Giacchino contended that I made false statements when I:

1) reputed the commission of crimes by Giacchino, including but not limited to extortion
2) attested to his lack of ability as a physician
3) stated that Giacchino claimed I had caused prejudice to him in his profession as a physician
4) pointed out Giacchino’s link to organized crime and
5) alleged, in a general sense, that Giacchino was a drug dealer.

It was Giacchino’s claim that I caused an injury to his reputation by making the statements related to the information indicated above.

Now that I won the lawsuit, I would like to state for the record that the injury to Giacchino’s reputation was self-inflicted.

The stories that I cover as a reporter and writer are over the top in many cases, however, I report the truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.

Click here to read a copy of the court documents.

As a condition of his release from Oxford, Ciotti was ordered to spend at least one month in the halfway program at the Salvation Army building on Ashland Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. However, on his way to the Salvation Army, Ciotti made contact with Rudy Fratto and Willie Messino, Sr., in order to obtain a huge favor from their trusted associate, Joseph L. Giacchino, Jr.

The favor was granted by Fratto and Messino. Ciotti was cleared to meet with Giacchino to get what he wanted.

Upon meeting with Giacchino, Ciotti paid Giacchino 25-thousand dollars in cash. Giacchino said it had to go to Fratto and Messino, but who really knows where it went. In exchange for the money, Ciotti received a doctor’s note from Giacchino. With this note Ciotti was able to leave the Salvation Army for approximately 12-hours a day over nearly the entire month that he was ordered to reside there.

Where was he supposed to be spending these 12-hours? Would you believe under the doctors care? Well, that was certainly what Giacchino and his Outfit friends wanted the Federal Bureau of Prisons to believe. Giacchino masterminded a way to use an earlier medical aliment that Ciotti suffered from 6-months earlier as a reason Giacchino would need to treat Ciotti for over 300-hours during the month of July 2002.

The note was extremely vague and did not make much sense. However, the ambitious and hard-working employees of the Salvation Army (in connection with the Federal Bureau of Prisons) seemed to buy it without any problem, just as Giacchino suspected.

I challenge the Illinois Department of Professional Regulations to look in to my allegations. Surely Giacchino’s office and/or the Federal Bureau of Prisons would have a copy of the doctor’s note that served as a get out of jail fee card for a Chicago Outfit member. I do believe that Giacchino also charged Ciotti’s insurance for the visit, in addition to receiving the cash bribe.

Could anyone imagine putting Giacchino on the stand during his current matter at the Illinois building, then handing him his doctor’s note regarding Ciotti, and forcing him to explain what he did to Ciotti for approximately 12-hours a day, seven days a week over almost the entire month of July 2002?

I would love to hear his answer.

Before I begin, I would like to state for the record that my reason for considering a purchase of Chrysler Jeep Dodge was on behalf of someone else. Personally, I do not like Chrysler Jeep Dodge.

On June 11, 2010, I met with John Napoleon, Vice President of Marino Chrysler Jeep Dodge of Chicago, for the purpose of considering a purchase. We had a significant conversation spanning from his past as a high school student at Chicago’s Taft High School to his current position as a car salesperson. The vice-president of an automobile dealership is nothing but a glorified car salesperson in my opinion. In the course of our conversation, Mr. Napoleon claimed responsibility for the arrangement concerning Cardinal Francis George’s last two automobiles. My first question of Mr. Napoleon on the matter was “does Marino Dodge give to charity?” Mr. Napoleon’s answer was “no.” Apparently, Mr. Napoleon’s purported involvement with the Archbishop of Chicago is on a personal level, which frightens me more. As vice president of his corporation, Mr. Napoleon represents his company in a very serious and direct way when he brags about doing business with the leader of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Whatever the motives behind Mr. Napoleon’s claim regarding the automobiles used by His Eminence, whether pure or calculated, I do not understand how anyone could justify providing a luxury to a person that has unlimited resources and takes part in aiding and abetting pedophiles.

Next time you visit Marino Chrysler Jeep Dodge of Chicago, ask if John Napoleon is still a corporate official, if so, and please consider your purchase very carefully. I think I know what Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke would decide. Thank you.

This piece I am doing on Fr. Jim Reinhart is in further protest of Pope Benedict and his Church’s rule.

James ‘Jim’ Reinhart entered Seminary in 1956. However, decided that he was not meant to be a priest just yet. Instead, he married his true love, Bridget. Jim and Bridget eventually had children and grandchildren.

