Key Figure In "Radium Plot" Heads Long Island UFO Network
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (Reuter) - Investigators uncovered an apparent plot to assassinate several Long Island, New York, local politicians with radioactive material, Suffolk County authorities said on Thursday, June 13.
District Attorney James Catterson told a news conference that two men had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The alleged plot was "something out of a novel," he said, with radioactive material and weapons discovered in a house in Bellport, Long Island.
Catterson said one of the suspects, 47-year-old John Ford, was soliciting people to use radium isotope against Suffolk County Republican Party leader John Powell when an informant alerted the District Attorney's office on Wednesday. Ford was then recorded on tape outlining the plot.
Catterson described Ford as a former court officer and president of the Long Island UFO Network [LIUFON]. The other man arrested was identified as 42-year-old Joseph Mazzachelli of Manorville, but no further information was available on him.
"The plot was where an individual obsessed with hatred for mainstream political figures, with ballistics people would spread radioactive material in the seat of [the victim's] car, in his food or some proximity to him in the hope that he would contract incurable diseases and cause his death," Catterson said.
Apart from Powell, others targeted included two other Republicans, county legislator Fred Towle and Brookhaven public safety director Anthony Gazzola.
Long Island is the political stronghold of Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, but he was not on the plotters' list.
Investigators found five canisters of radium, a low-level radioactive material, in Ford's home, Catterson said.
"Any potential threat to public health and safety has been eliminated, "Catterson said in a statement. "There is no danger to the community and the material has been removed to a facility capable of its proper disposal."
Investigators also found a cache of rifles and handguns, ammunition, a mine sweeper, gas mask and assorted militia literature, the Suffolk County District Attorney said. It was not known whether the men belonged to a militia.
A third suspect was arrested Friday [June 14] in the alleged plot. Police found a small quantity of radium and weapons in the Medford, New York home of Edward Zabo, who was taken into custody, officials said.
Further arrests were expected, officials said.
From The Unopened Files of UFO Magazine
John Ford founded the Long Island UFO Network in 1985.
He investigated UFO sightings and alleged abductions; he
held public meetings and sponsored conferences; leafleted
and organized demonstrations. He also produced The Long
Island UFO newsletter, which was regularly received and
enjoyed by enthusiasts around the globe.
It was in this newsletter that he first wrote of an
extraordinary incident, which alleged that a UFO had
been shot down in 1989 by American military forces over
Moriches Bay in Long Island. He later claimed that he
uncovered details of a similar crash in 1992 in South
Haven Park and when an unidentified object reportedly came
to grief in the Pine Barrens region of Long Island.
Three years later, he insisted that flares in the region
had been deliberately lit to act as a diversion.
Despite consistent details by the authorities that there
was anything untoward in any of these incidents, John
persisted I his claims, insisting that his sources were
real and his sources sincere.
He spoke of having gleaned his information from the
officials within the New York City Police and Fire
Departments; of members of the public who claimed to have
seen a fireball descend into South Haven Park. John Ford
simply wouldn’t take no for an answer and became a genuine
thorn in the side of the authorities. He repeated his
allegation through public meetings and demonstrations held
outside police headquarters.
The Arrest
On 12 June 1996, John Ford was arrested in what police
later described as a classic "sting operation" this
followed the use of telephone taps and a paid police
informant who was wired to monitor and record
conversations. The story is long and very complex.
To make the long story short, John was arrested for
possessing uranium without a license and conspiring
to murder John Powell, leader of the Suffolk County
Republican Party by placing radioactive radium in
Powell’s toothpaste!
New York UFO activist John Ford is languishing in jail
awaiting trial for conspiracy. The circumstances
of his arrest and past involvement with as alleged UFO
crash-retrieval incident at Moriches Bay, Long Island,
are profoundly disturbing.
If allegations of a conspiracy to discredit John Ford have
any foundation at all, it must mean that what he and other
colleagues stumbled across as UFO researchers was of such
tremendous significance that the authorities HAD to shut
them up!
