Early Thursday morning, a drive-by shooting occurred in the violence-plagued Liberty City neighborhood, leaving one dead and three injured. Reporter LuAnne Sorrell and photographer Ken Tolliver were doing a follow-up story on the shooting when gunshots rang out on Thursday afternoon, just feet from where the WSVN crew was working. Luckily no one was hurt.

Sorrell and Tolliver were able to capture footage of the gunman as he fled the scene

South Florida gangs are a ruthless and bloody bunch, whose names strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. Lately, however, those names have gone bilingual. And redundant.

Six members of the Lake Worth-based gang Krazy Locos -- not to be confused with the formerly caffeinated brand of booze-in-a-can Four Loko -- were sentenced yesterday to a combined 237 years in prison for their involvement in two murders, drug dealing, and weapons trafficking.

For those of you who don't habla español, the gang's title translates as "crazy crazies." And if their indictment is any indication, boy do these guys deserve the name.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Southern District Office describes the Krazy Locos as "a violent gang that committed ruthless murders and robberies" in addition to selling oxycodone, Xanax, methadone, cocaine, crack and marijuana.

According to the indictment, the Krazy Locos would "sponsor" a patient -- paying for his or her medical visit and prescription -- in exchange for a portion of the pills, then re-sell them.

Members also had to rob and sell drugs in order to pay "taxes" to the gang every week. Never has crime sounded so patriotic!

But that's where the IRS similarities stop.

Feds say that the gang's leader, Jonathan Gonzalez, ordered 17-year-old Manuel Medina to murder Rolando Franco when Franco tried to leave the Krazy Locos and move out of Florida to start a new life in January 2009.

One month later, the gang killed an innocent man and wounded another after trying to rob what they thought was the stash house of a rival gang.

Then in April 2009, Gonzalez ordered Medina and another gang member to shoot up the house of another Krazy Loco. But Gonzalez was furious when he learned they hadn't emptied their entire AK-47 clips and sent them back to do it again four days later.

Gonzalez was also caught selling weapons -- including 24 firearms, thousands of bullets, and a grenade -- to undercover agents.

He was sentenced to a whopping 135 years in prison; Medina got 35 years despite his young age; and four others received sentences from 3 - 30 years in federal prison.

At times, the Krazy Locos has been affiliated with another unfortunately named gang: Making Life Krazy, or MLK.

Southwest Side gang member nicknamed “Bear” stole a rival’s car, ran him over with it then “stomped” on his skull until he was dead, prosecutors alleged in court Sunday.

Lazaro Zapata, 24 — a member of the 2-6 street gang — stole Raul Medina’s 1994 Ford Escort, then murdered the 41-year-old in the 4000 block of South Kedzie in the early hours of Thursday, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Denise Loiterstein said. He tried to cover up the crime with a story about his girlfriend being kidnapped, it’s alleged.

Sentenced to 18 years behind bars for the 2nd degree murder of a 69-year-old corn vendor in 2004, Zapata had only recently been released from prison, records show.

Early Thursday morning, Medina and his ex-wife were driving Zapata’s girlfriend to her mother’s home when Zapata called and demanded she come home to him, Loiterstein said. When the girlfriend, who Zapata had beaten, refused, Zapata vowed to steal Medina’s ex-wife’s TV, Loiterstein said.

While Medina’s ex-wife called police to report the robbery threat, Zapata made a 911 call of his own, alleging his girlfriend had been kidnapped, Loiterstein said. Police quickly dismissed that allegation after speaking to the girlfriend on the phone, the prosecutor added.

But when Medina dropped off Zapata’s girlfriend at his ex-wife’s home, Zapata and several of his buddies were waiting, Loiterstein said.

After an argument in the street, Zapata and his buddies beat both women before Zapata jumped into the driver’s seat and ran down Medina, Loiterstein said.

Zapata then got out of the car and “started stomping the victim on his head,” she added. Medina died of massive blunt force trauma to the head and body, Loiterstein said.

This time Zapata and his girlfriend falsely reported to police that she had been kidnapped, it’s alleged.