Fr. Jim Reinhart

I am not slamming homosexuality. However, I am slamming homosexual priests that might use their sexual orientation to discriminate against other clergy of a different orientation.

Cathedral of Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky, was the only one to ordain Jim. He was ordained on May 29, 2010. I am very happy for Fr. Jim. I wish the Roman Catholic Church had a million more like him, and they might if they allowed for a married clergy. Perhaps thousands of children worldwide would not have suffered over the years.

Again, I am not slamming homosexuality. What I am slamming is any organization that could serve as a false beacon of hope for people that likely suffer from sexual frustration stemming from the stress involved in being homosexual in a world such practices are not tolerated. Then this organization, instead of helping these homosexuals come to terms with their sexuality, forces them not only to hide it further, but also preach against such practices. Such an organization might very well protect pedophiliacs, if only by accident, because of the extreme secrecy maintained around the members’ sexuality.

Francis Cardinal George

Fr. Jim is assigned to start on June 17, 2010 at a parish in central Kentucky. For whatever reasons the other dioceses, which likely includes Chicago, refused to accept Fr. Jim, I can only say shame on you. In my opinion, the Archdiocese of Chicago and its leader, Francis Cardinal George, could learn a thing or two about tolerance from the diocese of Kentucky. Amen.

WARNING – Non-Stop Remodeling, including President William ‘Billy’ Rich (of 888 Cadwell Ave., Elmhurst, Illinois) is hereby suspected of being a criminal enterprise based on the following information:

KTF Media Group conducted a thorough investigation into crimes committed by William ‘Billy’ Rich, via Non-Stop Remodeling, INC, within the Village of Addison, Illinois. The crimes stem from conspiracy to commit insurance fraud (by manufacturing two versions of service receipts, the first for insurance claims and the second for the real costs) and robbery.

One home in particular, owned by a female senior citizen, had work done on it by William Rich personally. Shortly after completion of the work the owner realized that thousands of dollars of home repair tools were missing from her home. These tools were hers, left behind by a late relative.

In another incident, it was discovered that William Rich, via his company Non-Stop Remodeling, INC, manufactured a false contract bearing a forged signature for the purposes of unlawfully placing a lien on the house because of irreconcilable differences with the client. Furthermore, William Rich placed a fraudulent claim against the title insurance company of the home occupied by the client. Sadly, William Rich succeeded in his goal to defraud the title insurance company and was paid over $8,000.00 for botched work and robbery.

If you or anyone you know had home repair work done in the last five years through Non-Stop Remodeling in Elmhurst, Illinois, and have been robed or defrauded in any way, please submit a complaint to the Illinois Attorney General Consumer Fraud Department.
You may mail your complaint to:
Illinois Attorney General
ATTN: Consumer Fraud Dept – 12th Floor
100 West Randolph Street
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Alternatively, you may fax your complaint to the Attorney General at (312) 814-3806.
If you have any questions that you feel KTF Media Group can help you with, you are welcome to visit our contact page and submit questions or comments or contact me directly at snolen@ktfmediagroup.com. Thank you.

This recent bill attempted to streamline costs in order to draw back lost convention business by reforming the governance of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (known as “McPier”). The Teamsters and Carpenter’s Union heavily opposed the move, which would have cost them business. Quinn used his amendatory veto power to cut a sweeter deal for his Union cronies, but the state legislature struck down his changes and passed the bill as they originally wrote it.

The Unions say they have always supported Quinn, but the numbers do not show it. How shocking is it that, before Quinn took over the governor’s office, the Teamsters had given him about $15,000 in total! As it stands today, roughly one year and five months since he came to power, Quinn has received at least $175,000 ($75,000 from the latest contribution, plus two $50,000 checks from Teamsters Volunteers in Politics, a shill for Teamsters Joint Council 25). Most of this money has come rushing in since September and the kick-off of his re-election campaign.

This all comes on the heels of Quinn’s last fundraising scandal, where he blamed an aide for trying to sell private meetings with interest groups for $15,000 a pop.

Although Quinn denies there was any link between the sudden influx of Teamster cash and his amendatory veto of the McPier reform bill, it does look suspicious. Bill Brady, the GOP candidate for governor of Illinois, has demanded that there be an investigation in the matter. “The citizens of Illinois are suffering the effects of the pay-to-play politics that were the hallmark of the Blagojevich-Quinn administration. We cannot allow another incident to go unchecked.”

