Genovese crime family figure Frank Schwamborn pleads guilty gets 11 years

Vincent "Chin" Gigante in photo
A longtime associate of the Genovese organized crime family has pleaded guilty to securities fraud for selling $2.1 million of worthless stock, according to federal officials.

Frank Schwamborn, 48, of Farmingdale, took over a Ronkonkoma company, called World Cyberlinks, which had been set up to produce docking stations for Palm Pilots, but which did not actually make any products, officials said.

Schwamborn had the company transfer stock to a number of companies he had bought or set up in return for services, officials said. He took control of these companies using money he made selling cocaine, federal prosecutors said.

The companies never performed any services for the Cyberlinks company, officials said. But the stock transfers were backdated to get around the rule requiring that stock used to pay for services had to be held for a year before they could be resold, officials aid.

Among the companies, which prosecutors say are now out of business: Burdette Ltd., on the Isle of Man; Puritan Management of Bay Shore; FRF Holding of North Babylon , and Candles, a restaurant in Bay Shore that also was known as Park 70 Bistro and Giovanna's.

Schwamborn has been held in jail without bail awaiting trial on the charges because of a history of threats made against agents, police officers and state and federal prosecutors involved in the case and other investigations, officials said.

A postal inspector said in an affidavit at the time of Schwamborn's arrest that he was an associate of organized crime who had his own crew, which was "a collection of thieves, drug dealers, prostitutes, 'leg breakers,' and stockbrokers."

A number of stock investors, who were possible witnesses against Schwamborn, had been asked to move ...

DILLINGER

An elderly janitor walked into the cell block of the Lake County Jail at Crown Point, Indiana. The date: March 3, 1934. It was a relatively new facility, built onto the back of the

This photograph and similar ones taken that day helped lead to the firing of Lake County prosecutor Robert Estill (to Dillinger's left) and the sheriff (not pictured, but her arm is holding Estill's). AP photo.sheriff’s house in 1926, easy to clean, impossible to escape from. The addition of a notorious prisoner—John Dillinger—would prove that. Or so the sheriff thought.
As the janitor entered the cell, the prisoner jumped him and jammed a gun—actually a piece of wood carved in the shape of one—into his ribs. Quickly, through a combination of bravado and desperation, Dillinger tricked half a dozen guards back to the cell block, confiscated their weapons, and jailed the jailors.

On that day, Dillinger was 30 years old. He was of medium build and average height, with brown, thinning hair. His most distinguishing feature was a roguish smile, which he had put to good use in a series of press photos with the prosecuting attorney Robert Estill and the sheriff upon his extradition to Crown Point. The chummy nature of the photos contributed to both these officials losing their jobs that year. And Dillinger’s charm had already begun to captivate the American people, who began to see him as part Robin Hood, part vicious thug.

The notorious gangster had been captured in Arizona two months earlier. He was wanted in connection with the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer named William O’Malley. At the time Dillinger was not on our radar; he had committed no federal crimes. But we had been assisting Ohio law enforcement in their search for him after was freed from a Lima jail by his confederates in the fall of 1933.

Now Dillinger had escaped once more. In making the break, he’d stolen the sheriff’s car and driven it to Chicago, 50 or so miles northwest of Crown Point. In the process, he crossed the Indiana/Illinois border and violated the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, commonly called the “Dyer Act.” John Dillinger was now a federal fugitive and an FBI subject.
Over the next several months, the Bureau tracked Dillinger and a wide array of violent criminals who worked with him—making mistakes along the way, but ultimately bringing these violent criminals to justice.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of that chase. More importantly, it is the 75th anniversary of the emergence of the FBI as an organization of national and international stature.
The Bureau’s success in dealing with the gangsters led to significant changes in the FBI and law enforcement nationwide. Over the next few months, we will spotlight what we are calling “The Year of the Gangster” on this website through stories, photographs, and multimedia presentations, along with some new case details. We will tell how we went after such desperados as Bonnie and Clyde, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, and more. We will examine the social and political changes that arose from these criminal threats, bring to light long-forgotten historical sources, and consider the role that the Gangster Era played in the evolution of the FBI and its portrayal in American popular culture.

Resources:- FBI history website- More history stories