Black Mafia Family St Louis The Untold Story

Danny "Dog Man" Jones began selling American Bulldogs to the notorious brothers Demetrius "Big Meech" and his brother Terry "Southwest T" Flenory. He went from selling dogs, rehabbing houses and driving for some of the BMF members to eventually gaining the trust of one of the brothers and becoming one of the managers of the St. Louis faction of BMF.With brothers Big Meech and Terry indicted and behind bars, life changed for Danny overnight. He was gunned down, surviving seventeen bullets from a .40 caliber semi-automatic weapon, which riddled through numerous parts of his entire body. After several surgeries and regaining consciousness, Danny reiterates, "The Dog Man is alive and the truth must be told" he states. Danny tells his story in this seventeen chapter memoir, each chapter representing the seventeen bullets which could have ended his life.

This intimate exploration of race and inequality in America tells the story of a journalist’s long-time relationship with his mentee, Jorell Cleveland, through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and investigates Jorell's tragic fatal shooting. In 2005, soon after Ben Westhoff moved to St. Louis, he joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and was paired with Jorell Cleveland. Ben was twenty-eight, a white college grad from an affluent family. Jorell was eight, one of nine children from a poor, African American family living in nearby Ferguson. But the two instantly connected. Ben and Jorell formed a bond stronger than nearly any other in their lives. When Ben met the woman who'd become his wife, she observed that Ben and Jorell were "a package deal." They were brothers. In the summer of 2016, Jorell was shot at point blank range in broad daylight in the middle of the street, yet no one was charged in his death. Ben grappled with mourning Jorell, but also with a feeling of responsibility. As Jorell’s mentor, what could he have done differently? As a journalist, he had reported on gang life, interviewed crime kingpins, and even infiltrated drug labs in China. But now, he was investigating the life and death of someone he knew personally and examining what he did and did not know about his friend. Learning the truth about Jorell and the man who killed him required Ben to uncover a heartbreaking cycle of poverty, poor education, drug trafficking, and violence. Little Brother brilliantly combines a deeply personal history with a true-crime narrative that exposes the realities of life in communities like Ferguson all around the country.

In the early 1990s, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and his brother, Terry "Southwest T," rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history: the Black Mafia Family. After a decade in the drug game, the Flenorys had it all—a fleet of Maybachs, Bentleys and Ferraris, a 500-man workforce operating in six states, and an estimated quarter of a billion in drug sales. They socialized with music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, did business with New York's king of bling Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Yet even as BMF was attracting celebrity attention, its crew members created a cult of violence that struck fear in a city and threatened to spill beyond the boundaries of the drug underworld. Ruthlessness fueled BMF's rise to incredible power; greed and that same ruthlessness led to their downfall. When the brothers began clashing in 2003, the flashy and beloved Big Meech risked it all on a shot at legitimacy in the music industry. At the same time, a team of investigators who had pursued BMF for years began to prey on the organization's weaknesses. Utilizing a high-stakes wiretap operation, the feds inched toward their goal of destroying the Flenory's empire and ending the reign of a crew suspected in the sale of thousands of kilos of cocaine — and a half-dozen unsolved murders.

A tale of good and evil, of corruption and deceit, of prejudice, politics, and power, this compelling account scrutinizes the immensely lucrative Nevada gambling industry’s struggle to maintain legitimacy—or at least the appearance of it. Ronald A. Farrell and Carole Case tell how state regulators created the “Black Book” in the 1960s, a list of “notorious and unsavory” persons banned forever from owning, managing, or even entering casinos in the state. The regulators dramatically pursued and publicly denounced former lieutenants of Al Capone, alleged overlords of the American Mafia, nationally known professional gamblers, and major casino owners, as well as small-time bookies and hoods, reputed sports fixers, and gambling cheats. To date, thirty-eight names have been entered in the Black Book, including Sam Giancana, Anthony Spilotro, and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. Farrell and Case contend, however, that the denunciations were a melodrama, meant to show that the government was cleansing the city of corruption. Through the Black Book, the regulators focus public attention on “the Mob,” rather than on a multitude of competing criminal interests already in the gaming industry. The authors uncover evidence of ethnic discrimination by the regulators, including selective prosecution of Italian Americans whose notoriety fit popular Mafia stereotypes. The Black Book and the Mob records hearings of the regulatory commission and the voices of lawyers, government officials, casino owners, and the people named in the Black Book itself. This Las Vegas story is a rebuke to the gaming industry and a cautionary tale for many states and communities now weighing the legalization of casino gambling.

In the early 1990s, brothers Demetrius and Terry Flenory, known as 'Big Meech' and 'Southwest T', rose from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in America: the Black Mafia Family. After a 10-year climb to the top of the drug game, the Flenorys had it all: a fleet of Bentleys, a 500-man workforce and an estimated quarter of a billion dollars in drug sales. Yet even as the BMF was attracting celebrity attention, they created a cult of violence that struck fear into a city - and threatened to spill beyond the boundaries of the underworld.

This is the story of BMF's (Black Mafia Family's) original under boss. Benny Blanko was there from the beginning, in Detroit, and stayed loyal until the end. Read his captivating stories about street life and being a member of the BMF Family.

Started by Italian brothers from North Denver, the high-profile Smaldone crime syndicate began in the bootlegging days of the 1920s and flourished into the 1980s. Connected to notorious crime figures, politicians, and presidents, Clyde Smaldone was the crime family's leader. Through candid interviews and firsthand accounts, Dick Kreck reveals the true sense of what it meant to be a Smaldone, not only the corrupt but also the virtuous.Dick Kreck retired from The Denver Post after thirty-eight years as a columnist. He is the author of four other books, including Murder at the Brown Palace. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

St. Louis was a city under siege during Prohibition. Seven different criminal gangs violently vied for control of the town's illegal enterprises. Although their names (the Green Ones, the Pillow Gang, the Russo Gang, Egan's Rats, the Hogan Gang, the Cuckoo Gang and the Shelton Gang) are familiar to many, their exploits have remained largely undocumented until now. Learn how an awkward gunshot wound gave the Pillow Gang its name, and read why Willie Russo's bizarre midnight interview with a reporter from the St. Louis Star involved an automatic pistol and a floating hunk of cheese. From daring bank robberies to cold-blooded betrayals, The Gangs of St. Louis chronicles a fierce yet juicy slice of the Gateway City's history that rivaled anything seen in New York or Chicago.