UFOs/Aliens
with Loy LawhonJohn Ford, former president of the Long Island UFO Network (LIUFON), graduated from St. John's University in Queens in 1971 with a degree in philosophy. After graduation, he started to work at the Brooklyn criminal court while earning a master's degree in public administration. In 1982, he transferred to Riverhead courts in Suffolk County, Long Island.
Ford's friends depict him as the type of person who adopted dogs from the pound and who wept when he accidentally ran over a cat. He is said to have delivered supplies when Hurricane Gloria hit the east coast. Ford dated and was engaged twice, but he never married. He lived with his mother, Catherine Ford, at Bellport, Long Island.
In the 1970s, Ford became active in local Suffolk County politics, forming a Conservative Party group and supporting his mother in her bids for highway superintendent and county legislato. By 1985, however, he had become frustrated with Republican-dominated Suffolk County politics and turned his attention elsewhere.
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In the mid-eighties, after reading reports of the Hudson Valley UFO sightings and the local UFO wave in the press, Ford decided to launch the Long Island UFO Network with his friend Richard Stout and others. The group investigated UFO sightings and abduction cases, held public meetings and sponsored conferences, and passed out leaflets and organized demonstrations. They also produced the Long Island UFO Newsletter.
In 1987 and 1988, Ford and Stout investigated a series of animal mutilations on Long Island, including strange mutilations of dogs, cat, sheep, deer, goats and cows. Reports came in to LIUFON of mutilated animals that had been drained of blood. Ford claimed that he had discovered that the Federal Government, the FBI, and local police were working with the District Attorney's office to determine the cause of the mutilations. According to him, soon afterward the 42nd Aviation Battalion of the New York State National Guard began holding night exercises in areas where the mutilations and UFO activity had been reported.
One of Ford's more important investigations was that of the story that the military shot down and then retrieved an alien spacecraft at Moriches Bay, Long Island on September 28, 1989. Moriches Bay is the same area in which TWA Flight 800 exploded in 1996.
In April 1990, Ford purportedly met with a Brookhaven Research Laboratory scientist known only as Dr. 'Nick'. A second meeting took place in August of that year. At both meetings, Dr. 'Nick' stated that the United States had shot down a boomerang-shaped UFO over Moriches Bay on the night of 28 September 1989.
Apparent UFO activity on Long Island began to increase. In 1993, Ford claimed that an alien space craft had crashed into a remote area of Southaven Park in Shirley on the night of November 24, 1992. This time, he had a video that he claimed was made by a fireman who was involved in the crash recovery. The poor quality video showed some men examining a bright reddish, metallic-type object about four feet square.
In 1995, an unidentified object reportedly crashed in the Pine Barrens region of Long Island. Ford insisted that fires in the region had been deliberately lit to act as a diversion while a UFO was recovered.
Ford became increasingly paranoid in 1996, claiming that his phone was tapped and that he and his colleagues were being harassed by local police and other, unknown persons.
The Arrest
In June 1996 Ford was arrested on charges of conspiracy to murder local Republican officials John Powell, Fred Towle and Anthony Gazzola by doctoring their toothpaste and their cars with radium. Ford was right about his phone being tapped - the main evidence against him was a taped phone call to a police informant. People who have heard the recording say that Ford and the informant discuss the radium poisoning scheme and then laugh heartily as if it were a joke. Arrested with Ford was Joseph Mazzachelli, and the next day a third suspect, Edward Zabo, was arrested in Medford, New York. Zabo was an electrical inspector at military contractor Northrop Grumman. The three men were all members of the Long Island UFO Network. The group has accused the government of covering up sightings of extraterrestrials. Zabo, a former Defense Department employee, had provided the radium, and Ford was supposed to plant it.
The intended victims of the plot could not say why the three wanted to kill them. Mazzachelli was a convicted burglar, and Zabo had been arrested twice for driving while intoxicated and may have had some tax troubles. In the raid on Ford's home in Bellport, police seized dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Friends said Ford was a gun collector. Police also found what they and the media described as "militia" literature. However, actual militia ties are dubious.
