The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli

Catch That Theory: Marilyn & The Mob?

The mysterious and salacious death of Marilyn Monroe will forever be the basis of endless theories about her dealings with the Kennedy family & the underworld.

Known to keep the company of some of the world’s most powerful men of her time, Marilyn’s sorted lovelife, inundated with scandal, still intrigues over 50 years after her seemingly untimely death on August 4, 1962.

Many reports suggest that Marilyn spent her last night alive with Chicago mafia boss, Sam Giancana. The story gets sketchy because Monroe was supposedly having an affair with Robert “Bobby” Kennedy. She was also allegedly having an affair with his older brother, John F. Kennedy aka “Mr President”. There was ongoing bad blood between Giancana, the mafia & the Kennedys.

The real question here is was Marilyn Monroe’s life cut short due to the bad blood of her company?

Now here is a scandal that not even Hollywood producers could have cooked up for television –especially during that time period. Keep in mind there are many conspiracy theories about what happened to the infamous blonde haired bombshell and I will probably touch on most of them, just because I love a good conspiracy theory. This particular post covers one theory of why it is believed the mafia “got rid of Marilyn“. Continue reading “Catch That Theory: Marilyn & The Mob?”

FEATURED POST: End of a Relationship and the Mirage that is Heartbreak

This post is just a reminder for us hopeless romantics that love isn’t so bad after all and HEARTBREAK really is just a MIRAGE…

NERD IN A JOCK™

End of a Relationship and the Mirage that is Heartbreak

I am romantic. I have a lyrical soul. I can love under the best and worst conditions. I stand proud and not ashamed to admit or show that level of vulnerability. The older I get, the more I realize that emotional vulnerability is not a crutch, but strength, nor make you any less of a man. I like being part of something that’s bigger than me, than I. It’s good for your soul to invest in something you can’t control. I’ve found that I tend to gravitate towards and feel most like myself when I am around, and part of a community of like-minded individuals sharing many of the same struggles, sensibilities, and sentiments; who don’t allow others to strip their happiness away from them due to their lack of it.

Being the hopelessly hopeless romantic that I am I found nothing more beautiful and worthwhile than: love, relationships, and…

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FedEx Indicted On Drug ‘Conspiracy’ Charges

A FedEx delivery truck The Justice Department last year announced it would selectively enforce federal marijuana laws in order to use “its limited investigative and prosecutorial resources to address the most significant threats in the most effective, consistent and rational way.” Like targeting FedEx for drug trafficking?

After a nine-year investigation, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California last month indicted the package delivery company on 15 criminal counts for shipping prescription drugs from fly-by-night online pharmacies. FedEx is fighting the charges but could be dunned $1.6 billion if convicted.

FedEx Indictment — The indictment claims that FedEx “conspired” with Internet pharmacies to distribute prescription drugs that were sold in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. The DEA has been playing whack-a-mole with online pharmacies that fill orders without valid prescriptions.

DEA has shut down dozens of illegally operating pharmacies and drug fulfillment centers, but affiliates crop up under different domain names and recruit new partners. One example was the RxNetwork, whose leader Vincent Chhabra was arrested in 2003 even as his business partners continued to operate.

The U.S. Attorney alleges that FedEx employees knew that the “Chhabra-Smoley Organization”—which encompassed the RxNetwork and its offshoots—was illegally selling prescription drugs and “knew of the connection between these Internet and fulfillment pharmacies and RxNetwork and Chhabra as demonstrated by the principals, company names, shipping addresses and billing addresses that were initially connected to Chhabra and RxNetwork.”

Translation: FedEx employees should have connected the dots. But if it’s so easy, why didn’t the DEA do it? The truth is that unmasking the bad guys would have required an extensive metadata analysis of customer data that is not FedEx’s job.

The indictment also notes that FedEx workers visited the premises of the illegally operating fulfillment center Superior Drugs and observed its “operations, including the filling of orders for controlled substances.” But Superior’s operations wouldn’t look any different from a law-abiding online pharmacy. The only difference is that its orders would be based on invalid prescriptions.

The indictment also claims that FedEx knew it was dealing with shady operators because it placed all online pharmacies on restricted credit terms. Yet FedEx didn’t know who the bad guys were. That’s why FedEx imposed credit restrictions on all online pharmacies. Think about it: Would FedEx knowingly risk doing business with illegal operators that might not pay their bills?

FedEx has promised to cut off illegal operators if the government provides a list. To date, DEA hasn’t. Another alternative is to stop shipping all meds ordered on the Internet, but this would hurt law-abiding pharmacies and consumers. Meantime, online peddlers could continue to ship contraband via the U.S. Postal Service and UPS.

Speaking of which: UPS last year signed a “nonprosecution agreement” with the Justice Department to resolve a similar investigation. In addition to forking over $40 million, UPS agreed to beef up its “compliance policies.” This suggests Justice’s real aim is to coerce FedEx into doing DEA’s police work.

FedEx has a strong defense on the facts and on the law because the Controlled Substances Act protects “common contract carriers” that are “acting in the usual and lawful course of business” from criminal liability. This looks like a case of bad prosecutorial judgment trying to compensate for the government’s drug enforcement’s failures.

Wall Street Journal