This deserves a serious looking-over by the Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan. Strangely, her office has been pretty much silent about it, even as all goes down against the backdrop of the Blagojevich corruption trial. Maybe she just wants to have the Feds do her job.

I’ve known Quinn to basically say that he, “always tries to do what is best for the public.” I would have been more satisfied to hear that he always DOES what is best, not that he TRIES!

I wonder if Quinn has forgotten about all his little ‘Tea Parties’. While his political party decries the modern tea party movement as Astroturf, I wonder if they know the governor was semi-famous for pulling the exact same stunt for years. In 1978 he urged Illinois citizens to send tea bags to protest Jim Thompson. In 2006 he used the same tactic against Commonwealth Edison.

Less well known is that years ago he put on his show for the media in the Town of Cicero during the time that Mr. Henry Klosak was mayor. But this time he actually stole from the state of Illinois to do it!

Quinn was Illinois State Treasurer at the time and to secure publicity he and his employees from his office staged a ‘Tea Party’ (on government time, mind you) at the weekly board meeting. He was yelling like a mad man for residents to mail tea bags to the mayor’s office. Because this happened in Cicero the media flocked to cover the story.

The mayor’s office received ONE tea bag.

The media hurried to get the story on the noon news. They did not stay to see the desecration of the American flag, as it was being tossed to the floor. It was great publicity for Quinn dressed in Revolutionary War garb though.

Not one media outlet questioned why he and his employees from his office were “stage” playing on taxpayers time. Did he think at that time using government employees to further his career was best for the citizens? Guess this was just another one of the times he was TRYING instead of DOING.

Below is footage shot by the IDF as they tried to peaceably board the final ship in the co-called “Freedom” (excuse me while I wretch) flotilla. You might note how there is a decided lack of peaceful, passive protesters and a decided abundance of weapon-wielding fringe lunatics who were either too stupid to realize they were played Russian roulette with their lives or were purposely sacrificing themselves.

It is worthwhile to note that this was the last boat in the group. Every other inspection had gone perfectly smooth, like they always do. This procedure was nothing new. The flotilla purposely broke the blockade, and then the last ship purposely put up a fight.

So in self-defense the IDF strikes back at these idiotic pawns. Yes, these firebrands were expendable pawns dumped in the fire for the sake of the bigger game of world opinion. Anyone on that boat or involved with this Turkish-based operation that possessed a lick of intelligence knew what the IDF’s reaction would be, and the whole thing still went down. The Israelis acted predictably and entirely in the same way any country would have, and the world comes smashing down on them. Russia can kill hundreds by accident during an operation against Chechen rebels and the world hardly bats an eye.

I am not the greatest fan of the Israeli government, but this case is so cut and dry it beggars the imagination that anyone would dare raise an objection to the actions of the IDF. So when I saw the nearly universal condemnation of Israel over the raid, it literally blew my mind. What other country, faced with the constant threat of a belligerent enemy state which has openly avowed war against it, would not take every precaution it could to make sure war materiel does not enter their enemy’s borders? That’s like saying the United States should not check a convoy coming out of Waziristan to Afghanistan for weapons. The American military would never allow that, and the IDF should never allow it either.

It isn’t like this blockade was a new thing, either. It has been in place for years, and it also involves the Egyptians, who are just as concerned about weapons getting into Gaza as the Israelis.

On top of this, Israel still allows all legitimate aid to enter this belligerent enemy state, despite the fact they are technically at war (at least as far as Palestine is concerned). Israel has shown incredible care for the civilian population of the Gaza strip, going to terrifyingly extreme lengths to shield the innocent from causalities, while Hamas uses the innocent as shields. It is time to face the fact that Palestine, particularly under the leadership of Hamas, is a failed state. Radical steps need to be taken to reorganize this shattered, abortive attempt at a country to bring it in line with the rest of the world, and it needs to happen soon.

Chicago is a warzone, and the whole world knows it now. Forget about the trade shows for a moment, cause people are not going to come to a city that’s so overwhelmed by violence that legislators are trying to call in the National Guard.

Illinois State Representative John Fritchey is intimately aware of how terrible the situation is in Chicago. Earlier this month he said, “As we speak, National Guard members are working side-by-side with our troops to fight a war halfway around the world. … We have another war that is just as deadly taking place right in our backyard.”

