Guinea Pig Install

Well, Carole, you must want me to live a very long time because another delay— a clean computer install on my MAC as I write ; the tech at Apple Store is doing... and I just hope all our backups are good.

Will take Curt the weekend to put stuff back, hope it is there to retrieve.

Have a hard copy of  the last revision, is incomplete, was searching through older files, pulling copying and pasting ..... oh Carole!

Have had more problems with Apple than they'd ever own up to .... am writing this from older 2009 machine before complications of the cloud  with its humongous storage, and nebulous blameful third party providers — the technology evolving and idiots like me paying the company's learning curve... we the guinea pigs —one blip and poof, all gone, done in. Bye-bye.

PS: Of note, just happen to find, coincidentally,  the week of  ....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, September 25, 2017

Federal Agent, Colombian Narcotics Kingpin and Colombian National Indicted for Conspiracy, Corruption and Obstruction

A Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent and two Colombian nationals were charged today by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida with conspiracy, corruption and obstruction of justice charges stemming from their participation in a bribery scheme that resulted in the dismissal of an indictment filed against one of the Colombian nationals in exchange for cash and other things of value, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Special Agent in Charge Michael T. Moreland of the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Southeast Region; and Special Agent in Charge Jay Donly of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), HSI.

According to the indictment, Special Agent Christopher V. Ciccione, II, 52, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was the case agent for Operation Cornerstone, a large-scale Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force case that resulted in indictments of Colombia-based cocaine traffickers from the Cali Cartel, including Jose Piedrahita Ceballos, a Colombian national.  The indictment alleges that Piedrahita gave benefits to Ciccione in exchange for official acts that resulted in the dismissal of the indictment against Piedrahita.  Juan Carlos Velasco, also a Colombian national, served as the intermediary between Ciccione and Piedrahita.  Ciccione ultimately succeeded in getting the Cornerstone indictment dismissed against Piedrahita in exchange for approximately $20,000 in cash, dinner, drinks and prostitution.  

The indictment further alleges that while maintaining contact with Piedrahita, Ciccione misled the U.S. Attorney’s Office and HSI management and altered DHS records to represent to decision makers that Piedrahita was “unidentified” and that his case should be dismissed because “all investigative efforts” were “exhausted.”  In addition, Ciccone falsified the concurrence of several other federal agents and even attempted to parole Piedrahita into the U.S.         

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Piedrahita as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act on May 3, 2016. 

ICE-OPR, Department of Homeland Security’s OIG and the FBI investigated the case.  The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and Office of the Judicial Attaché in Colombia, and the Drug Enforcement Administration provided valuable assistance to the investigation.  Trial Attorneys Luke Cass and Jennifer A. Clarke of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.

Attachment(s): 

Download Ciccione Indictment

Component(s): 

Criminal Division

Press Release Number: 

17-1052

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-agent-colombian-narcotics-kingpin-and-colombian-national-indicted-conspiracy

You, Danny and a train set

Hi Carole, forever my love ... Danny and Elena came over last night, grand they were here, my depression vast, their presence warmth and love.  They bought Key Lime sherbet, Key West in thought and we shared stories about you, of you.  Lit candles. Broke bread. Sherbet first, then pizza and salad, topped with a fruit torte. Poignantly sweet.

Also today, donated the grandkids toys from Miguel and William to Christ the King Annual Fall Elephant sale, the train set with a control sounding like the toot-toot whistle of a train with working platforms, a water mill, a grain miller and more. And while glad will be going to other children, sad too, because the set with its tracks and tunnels and cars lived here for a more than decade and had been played with, traveled the countryside on a bedroom floor.

Chuga, chuga, chuga like railroad train, come on baby do the locomotion.

Love, sojourns and time a-going.

October 19, 2017. Carole, come hither ....

Hi my love, you must want me to live a long time because you keep placing obstacles; our book almost as it was months ago: not progressing.  Hurricane Irma delayed yet not an excuse. The reality is I'm stuck.

Interestingly, in keeping with your appearing within the week before you died, you found me again.  A reach beyond memories and tears.

Days surrounding, a predicament from a news article October 14. Kingpin dealings from 1993 thought closed, has the justice department taking a second look. You'd always maintained there would be more, and there is, close to home, connected.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-agent-colombian-narcotics-kingpin-and-colombian-national-indicted-conspiracy

OK, so in matters of the space time continuum, maybe not as momentous as Einstein's gravitational ripples recently proven, but still a foreshadowing, a pathway.  My quandary, how to express this 16 years after your death, your premonition come true.

Should psychic Elena, whom the reader met earlier, be called upon? Or Leslie?  We are writing creative nonfiction, so what is the method, a technique, for bringing this new find forward?

You directed me to the material, now please channel your creativity! An epilogue seems like a cheat, shortchanges us. You with your mentoring voice — a tap, a whisper: insight. Show me.