have always backed him in the past.

The centre-left Democratic Party's (PD) commanding lead in opinion polls, with more than 30 percent of backing, has been built up in the absence of any centre-right leadership and boosted by its much publicised primary to elect a leader.

The result of that ballot was another factor that convinced Berlusconi to come back.

By electing the dour, 61 year-old former communist Pier Luigi Bersani over the young, telegenic mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi, the PD gave Berlusconi the chance to play the anti-communist card that has served him well in the past.

A showdown between Berlusconi and Bersani, with a combined age of 137, may be an unappealing prospect for a country in desperate need of renewal, but it is one which Berlusconi believes at least gives him a chance.

Although former Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham won't be out of prison soon enough to run for his old San Diego-area seat in 2014, he can run two years later. And he's 5 years younger than Berlusconi. Like Berulsconi, right-wing huckster Tom DeLay has managed to manipulate the courts to stay out of prison, even though he's been found guilty several times. He's younger than either Cunningham or Berlusconi and, unlike either of them (at least so far) has appeared on Dancing With The Stars. He also claims God tells him exactly what he wants him to do. Obviously if God wants him to run again... "God has spoken to me. I listen to God, and what I’ve heard is that I’m supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican Party, and I think we shouldn’t be underestimated."

In a post he did for Truthout Saturday, Government Ethical Standards Are Toothless, Unenforced, Donald Schweitzer isn't talking about Italy... and he prefaces his post with some common sense from Thomas Jefferson: "Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct... Experience has shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

Public opinion polls show that politicians are the most despised people in America. If you believe Jefferson, corruption is in their DNA.

...The US has hundreds of laws and statutes dealing with ethics and more than 5,000 federal employees at more than 130 federal agencies charged with interpreting them.

The authority of Congress to discipline its members is found in the Constitution, which states, "Each House determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member."

By 2004, the House had heard 150 cases of members accused of crimes. 12 of those members were convicted, but not expelled. Although the House is forgiving of its own failings, it has impeached 12 federal judges and two executives.

During the 85th Congress in 1958, Congress for the first time adopted a general Code of Ethics for Government Service for officials and employees in the three branches of government. The standards in the ten-point code are still considered ethical guidance in the House and Senate, although they were adopted by Congressional resolution rather than law and are therefore not legally binding.

The history of the ten-item code of ethics is similar to the history of the ten items carved in stone and given to Moses to schlep down the mountain. Neither document is obeyed or taken seriously by any politician.

...In the 34 years since the formation of OGE [Office of Government Ethics], none of the 5,700 employees working in the 133 executive agencies has found any wrongdoing to be significant enough to trigger enforcement of ethical standards. Similarly, Congressional oversight of the executive branch has ignored president/s who condone torture, assassination, imprisonment of whistleblowers they formerly encouraged, violate the Constitution at will and have been accused of war crimes by constitutional lawyers.

The problem permeates our entire society.

Sometimes The Wheels Of Justice Turn In Fits And Starts-- Will Republicrook Thomas "Gus" Kontogiannis Rat Out Ken Calvert?

DownWithTyranny has been following the criminal escapades of Thomas Kontogiannis ever since he attempted to buy a pardon from George W. Bush for $400,000, most recently when a former Kontogiannis associate wrote a guest post on the imprisoned gangster. 

Far from a household name, Kontogiannis has been bribing public officials and showering ill-gotten loot on Republicans for decades. He's best known nationally as the man whose bribes sent Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) to the federal penitentiary. But there's so much more to Kontogiannis than just bribing sleazy pols like Bush and Cunningham. He was at the very forefront of the nascent mortgage meltdown and the foreclosure crisis. When Republicans talk about "freedom" and about "liberty," it's always, always, always about the freedom and liberty of sociopath goons like Kontogiannis to prey on society without interference from government or any countervailing forces working to protect consumers and workers-- the law of the jungle.

Yesterday Businessweek reported that Kontogiannis, already serving a prison sentence for the Cunningham scandal, pleaded guilty for his role in an unrelated real-estate swindle.

Kontogiannis, 61, pleaded today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. He led a scheme to defraud Washington Mutual Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG’s DLJ Mortgage Capital in connection with the development of properties in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, said prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.

