Loan Sharks

As shoppers prepare to max out their credit cards at the malls, it's fitting that Harrisburg lawmakers are wrangling over how to regulate the practice of payday lending. These loans in amounts of only a few hundred dollars are repaid out of borrowers' next paycheck. They're like cash advances on a credit card - except that the annualized interest rate can be outrageous, sometimes exceeding 400 percent. No Santa's helper ever wants to become that desperate, cash-strapped, or that gullible.

FEDERAL AUTHORITIES are currently prosecuting Nicodemo Scarfo Jr. - the 36-year-old son of jailed-for-life Philadelphia godfather Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo - for running a loan-sharking and gambling operation in New Jersey. According to a New York Times article, an FBI sweep of Junior's computer hard drive revealed that he was breaking federal usury laws by charging annual interest of 152 percent a year for his very illegal loans. Now, 152 percent is steep by Citibank standards, but it's a sweet deal compared to the terms offered by the "payday loan" companies, which charge average APRs of nearly 500 percent for their very legal loans.

"This is a real kick in the gut for Atlantic City. " - gambling industry consultant Joe Weinert, on delayed construction of the $2.5 billion Revel casino "Federal fiscal relief - it will end. The good news for me is that when it does, I'll be on a beach somewhere. The bad news is that I'll still be a Pennsylvania taxpayer. " - Gov. Rendell, whose second term expires at the end of 2010 "Keeping foreclosed properties occupied and in better repair will support local property values and promote a faster recovery in the housing market.

Anyone got a spot for an out-of-work mobster? Really, there may be hundreds of skilled mob soldiers in New Jersey and Philadelphia facing the unemployment lines soon. Some 28 members of the Scarfo gang were rounded up last week by New Jersey investigators. Twelve more are on the authorities' hit list. Add those to the 17 mobsters jailed last year and the multiple sentences that kingpin Nicodemo Scarfo is serving, and you're talking major economic dislocation. The disappearance from public life of top and mid-level crime bosses will in all likelihood force hundreds of lesser-known former job-holders to look for new bosses, or a new line of work.

The very name Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo conjures up images that frighten, even though most people in this region have never even seen him. His reputation as a bad man is so lavish that grown men shudder when they think about his alleged criminality. Scarfo, one of 18 organized-crime figures arrested this week, was charged in New Jersey indictments with racketeering, conspiracy and gambling. All of it reminds me of a phone call I received a few years ago. "Mr. Lewis," the voice on the phone said.

The working poor make great victims. They are often trusting and financially unsophisticated, and with wages stagnant, they're desperate for cash. These folks hold jobs, so they have a money stream and possibly equity in their homes - all ripe for plunder. Corporate America has decided there's gold in draining the low-income masses of what little they have. Loan sharks and con artists once dominated this territory, but big businesses have moved in and are proving to be far smoother than the mugs who break legs.

I was raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood in those days. Most people living there were honest and hard-working, but there was still a mob presence. In consequence, I got pretty friendly with a number of petty-criminal, wiseguy-in-training types. One of them, whom I'll call "Rocco," called me from his condo in Florida the other day. Usually mellow and laid back since his retirement, he sounded very upset on the phone. After I confirmed that this conversation never took place, Rocco practically whined, "Dem guys, the banks, they're giving loan-sharking a bad name.

A widow who had lost $73,000 in a gold swindle, shouted at the man who swindled her, "You ought to be hung!" Instead, Roger F. Bonanni got 2 to 14. "I don't have that money - any of it," Bonanni protested yesterday as most of his victims crammed into court to watch his sentencing. He said he had borrowed heavily from loan sharks. "I was paying exorbitant interest. That's how the whole thing got started. " Bonanni, ex-coin dealer and card shop owner, says he got into a financial hole by borrowing from loan sharks who were threatening his life.

A Narberth dentist charged with evading taxes for more than 15 years was sentenced to four months in a community detention facility yesterday after a federal judge concluded that he was entitled to a lighter sentence because he suffered from a "mental impairment. " U.S. District Judge Marjorie O. Rendell could have sentenced Burton Rosen to 18 months in prison but imposed the lighter sentence after reviewing psychiatric reports. Rendell said that Rosen, 66, had an anxiety disorder that caused the impairment.

Robert F. "Bobby" Simone, one of Philadelphia's best-known and most controversial criminal trial lawyers, has admitted owing $2.6 million in back taxes, interest and penalties to the Internal Revenue Service. But it's likely to be a long time, if ever, before the IRS collects a sizable piece of the debt. Although Simone, who often represents reputed mob figures, is managing to meet his current income taxes, "he still doesn't have the ability to pay" the back taxes, said his attorney, Robert E. Madden.

