Corruption

Lt. Charles S. Becker

The shocking story of a corrupt New York City police lieutenant who was sent to the electric chair by a politically ambitious prosecuting attorney.  The story of Lt. Charles S. Becker is a compelling story of corruption and betrayal, ambition and final dignity.

by Mark S. Gado

In the history of the United States, there has been relatively few police officers convicted and executed for a crime. One such officer was Charles Becker, a high-profile lieutenant for the New York City Police Department during the heydays of Tammany Hall, who was convicted of murder. His execution didn’t end that storied era of corruption, but it sharply punctuated it by giving it flesh and bones. His trial and re-trial were the biggest to ever hit New York. Before this case would close, it would leave the New York City Police Department in a shambles and create a worldwide sensation. For three years it would dominate the headlines of a frenzied press.

Caught in the whirlwind of reform that was decades in the making, Becker was a victim of his time as much as anything else. Whether or not he was actually guilty remains an open question. Yet his sinister ties with The Tenderloin underworld cannot be denied. If he had tried to defend himself on the stand, perhaps the outcome would have been different, but it is doubtful. Becker had much against him: a blindly ambitious District Attorney who astutely saw a death sentence for Becker as a free pass to the Governor’s Mansion, a hostile press dedicated to the ruin of a corrupt police lieutenant, and a devil’s pact hatched in New York vilest prison, The Tombs, by three desperate killers eager to trade Becker’s life to save themselves from the electric chair.

The deadly occupation of convenience store employee and how the convenience store industry is fighting to prevent the implementation of federal rules that would make those jobs safer.

by Bonnie Bobit

Other than the job of police officer, which job category would you say is most often subject to homicide in the United States? Postal worker? Private detective? Bounty hunter? Abortion clinic staff? Liquor store workers? By far the most dangerous job in the United States is, and has been for years, that of those who work in convenience stores at night.

Ten months ago, Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman released recommendations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that could significantly reduce the number of employees murdered on the job during robberies and other violent acts. The report, in citing that after-dark convenience store workers were at the greatest risk of being murdered during robberies and other violent acts, included recommendations that directly addressed what convenience store owners could do to better protect their employees from assault. In particular, the report advanced a series of preventative measures, chiefly physical improvements and alterations to the stores.

Not surprisingly, the convenience store owners immediately translated these improvements into added overhead costs and balked at the report. Quickly, public relations reps from the major convenience store chains called a press conference to say that OSHA's recommendations were premature, not practical, and would ruin customer relationships.

US President Andrew_Johnson

The U.S. Senate has sat as a court of impeachment in the following cases:

William Blount, senator from Tennessee; charges dismissed for want of jurisdiction, January 14, 1799.

John Pickering, judge of the U.S. District Court for New Hampshire; removed from office March 12, 1804.

Samuel Chase, associate justice of the Supreme Court; acquitted March 1, 1805.James H. Peck, judge of the U.S. District Court for Missouri; acquitted Jan. 31, 1831.

West H. Humphreys, judge of the U.S. District Court for the middle, eastern, and western districts of Tennessee; removed from office June 26, 1862.

Andrew Johnson, President of the United States; acquitted May 26, 1868.

Kansas City, Missouri

In his book The Battle Behind the Badge, former police Cap. Robert Heinen portrays himself as a hero of mythic proportions in rooting out corruption in the Kansas City Police Department. He may have set out to get the bad guys, but in the process he became one himself.

by J.J. Maloney

Robert B. Heinen was a legendary and controversial Kansas City cop, almost from the time he joined the department in 1946 to his retirement in 1974. He played no small part in the downfall of Police Chief Joseph McNamara in 1976, now a respected national authority on crime and criminal justice.

In his book, The Battle Behind the Badge, Heinen portrays himself as a hero of mythic proportions. He bills the book, published in 1997 by Leathers Publishing, a local vanity press, as "The story of a police captain's struggle against corruption and political interference in the Kansas City department."

The book also depicts Heinen, a retired captain, to be a brutal, sadistic cop, who – with his badge as a shield – committed many, many felonies. The book further recounts that the upper echelons in the police department also took part in numerous crimes.

US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas

Then a member of the Supreme Court, because Fortas was gay?  The evidence says yes.

By J.J. Maloney

Certain FBI documents raise not only the question of whether Abe Fortas, former justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was gay, but whether J. Edgar Hoover successfully blackmailed Fortas, while he was a member of the Supreme Court.

In 1967, Hoover sent his trusted aide, Cartha DeLoach, to put the FBI’s knowledge of the accusation before Fortas – who was then a member of the Supreme Court.

The document in question contained allegations by a known homosexual that he had "balled" with Fortas. Fortas said the allegation was "ridiculous," but rather than throwing the FBI agent out of his office, Fortas expressed appreciation for the FBI’s delicate handling of the matter, and then went on to discuss a pending Supreme Court decision with DeLoach – a clear breach of Supreme Court etiquette.

Following are the documents in question. You judge for yourself.

December 14, 2002 Updated Nov. 28, 2012

President Gerald Ford greeting Alice Olson in the Oval Office in 1975.

When CIA Scientist Frank Olson plunged to his death from the 10th floor of a New York hotel in 1953, his death was ruled a suicide. Twenty-two years later a special Presidential Commission investigating the CIA's development of potent drugs for use in biological warfare and assassinations revealed shocking new details about Olson's death. In 1996 Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau opened a new investigation into Olson's death based on startling discoveries uncovered by forensic sleuth James Starrs that put to lie the CIA's version of how Olson died.

by H. P. Albarelli Jr.

Editor’s Note:  On November 28, 2012, the sons of Frank Olson filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., accusing the CIA of covering up the truth about their father’s death in 1953. The sons, Eric and Nils Olson, said their long efforts to get the CIA to open its files and provide them with more information about their father’s death had failed and that the court filing is their only means to find out the truth.

“The evidence points to a murder, and not a drug-induced suicide,” Eric Olson told reporters.

Frank Olson, a bioweapons expert working at the special operations division of the Army’s Biological Laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, plunged to his death from his room in the Statler Hotel in Manhattan on November 28, 1953. The CIA claimed his death was a suicide.

“The CIA’s wrongful conduct in this case continues under the present administration,” said Scott Gilbert, an attorney representing the Olson brothers. “I have met personally with senior agency officials who still refuse to acknowledge the truth and to provide us with all the documents relevant to this matter.”

May 19, 2003

Olson family press conference, August 8, 2002, Frederick, Maryland.
Eric Olson and his son, Stephan Kimbel Olson.

In 1996, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau opened a new investigation into CIA Scientist Frank Olson's 1953 "suicide," assigning the case to a special Cold Case Unit staffed by two veteran prosecutors. Details about the activities and findings of that ongoing inquiry have never before been revealed. Investigative journalist and writer H.P. Albarelli Jr. conducted his own seven-year examination into Olson's death. In Part Two, he reports his findings about one of the U.S. government's greatest conspiracies and unsolved mysteries.

by H. P. Albarelli Jr.

 H.P. Albarelli's book on Frank Olson's death, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments published in October 2009. Advance orders can be placed at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from the book's publisher Trine Day Books.  Additional information on the book may be obtained at: www.albarelli.net and from www.trineday.com.