Jon Roberts, the convicted cocaine trafficker who masterminded the Medellin Cartel’s rise in the 1980s and the importation of as much as 15 billion dollars worth of cocaine for them, told a few stories that strained credulity when we first sat down for the interviews that would form the basis of our book, ‘American Desperado’ (Crown, published November 1st, 2011). Among them, he claimed that as a young New York Mafia soldier in the late 1960s – nearly a decade before he got into the “cocaine industry,” as he refers to it – he rescued Jimi Hendrix from a kidnapping attempt. The tale seemed patently absurd until I began to look into the twisted history of the New York club scene in the late 1960s. Based on research and interviews I conducted, it turns out that not only does Roberts’ story appear to be true, he solves a mystery that has intrigued Hendrix biographers for more than three decades.
Shortly after Hendrix’s death in 1970, members of his inner circle revealed that about a year earlier, just after Woodstock, Hendrix had been abducted by Mafia gunmen and held in upstate New York in a dispute involving a recording deal. One version of the story named his abductors as “John Riccobono.” As it happens, that was Roberts’ name in the late 1960s (before he changed it and fled a murder investigation for which he was a prime suspect). As “Riccobono” he had served as point man in a successful Mafia effort to take control of Salvation, a top Manhattan nightclub. According to independent research for our book, far from kidnapping Hendrix, Roberts and his Mafia partner Andy Benfante, helped rescue him two times – not just from a bungled, amateurish kidnapping plot, but from an ill-advised rock star foray onto water-skis.
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Reprinted from the book ‘American Desperado’ by Jon Roberts and Evan Wright. Copyright © 2011 by Jon Roberts. Published by Crown, a division of Random House, Inc.
During the Daily Show’s weeklong Thanksgiving break, an alarming new trend took hold – “[using] pepper spray to alleviate minor inconveniences,” as Jon Stewart put it on last night’s show. Stewart went on to note that, between the spraying of peaceful protesters at UC Davis and the case of a woman who squeezed off a can of the stuff to take out fellow/rival shoppers on Black Friday, “it is order that has been pepper sprayed.” Watch Stewart’s look at how pepper spray became “America’s new car horn.”
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At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat
At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat.