The investigation into the 4-year old murder of Sun Cruz Casino boat founder Konstantinos ‘Gus’ Boulis in Fort Lauderdale has begun to reveal hidden connections between Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s gargantuan fund-raising machine, essential to victory in the past two Presidential elections, and a cast of underworld characters not previously thought of as exemplifying what have come to be known as “Republican family values.”
The indictment of three men Tuesday in the Boulis "hit" exposes an unholy alliance in Florida between the national Republican party and the Mob, details of which were first reported in the MadCowMorningNews three months ago (“The Secret World of Jack Abramoff: Terrorists, Torpedoes and Republican ‘Muscle’”).
More indictments are expected soon.
The trail of suspicion leads directly to Abramoff’s doorstep: the three names already released clearly implicate Adam Kidan, the Casino line’s erstwhile President, in the crime, who wrote checks—duh-uh!—for over $250,000 to one of the indicted men, Gambino goombah Anthony “Big Tony”' Moscatiello, 67, of Howard Beach, N.Y, for no easily discernible reason.
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Although lawyers for Abramoff and Kidan, who face trial Jan. 9 on fraud charges, have repeatedly said neither man knows anything about Boulis' murder, since Kidan was hand-picked by Abramoff to run the unregulated collection of a dozen ships operating off the coast of Florida, Abramoff may even now be wondering who it might be safe to “roll on” if and when he’s indicted for murder.
Abramoff, of course, is best known as the target of a federal investigation in Washington into the tens of millions in fees he collected from casino-owning Indian tribes. But the wreckage from his brief and tumultuous time as owner of the gambling fleet threatens to overtake his Washington legal troubles.
The breathtaking scope of “Cruisegate” could make it the biggest American political scandal since Iran Contra. Should its tawdry details fully come to light, it might eclipse even the Watergate Scandal.
Already, the dramatis personae includes a familiar name from previous scandals: Barry Seal, called “the ghost haunting the Whitewater investigation” by the Wall Street Journal, who was himself murdered on orders, according to his own lawyer's testimony, of then-Vice President George Bush.
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20 years ago Seal helped set in motion, as we’ll see shortly, the chain of events leading inexorably towards today's scandal, which we're dubbing "Cruisegate," illustrating the ongoing and even generational nature of what sociologists call “state-sponsored crime.”
Newsday reported on July 15, 2001, over four years ago: “As the Florida detectives follow path after path, the investigation seems always to lead back to three men: a former Long Island bagel store owner whose mother was killed by gangsters but who strongly denies any involvement, a Howard Beach caterer reputed to have organized crime ties and a New Jersey guy who likes to brag he's mob boss John Gotti's nephew.”
So one big question is: why didn't the indictments come down sooner?
In any event two of the three men referenced have now been indicted, leaving only bagel boy Adam Kidan remaining so far uncharged in the crime. Here's a little back-story on the case…
Jack Abramoff led a group of three men who formed an ownership group that apparently made Boulis the proverbial offer he couldn’t refuse.
They bought Sun Cruz from him, even though it wasn't for sale.
One time-honored way to get rich is to marry money. Another is to kill someone that has it. In this case it appears that Gus Boulis, owner of the lion’s share of the casino boats in Florida, had to die first.
The professional ‘hit’ on Boulis figured prominently in lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s rise to power to become the GOP’s chief money man.
Adding insult to injury, after wresting control, SunCruz's new owners refused to pay Boulis.
Then, adding injury to insult, several months after being unceremoniously muscled out, Boulis, a 51-year-old Greek immigrant who had founded both Sun Cruz and the popular Miami Subs chain, was shot to death at the wheel of his BMW sedan on Feb. 6, 2001, after leaving his office.
"Everyone needs a few unregulated sources of income."
Boulis was driving his BMW down a quiet side street after an evening meeting at his Fort Lauderdale office when a car slowed to a stop in front of him. A second car boxed the BMW in from behind. Then a dark Mustang appeared from the opposite direction, and as the Mustang pulled alongside its driver pumped three hollow-point bullets into Boulis’ chest.
Florida casino gambling insider Robb Tiller, one of the fathers of the Indian gambling industry (today another pillar of Abramoff’s empire) pointedly referred us to the manner of the Boulis hit, stating, “Boulis was murdered in the exact same way as Don Aronow, Bush’s other partner.”
Bush’s other partner? We didn't even have to ask it. The question hung in the air.
“Something is really going down bad here,” Tiller continued. “Don Aronow. Gus. Jim Shore… All tied in to Bush.”
(Jim Shore was a top executive of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the state’s preeminent casino operators.)
In our earlier story we asserted the belief that as the scandal embroiling House Major Domo Tom Delay and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff grows hotter, it will yield new revelations about the 9.11 attack.
What does a scandal involving Indian casinos, gambling boat “cruises to nowhere” in Florida & pay-for-play government officials have to do with the story of 19 hijackers planning a mass murder in supposed isolation?
Hint: Atta wasn't playing blackjack.
One clue: Ringleader Mohamed Atta made a still-unexplained visit onboard one of Abramoff’s casino boats less than a week before the attack.
A bigger clue: the man who owned the flight school favored by Atta and so many other terrorists had his Lear jet surrounded by DEA agents brandishing submachine guns on the runway of Orlando Executive Airport in July of 2000, the same month Atta began "training" at his flight school. They found 43 pounds of heroin onboard. For flight school owner Wally Hilliard, it was a 'blemish,' though not as yet one for which he has been asked to go to prison.