In 1997, a Suffolk County Court judge ordered that Ford be sent to an upstate New York mental hospital, where he remains today. Three psychiatrists and a psychologist, two hired by District Attorney James M. Catterson Jr.'s office, examined Ford and all four concluded that he was not competent to stand trial. Robert H. Berger, director of Forensic Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital Center, said that while Ford seemed to understand his legal predicament, he thought the criminal case against him was in reality an intelligence operation being run by the CIA together with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Responding to an article about himself in Saucer Smear, Ford wrote:
My case is a frame-up and a smear tactic to destroy my UFO organization and to neutralize my effectiveness.
The main reason I'm sitting here is due to the fact that I had information indicating that the 1995 East End Forest Fires had been deliberately set to cover up the crash of a large disc near Suffolk Community College, south of Riverhead (Long Island). The County was asked to set fires near the crash site, to keep people out of the area; but dirty politics being the case, the Republican leadership, in an effort to gain control of Pine Barrens properties, set Forest Fires South of Sunrise Highway in populated areas near the coveted land. I was able to document some of this. While doing so, I was targeted for elimination by the politicians. I had several attempts on my life fail, due to the intervention of Israeli intelligence, which protected me for some 3 1/2 months.
Yes, it's true what I said. There is a heavy intelligence presence involved in my case. The man to talk to about it all is Preston Nichols. ... He can give you a briefing on the various aspects of the case ...
Preston Nichols, also a LIUFON member, is the same Preston Nichols of Montauk Project fame.
What happened here? Was Ford getting too close to something he shouldn't have, or had he been delusional for years?
The Brookhaven Connection by Wade Gordon
One story that has emerged in the national press in the U.S. concerns the crash of Flight 800 in July 1996. Two investigators got themselves into trouble by revealing there were traces of a reddish-orange residue on the seat fabric that was consistent with rocket or missile fuel. The suspicion was that the Brookhaven complex was using some sort of particle beam weapon to activate or explode a missile which brought down the airliner. Then there was the curious case of another investigator, UFO researcher John Ford, who was supposedly working on a book exposing corrupt political connections at Brookhaven. He was arrested and accused of a plot to kill powerful Republican wheelhorse John Powell. He was never given a proper trial and was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital where he remains to this day, very likely a victim of his own curiosity about what is really hidden at Brookhaven. Something to do with UFOs certainly, and perhaps even explorations into hyperspace and time travel as well.
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 14:50:47 -0500
Fwd Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 11:55:14 -0400
Subject: Re: John Ford?
>From: Martin Jeffrey <martin-j@lineone.net>
>To: <hauntedscotland@listbot.com>
>Subject: John Ford?
>Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 16:30:28 +0100
>I am currently writing an article about people involved with the
>paranormal who have become suspects or have been convicted of
>murder or related crimes.
>I have enough information for my article but I have a number of
>questions about John Ford of the Long Island UFO Network and the
>South Haven "UFO crash".
>Has anybody seen or know of anybody who has seen the footage
>allegedly sent to the LIUFON containing footage of the alien
>crash and alien retreival? Where has the video and photographs
>gone?
>What has happened to Joe Mazzuchelli and Edward ------- ?
>who was arrested along with John.
>
>Is there facts relating to this case that I should know? I wish
>to give a balanced account of John's arrest and would be
>grateful for any information sent.
>
>Cheers
>
>Martin Jeffrey
>Mystery Magazine
Sir -- a search turns up precious little. I'm more than a little
interested in this myself. If you hear anything please echo it
to the list, or in an E-mail to me.
John Ford's accuser, and the impetus behind his incarceration,
John Powell, is involved in an imbroglio of his own regarding
criminal conspiracy and the racketeering of his unethical
political machine. This is proven, and not contested, while the
facts, conditions, and situation of John Ford remains to be
extremely bizarre, contrived, and unlikely. Powell had a reason
to avoid investigation of _any_ type. Ford was only taking
advantage of a constitutional right to perform that lawfully
executed investigation. I think it's enough to stroke your beard
and say -- "hmmm."
