Bulger Auction Gets Different Bids from Local Dailies

March 31, 2016

From our Late to the Party of the First Part desk

James “Whitey” Bulger has always been two different people in the Boston dailies. See: Mike (Jimmy didn’t allow heroin in South Boston) Barnicle for details.

But that was then. And this is now, when it’s all over but the routing of Bulger’s assets to his victims.

From Wednesday’s Boston Globe:

Bulger assets added to victim fund

Stanley Cup ring, cash, benefits seized

James “Whitey” Bulger’s Social Security benefits, his replica Stanley Cup ring, and $50,000 he stashed in a London safe deposit box have been added to a growing pile of assets that were seized from the gangster and will be divided among the families of his victims, according to court filings.

Federal prosecutors urged a judge Monday to issue an order paving the way for an auction by the US Marshals Service of dozens of items seized from Bulger’s Santa Monica, Calif., apartment following his capture in June 2011.

 

It’s a very different picture in Wednesday’s Boston Herald:

Bulger victim: Auction will give me ‘peanuts’

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The widow of Revere nightclub owner Richard Castucci — who rubbed elbows with Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack until James “Whitey” Bulger ordered him shot in the head 40 years ago — will reap “peanuts” from a class-action settlement with the feds and little more from an auction of the mob kingpin’s worldly possessions, her lawyer claims.

“Mrs. Castucci just wanted to get this chapter in her life closed,” Sandra Castucci’s lawyer Michael Laurano said yesterday after the Herald reported U.S. Attorney Carmen M. 
Ortiz had petitioned a federal judge to order the sale of “any and all other personal property” the FBI seized from Bulger’s Santa Monica, Calif., hideout in 2011. The lots are to include a replica ring from the 1986 Stanley Cup championship, art, furniture, electronics, clothing, books and coins, but not dozens of firearms, a grenade, a stun gun, eight knives and ammunition fated to be destroyed.

 

Back at the Boston Globe, another widow was more . . . measured.

Patricia Donahue, whose husband, Michael, was shot to death by Bulger in 1982, said she was pleased that the government was continuing to track Bulger’s assets and surprised to hear that the notorious gangster was eligible for Social Security.

“I never knew the man worked,” Donahue said. “Nothing surprises me when it comes to ‘Whitey’ Bulger.”

 

Or when it comes to Whitey Bulger coverage, eh?

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Tabloid Trumpets Terror Techie

September 5, 2014

Today’s Boston Herald goes to town on local boy gone bad Ahmad Abousamra, the Stoughton man wanted for terrorism and suspected of being a social-media guru for ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State – whatever name they’re going by these days.

 

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Inside, the Terror Techie gets the Full Osama.

 

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Get it – Post-er? Yeah, us too.

The news report itself is straight out of Tabloid 101 (with four – count ’em, four – bylines):

A 32-year-old computer whiz who was raised in Stoughton is suspected of using the high-tech skills he honed at Hub colleges to spread the bloodthirsty message of ISIS terrorists on social media, according to a Herald source and news reports.

Ahmad Abousamra — who was educated at Northeastern University and UMass Boston — had already been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list last year with a $50,000 reward offered for information leading to his capture and return.

The FBI said Abousamra “has shown that he wants to kill United States soldiers.”

He is now believed to be a social media warrior for the heartless terrorists behind the recent beheadings of two Americans.

 

Wow.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, Abousamra gets more measured treatment:

Mass. terrorist suspect may be aiding militants

The spotlight that has been cast on the Islamic State terror group in Syria has also put a new focus on a Massachusetts man wanted for terrorism, who is believed to 2012-10-03T204235Z_01_TOR605_RTRMDNP_3_USA-SECURITY-ABOUSAMRAbe living in that country and possibly supporting ISIS.

Ahmad Abousamra, who grew up in Stoughton and attended schools in the Boston area, faces terrorism charges in federal court in Boston, and the FBI in December put him on its Most Wanted Terrorists list. A $50,000 reward has been offered for information leading to his capture, and officials believe he has been living in Aleppo, Syria.

 

The Globe story did contain one fact the Herald missed: “Lowell Police Sergeant Thomas Daly – a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force . . . said Abousamra has a ‘high-pitched voice that would distinguish him from others.’'”

Presumably not, however, as high-pitched as the freaky local tabloid’s.

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For Third Time, Chicago Lawyer Uses Amy Lord’s Murder to His Ad-vantage

July 15, 2014

Joseph Zingher’s back in town.

As the hardreading staff has dutifully noted, the Chicago lawyer has run ads twice in the local dailies pushing for disclosure of ATM crime statistics. In both cases Mr. Zingher invoked the name of Amy Lord, the 24-year-old South Boston woman brutally murdered last year. Mr.  Zingher essentially blames local politicians for her death, since they refuse to collect and publicize the ATM crime data that could force banks to change their policies.

