Police officials in Wayne County and the City of Dearborn have been allowing known rigged games at their carnivals for the last decade while patrons were under the impression they were being protected by cops seen patrolling the midway. On February 6, 2015, Willie Lovett was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison for Conspiracy to obstruct enforcement of criminal laws and related gambling crimes. Combined with the fact that fair season didn't line up well with my school's almost year-round schedule, they thought it best to quit the business. Every carnival game designed has the potential to be rigged. We open at around 5 or 6 pm on Saturday, close at 10 or 11pm, tear down rides (about four hours), drive them to the next spot (typically about 45 minutesto an hour and a half), then set them all back up (about sevenhours). The most common degree is a high school diploma degree with an criminal justice major. Police officers patrolling midways are evidently being paid in whole or in part with carnival money in the form of contracts from the carnival company or carnival sponsor. Hey! The midsummer small spots were nice because the hours were short, but the end of the season and the state fairs are where the big money's at. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. The old classic carnivals with geeks & shows of dubious morality etc. Gregorys little moon-walk act looks good on the six-o-clock news; however, everyone in the industry knows that carnival owners and managers are never in the dark about the corrupt features of every dirty game on their midways. That would surely subject them to a false arrest claim and a possible headline about their rip-off (the kids) church festival. Assisting the NBCs Today show (and reimbursed for expenses) as their police carnival games expert, I was assigned by Thomas to investigate Michigan carnivals and especially the games at the 2012 Arab Festival, which draws about 300,000 patrons. Frank has carnival contracts there as well. With no interest to investigate the game in question, the four responding officers allowed the swindlers to continue to rip-off children while backing off on their threats against me. One guy in Kansas mortgaged his house and sent $30,000 to the scammers over a period of months. To make matters worse, some of the prisoners eventually confessed the scheme to victims and threatened to out them if they told anyone. As part of my research for the Today feature, each morning before the 2012 Arab Festival carnival opened, I measured the basketball rims and found, pretty much, what I had expected. He was an alcoholic. In my early years as a police officer of the Dearborn Police Department and working the information desk, a man named Steve Nowosielski walked in to complain that carnival employees were stealing from the patrons with Razzle at the city carnival only 100 yards from the police station. Also available from Amazon, With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick OConnor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998. Carnivals have close ties to not only organized crime but to local law enforcement. There were at least two casualties: Margie George, a 44-year-old fortune-teller who was hacked to death for refusing to reveal the location of a supposed safe, and Gary Elbert McDaniel, a known Dixie Mafia associate who turned up dead a month after the murder. I've traveled and worked on four or fiveshows of various sizes, mainly in the Midwest and Northeast. In 2008, campaign finance records show that Frank contributed to the following U.S. Congressional candidates: Joe Baca, Brian Bilbray, Gerry Connolly, Jim Costa, Randy Forbes, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Pence, Dennis Rehberg, andNydia Velzquez. Im a public librarian, and I gotta say I really dont like Larry who drinks in the bathroom checking that safety catch on the Scrambler, ya know? When cheating for money occurs, it is no longer a game, but a crime. After the mob apparently ordered a hit on the judge, Sherry and his wife were murdered in their Mississippi home in 1987. Carnys got nothin! A major stereotype I hate is that we are all crooks and criminals. While the Dixie Mafia had no formal ties to La Cosa Nostra, they did have an understanding with a notorious Italian-American Mafia mob boss named Carlos Marcello. Often described as the Cornbread Cosa Nostra, the Dixie Mafia first emerged in the American South in the 1960s. I was a carnie for a summer. Carnival companies, not the state, should absorb the costs of background checks, lawmakers said. I havent thought about that in a long time. But really, what field doesnt? State law prohibits child sex offenders from working at a carnival. Kirksey McCord Nix Jr., one of the notorious leaders of the Dixie Mafia. This contract arrangement locks the carny-cops in as quasi-employees of the carnival or carnival sponsor and shares carnival profits in the form of pay. This style eventually migrated into wrestling, hip hop, and other parts of modern culture.[4]. Sponsors, and especially church festival committees, likely make the mistake of trusting carny-managers under the ill-judged impression that they (sponsors) share game profits. But I dont have any illusions that this is the end of the Dixie Mafia., After reading about the Dixie Mafia, meet Joe Valachi, the first mobster to expose the Mafias darkest secrets, and Frank Lucas, the real-life heroin kingpin who inspired the film American Gangster., The Little-Known Story Of The Dixie Mafia, The Cornbread Cosa Nostra Of The South. From the foul line, the rims appeared to be regulation and served to attract and dupe naive victims out of $2 a shot. The game is designed to be impossible to spill eight marbles into holes for totals corresponding to any successful yardage gains on the conversion chart. So usually, we don't tell townies that we are carnies because they immediately judge us for it. WebEmployees felt differently about being labeled a carnie, a name colloquially used to describe carnival workers. My dad built his own candy apple stand when he was in college and stayed in the business for over 30 years. Tubs of Fun, known as a bucket games, consist of plastic tubs which replace the old bushel baskets, where the agent is able to execute an unnoticeable stealthy trick only when demonstrating how easy it is to win.. Do a little googling on carnies and carnival workers and youll find thats a common assessment. Razzle, which combines the magic of sleight of hand with bait and switch, and psychology, is difficult to explain without physically demonstrating it. For decades, this gang operated lawlessly and targeted anyone who stood in their way. So, I singled out a known scam artist operating one of the basketball games, Kenneth David Argo, a 12-year game agent for