Please let me know what you find.
Lehmberg@snowhill.com
LIUFON's John Ford. While browsing Graham Birdsall's UK UFO
Magazine at:
http://www.ufomag.co.uk/
I came across the following.
ebk
_______________________________________
THE JOHN FORD AFFAIR
As you read this, New York UFO activist John Ford is languishing
in jail awaiting trial for conspiracy. The circumstances of his
arrest and past involvement with an alleged UFO crash-retrieval
incident at Moriches Bay, Long Island, are profoundly disturbing.
BACKGROUND
John Ford founded the Long Island UFO Network in 1985. He
investigated UFO sightings and alleged abductions; held public
meetings and sponsored conferences; leafleted and organised
demonstrations. He also produced the Long Island UFO Newsletter,
which was regularly received and enjoyed by enthusiasts around
the globe.
It was in that newsletter that he first wrote of an extraordinary
incident which alleged that a UFO had been shot down in 1989 by
American military forces over Moriches Bay in Long Island.
He later claimed to have uncovered details of a similar crash in
1992 in South Haven Park and when an unidentified object
reportedly came to grief in the Pine Barrens region of Long
Island three years later, he insisted that fires in the region
had been deliberately lit to act as a diversion.
Despite consistent denials by the authorities that there was
anything untoward in any of these incidents, John persisted in
his claims, insisting that his sources were real and their
stories sincere.
He spoke of having gleaned his information from officials within
the New York City Police and Fire Departments; of members of the
public who claimed to have seen a fireball descend into South
Haven Park.
John Ford simply wouldn't take no for an answer and became a
genuine thorn in the side of the authorities. He repeated his
allegations through public meetings and demonstrations held
outside police headquarters.
THE ARREST
On 12 June 1996, John Ford was arrested in what Police later
described as a classic 'sting' operation. This followed the use
of telephone taps and a paid police informant who was 'wired' to
monitor and record conversations.
Almost a year earlier, Ford had confided to close friends and
associates that he was convinced he was the victim of a
deliberate plot to harass him. He went so far as to claim that
the plot might entail his penultimate murder.
Shortly after his arrest, Suffolk District Attorney James
Catterson, told journalists gathered for the press briefing that
Ford had been charged with conspiracy to murder and possession of
radium without a license.
The intended murder victim was alleged to be none other than John
Powell, leader of the Suffolk County Republican Party. The means
by which Ford intended to carry out the act? By placing
radioactive radium in Powell's toothpaste...
District Attorney Catterson held two press conferences and
compared the significance of Ford's arrest to that of the
infamous Unabomber. Other charges made at the time against Ford
were subsequently dropped, but the conspiracy to murder charge
was deemed serious enough for the Judge in the case to deem that
Ford's bail would be set at half-a-million dollars. Needless to
say, neither he nor his friends could raise such an amount and
Ford remains incarcerated in jail awaiting trial.
Surprisingly to some, he has issued no statement other than to
plead "not guilty" when the charges were first put to him.
Towards the end of last year, several concerned parties invoked
greater public awareness of Ford's plight by placing supportive
articles in prestigious UFO publications such as America's MUFON
(Mutual UFO Network) Journal (November 1996 issue) and the
Internet. They formed the aptly named John Ford Defence Committee
and began a fund raising campaign to help with his legal defence.
They also publicly appealed for an expert psychiatrist,
professional audiotape analyst and Long Island-based private
investigator to volunteer their efforts.
Those on the Committee are convinced of Ford's innocence and cite
numerous incidents and strange occurrences which led them to that
conclusion.
According to Committee Member Elaine Douglas, none of the media
mentioned claims of harassment by Ford and other LIUFON members
at the time of his arrest, nor she says, a higher than average
rate of auto-accidents experienced by Ford and his colleagues.
