This article was featured in the New York Times on April 22nd, 2009 on page A22 of the New York eduition. This article gives a story about two business partners who hoped to open a bar room in downtown New York City. The hopes of these two men slowly slipped away during the financial crisis and eventually owed the leasing company $267,000 in back rent. When the two learned of their debt they franticly tried to find out how to not only repay their debt but also how to repair their dream of opening their bar room. In an effort to gain this tremendous amount of money the business partners, Schwartz and Giamongas, conspiricied with SoHo security officer Gogoladze. This conspiricy consisted of a planned kidnapping of a real estate agent. The group kidnapped this man then forced him to give them seven signed blank checks that they would hope to provide a relief of debt.
This story is interesting for a few reasons. First this article is very interesting showing that “stranger” danger still exists. The victim, a real estate agent, had no connection to the offenders. This is a very unlikely circumstance that occurs at very low rates according to class discussion. Antother intersesting topic about this crime is that the offenders were of relatively high ages for criminal acts. The mean age of the three offenders was 46 years old with two men being 35 and the eldest being 70 years old. As we’ve learned in class many offenders tend to “phase” out of crime but these offenders seem to break the pattern. Also the very controversial inclusion that the three offenders were recent immigrants. This tries to point the finger away from American citizens and aims to provide the public with a “black sheep” that they can blame their problems on. All three of the offenders were either on a work visa or alledgely illegal immigrants.
Although the offenders only got away with cashing one of these checks for $25,000 they will certainly being paying this sum back and serving time for their actions. However repayment and incarceration won’t fix this problem thats facing America. Today more and more Americans are weary of job loss so these cases may become more frequent. This common belief is what I feel that this article tries to target. By showing these people as illegal immigrants and “Aliens” of immigration it tends to give the imagery that Americans wouldn’t ever commit an act like this. At a time of hardship the media tries to pull the population together under one united cause and the attack of immigrants is most likely a source that we will utilize considering the recent development of a fence between Texas and Mexico and an even more recent development of swine flu that’s continuely connected to “Mexican Dirtyness”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/nyregion/22arrest.html?_r=1