Just about the only criminals who can work solo — who can carry out their crimes by themselves without anyone else being involved — are bank robbers and, of course, other assorted stick-up men. The only “accomplice” they need is a shiny pistol.
But for virtually every other crime the perpetrator is going to have to interact — to one degree or another — with some other human being. That person is not necessarily a partner in the crime, someone who is down on the lick with the perp. It could be someone who is innocently, or perhaps even unknowingly, involved, and that involvement could even be minimal, or at best tangential. But the fact remains, they are involved or have knowledge of the crime.
There’s an old saying “Two people can keep a secret … if one of them is dead.” So true.
The first — and indeed the cardinal — rule of running any criminal enterprise (no matter the size; it could be something as small as the penny-ante business of selling dime bags of weed, all the way up to the laundering of billions of dollars for Russian oligarchs via real estate deals) is this: Choose the partners you commit crimes with wisely because you’re going to be married to them forever — or at least until the statute of limitations run out. And either one can be a long, long time.
It’s interesting that the argot of the underworld is now being used by the occupier of the White House and his bumbling mouthpiece Rudy Giuliani as they describe the cast of characters that are beginning to coalesce around this investigation. Terms like “snitching” and “flipping” are straight out of The Godfather, Goodfellas and The Sopranos.
None of those words were in common usage until the 1970 passage of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO. Before RICO, organized crime in America operated under the strict rule of omerta (which literally means “manhood” in Italian, but has become synonymous with the Mafia “code of silence”).
Omerta worked like this: If a mobster was busted, convicted and sent to prison he was expected to keep his mouth shut, and on the first day of every month, an envelope filled with cash would be placed in the hand of his wife until he was released. But after RICO everything changed. All bets of omerta were off.
Government prosecutors begin to threaten the families of mobsters. If a wife answered the home phone (remember, this was long before cell phones), and simply took a message from one of her husband’s associates to have him return a call, she could be indicted as part of a criminal conspiracy.
One thing to keep in mind is that Michael Cohen and his wife filed joint tax returns. So if he is open to prosecution because something IRS-related is amiss, she could be in legal jeopardy also. Maybe that’s why Cohen changed his tune and said that his family was his first consideration.
Now it’s long-time Trump’s keeper-of-secrets David Pecker of American Media, Inc. (which operates the National Enquirer, the tabloid that killed numerous infidelity stories for the serial philander), and Allen Weisselberg, the longer-timed chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who are avoiding the hot seat by cooperating with federal prosecutors. Naturally, Trump is going to characterize them in derogatory terms straight out of old gangster movies as he hopes to discredit their testimony in the public mind, but he’s going to soon learn that no matter what he says, it’s not going to do him any good. They’ve got the documents to back up their stories.
Did this clown, this lying bigot who stole an election and now falsely holds the highest office in the land, this truly flawed individual who can’t even spell “loyalty” let along know the meaning of the word, really think that when the heat came down, these softies he had surrounded himself with were going to do the perp walk off to prison for him like good little Germans?
Really?
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.