Reputed South Jersey mob leader Anthony Staino, arrested on racketeering charges last month, once told an associate that he was a member of the "board of directors" and the "chief financial officer" for the crime family headed by Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, according to federal prosecutors. Unfortunately for Staino, the "associate" was an FBI agent posing as a man named "Dino" who had borrowed money from the mob. In a conversation in 2004, Staino was trying to explain how important it was that the debt be repaid, according to an indictment unsealed May 23. So he let Dino know who he was and at another point told him: "Please, on my life, I like you. I don't want to have to [expletive]

Reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi was all about money, not murder, say law enforcement and underworld sources who have tracked the surprisingly long tenure of Philadelphia's low-key, circumspect Mafia don. On Monday, in a move that could signal the end of Ligambi's run, the alleged mob kingpin, 71, and a dozen other reputed members and associates of his organization were named in a 50-count indictment built around gambling and loan-sharking...

I was raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood in those days. Most people living there were honest and hard-working, but there was still a mob presence. In consequence, I got pretty friendly with a number of petty-criminal, wiseguy-in-training types. One of them, whom I'll call "Rocco," called me from his condo in Florida the other day. Usually mellow and laid back since his retirement, he sounded very upset on the phone. After I confirmed that this conversation never took place, Rocco practically whined, "Dem guys, the banks, they're giving loan-sharking a bad name.

"This is a real kick in the gut for Atlantic City. " - gambling industry consultant Joe Weinert, on delayed construction of the $2.5 billion Revel casino "Federal fiscal relief - it will end. The good news for me is that when it does, I'll be on a beach somewhere. The bad news is that I'll still be a Pennsylvania taxpayer. " - Gov. Rendell, whose second term expires at the end of 2010 "Keeping foreclosed properties occupied and in better repair will support local property values and promote a faster recovery in the housing market.

Investigators dubbed it "Operation Delco Nostra," and they said that for at least five years, the tentacles of Philadelphia's organized-crime network took a firm hold in Delaware County, engaging in illegal activities that included bookmaking, loan-sharking and drug-dealing. Yesterday, 17 defendants surrendered to authorities in Delaware County and Philadelphia on charges including solicitation to commit aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit perjury. The investigation also may have uncovered evidence of a rift in the organization, federal sources said.

Why do we even have a "college-loan industry"? In this country, where education is supposedly valued so highly and where almost every student is counseled to take courses beyond high school, why has usury become the vehicle that so many must endure to reach their desired academic goal? Hear that? That's the sound of the "industry" crying foul. How dare anyone compare to usury the public service it claims it provides? But it's hard to not think of loan sharks when you read that the five top executives of Pennsylvania's government-run student-loan agency are being given bonuses totaling a half-million dollars.

Why do we even have a "college-loan industry"? In this country, where education is supposedly valued so highly and where almost every student is counseled to take courses beyond high school, why has usury become the vehicle that so many must endure to reach their desired academic goal? Hear that? That's the sound of the "industry" crying foul. How dare anyone compare to usury the public service it claims it provides? But it's hard to not think of loan sharks when you read that the five top executives of Pennsylvania's government-run student-loan agency are being given bonuses totaling a half-million dollars.

The working poor make great victims. They are often trusting and financially unsophisticated, and with wages stagnant, they're desperate for cash. These folks hold jobs, so they have a money stream and possibly equity in their homes - all ripe for plunder. Corporate America has decided there's gold in draining the low-income masses of what little they have. Loan sharks and con artists once dominated this territory, but big businesses have moved in and are proving to be far smoother than the mugs who break legs.

How do you prevent war? By preserving peace. By making sure people have the means to live peaceably, with adequate food and shelter. By making sure families can earn a sustaining income through meaningful work. For more than two decades, such goals have been met by banking programs that dispense "microcredit. " Loans typically under $100 in U.S. currency are provided to people who then use the funds to, perhaps, buy a cow to sell milk, or a sewing machine to sell garments. That enables them to support their families.

As shoppers prepare to max out their credit cards at the malls, it's fitting that Harrisburg lawmakers are wrangling over how to regulate the practice of payday lending. These loans in amounts of only a few hundred dollars are repaid out of borrowers' next paycheck. They're like cash advances on a credit card - except that the annualized interest rate can be outrageous, sometimes exceeding 400 percent. No Santa's helper ever wants to become that desperate, cash-strapped, or that gullible.