Several of the principals in the Boulis hit also have heroin trafficking backgrounds. What a surprise. Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, which used to known as OsamaLand.
So we believe our Abramoff/9.11 prediction will prove accurate. We suspect this may be one reason we don't get asked to appear on Hardball (or almost anywhere else.) We groused once about this "invisible" status once to a lifetime member of our nation's clandestine forces.
"Look at it this way," he responded with equanimity. "At least they let you live."
Its a better deal than poor Gus Boulis got.
"Look at it this way…"
We learned of Barry Seal’s peripheral involvement in the story while perusing the records of the three men indicted so far. Amazingly, Seal, a long-time CIA pilot who government prosecutors said was at one time the biggest drug smuggler in American history, was indirectly responsible for the 1983 federal prosecution for heroin smuggling of "Big Tony," one of the three men so far indicted in Boulis’ death.
While the details are admittedly tangential to the Boulis assassination, they are useful in illustrating the “secret history” of the rise to power of “connected” individuals friendly to the current Bush Administration.
"Meat-based life forms dominate the planet."
Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello was one of eight Gambino associates, including Gene Gotti, brother of John Gotti, then head of the Gambino family, who federal prosecutors charged with operating “a massive narcotics importation and distribution ring” that brought heroin from Southeast Asia to Florida and New York.
At his trial the major witness against him was Alfred Dellentash Jr., a pilot who flew marijuana from 1980 to 1981 for Gambino captain Salvatore Ruggiero. Salvatore died young, in a suspicious Lear jet 'accident' off the coast of Savannah, GA. in 1982 which the NTSB found puzzlingly inexplicable.
Upon his demise, his brother, Angelo Ruggiero, a close associate of John Gotti, took over the operation. His sponsor dead, according to court documents Dellentash then agreed to cooperate with authorities… but only after he himself had been arrested on drug trafficking charges.
He'd gone to Barry Seal's hometown of Baton Rouge, La early in 1983 to purchase 55 kilograms of cocaine, not knowing that Seal himself at that time was "rolling" on various and sundry individuals to wriggle out of the major drug bust in Miami he'd been caught in.
Both Seal and Dellentash were engaged in what is known in law enforcement circles as “working off a beef,” which is like a game of musical chairs where the man left standing when the music stops (in this case "Big Tony") does some hard time.
"A dunsky, sure… but not no fucking dunsky."
Working off a beef would have been right up the busy Dellentash's alley: When not flying narcotics, he was managing Meat Loaf's show business career. In fact, after a falling out, as happens in show biz, he ended up owning Meat's– Mr. Loaf's–Connecticut mansion, Meatloaf Manor.
(Its' all true, except for the "MeatLoaf Manor" part. We don't know what he called it, but "home" seems a little plain for an $8.1 million spread.)
The men ''reported directly to a man by name of John Gotti, who was a lieutenant or a capo in this family,” said the prosecutor, Robert P. LaRusso.
While the drug operation was being conducted, the Gambino family was headed by Paul Castellano, who was opposed to drug dealings. ‘This family had a prohibition,'' LaRusso told the court. “'The ultimate sanction of death would be upon their members' heads if they dealt in drugs.”
Like the “problem” of Gus Boulis, this was a problem easily remedied, and Castellano was shortly thereafter “sleeping with the fishes.”
Interestingly, also arrested in the heroin trafficking case was a man named Oscar Ansourian, who was also charged with hiding a cache of weapons in the basement at his Howard Beach home which included U.S. Army-issued rockets and launchers.
“General, meet Guido. Guido, meet Osama.”
“Big Tony” Moscatiello has one other colorful distinction worth mentioning…
In taped conversations introduced at John Gotti’s various trials which revealed Gotti's ruthless control over his crew, Gotti was memorably heard screaming death threats at an underling for insubordination.
“Big Tony” was that unfortunate underling.
Gotti: ''Listen, I called your (expletive deleted) house five times yesterday; now if your wife thinks you are a (expletive deleted) dunsky or if she's a (expletive deleted) dunsky and you're gonna disregard my (expletive deleted) phone calls, I'll blow you and that (expletive deleted) house up.''
Gotti: ''And you get your (expletive deleted) ass down here and see me tomorrow.''
Moscatiello: ''I'm gonna be there all day tomorrow.''
"The Juice Is Loose… and he's got experience, too."
Clearly, being called a “f-cking dunsky” had had a salubrious effect on Moscatiello, who appears to have vowed to “straighten up and fly right.”
“Big Tony,” is not to be confused with another of the men arrested on murder solicitation and conspiracy charges in the case, Anthony “Little Tony” Ferrari, 48, of Miami Beach.
While there has as yet been no word on whether the third man indicted, 28-year-old James “Pudgy” Fiorillo, is “Big Pudgy” or “Little Pudgy,” we feel confident Court TV will have the answer when the case comes to trial.
As if the case were not already redolent with unsavory associations, there is a fourth man referenced in the indictment named Dwayne Nicholson. Nicholson is a bouncer at The Living Room, a Miami Beach night club, which just happens to be a favorite haunt of the world's most famous double murderer: Miami resident O. J. Simpson.
The big question here is: What are Christian politicians doing with people who think changing a company's management is a matter of–not putting up a new slate of directors–but calling in "Big Tony?"
Answer: They're flying around on the company's Lear jet (if its not engaged in more 'important' pursuits) to the Super Bowl and the U.S. Open in Pebble Beach.
The Lord, it seems, helps those who help themselves.