Another Illinois State Rep, LaShawn Ford, recently penned an open letter on the subject of violence in Chicago. He wrote, “The Chicago Police Department is working hard, but the Mayor and the Police Superintendent have said that help is needed. We think that deploying the Guard is a good option that should be used to save lives.”

But I thought the handgun ban was supposed to keep crime down? Oh wait, it doesn’t.

Several areas in Chicago are hot spots for violence and should be addressed by the King, unless he does not care how many subjects he loses in those areas. But how can it be addressed?

I suggest the public put pressure on King Daley II’s buddy (and loyal subject) in Springfield, Mike Madigan, to amend the guidelines for TIF funds so the pile of money the King has squirreled away can be put to good use.

For those that don’t know, TIF stands for Tax Increment Financing, and it is a heavily used and largely unknown tool. Here is a more in-depth definition:

TIF is a tool to use future gains in taxes to finance the current improvements that will create those gains. When a public project such as a road, school, or hazardous waste cleanup is carried out, there is an increase in the value of surrounding real estate, and often new investment (new or rehabilitated buildings, for example). This increased site value and investment creates more taxable property, which increases tax revenues. The increased tax revenues are the “tax increment”. Tax Increment Financing dedicates that increased revenue to finance debt issued to pay for the project. TIF is designed to channel funding toward improvements in distressed or underdeveloped areas where development would not otherwise occur. TIF creates funding for public projects that may otherwise be unaffordable to localities.

Chicago has over 150 TIF districts. King Daley II is not required to report how much money he is making with TIFs, or even to show how he is spending those funds.

A while ago the Reader pulled a Freedom of Information Act request to get access to those numbers and discovered that Chicago makes about 1.5 billion a year from TIFs. 43 cents of every dollar of those funds goes to the 2nd, 27th and 43rd wards (which compose the Loop, parts of the Gold Coast and the near west and near north sides). There is no requirement that TIF funds from one district cannot go to another, more needy district.

King Daley II’s plan to gentrify the poverty and violence-stricken neighbors of his city is to give money to the rich and powerful? Even 2nd Ward alderman Bob Fioretti realizes the massive expenditures in his ward are a terrible waste. He commented that, “We need to shift budget funds to areas of the city that aren’t getting anything and are really hurting.” I thought TIF was about bringing back blighted communities, not lining the pockets of fat cats.

His Lordship might want to consider amending the TIF guidelines to help his failing school system too.

I also endorse moving police officers into troubled neighborhoods. When local law enforcement is seen on the block, in and out of uniform, day in and day out, there will be results. Residents will feel safer and there will be a sense of cooperation between the city and the community. Tio Hardiman, director of the Chicago-based CeaseFire (which brokers ‘cease-fire’ agreements between warring gangs), believes that community teamwork is the very heart of this issue. “Right now, what is lacking in the city is that people involved in violence prevention need to collaborate better.”

Visibility of officers will deter crime. Before going in my 7 year “coma” the town of Cicero was starting a program to address a few of our hot spots. The town was in the process of purchasing properties in higher crime areas and offering officers to live in those properties. If Cicero can do it, why can’t Chicago?

This is the time to act! King Daley II can make the difference, maybe even live up to his ‘title’. But it seems like he’s content with cracking wise-ass jokes, and that just makes him look like the Court jackass… I mean jester.

Federal prosecutors across the land have been able to win cases against whomever they target because of a 28 word sentence. For those of you not familiar with this infamous sentence added by Congress in 1988 to 18 U.S.C. §1346 (a federal statute concerning wire and mail fraud) I will reproduce it here, courtesy of the Cornell Law School website:

For the purposes of this chapter, the term “scheme or artifice to defraud” includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.

What does that mean? The answer is, no one really knows. Recently, even the Supreme Court has acknowledged the law is terribly vague. In the next few weeks a judgment on the legality of the Honest Services statute will come down from that high court, and almost everyone expects that this unclear law will be stuck down.

So why do federal prosecutors use it all the time? It has very low evidentiary standards. You do not need to prove that someone benefitted financially from a fraud in order to convict him or her of honest services fraud. This statute has allowed prosecutors in America to avoid doing what the taxpayers are paying them to do – using evidence to prosecute a case.

It appears that most of the members of the Supreme Court dislike this law. Justice Antonin Scalia described honest services as “mush” and said it “invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state legislators and corporate CEOs who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically questionable conduct.” I think former Illinois Governor Blago can relate to Justice Scalia’s statement of ‘headline-grabbing prosecutors’. Furthermore, I wonder if Justice Scalia had U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in mind when he issued his statement.

