By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com More often than not politicians have been the beneficiary of mysterious letters with white powder. This time it was the flip late night talk show host Craig Ferguson who got one of those letters. The Associated Press reports that the FBI is working with police to determine who sent a threatening…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com It’s not the crime of the century. Nonetheless, it’s prison time for Michael Plank, 42, of Lomita, Calif., who was sentenced Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court to 15 months behind bars for smuggling 15 lizards from Australia into the United States. Essentially, he got one month in prison for every…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The head of the Boston FBI Richard DesLauriers responded Friday to public speculation that the FBI didn’t really want to find mobster James “Whitey” Bulger because he had so much dirt on the agency that could surface publicly. He called the claims “completely unfounded.” DesLauriers, in a statement issued Friday afternoon,…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com After a relentless search, the FBI in Los Angles on Wednesday evening captured fugitive Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger in Santa Monica along with his girlfriend as a result of a tip from a public service announcement that began airing this week, law enforcement authorities said. The search that spanned the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The feds in L.A. are taking a novel approach to battling the violent Mongols motorcycle gang. Prosecutors on Monday asked U.S. District Judge Otis Wright to block members of the gang from using its trademarked logo or using its name, the Los Angeles Times reported. A ruling in the government’s favor…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com M. Chris Briese, the deputy assistant director for the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Team at Quantico, and who once oversaw the interrogation team for Saddam Hussein, is headed south to take charge of the bureau’s Charlotte Division, the FBI announced Monday. Briese joined the FBI in 1987 and was first stationed…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Brooklyn-born rapper Christopher Wallace — aka Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls — was killed on March 9, 1997 in Los Angeles with a “very rare” Gecko 9 mm armor piercing ammunition seldom found in the U.S., newly released FBI files show. ABC News reported that information, which is included…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Federal prosecutors are hoping on Monday to land the toughest sentence in the history of federal corruption cases when former ICE official Constantine Peter Kallas appears in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The former Assistant Chief Counsel at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was found guilty of three dozen corruption…