Wearing turquoise slippers and a blue shirt in court Sunday, Zapata protested that his girlfriend was ready to bail him out after Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil denied him bond.

Records show he was just 17 when he killed corn vendor Antonio Rodriguez by hitting him in the head with a baseball bat in 2003.

Did the Swedish king visit strip clubs, and why did his friend seek a gangster's help to snuff out the scandal? Those questions have the nation in a tizzy and are posing the monarchy its most serious challenge during Carl XVI Gustaf's nearly four decades on the throne.
The media, much less enthralled by the royal family than the public, is attacking the 65-year-old monarch with unprecedented fury.
One leading newspaper has even urged the king to step down. Others suggest he should go if it turns out he was lying when he denied visiting strip clubs in the U.S. and Slovakia, claims first presented in a book published last year.
"His reputation has of course been hurt by this and he's had a difficult time defending himself," said royal commentator and writer Roger Lundgren. "But this has certainly taken on proportions that are approaching the grotesque."
At the heart of the scandal is "The Reluctant Monarch," a book released in November that for the first time put into print long-standing rumors about the private life of Carl Gustaf, who has three adult children with his German-born wife, Queen Silvia.
The book alleged that the king had a secret love affair in the 1990s and described how he and his friends frequented private night clubs in Stockholm where they were entertained by scantily clad women. It also claimed he visited exclusive strip clubs during foreign visits — in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics and in Slovakia in 2008 — citing former employees of those establishments.
Many of the allegations are poorly sourced and critics say the book, which was presented as a biography, amounts to nothing more than a gossip magazine in hard cover.
The king's supporters say he's the victim of a malicious slander campaign fueled by republican forces who normally don't get much attention in Sweden.
Most Swedes want to preserve the constitutional monarchy even though it's widely seen as contradicting the principles of democracy and equality that underpin Swedish society. The monarchy's survival hinges to a large degree on its popularity.
"The Swedish royal court, like the Danish and Norwegian, depends on widespread trust from the public," political editor Peter Wolodarski wrote in the Stockholm daily, Dagens Nyheter. "The day people start to doubt whether the top representatives of the royal court are telling the truth, they (the royals) live dangerously."
A recent poll showed about 44 percent of the Swedes wanted Carl Gustaf to remain king, while 17 percent said he ought to give way to his eldest daughter, the popular 33-year-old Crown Princess Victoria.
Research institute TNS-Sifo interviewed 1,000 people for the May 25-26 poll. The margin of error was 2 to 3 percentage points.
A similar poll around 12 months ago, showed 64 percent of Swedes wanting the king to stay on the throne.
Carl Gustaf first addressed the allegations in a somewhat confused monologue to reporters at his annual moose hunt in November, saying his family was "turning the page." He didn't deny the allegations, which was seen by many as a partial admission.
It might have been expected to end there. After all, the king was not accused of anything illegal and Swedes don't get into a moral panic about extramarital affairs. But the question of strip club visits — frowned upon in Sweden's egalitarian society — would not go away.
And suggestions the king may have spent hefty sums on such visits raised questions about whether the public should be provided more information about how the royal court uses its annual 122 million kronor (nearly $20 million) taxpayer-funded stipend.
In May, the story took a new twist when Swedish Radio aired a secret recording in which one of the king's friends, Anders Lettstrom, was heard discussing the scandal with a reputed gangland figure. Their conversation centered on Mille Markovic, a former night club owner and a key source in the book who claims to have pictures of the king's entourage in compromising situations.
Swedish Radio broadcast parts of a conversation where Lettstrom wanted to know exactly what material Markovic had and how much it would cost to make him hand it over.
After initial denials, Lettstrom issued a statement to Swedish news agency TT admitting he had contacted criminals in a misguided attempt to find out "how so many lies about me and others" could have been spread in the book about the king. Lettstrom said he had acted alone and that the king knew nothing about it.
Under mounting media pressure, the king agreed to an interview with TT about his private life on Monday. In the interview, Carl Gustaf rejected any knowledge of Lettstrom's contacts with criminals and said he no longer considered Lettstrom a friend. He also denied having visited the specific strip clubs mentioned in the book.
In answer to whether he had ever visited a strip club, the king asked the reporter to define what exactly he meant by one, then recalled a visit to a cabaret in Paris.
The interview didn't go down well with the public or the media.
Tabloid Aftonbladet, one of Sweden's biggest newspapers, called on the king to abdicate, saying his credibility had been tainted.
"If it turns out that the king lied straight into (Swedes') faces, we could be one step closer to a republic," another newspaper, Goteborgs-Posten, said in an editorial.
The TT reporter also asked the king whether the situation had made the monarch think about passing the crown to Victoria.
"I think that's hard to understand, that question. It's not relevant," the king said. "By tradition and custom, that's not how it works."

