Governmental Waste of Time

During an investigation of corrupt organizations, which were engaged in the raising of funds, allegedly for charitable purposes, I was interviewing a Greek Orthodox Bishop, in regard to a parish in his jurisdiction. This session was in regards to the activity of an Orthodox Priest from Romania, whose parish was being operated from the priest’s home garage, which upon observation, I found to be rather unusual. This was in 1994.

Yet, as experience has taught me, people use short cuts to accomplish things which are attention- generating. One City of New York Agency, for instance, cited with a heavy fine, a wine shop, for advertising with words, proclaiming the benefits of drinking red wine. Yet, they also license the Games of Chance in the Municipality, and had not considered this to be important to regulate, as it did not generate headlines for a self-promoting agency commissioner.

From 1993 until 1995, I was involved in the investigation of organizations, which failed to honestly conduct various games of chance, in the five counties constituting the City of New York. I was also looking into the operations of the commercial lessors, where many of these games were played. This was done to see if there was any collusion between the organizations and the commercial lessors.

In one case in the Bronx Neighborhood where Regis Philbin was raised, a number of Bingo-Games of Chance were being run at a Bingo hall. Supposedly, under the guise of the Bronx-Dale Little League, there was the Fathers Club of that league, as well as the Ladies Auxiliary of the league.There was also the Bronx-Dale Babe Ruth League, with the two similar auxiliaries, all at the same bingo hall. There was a similar pattern, in that when these organizations filed their reports, all the games reported losses, which raised some red flags, causing me and a number of New York City Detectives in Vice, to wonder how these games continued to operate.

First of all, there were a number of organizations that existed solely on paper. One such organization, Bronx Jewish Day School, was allegedly operating in an Italian American area of he East Bronx, called Morris Park. I found the neighborhood to be a mixture of Italian, Hispanic and Albanian, so I visited the address of the school.

There had been no school there for at least ten years, when I first made the inquiry, in 1993, which led me on a paper chase. The paper chase would take me across The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, with inquiries made in the adjoining suburban counties of Nassau, and Suffolk.