Archive for November 12th, 2015

Well!

Thursday, November 12th, 2015

I wasn’t blogging the trial, nor was I following it very closely, but this is just too good to pass up:

Vincent Asaro, who was charged with helping plan the 1978 Lufthansa robbery at Kennedy International Airport along with other acts of racketeering and extortion that spanned much of his 80 years, was acquitted on all counts on Thursday.

That’s right. Aquitted.

But the jury rejected the prosecution’s case, dealing a stunning blow to the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York.

Heh. Heh. Heh.

(You may remember the Lufthansa robbery from such movies as “Goodfellas”.)

Edited to add 11/13:

Flanked by his lawyers, Elizabeth Macedonio and Diane Ferrone, he fielded a flurry of questions from reporters, who asked what he was going to do (“play some paddleball”), where he was heading (“to have a good meal and see my family”) and what he was going to eat (“anything but a bologna sandwich”). Indeed, he appeared delighted by the commotion his acquittal had created. “John Gotti didn’t get this much attention,” he said of the Gambino boss, who was notoriously hard to convict.

I’m just going to leave this here…

TMQ Watch: November 10, 2015.

Thursday, November 12th, 2015

We’re running behind again, this time due to Time-Warner issues and other things. In case you were wondering, we are still a bit gimpy, but our hand is steadily improving.

Let’s go ahead and jump into this week’s TMQ

(more…)

Obit watch: November 12, 2015.

Thursday, November 12th, 2015

Carol Doda has passed away at the age of 78.

For those of you like me who were a little young to remember Ms. Doda, she was an early and influential topless dancer:

To understand the scandalousness of Ms. Doda’s precedent-setting impromptu performance in San Francisco, on June 19, 1964, consider that it was followed less than a month later in that same city by the Republican National Convention that nominated the conservative Barry Goldwater.

Apologies for the lack of pictures to provide historical context, but I am blogging from work…

Edited to add: more from SFGate.