New York police said an Uzi was the highlight of a weekend gun buyback program in the Bronx.

The buyback events generally collect junkers and Saturday Night Specials, but one fellow came in with the high-powered Israeli submachine gun immortalized as Tony Montana's "little friend" in the crime movie "Scarface."

"Any day that you get an Uzi off the streets of The Bronx is a good day," Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz told the New York Post.

A source told the Post the Uzi was one of 354 firearms collected at three churches in response to an uptick in shootings in the area.

federal grand jury has returned a new criminal indictment against once-prominent Newark lawyer Paul W. Bergrin that directly implicates him in a June 2007 bribery scandal aimed at helping a convicted felon escape gun charges.
The 138-page superseding indictment, returned last Thursday but made public today, charges Bergrin with four new criminal counts, including one which details allegations that Bergin and others pulled off a plan to use a fall guy — referred to in the indictment as “J.M.” — to confess to a gun possession charge involving a .22-caliber revolver against an alleged “criminal client” and employee of Bergrin’s law firm, who is referred as “A.W.”, federal authorities said.
The indictment says that J.M.’s false confession, made in exchange for a payment, helped A.W. get a parole-board hearing acquittal and get released from jail in 2007.
The 33-count indictment also says that once “A.W.” was released from the Essex County Correctional Facility, he returned to assisting Bergrin and others “in distributing kilogram quantities of cocaine.”
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Trial date set for ex-Newark lawyer accused of plotting to kill witnesses

• Racketeering charges are reinstated against N.J. lawyer accused of plotting to kill potential witness
• Prosecutors go mum in case of high-profile lawyer accused of plotting to kill witnesses
• Newark lawyer Paul Bergrin, charged with murder, witness intimidation, returns to federal prison
• Star-Ledger archives: The Paul Bergrin case

Bergrin, 55, a former federal prosecutor turned high-profile defense attorney, whose legal clients included entertainers like Lil’ Kim and Queen Latifah, is facing racketeering and other charges ranging from murder-for-hire to running a high-end Manhattan call-girl operation.
His trial, long delayed because of a series of appeals, is scheduled for Oct. 11.
Bergrin’s defense attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said in an email today that the new indictment “appears to vastly expand the charges against Mr. Bergrin, beyond what was already a massive, unwieldy indictment, piling charge upon charge in a way that will make a fair trial, as a practical matter, impossible.”
The allegations made public Monday against Bergrin contains facts and dates that mirror facts surrounding a guilty plea by Clifford J. Minor, a former Essex County prosecutor and former Newark mayoral candidate.
In April, Minor admitted to trying to help Abdul Williams, 34, of East Orange, escape .22-caliber revolver gun-possession charges in June 2007 by serving as lawyer for Jamal Muhammad, 32, of Newark, when Muhammad went to falsely confess to police that he had illegally possessed the revolver. In pleading guilty, Minor admitted he knew Williams had a string of felony convictions before his June 2007 arrest and that Muhammad would face a lighter sentence for the crime.
Minor, 68, is slated to be sentenced on July 18 in federal court in Newark for counts related to the scandal, federal authorities said.
But Monday Minor’s defense lawyer, Thomas R. Ashley, said there is no connection between Minor and Bergrin.
“There was never any interaction whatsoever between Paul Bergrin and Cliff Minor with respect to Abdul Williams and/or Mr. Muhammad, who was Mr. Minor’s client,” he said.
Minor and Bergin never had any business relationship and had never talked about Williams and Muhammad, Ashley said.
The indictment also added a count related to a murder allegation against Bergrin that says that he aided in the killing of a key witness referred to as K.D.M. who may have testified against a cocaine trafficker.
Several people originally charged along with Bergrin have already pleaded guilty and implicated him, including a Monmouth County cocaine trafficker, Vincente Esteves.
Esteves said he worked with Bergrin to plot the assassination of a potential witness against Esteves himself known as “Junior the Panamanian.” The new indictment extended the time frame for some racketeering counts against Bergrin and dropped counts related to mortage fraud and witness tampering. The indictment also named Alejandro Barraza-Castro, an alleged criminal associate of Bergrin’s.