Members had their vehicles vandalised and one in particular, Joe
Mazzuchelli, is said to have been dragged out of his vehicle the
previous winter and physically beaten by four men who told him to
"stay out of our business". Mazzuchelli was arrested with John
Ford on 12 June.
WHAT DID JOHN FORD UNCOVER?
Ford, like many UFO researchers the world over, could only have
dreamed of the possibility that he might one day stumble across a
major UFO incident on his 'patch', at which he could assume the
role of leading investigator. The 1989 Moriches Bay incident
appeared to have afforded him such an opportunity.
His investigation of that particular affair contained a
suggestion that the technology used to bring down the purported
alien spacecraft originated at Brookhaven National Laboratory,
based on Long Island.
Elaine Douglas avoids the re-telling of what Ford uncovered about
the three incidents in her campaign literature, preferring
instead to concentrate on the man, and what she perceives to be a
case of injustice.
She does include a curious coincidence about Moriches Bay, which
may or may not offer food for thought. It was here that Ford
alleged a UFO had been brought down in 1989, but it is also the
spot where TWA Flight 800 mysteriously crashed in August last
year.
The cause of that disaster has thus far eluded Federal Law
enforcement and aviation investigators, despite twenty
eye-witness accounts from people who claim to have seen an
unaccountable light streaking towards the 747 aircraft moments
before it exploded.
Ford's knowledge of the legal system, put to such good effect in
his legitimate street demonstrations, stemmed from a career as a
court official working at the Suffolk County Court. Those who
knew him are adamant he was not capable of conspiring to murder
anyone - it simply wasn't in his character.
"You can't believe how many people have called me to say they
can't envision John Ford killing anyone, or even conceiving the
intention," said his attorney John Rouse.
He scoffs at the suggestion that Ford could covertly enter the
Powell household of four people, select the particular toothpaste
used by the man of the house and implant radium in order to kill
him.
Elaine Douglas points out that in the 1920's, radium-dial
painters used to lick their brushes out of habit and it took 40
years before anyone contracted cancer.
She asked: "Was Ford going to break in and put radium in Powell's
toothpaste every week for 40 years until he got cancer?"
The prosecution's arguments are further strained she argues by
their contention that the illegal radium was kept hidden by Ford
in the back of his pick-up truck, which was always parked at the
front of his house.
District Attorney Catterson labelled Ford a "mastermind" at the
press briefings, at which he raised further serious charges where
no indictments were subsequently returned.
"This," said John Rouse, "is called poisoning the jury pool."
The police arrested Ford immediately following a conversation
that took place between their informant, Ford and Mazzuchelli.
The informant was 'wired' and, it's claimed, recorded a
discussion in which Ford and Mazzuchelli both spoke about doing
away with Powell and another local politician through the use of
radium in toothpaste. A copy of the tape was eventually handed
over to Ford's attorney and according to LIUFON's Preston Nichols
"is unintelligible". Nichols said, "All I can clearly hear on
that tape is the informant talking and John laughing, like
whatever they're talking about is a big joke."
Attorney Rouse is hoping to get the tape enhanced, but admits the
plight of both men is serious. If found guilty, either could be
jailed for between 25 and 75 years in an upstate New York prison.
Elaine Douglas has had run-ins with the Suffolk County Police
before. In April 1993 she wrote to them complaining of police
violation of LIUFON member's civil rights.
Apparently they had been prevented from leafleting near South
Haven Park by the police who told them they must leave the area.
The house to house leafleting had been organised to seek out
potential witnesses in what was described by Douglas as a
"witness-constitutionally protected activity".
The John Ford Defence Committee's support for Ford "..is based on
our conviction that he did not, would not, and could not conspire
to murder anyone," said Elaine Douglas. "On this point our
support is complete and total," she added.
What though of Ford's claims that a low intense military conflict
exists between the United States and aliens? Is that possible?
"Yes, it is," according to Douglas.
