[span class="rss:item"][a name="026414"]Only in America could a brain-dead decision like this be issued.
[/a][/span][hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"][span class="rss:item"][a name="026414"]Court to Mob-victimized family: you're too late to sue.
[/a][a href="vny!://www.wired.com/"]Wired News[/a] [a href="vny!://catalog.com/kevin/"]senior editor[/a] and [a href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Poulsen"]hacker god[/a] Kevin Poulsen says, [blockquote]According to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, a Boston family victimized by FBI-protected mobsters have no recourse to sue the government, because they waited until their lives were no longer in danger before filing the lawsuit. The case involves a long-term collaboration between the FBI and the Winter Hill Gang, violent mobsters who helped the Bureau take down the competing Italian mafia in exchange for carte blanche to run South Boston's rackets without fear of prosecution. Gang leaders included Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi, who started working with the feds in 1965. [/p][/blockquote] [/p][blockquote]During that partnership Flemmi and some associates persuaded one Stephen Rakes to sell them his family-owned liquor store to use as a base of operations. The negotiations included several visits to Rakes' home. From the ruling: [blockquote]The three men did not stay away for long. Later that evening, they returned to the house and made themselves comfortable around the kitchen table. They displayed weapons, a gun and a switchblade, and threatened to kill Rakes. Flemmi picked up Rakes' one-year-old daughter, stroked her hair, and said that "it would be a shame for her not to see her father again." [/blockquote]When Rakes went to the FBI, the Bureau secretly tipped off the gangsters, who threatened him again. Rakes finally gave in and handed over his business. Flemmi eventually stood trial in 1995, and the FBI's collaboration came out in testimony, and was reported on widely in the press. But it wasn't until after a 1999 court decision formally documented the arrangement that Rakes sued the government. [/p]This makes perfect sense. If you're confronting a 30-year collaboration between the FBI and powerful mobsters who've sat at your kitchen table with guns and knives drawn, you'd probably be inclined to wait for some judicial acknowledgment of the corruption before filing a lawsuit -- particularly if your previous attempt at official redress nearly got you and your family whacked. [/p] But today a three-judge panel (all Republican-appointees) didn't see it that way. They ruled that the two-year statute of limitations had expired, and that Rakes and his wife should have sued when press reports first linked the FBI to the mobsters, instead of waiting for a judge to confirm the conspiracy. [/p][/blockquote] [a href="vny!://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=05-1395.01A"]Link to decision documents[/a]. [/span]