The body of the Linden man who is said to have been shot to death over an argument with his boss over stolen ganja seeds was recovered late yesterday.
The decomposing body of 21-year-old Clifton Bonus, called Motty, was pulled from the backlands of Linden next to the location of the old Mackenzie airstrip known by locals as a marijuana farm.
Reports indicate that the man, wearing just black short pants, was dumped in a gully in the bushes, after he was shot dead.
Bonus’s killer is said to be on the run from police. An eyewitness to the killing is among two persons assisting police with the investigations. The other person in custody is said to be one of the persons on the ganja farm at the time of the incident.
Bonus was missing since last Friday, and on Sunday last relatives were reportedly informed that the man had been killed.
Both relatives and police subsequently scoured the area where Bonus was reportedly killed, but came up empty handed every time.
The grueling searches came to an abrupt end sometime before 17:00 hrs,
yesterday, after his grotesquely swollen and muddied body was discovered in a shallow grave,
Informed sources indicated that a gunshot wound was visible on one of Bonus’s leg and at the side of his head.
His body was subsequently taken to the Linden Hospital Complex wrapped in a grey tarpaulin, and later to the Wismar Mortuary.
Persons who were present at the hospital when the body was taken there for examination said that persons just stood around in shock; there was no emotional outburst or anything like that.
The eyewitness is reported to have told police that Bonus and his assailant had an argument over stolen ganja seeds last Friday. The argument escalated to the point where the man is said to have shot Bonus in the chest.
The eyewitness, who was washing dishes at the time, was threatened by the assailant to leave the area, sources told Kaieteur News.  However, the eyewitness, on Sunday, decided to tell police what he saw.
Karen Lashley, the slain man’s mother, had said she last saw her son two Mondays ago. Clifton Bonus, her only son, reportedly lived with her at Silvertown, until he moved out and went to live with the mother of his child at Nottinghamshire. The mother of his child is said to be his killer’s sister.
He reportedly worked with the woman’s brother.
Lashley said she did not know where her son worked or the nature of his job.
Karen Lashley told media operatives that when she  visited the suspect mother’s house, where her son resided until recently, one of the suspect’s  brothers blurted out, “Mommy tell the lady wha you son do she son, tell she is you own son kill she son!”

 criminal street gang member the Crips pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to charges of conspiring to conduct a racketeering enterprise related to his membership in a Pittsburgh Crips criminal enterprise, according to a report obtained by the Organized Crime Control Committee of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.

 
Nicklas Gay, 23, aka “GK,” pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond to one count of conspiracy to engage in a racketeering conspiracy.   

According to the guilty plea, Gay and others participated in a pattern of racketeering activity that included multiple acts involving robberies at gun point; attempted murders; distribution of controlled substances, including cocaine, heroin and crack cocaine; and acts of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

According to his allocution and court documents, Gay was a member of the Northview Heights/ Fineview Crips, a criminal street gang operating out of the Northview Heights public housing facility in the Northside neighborhood, and in the nearby Fineview neighborhood of Pittsburgh. 

The gang had been operating in Northside since 2002, and in 2003 it formed an alliance with the Brighton Place Crips to expand the gang’s drug trafficking territory and increase the gang’s capability for violence.   The Brighton Place Crips is a criminal street gang formed in the early 1990s that controlled the area of Brighton Place and Morrison Street, also known as the Mad Cave, and Federal Street in the Northside area of Pittsburgh.

The Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang maintained exclusive control over drug trafficking in these neighborhoods through continuous violence and intimidation of rivals and witnesses.  Members of the gang support each other through payment of attorneys’ fees and bonds, as well as payments to jail commissary accounts and support of incarcerated members’ families.   

In addition, the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang maintains an ongoing feud with the Manchester Original Gangsters, a criminal street gang located in the Manchester area of the Northside Section of Pittsburgh.  

Advertisement

Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang members identify themselves by wearing blue, using Crips gang hand signals, and using phrases such as “Cuz,” “C-Safe,” “Loc” and “G.K.”   According to court documents, members and associates of the gang obtain greater authority and prestige within the gang based on their reputation for violence and their ability to obtain and sell a steady supply of illegal drugs.

According to court documents, Gay acted as a “hustler” or distributor of controlled substances including heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, for the gang.   He also acted as a “soldier/ gorilla” or enforcer for the gang, providing protection for the enterprise through the commission of violent crimes.         

Also yesterday, Michael Wade, 25, aka “Swade,” and Michael Henson, 29, aka “Henne,” members of the Northview Heights/ Brighton Place Crips, were sentenced to 70 and 110 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in the criminal enterprise.   Wade and Henson pleaded guilty on February 2, 2011, and February 1, 2011, respectively, to one count of conspiracy to engage in racketeering before Judge Diamond.                

Gay, Wade and Henson are three of 26 defendants charged in February 2010 with being members of, and conducting racketeering activity through, the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang.  This prosecution resulted from a Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force investigation that began in 2005. 

To date, more than half of the Brighton Place/ Northview Heights Crips members who were charged in this indictment have pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.          

Gay faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.   He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 7, 2011.

Chicago police made numerous arrests this week connected to a drug-trafficking operation run by the Black P Stones street gang on the Southeast Side, authorities said at a news conference Thursday.

Among 15 arrested Wednesday morning, 13 were charged with felony criminal drug conspiracy, including the operation’s alleged ringleader, 32-year-old Eric Gauthreaux.

Authorities said he’s a reputed high-ranking leader of the P Stones and a nephew of the gang’s imprisoned co-founder Jeff Fort, who also founded the gang’s El Rukn faction.

Police said the $15,000-a-day operation dealt mostly heroin and cocaine in an area dubbed “Terror Town” that is loosely bounded by East 75th and 79th Streets, Yates Boulevard and Colfax Avenue.

“This is probably the most active (drug-dealing area) on the South Side and the most organized,” Sgt. Tom Cronin of the Chicago police gang investigations unit, which led the eight-month probe, said at the news conference at police headquarters.

The investigation also resulted in the arrests of 16 additional people who tried to buy drugs from undercover officers, authorities said. Four other suspects in the probe remained at large.

Police also seized roughly $25,000 in cash during the investigation as well as 900 grams of heroin, 125 grams of cocaine, 13 vehicles and 10 guns, authorities said. Inside Gauthreaux’s home, they said, police found clothing, hats and various types of handwritten artwork related to the Fort family or the P Stones.
 
The investigation began last September after a rash of violent crimes in the area, authorities said. The investigation was stepped up two months later after Chicago police Officer Michael Flisk, an evidence technician, was fatally shot in the area while on duty, authorities said.
 
Gauthreaux lives down the alley from where that slaying took place, but Flisk’s death wasn’t connected to the drug operation.

On May 19, however, Chicago Police Officer Paul Nauden was taken to a hospital complaining of chest pains while working on the investigation. The 46-year-old narcotics unit officer and 21-year department veteran died the following day at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

In addition to officers from the narcotics unit, those from the gang enforcement unit and Calumet Area assisted in the probe.

“There’s a reason that this area is called ‘Terror Town,’” said Brian Sexton, chief of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office’s narcotics prosecutions section. He offered a stern message for gang members who are still active in that area: “We’re not done yet.”