Specifically, Zingher would like to see banks introduce ATM duress codes. Not coincidentally, Zinger holds a patent for one such code – a reverse PIN (U.S. Patent 5,731,575). For the record, he addressed that issue in an earlier post:

Mr. Zingher claims his interest is not financial, since his patent is close to expiring. “The idea I’m going to make any money off this is ridiculous,” he told us in April. He also said he hopes to “trigger a class action suit” because suppressing ATM crime information has been part of the banking industry’s business model for 30 years.

 

Regardless, Mr. Zingher has upped the ante with his latest ad, which ran in today’s Boston Herald.

 

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Not sure what the “corporations are people” dog whistle is doing there, but Mr. Zingher zings a passel of local pols in his ad. Call the roll:

 

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The most prominent name, though, is Amy Lord’s. The hardreading staff would never infringe on the Lord family’s privacy, but we’d sure like to know how they feel about Mr. Zingher’s ads. His protestation aside, they give us the creeps.

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Chicago Lawyer Again Seeks Ad-vantage from Amy Lord’s Murder

June 9, 2014

From today’s Boston Herald:

 

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ATMSafetyPin is a certain Joe Zingher, as the hardreading staff noted previously, “a Chicago lawyer who holds U.S. Patent 5,731,575, ‘Computerized system for discreet identification of duress transaction and/or duress access’ at ATM banking machines.”

Here’s the ad he ran in the Globe in April.

 

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And here’s his argument from the Herald ad (the Globe reference in the headline is largely playing to the cheap seats):

 

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Mr. Zingher claims his interest is not financial, since his patent is close to expiring. “The idea I’m going to make any money off this is ridiculous,” he told us in April. He also said he hopes to “trigger a class action suit” because suppressing ATM crime information has been part of the banking industry’s business model for 30 years.

Sounds like a pretty good business model for Mr. Zingher too, yeah?

 

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Why Aren’t The Boston Dailies Asking About the Gardener Guard?

March 20, 2013

Both local dailies on Tuesday featured the blockbuster revelation that the FBI knows who stole 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 23 years ago.

Boston Globe:

paintings-4793FBI says it knows identity of Gardner art thieves

Names not divulged; trail of Gardner masterworks ended with a sale try a decade ago; investigators cite progress, seek help in cracking 1990 case

Federal investigators, in an unprecedented display of confidence that the most infamous art theft in history will soon be solved, said Monday that they know who is behind the Gardner Museum heist 23 years ago and that some of the priceless artwork was offered for sale on Philadelphia’s black market as recently as a decade ago.

In the most extensive account to date of the investigation, Richard DesLauriers, the FBI special agent in charge of the Boston office, would not identify those involved in the heist, saying it would hinder the ongoing investigation. But he said that knowing the identity of the culprits has “been opening other doors” as federal agents continue their search for the missing artwork.

 

Boston Herald:

BI1E6653.JPGFBI: We know who pulled off Gardner art heist

The stunning revelations that the 13 masterworks stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were shuttled through Connecticut and Philadelphia and peddled for sale in Pennslvania — and most amazingly, the FBI knows who did it — whipped even the most fervent experts of the infamous 1990 heist into frenzy yesterday, stoking optimism that authorities may soon solve the world’s greatest art theft.

Federal authorities, speaking on the 23rd anniversary of Boston’s last great unsolved mystery, said yesterday that members of an East Coast “crime organization” orchestrated the daring theft and then tried selling a share of their $500 million haul in Philadelphia a decade ago.

 

But neither paper seemed to ask the obvious question:

Does this new knowledge have anything to do with the recent re-interviewing of the hippie Gardner guard as reported by the Globe last week?

cavanaugh_17gardner4_metroDecades after the Gardner heist, police focus on guard

Night watchman Richard Abath may have made the most costly mistake in art history shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990. Police found him handcuffed and duct-taped in the basement of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum seven hours after he unwisely opened the thick oak door to two thieves who then stole 13 works of art valued at more than $500 million.

For years, investigators discounted the hapless Abath’s role in the unsolved crime, figuring his excessive drinking and pot smoking contributed to his disastrous decision to let in the robbers, who were dressed as police officers. Even if the duo had been real cops, watchmen weren’t supposed to admit anyone who showed up uninvited at 1:24 a.m.

But, after 23 years of pursuing dead ends, including a disappointing search of an alleged mobster’s home last year, investigators are focusing on intriguing evidence that suggests the former night watchman might have been in on the crime all along — or at least knows more about it than he has admitted.

 

Is it just us, or are the Boston news media not connecting the dots?

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