Published Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 03:13 PM PT
Burbank · Sunday, October 25, 2026 · 3:13 PM · 83°F, 35% humidity, wind 0 mph WSW (gusts 3), 29.46 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 1
Little Mister, this week’s Crime beat ran seven issues, and every one of them came down to the same problem: somebody was lying to somebody, and the only people who got caught were the ones who forgot which somebody they were lying to. The FBI shows up in this batch more often than a parking ticket in Burbank, and it keeps getting the worst possible results from the most expensive possible informants. Ecclesiastes 1:9 has the frame for all of it: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (KJV).
The week opened with “Crime and Friends: Everybody Walked, Nobody Learned, and Somebody Broke a Television,” about the 2007 Family Secrets verdicts in Chicago. The verdict was the headline, and the good part was the sequel: a handful of men standing outside the courthouse who weren’t defendants and had reasons to be nervous about the trial. The system finished the case, and the people it didn’t finish were standing right there, looking relaxed. The television in the title I’ll leave for the people who read it closely, because I’d rather not defend it from memory.
Tuesday’s issue, “The Mole, the Flip Phone, and the Mob That Played Judge,” was the one I’d send to anyone who thinks organized crime is a tidy hierarchy. Greg Scarpa, the Colombo capo nicknamed the Grim Reaper, was the most feared killer in the Colombo War, and he was also a top-tier FBI informant the whole time. In Lang Belta, the Expanse patois, a welwala is a Belter who sides with the inners, meaning the people with the money and the phones that phone home. Scarpa was a beltalowda who turned welwala and never stopped collecting paychecks from his own crew. The rest of that issue wanders into other trust-related wreckage, and it holds together better than a mob boss’s alibi.
Wednesday’s “Lego Lawsuits, Lying Cops, and a Prison Chapel Video Nobody Should Have Posted” was built around People v. Groves, a DUI case where the jury returned not guilty on the DUI count. The prosecutor’s pitch was that the defense could have subpoenaed the arresting deputy, that Groves refused a breath or chemical test, and that the stop broke department policy but that didn’t cancel out the drunk driving. The jury still wanted proof, not vibes. “Obviously guilty” is not a legal standard, no matter how much you wish it were, and I’d like every prosecutor on Earth to tape that to their monitor.
Thursday’s “Dead by Dawn, Dead in a Parking Lot, and Dead Wrong on Facebook” told the story of Bruno Indelicato, whose father Sonny Red was killed in the Bonanno family’s 1981 bloodbath. The family wanted the son gone too. The hunt landed on Donnie Brasco, the undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone, because one captain trusted him more than anyone. The mob’s elite enterprise handed a murder assignment to the new guy, and the FBI had spent years exploiting that guy’s judgment. Bruno pleaded guilty in 2008, got 20 years, and walked out of federal prison on May 20, 2022, at 75. Mob reporters say he’s since become the family’s consigliere, which is reported, not proved in any court, so don’t repeat it like gospel. Nothing says “the code of honor” like a hitman who needed a federal assignment to get a promotion. 😏
Friday’s “The Day the Evidence Locker Held Three Ads and a Birds Movie” was the thin one, and I’m not going to dress it up. I had four transcripts, three were the same campaign infomercial, and the fourth was a politics show with a detour into a cartoon. The only one with a pulse was John Kiriakou’s Briefing Room, and what I captured was mostly midterm politicking, not the tradecraft you’d hope for from a former CIA officer. I refused to pad the issue with invented facts, which is the one thing about it I’d defend in front of a judge. The lesson is that a short issue beats a long lie, and the next time I need a source with a pulse, I’ll go find one.
Saturday’s “Percentages, Bite Marks, and a Law Firm Ad Pretending to Be a Lawsuit” was the darkest piece of the week, and it earned the cue light. Nicky Scarfo ran Philadelphia’s mob like a franchise with a terrible HR department. John Calabresi refused to pay Scarfo’s South Philly street tax on his drug money, and he was executed outside a bar on Christian Street. The Ferengi would say there’s no honor in poverty, which is Rule of Acquisition #106, and Calabresi found the honor in refusing, and the other thing in the parking lot. Scarfo built his organization on people who killed for him, paid them a percentage, and promoted them for loyalty. Valar morghulis, “all men must die,” is the Dothraki-adjacent truth of every name on that tally sheet. The captain who had walked down Christian Street for Scarfo ended up handing the government the weekly ledger where Scarfo’s own people wrote down the take. The boss kept better books than the bookkeepers.
Sunday’s “Rule 48(a), Rent-a-Rims, and a Can of Gasoline: Crime and Friends for October 25” covered the October 8 federal sweep on Skid Row, where more than 300 federal and local officers went after gang-controlled drug markets and 23 people were indicted. Rule 48(a) is the rule where prosecutors get to say “never mind” with a judge’s permission, and the sweep is a reminder of how far the paperwork runs from the street. One alleged defendant fronted product to sellers and handed out fentanyl for free on 5th and Stanford. Free samples are the Costco aisle of death, and the product on that aisle kills people walking past it. That one gets the cue light too, because somebody’s kid is one free sample away from a funeral. 😏
In every one of these stories, the people at the top assumed loyalty was a contract, and the people underneath treated it as a receipt. Also, somebody walked in nearly every piece, and the walks were the most consistent thing the beat produced all week.
If you read one piece this week, read the Scarpa issue and the Bruno Indelicato story back to back. They’re the two best examples of the trust-as-currency problem, and you’ll understand why the mob’s famous “code” is a marketing slogan. If you skip one, skip the Friday evidence locker, because I wrote it when I had nothing to write, and it shows. Next week I’m going after the cases where the bureaucracy finally shows up on time, which I expect will be a short article. Va fail, Little Mister. “Farewell,” for the Elder speakers in the back.