"I speak only for myself and not for other members of the Defence
Committee," she said. "I always found John's allegations hard to
believe but impossible to dismiss because he had evidence what he
claimed was perfectly possible.
"Just because John's allegations 'fit' doesn't make them true,
but the fact is John had evidence. He claimed three events on
Long Island - even if he was wrong on two of them, if he was
right on only one, John had a tiger by the tail. If so, it's no
surprise somebody would try to destroy John Ford."
"He is the first UFO investigator to be seriously persecuted by
the authorities. Shall we sit idly by while our colleague's life
is destroyed? If John Ford is silenced, who is next?"
AN INDEPENDENT VIEWPOINT
We invited New York resident Alan Raven to offer his opinions
about the affair and he wrote the following:
I did attend a one-day presentation in the summer of 1994 given
by the Long Island group about the 1992 (South Haven Park)
incident.
As I expected, it was overly long at nine hours and was ragged,
rambling and generally unprofessional. However, the group had
done a tremendous amount of work, beginning on the evening of the
incident.
At the time of the presentation the investigation was still
on-going, and involved mapping, interviews, collection of what
might have been bits of wreckage, on-ground searches, surveys,
and even a couple of aerial searches.
The group claimed there was a collision of sorts at 90,000ft. At
least two vehicles came to earth and wreckage was spread over a
wide area.
One object crashed near the South Shore in South Haven Park
(which in reality is a pine forest) after passing low over a main
highway (Sunrise Highway) and was seen close-up by several
motorists.
The object (described as a rod) passed out of sight. Shortly
afterwards there was an explosion followed immediately by a large
fire that lit up the night sky.
A second object came to earth in the grounds of Brookhaven
National Laboratory, a few miles to the north of the South Haven
Park site. After being grounded for several hours the object
exploded as it tried to take off.
The Long Island group obtained videotape from a source which they
refused to name. The first video was taken at the South Haven
Park by (they claimed) a fireman who was one of the first on the
scene. These firemen arrived before government forces came and
the video was of course confiscated.
The group's copy came (they say) from a government source. The
video, which is of very poor quality and taken at night, shows
figures being moved and laid out. It also purports to show (in
part close-up) an insectoid figure.
The second video clip, from the same source, shows an explosion
of some sort that appears to be associated with a building, or
object, or craft. The group claimed it was a disc or lifeboat
type of craft that came down in the grounds of Brookhaven.
I have seen both video clips several times. They were interesting
but unfortunately not definitive, even after enhancement.
After sitting through the presentation I came away having no
doubt that something very important did happen that night, and
that the government came down with an iron-fist within one hour
of the event. There was in addition, a great deal of trace
evidence spread over large areas.
CONSPIRACY? WHAT CONSPIRACY?
All those closest to John Ford have demonstrated beyond any
reasonable doubt that his track record as a UFO 'activist' is
probably second to none.
'He investigated UFO sightings and alleged abductions; held
public meetings and sponsored conferences; leafleted and
organized demonstrations. He also produced the Long Island UFO
Newsletter, which was regularly received and enjoyed by
enthusiasts around the globe.'
Some find it rather odd therefore, that a man who argued so
vociferously to make his point, who proclaimed he was being
harassed by the authorities, should now utter nothing more than
two words following his arrest. Other than "not guilty" he has
issued no statement which could have been used by the Defence
Committee to bolster their campaign.
Of course Ford might well be acting on instructions issued by his
defense attorney to 'say nothing until the trial' - a perfectly
reasonable and common practice.
Elaine Douglas raises claims of harassment, beatings, burglaries,
auto accidents and vandalism, but where is the corroboration?
Were reports filed to the police in all these instances?
How much radium did the police find? High quantities might just
take slightly less than 40 years to have lethal effects.
Were the police acting unconstitutionally in preventing
leafleting campaigns? Some say not - especially if a
neighbourhood had signs that prohibited such activity. If a
resident complained to the police they would be duty bound to
act.