“I used the funds generated by the fraudulent transactions primarily to finance the construction of ongoing real-estate development projects,” Kontogiannis told U.S. District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto. “While I never intended to cause any financial loss to any financial institution, I knew that the means I was using to obtain these loans was wrong.”

Nine people were indicted in the case last year, accused of obtaining multiple mortgages and staging repeated sales of the same properties to straw buyers to obtain the home loans. The fraud began in March 2003 and ran until September 2007, prosecutors said. Three defendants pleaded guilty earlier this year and one has died.

Kontogiannis, who admitted to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, previously pleaded not guilty in the case in June 2009. The conspiracy count carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, Matsumoto said in court.

...Kontogiannis is serving a sentence of eight years and one month for helping to launder Cunningham’s bribe money through fraudulent mortgages that allowed the former congressman to buy a $2.4 million mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Kontogiannis was sentenced in San Diego in May 2008.

Cunningham, a California Republican, resigned from Congress after pleading guilty in 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. He is serving a sentence of eight years and four months.

The defendants in the Brooklyn case also allegedly obtained permits to construct multi-unit housing in Queens and Brooklyn and, to finance the projects, subdivided the land tracts and staged sales of the properties financed by the mortgage loans, the U.S. said.

They are accused of preparing false loan filings to create the appearance the properties were being purchased by credit- worthy individuals.

One defendant provided fraudulent appraisals to support the price of the properties, even when no buildings existed or had fictional addresses, prosecutors said.

Kontogiannis “controlled every aspect of the mortgage-lending process,” Lynch said in a statement today.

Loans were financed by lenders controlled by Kontogiannis and later sold to Washington Mutual and DLJ, prosecutors said. The defendants stopped making the mortgage payments in 2007 with about $92 million in principal outstanding on the fraudulent mortgages, the government said.

Sound complicated? The Wall Street Journal summed it up in a very straightforward paragraph yesterday. Kontogiannis, as our informer first revealed last month here at DWT, 

employed family and workers who acted as straw buyers on properties he owned and directed false loan files. The mortgages included false appraisals and other documentation. After the loans closed, Kontogiannis prevented the mortgages and deeds from being recorded, so he could sell the same property repeatedly. He eventually sold the loans to Washington Mutual or the Credit Suisse unit DLJ Mortgage Capital Inc. 

It is widely believed that he's busy ratting out some of his criminal conspirators, including a crooked nephew, John T. Michael, and possibly even one of his shady daughters! The question, of course, is how far up the food chain he's willing to go. While no one expects him to turn state's evidence against Bush, he could certainly send Cunningham-crony congressman Ken Calvert to prison for a good long time. Kontogiannis arranged for a meeting in Saudi Arabia with that country's future king for Cunningham, Calvert, himself and Ziyad Abduljawad, another sleazy operator, late in 2004. 

Calvert has acted as a Saudi agent inside Congress, although he has gone to great lengths to claim he has no involvement with Kontogiannis other than one trip on a private jet to meet with members of the Saudi royal family-- paid for by a known Saudi intelligence operative. When Fox News revealed that Calvert is probably the single most corrupt Member of Congress, they concentrated on his record of real-estate fraud and ignored his arrest record as a sexual predator and deadbeat dad and his involvement with the Saudis. Kongtogiannis could help make the latter case if he chooses to.

Blue America has endorsed Calvert's opponent, Bill Hedrick, and we even have a page especially dedicated to Calvert's one-man crime spree where you can donate to Hedrick's campaign.

Plenty More Beans To Spill On Republican Criminal Thomas "Gus" Kontogiannis

Here at DWT we've been covering the antics of two-bit Republican crime operative Tommy "Gus" Kontogiannis for a long time. His myriad shenanigans are fascinating, of course, and his moment of national notoriety for bribing Randy "Duke" Cunninghan was obvious, but for us it was always the big $400,000 he paid for a pardon that made him worth keeping tabs on. Kontogiannis is a loathsome and contemptible creature, who, among other things, sold defective computers to an inner city school district on behalf of a sleazy Republican Party candidate looking to finance a campaign, but he wasn't stupid and he certainly knew that a fifth rate Republican Congressman from San Diego County didn't have the power to pardon him, 400,000 clams or not. Only one person could do that and until a few days ago I never met anyone who had first hand knowledge of the plot to bribe George W. Bush. And then I met Mr. X.

