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A factual, unique, often chilling memoir written by the only owner of an escort service in the United States who was acquitted by a jury in either state or federal courts on organized crime charges.

In 1992, Vicky Gallas opened an escort service in Orlando, Florida. Several years later she became the focus of an intense criminal investigation that resulted in an arrest and jury trial. With her fighting spirit and her unwillingness to buckle under an unrelenting pattern of intimidation, the author became the only owner of an escort service in the United States brought to trial on organized crime charges and found innocent. Through the use of her extensive journals, documents from court cases, conversations with individuals who shared their own experiences, and recollections from years of intimidation, fear, and harassment, Gallas has written an unparalleled account, Memoirs of an Accused Madam: The War on Adult Business in Orlando. In this hard-hitting memoir, she reveals how racketeering and organized crime charges were brought against her based on proof so flimsy that a wiretap or search warrant were never carried out, due to insufficient evidence. Nevertheless, the legal system persevered and the case was brought to trial. In this shocking story, we learn about the self-proclaimed moral authority, too many of whom partake of the very services they publicly lambast. For anyone fascinated with the foibles of our criminal justice system, and how escort services really work, this is a must-read book.

The spectacular ZaSu Pitts helms the gripping and amusing So's Your Aunt Emma. A hodgepodge of disparate elements that blend into an almost magical whole, the film stars Pitts as a middle-aged spinster who comes to the big city to see a young boxer, the son of an old flame. It becomes apparent to her that the young man is in over his head with racketeering mobsters. Then the film takes an unexpected turn: the mobsters come to believe that Pitts is a nefarious secret killer that they all fear! The circumstances leading to this are cleverly hilarious, as is most of the film. So's Your Aunt Emma is a riotous brew of action, comedy, drama, and superb acting.

Nick Escalante isn't a violent man by nature; he's just good at it. And when things get very, very bad, he's naturally at his best. Las Vegas is the backdrop for all the torrid action of HEAT, as Burt Reynolds plays the softhearted bodyguard who's out to protect his friends. When a mobster's son brutally beats an old flame, it ignites a tightly-wound thriller that pits Burt against the mob and culminates in a vicious cat-and-mouse climax.

This book, Corruption and Racketeering In The New York City Construction Industry: The Final Report of the New York State Organized Task Force, lays out in close and compelling detail the intricate patterns of currupt activities and relationships that for the better part of a century have characterized business as usual in the construction industry in America's largest metropolis.

The book is the end product of more than five years' worth of investigation, prosecutions, and research by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, a unique agency that has set a national example for marrying law enforcement initiatives with comprehensive and exhausting analysis of the causes and dynamics of industrial racketeering. This is a sobering analysis of the construction industry , one of New York City's largest industries, and in effect, one of the city's most significant economic sectors. In any given year during the 1980s, billions of dollars of construction were being carried out at any one time. The industry regularly employs more than 100,000 people in the city, involving some one hundred union locals and many hundreds of general and specialty contractors as well as a large number of architects, engineers, and materials suppliers. The book shows—in great and provocative detail—how organized extortion, bribery illegal cartels, and bid rigging characterize construction in the city. The basis for much of this crim is labor racketeering, controlled or orchestrated by organized crime. It reveals how this world of corruption affects not only the private sector but the city's vast public works program, and it spells out the ways in which both organized crime and official corruption each sustain the dynamics of ongoing criminality.

Wrong-doing on a massive scale is documented at length. But this book is more than a recitation of extensive and systematic criminality. The book recommends a number of plausible options for genuine reform. Necessarily these are profound and radical solutions, but everyone who reads this book will conclude that only profound and radical solutions could hope to solve such an entrenched and intractable crime problem.

Vicky Gallas opened her Orlando-based escort service in 1992. Beginning in 1994, she became the subject of years of law enforcement-induced intimidation and publicized misinformation. In this honest and shocking story never before told, we learn about the hypocrisy that permeates a legal system in which business owners can be prosecuted by the very individuals who benefit from their services. In Memoirs of an Accused Madam: The War on Adult Business in Orlando, former escort service proprietor Gallas offers a revealing view into the workings of escort services and the extremes a community’s “morality police” will go to shut their doors and imprison their owners. This memoir is not intended as a defense of escort services. Rather, it is a straightforward and carefully documented overview of the fundamental flaws in the U.S. criminal justice system and how one woman stood up to state RICO charges to become the only escort service owner in the U.S. to be found not guilty.

From Damon Runyan's colorful tough guys in black shirts and white ties to recent media coverage of John Gotti, the `dapper don', public depictions of racketeers in the United States have drawn attention away from the true nature of organized crime and its extensive penetrations into mainstream business. The Upperworld and the Underworld: Case Studies of Racketeering and Business Infiltrations in the United States strips away the romantic patina and reveals the significant impact of racketeering on vital segments of American industry. In this informative study Robert Kelly explores two fundamental questions: `Why is organized crime a serious problem in some businesses and industries, and not in others?' and `What are the consequences of racketeering activities for labor organizations and businesses tainted by a criminal presence?' He examines the blurred demarcation between the legitimate and illegitimate sectors of society and explains the reasons for this occurrence. In the process, Kelly provides a distinct vantage point for understanding organized crime, not just as an `outlaw fringe' preying on society, but as a disturbingly integral element of our social and economic structure. Moreover, he confirms a widely held thesis that organized crime is not merely parasitic but an institutional component of American society. The Upperworld and the Underworld affords a fascinating view of the current state of organized crime in the United States and the rise of nontraditional criminal organizations in new immigrant communities. The volume is an essential resource for students and scholars concerned with issues of crime and its effects on the economy.