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Posted to the Internet
December 19, 2000
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Of course, the Big Question is: "what happened in Florida?"

How odd to find that a big chunk of the answer can be found in New Jersey...



New Jersey Mobsters, "retired" CIA officials, huge gambling markers at Atlantic City Casinos, and a 'suicided' state Supervisor of Elections are a few of the hidden factors beginning to surface in the Great Florida Vote Snafu.

When we first uncovered a New Jersey Mob connection to the election story in Florida we asked ourselves, in all honesty, if we might have been watching too many Soprano's reruns...

What was revealed turns out, instead, to be a case of 'real life' imitating HBO...

Suspicions are growing that investigations into The Great Florida Vote Snafu are beginning to unearth something else entirely... .something that might more accurately be called the 'Florida Surprise.'



Start with somebody who isn't even in Florida. Jerry Fowler, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the just-convicted State Commissioner of Elections. Fowler took real money--maybe ten million--for a period of a decade, not a fact inspiring confidence in recent election returns from that state.

Could this be the reason why the cable-news shows keep telling us that "elections are an inexact science?"

The man who bribed Fowler is Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci, who hails from Marlton, New Jersey.

After Fowler's sentencing last Friday morning in Baton Rouge, the US Attorney for Louisiana, L.J. Hymel, gave an impromptu press conference on the steps of the US Courthouse, and looked unpleasantly surprised when a reporter asked a real question.

"Was the man who bribed Jerry Fowler for a decade a member of Organized Crime?"

"I don't know," replied Hymel, indicating impatience with a toss of his silver-maned head. (Big Hair is sometimes important these days in US Attorneys. But little details like Organized Crime affiliations are apparently not.)

The reporter persisted. "You're the US Attorney, and you don't know if the man who bribed the state Commissioner of Elections for a decade belongs to Organized Crime?"

It seemed like a simple question, and innocuous-enough, from a visiting 'Yankee' journalist. But from the shocked silence that ensued, among the assembled members of what passes for a free press in the benighted little state of Louisiana, it was clear he had inquired about something they felt was totally off-topic.

The local press acted like Hymel had been asked whether he enjoyed having sex with small furry animals. The question "Is Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci of Marlton, New Jersey, a member of the Mob?" was clearly not considered a fit topic for discussion on the steps of the US District Courthouse.

Meting out Justice to bribe-taking public officials is no cause for asking reckless questions about whether the Mob was involved.

Still, we think its a fair question. Hymel's had almost ten years to look up the answer.



Commissioner of Elections and former pro football player Jerry Fowler, we learned, got himself in gambling trouble at Harrah's casino in Atlantic City in the mid-'90's.

It was also at just this time, strangely enough, in 1995 and '96, when allegations of voting irregularity became commonplace in Louisiana. Curiously, gambling was the burning issue on the ballot in those years in the state's elections. One of the big gambling questions involved Harrah's proposal to build a casino in downtown New Orleans.

We recalled this gambling connection later when we learned, from one of five losing candidates that alleged vote fraud in a suit, of the strange death of the Supervisor of Elections in New Orleans.

Two weeks before voters went to the polls, the unfortunate Tony Giambelluca, who held the keys to the warehouse where the election machines were kept, turned up an apparent suicide.

He had chosen to take his life, oddly enough, behind a garbage dumpster.

Given the choice, we figure most people would choose to end their existence in a slightly more scenic locale than behind some rusty old trash bin.

"Given the choice."



Is this merely a case of there being no accounting for taste? Or were we looking at a political murder; in other words, assassination? And what are the connections between this incident and events in Martin County, Florida?

What was immediately clear was that reporter's interest quickened with the discovery that the scandal had already consumed lives.

The story of how it was that Florida was unable to do the thing the other 49 states managed to do, which was to count the votes, will now, we predict, begin to receive even more attention.

Ghoulish or not, the sad fact of modern life is that nothing becomes a true scandal in America until after the bodies begin to pile up.



(to be continued.)

joe6pk