His name isn't really Mr X but he knows Kontogiannis long enough and well enough to also know his life and the lives of his family would be in jeopardy-- even with Kontogiannis in prison-- were word to get out that he's talking about the big unmentionable. Here's Part I of Mr. X's story:

The question is: does a monster know that he's a monster or does he think that he's just like everyone else? Does he ever realize he is nothing more profound then a piece of human debris, a full blown sociopath?

As Tommy Kontogiannis cried to Judge Burns upon his sentencing for bribing a dissolute U.S. Congressman, "I'm sorry for all those people that I hurt and let down, I didn't mean to hurt anybody." Burns bellowed back "You come to this court asking for leniency while at the same time your rear end is on fire for stealing money for your mortgage scam! Let's put you in a free hotel for the next 10 years-- the U.S. Federal Prison."

Yeah, Mr. Stolen Net Worth of $550,000,000-- something revealed in a Brooklyn, NY courtroom in the early part of this summer-- was finally and spectaulary sent away, a consequence of fracturing and distorting our government and so many people's lives.

In the infamous case of world class gangster and cold blooded thief, Tommy Kontogiannis, he was a truly self delusional sociopath whose crimality bear no contrition or remorse.

Self delusional after his conviction on bribing a NYC Board of Education official, Celestine Miller-- who was also a Republican congressional candidate-- with a bag containing $50,000 in cash (hey, we all need inside deals for real estate and computers from time to time). When Miller ran for the Queens House seat vacant because of the resignation of right-wing embezzler Floyd Flake in 1997, the larceny-minded Republican, financed by Kontogiannis, came in 4th (with 8.8%) after the Democrat (56.5%), the Conservative (Alton Waldon who had once served in the seat as a Democrat; 20.8%, and an independent (13.1%).

For the "minor" transgression-- bribery and selling defective computers to the school system-- Kontogiannis received a 4 month house arrest sentence and a $5,000,000 fine (which, until his recent conviction, he paid off at a rate of $50,000 monthly, on time, every month for the last 5 years). His dopey lawyer, Ray Shane, took much of the rap for that, went to jail for a year and lost his attorney's license. Tommy boy told him not to worry; he'll take care of poor Ray for his selfless deed.

Uhhh, sorry about that Ray; lying is what Tommy does and lying is what Tommy is. No help for Ray.

Then, in a way that could be described as griandiose, arrogant and/or delusional, he cozied up to self-described Top Gun, Randy "Duke" Cunningham and helped finance an aristocratic lifestyle for the trashy southern California wingnut. He did that so that the blustering Cunningham, always the loud-mouthed braggart, would help him get him a Presidential Pardon from none other then Mr. Innocent himself, George W. Bush, a pardon he desperately needed for the 1st conviction (the bribing of the Board. of Ed. official). Without the pardon he couldn't directly do business with the government and he was at the mercy of a daughter who is so much like him in a business sense that he knew he could never trust her. That's 2 bribes and nothing to show for it but a jail sentence. But there's more... a lot more.

Finally, and always in self denial, after destroying hundreds of hard working people's livelihoods and credit in a $300,000,000 mortgage Ponzi scam, which, as he sits in Federal Prison for the second transgression with Cunningham, he currently under indictment for. To make matters more hideous, all these people worked for him at a company he stole, looted and bankrupted; Blue Ridge Farms/Chloe Foods. But that's a story for another time.

