By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

DETROIT — I remember back in 1983 interviewing Jimmy P. Hoffa about his father’s disappearance and asking if it bothered him that comedians like Johnny Carson used his father as a punch line in jokes.

Eight years had passed since his disappearance, but time didn’t seem to soften the blow. Hoffa, who was 42 at the time and a labor attorney,  said in no uncertain terms that it did bother him and he didn’t appreciate it one bit. He also wanted to know what really happened. To this day, no one has ever been charged.

Today marks the 40 year anniversary of the disappearance of James Riddle Hoffa, who would now be 102.

Hoffa, who is now the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, declined to comment on Thursday on the anniversary.

Instead, the union issued a press release that said:

Hoffa was devoted to his union and to his family. He gave his life while fighting to remove corrupt elements from the union and return power to the members.

On this tragic anniversary, Teamster members and retirees from across North America join together in honoring the man who forever improved the lives of millions of workers and their families.

On July 30, 1975, he was supposed to meet two gangsters — Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano  of New Jersey and Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone of the Detroit area — at the Machus Red Fox on Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Township. They didn’t show and he reportedly got into someone’s car in the parking lot and was never seen again.

Theories abound. Over the years, properties have been dug up on the hunch that the body was buried there.

Some gangsters who likely knew what happened are dead including Giacalone and Provenzano. And the Machus Red Fox is gone as well.

WDIV’s Kevin Dietz reports on the anniversary. He  goes over some of the theories, reports on the embarrassing FBI digs and talks to Scott Burnstein, a Detroit area reporter who specializes in organized crime.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A western New York man was arrested after federal authorities said he began recruiting people to join ISIS.

Arafat M. Nagi, 44, of Lackawanna, was charged Wednesday with trying to supply material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization, the New York Post reports. 

“This is yet another occasion when the worldwide fight against international terrorism has returned to western New York,” U.S. Attorney William Hochul Jr. said.

According to prosecutors, Nagi traveled to Syria and Yemen to join ISIS in 2012 and 2014 and even bought military gear on eBay.

The FBI said Nagi tried to recruit people on Twitter, where his account was flooded with Arabic tweets supporting ISIS.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Former FBI Agent John Connolly, who was charged with assisting now-imprisoned mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger, was rightfully convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm even though he was 1,500 miles away from his vicim at the time of the fatal shooting by a hit man, an appeals court ruled, the Associated Press reports. 

The full 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled 6-4 that Connolly’s conviction was proper because Connolly had a gun when he tipped off Bulger’s gang about John Callahan, who was fatally shot in Fort. Lauderdale in 1982.

“The evidence as to both his participation in the murder and his possession of a firearm during his participation are overwhelming,” Judge Leslie Rothenberg wrote on behalf of the majority. “The law does not require that the defendant be the actual shooter.”

The decision reverses that of a three-judge panel of the same court, the AP wrote.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Could Twitter do more to stop terrorists from recruiting others?

It’s a debate waging in the Senate after an FBI official told Fox Business News that Twitter “needs to do more in setting up teams to troll, monitor and review all terrorist-related tweets and content.”

Twitter fired back that it notifies authorities of immediate threats and shuts down terrorist-related accounts. But a Twitter spokesman said, “Like all of our technology industry peers, we do not proactively monitor content.:”

A 2016 funding bill would require Twitter and other social media companies to report terrorism, but it was blocked earlier this week by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

“Internet companies should not be subject to broad requirements to police the speech of their users,” Wyden said.

Wyden said stopping terrorism is a top priority, “But I haven’t yet heard any law enforcement or intelligence agencies suggest that this provision will actually help catch terrorists.”

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Who knows what would have happened if a University of Cincinnati cop wasn’t wearing a body cam.

But he was, and on Wednesday he was indicted on a murder charge for shooting an unarmed black man in the head during a minor traffic stop, the New York Times reports. 

Prosecutors called it “a senseless, asinine shooting.”

The video showed that Officer Ray Tensing was lying when he said he was being dragged by Samuel Dubose’s car.

A grand jury indicted the officer Wednesday on a murder charge, which is punishable by up to life in prison.

“This doesn’t happen in the United States, OK?” The Hamilton County prosecuting attorney, Joseph T. Deters, said. “This might happen in Afghanistan. People don’t get shot for a traffic stop.”

He added: “This office has probably reviewed 100 police shootings, and this is the first time we’ve thought, ‘This is without question a murder,’” he said.

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