Justice Stephen Breyer criticized the statute as ambiguous, observing that a “citizen is supposed to be able to understand the criminal law.” How could a foreign person like Conrad Black follow this law if even U.S. citizens cannot understand it. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that if a person is not able to understand what is legal and what is not, the law is invalid. The broad wording of the statute makes it difficult to know with certainty what conduct runs afoul of the law.

Conrad Black

Conrad Black, a native Canadian, was not well known in the United States (despite controlling one of the largest print media empires in North America) until he was brought up on a mountain of fraud charges in Chicago. Most of the charges the federal prosecutors leveled at him were ultimately found to be baseless by the jury, but three counts of honest services fraud stuck in the end. Mr. Black has spent the last few years fighting to have those charges dismissed as well, and his fight has taken him all the way to the highest court in the land. Conrad Black’s lawyers have argued that, “the government has stretched this malleable phrase, unknown in the common law, far beyond the public corruption context that gave rise to its enactment, treating the statute as ‘nothing more than an invitation for federal courts to develop a common-law crime of unethical conduct.’”

In the end, Conrad Black might be best known as the man who brought down one of the worst-written and most-abused laws in recent history. Even Eric Sussman, the former U.S. assistant attorney who led the trial against Conrad Black in Chicago, said, “It seems unlikely they [the Supreme Court] will reject the appeal [by Black] out of hand.”

To learn more about Conrad Black’s struggle against the unfairly-written honest services statute, please read this excellent article, Conrad Black Appeal May Change U.S. Law, which is available at the National Post’s online archive.

Some might ask why I am so concerned about honest services fraud. I am also a victim of this “mushy” law. Appellate judges decided that I benefitted ‘psychologically’ from defrauding the people of Cicero, Illinois! How can a law this crazy be allowed to stand? I even tried to get my case before the Supreme Court, but evidently the time was not right. Thankfully Conrad Black was able to get his case heard. Hopefully he can succeed where I did not.

A number of my convictions will be vacated if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes Honest Services in the days ahead. The only bad part of this is that many bad men and women, legitimate criminals, might go free when honest services is struck down. Because it is harder to prove real fraud, honest services had been repeatedly used in the wrong situations. If Black’s challenge wins out, some real felons that committed crimes with the intent to do so might go free because the feds wrote, and prosecutors abused, a law so ambiguous that justices from both sides of the spectrum agree that something must be done about it.

Does Mayor Daley really think that shootings have been curtailed because he passed a handgun ban? This ban has had no (I repeat no) effect on the horrible violence that repeatedly plays out on the streets of Chicago.
Need proof? Take a look at this:

This is from this year. Heck, this is from last month!

This is common sense, people. If you ban handguns, then only the criminals will have them. Perhaps if more of the “bad guys” think that some of the “good guys” have weapons, those thugs might think twice about assaulting a fellow citizen. If everyone had the right to a handgun, maybe this might not have happened:

Thomas Wortham’s father is a retried Chicago cop. So he is allowed to have a handgun. He used one to shoot two of his son’s assailants, killing one. How does that fit in with Daley’s zero tolerance to handguns policy? If Thomas Wortham’s father did not have a hand gun, what might have happened to him if he confronted his son’s killers with a nightstick?

And what the Mayor’s response to criticism that his ban has not done anything to save people like Thomas Wortham:

Ah, that makes perfect sense! Excellent reasoning skills, King Daley II.
His father had a similar method for dealing with people that disagreed with him.

Under the leadership of the Daleys, Chicago has acted under the assumption that the laws of this land do not apply to it. Bearing arms is a Constitutional right, but if someone has a registered handgun from a nearby community and carries it across the Chicago “line” that person now becomes a criminal. This is also true on the state level. Many laws enacted by the state legislature DO NOT apply to Chicago. Other municipalities have to comply, but Chicago has its own rules thanks to House Speaker Madigan and others.

So what will Daley do if the Supreme Court strikes down his precious ban? He’ll simply ignore the spirit of the ruling and do whatever he wants to limit access to guns. That’s the way thugs like Daley think. Look at all the money he blew to get the Olympics that nobody wanted. This man’s ego is so big he believes he can do whatever he wants, and it is up to us to stand up to him!

/s/ Betty Loren-Maltese

P.S. I wonder if the NRA donated a million to Daley’s campaign fund he would look at the issue differently…