Until the trial takes place, one can only speculate as to what
might emerge in terms of evidence presented by both defence and
prosecution attorneys which will hopefully answer these and many
other questions.
If allegations of a conspiracy to discredit John Ford have any
foundation at all, it must mean that what he and other colleagues
stumbled across as UFO researchers was of such tremendous
significance that the authorities had to shut them up.
So what exactly did happen? The Unopened Files re-traced the
events as reported by Ford and his colleagues several years ago.
Few listened to him at the time, but now you have an opportunity
to make a balanced judgement for yourselves...
RESTORE JOHN FORD - . . . first him, then me, and finally you...?
JOHN FORD POETIC COMMENTARY - You'll only hear it here!
JOHN FORD Background - as balanced as it ever got... which was not very...
JOHN POWELL WAS DIRTY!!!
Powell Sentenced to 27 Months
Former Suffolk GOP leader silent
as prison term is handed down
By Edward W. Lempinen
Staff Writer
HE WAS A BRASH and outspoken political leader whose words once fired the passions of his troops, but John Powell was quiet today as a federal judge sentenced him to two years and three months in prison on corruption charges.
As Powell listened without expression and his wife Linda wiped away tears in the gallery behind him, U.S. District Judge Jacob Mishler gave Powell the minimum term for his involvement in a truck-theft ring and extortion at the Brookhaven landfill.
Powell attorney Benjamin Brafman sought leniency for the former Suffolk Republican leader, describing him as "a fundamentally good person who has committed a bad act."
But Assistant U.S. Attorney George Stamboulidis accused defense attorneys of wrongly painting Powell as the fallen hero of a "Greek tragedy."
"Sadly, this is the same old story of a political boss' betrayal of public trust and an abuse of power driven by greed," he told the court. Powell "engaged in systematic corruption for personal gain, abused his leadership role and sold out the trust he had solicited and gained from the hardworking people of Suffolk County."
Under terms of the sentence, Powell must also give up his interest in four Mack trucks that had been stolen and purchased for GP Trucking Inc., owned by Powell's brother George. He must also pay $16,000 restitution to a company that insured one of the trucks that was stolen and later recovered.
Powell will be free until June 5, when he must report to federal authorities for assignment to a minimum security prison. But he may actually spend much less than 27 months behind bars. With time off for good behavior the sentence could be reduced to about 23 months, and Powell could be eligible for release to a halfway house in the year before his term ends.
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| Suffolk seeks a new GOP chairman | |
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The last power broker for Suffolk's GOP was former Chairman John Powell
of Bellport. Before his fall and imprisonment on charges of extortion and
racketeering (involving pay-offs at the Brookhaven landfill and his
association with a stolen car-and-truck parts operation), Powell was also
chairman of the GOP in Brookhaven, Suffolk's largest town (as big as all of
Nassau County). No one currently on the scene has the sort of clout Powell
enjoyed as chairman of both committees. Town organizations today are
powerful and less influenced by the county chair.
Dear Editor:
Your coverage of the trial of Douglas Jacob and Ron Kluesener was both fair and well done. I did not attend the trial but felt that your reporting portrayed it so that I had a good sense of what was going on.
The political abuses of James Catterson seemed to reach so far in this case that I could not accept the process without further comment. Catterson’s zeal when it comes to getting Supervisor Richard Schaffer surfaced throughout this entire episode. Here he decided to use his position uncaring about the effect on the families and reputations of the people involved. He simply did not have a case.
Now it appears that he is trying to get two other political foes, Suffolk County Sheriff Patrick Mahoney and former Undersheriff Edward Morris.
It must be asked why he continues to hound his political enemies while the abuses of John Powell went unheeded all the while, so much so that the federal government had to step in and take action from Washington to uncover that corruption.
He seems to have unlimited funding from our taxes to "get" people and break them while they deplete their savings in their own defense. Catterson’s taint really deserves a further look by his own party, who will share that stain as long as they continue to back him.
His reputation for wanton abuse of power is such that I ask you to do something I have never asked before. Please withhold my name.
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