Huston. Carnival game players lose 95 percent of the time says a carnival game enforcement specialist, Corporal Glenn Hester of the Glynn County Police Department of Brunswick, Georgia. [3] As words are assimilated into the culture at large, they lose their function and are replaced by more obscure or insular terms. In many ways, Biloxi was an ideal place for the Dixie Mafias stomping grounds. Griffin is one of at least three traveling carnival workers who have been arrested in Bucks County since 2013 with criminal records one of them for crimes Marcello, one of the most powerful leaders in organized crime in America, operated in New Orleans around the same time that the Dixie Mafia was coming to power. Meanwhile, the Dixie Mafia received hundreds of thousands of dollars during this time. I remember a lot of late nights when my mom would come home to our trailer late after the fairgrounds had closed. The flatty again uses two hands to slyly pick up the marbles and announces another false fairbank number 11, which corresponds to 30 more yards on the chart. Civilized folks are always suspicious of transients, and it goes back a lot further than Gypsies. The mark must accumulate 100 yards (or over) to win that X-Box or HD TV. Carnival owners, workers, and agents, known as carnies, who own, manage, or operate these chance-based games and share in the take, are conspiring to promote gambling. State legislators said carnival companies have exaggerated costs to kill bills. In 2012, I was contacted by NBCs Today show producer Sandra Thomas, who wanted to consult with me regarding a story about carnival games. Instead, the Dixie Mafia was a rag-tag band of crooks who were willing to do just about any crime if there was money involved. No rigged games, daily ride inspections, and regular and random drug testing andbackground checksgo a long way towardcleaning up the carnie image. The carny vocabulary is traditionally part of carnival cant, a secret language. Authorities on enforcement of carnival games estimate that 25 percent of all carnival games nationwide are fraudulent. Step right up to the king of all carnival rip-offs, Razzle Dazzle, which searches for and destroys its prey. He said you could make enough money each summer to last the year, and a lot of his old carnie friends travel all over the world when they aren't working fairs. We have a full drug testing center on-site. It does tend to be full of gossip since everyone works and lives with each other in close quartersRide and customer safety is the number-one priority. He would work hard when he worked, but then would go on benders. Ive seen horror shows and Ive seen highschool kids. Slick carnival entrepreneurs are business-savvy. But the carnival I work forhas spent a long time building their image up to try to distance themselves from the stigma. (This practice, one would presume, should already be standard police procedure and routine.). But despite the massive crackdown on former members that followed, many believe that the group is still secretly active today. The festival officials did not like my presence (which is normal), so they called police about me. In 2000, just prior to leaving office, President Clinton pardoned the Gregorys. She said that in Indianapolis, her college varsity basketball 3-point-shooting star, Carly Thibault, missed all 13 attempts at the basketball toss. I think the reputation of carnies goes back much, much further to the suspicion and hatred of people like the Gypsies and extending today to our dislike of fucking hippies. Knowing I was on firm ground, and having experienced a pattern of these intimidation tactics, arrest threats, and failed defamation suits on other occasions, I was wondering if these irritated cops wouldnt chance trumping up an arrest with creative writing. It is not uncommon for sheriffs or police chiefs to lend themselves to sizable remunerations to ensure that these affable outlaws operate on trouble-free turf. In 2011, I personally complained to Wayne County Sheriffs Office, Deputy Chief Dennis Richardson, commander on site, about 12 in-progress rigged basketball games called One in Wins. The basketball rims were actually elliptical and had deceivingly small openings. In running background checks at five events, the Illinois attorney general's office and Cook County sheriff's department found that among 179 carnival employees, To address the puzzling doggedness of plain-sight crooked carnival games, one has to first take a look at the history, criminalities, winks and nods of police, and the behind-the-scenes components enabling and perpetuating this century-old system of corruption. Watch Gummo. Youll win it this next time for sure. Gummo was about white trash in a small dirt-poor town. Risky Rides: Carnival Workers' Grueling Hours May Threaten Safety. As for the coworkers I got along with, I never asked them about their criminal background, so I couldnt tell you. I would set up and tear down the merry-go-round every week with the same crew; we were each other's backbone. The numbers of arrests and convictions found in the background checks do not surprise Burbank Police Chief Bruce Radowicz. I will usually see three to eight tubs on every midway of Wade Shows and North American Midway Entertainment. Dang, and I bet the smile you give wouldve made me buy more of whatever you were selling. There are several national stories in 2013 depicting how one tubs agent had depleted a victims back account. There was no chance they would win at some of the games, said Keteyian. But did the Dixie Mafias grip on the American South really end in the 1990s? She was clearly astonished and interested in securing this elliptical type of rim for a demonstration during her Today feature. Young teens are the now the focus at carnival festivals. ". Other towns, such as Naperville, hosting its Last Fling last weekend, rely on the carnival companies' honesty to check if sex offenders are working in the midst of children. ;)) He was a fun drunk, too! The new law, sponsored by State Senator In reach of the big payoff at 95 yards but broke, the mark is encouraged by the slick talking flatty to go to the automatic teller machine (ATM) and return with more money stating: You need just a few more yards to win a thousand dollars for each hundred you invested. Although there have been several complaints about gambling and rigged games at the Arab festivals, they have never been investigated by police. Patrick Jane, the title character of the CBS crime drama The In 2001, the U.S. Justice Department investigated the Gregorys and determined that from 1998-2001, Tony Rodham received a total of $323,769 in salary and loans from the Gregorys. Our excitement over cotton candy and carnival rides easily matches that of our kids. 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