For a career criminal like our old buddy Tommy "Gus" Kontogiannis, life is just one crime bumping up into another, paralleling themselves and falling into a constant tragic theater for all those he touches. Whether it's his family, such as likable nephew John Michael, his daughter, "I wish I had a penis like Dad's," Annette, his other simpleton daughters Lisa and Chloe, Georgia, the big GOP contributor in the family and the wife who thinks that donating stolen charity is somehow flamboyantly spiritual and grants you Absolution and Providence, or the big boys: Congressmen Duke Cunningham, southern California Southern U.S. Attoney Carol Lam, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (he got rid of Lam for pursuing Rep. Jerry Lewis and Tommy boy too aggresively), CIA Executive Foggo, or the uncle of Assistant U.S. Attorney Halpern, whose home Tommy bought for his daughter, while he was prosecuting the same Duke Cunningham. There are plenty more. Not only in the US, but in Greece, Chile, Saudi Arabia and new places that we will talk about.

This whole story starts with a brilliant dark scheme called mortgage fraud. You see our boy was poignantly ahead of his time. This little skip of his over banking rules didn't happen when it was in vogue however, like in the mid 2000's, but commenced about 15 years before. As a young builder starting out in Queens, NY he developed a vulgar appetite for "the good life." He quickly found out that in order for a builder to make money from housing he must sell the ones that are built. However, when he couldn't sell them fast enough, he just took out mortgages for those already on the market, but unsold, and paid himself. The more homes he built, the more mortgages he needed and he pawned them off to the unsuspecting banks and, with no one to negotiate the prices, the profits just rolled in. He then used the new mortgages from the current homes to pay off the older ones and away we went. A mortgage Ponzi scheme was born. If he sold a piece of developed property that was great, but as his need for more cash grew, so did the size and the cost of the new homes. He was constantly buying new mortgages to pay the old ones off and the new ones where getting larger and larger.

This went on for years and Tommy amassed a fortune from stolen mortgage money. He then set up his own mortgage companies. This way he avoided messy questions like: why does someone need 10 mortgages on the same block or why does 1 piece of property have 3 mortgages attached to it? When business got really good, he bought a small bank in Texas, the Sanderson Bank, for his daughter Annette Apergis. This way he would be able to wash all the money through with nobody on the outside to get suspicious. This was one of the first banks to implode in the mortgage crisis of 2008.

He built the house, mortgaged the house through his mortgage company, bought the initial mortgage with his bank and wrapped the whole thing up and sold them to the larger banks. This prodigious scam went on until it slammed up against the banking collapse of 2007 caused by... mortgage scams. Tommy's personal bank and his mortgage companies could no longer get the funds that were needed to fund his Ponzi empire. The lawsuits and indictments are continuing to pour in for the Kontogiannis crime family.

But there is more. When you have a need for a lot of mortgages, you need a lot of people. Beneath this lies the improbable connection to hundreds of lower middle class working people who were either duped, threatened or coerced into signing these illegal toxic documents. Tommy would give the irresistible sales pitch "Sign this mortgage for $1,500,000 and you'll be saving your job and your company. Don't worry, it's from my mortgage company, no one will ever bother you; I'll
pay it off real soon and you can even take the tax deduction for the interest that you don't even have to pay!"

Where did our boy get all these people to sign his mortgages from? Why they all worked in one of his construction companies that were building the homes that were necessary to write the phony mortgages. When those people ran out, he just wrote more to the same people. He just didn't bother with the troublesome detail of letting them know. That was no longer necessary because he had their Social Security numbers in the grip of his grabbing hands.

Eventually, even some banks would only lend so much money to people making $35,000 a year. That was no problem for Tommy. He then turned his attention to relatives, in-laws, prospective in-laws, new friends, old friends and any and all candidates to fuel his formulaic Ponzi drive.

In the ultimate bit of chutzpah, he raided the personnel records of the food company he stole, Blue Ridge Farms, and took hundreds of employees' Social Security numbers and wrote up hundreds of millions of dollars of new worthless mortgages. In this poignantly sad chapter he destroyed all of these working people's livelihoods and credit. These are so many of the struggling people that need the credit to live week by week. To this day this parasitic crook says he did it to help the companies that they all worked for stay open. As he lived in his 5 acre, marble columned, Long Island Gold Coast estate, sailing the Mediterranean summers, they lost everything.

Eventually all of these companies went bankrupt. Looted and destroyed, many of them having won millions of dollars of judgments against Tommy, documenting the theft.

But that my friends, that isn't even why the guy with the Barbie Doll hair plugs, bad teeth and table manners in jail!

[To be continued]