Two boys (from my DD's school) arrested for trying to setup a "middle school mafia"

[Barb]

This is just too bizarre. I can't help but think there's someone older behind all this.

 

[bekkiz]

Just a thought:

When I was a fifth grader, my friends and I "set-up" an elaborate business to sell dresses. Well, they were drawings of dresses and selling them entailed handing them out to each other, but it was an honest to goodness exercise in setting up a business. We had it all written out etc.

Someone asked the question "what movies are these kids watching?" I would think this might be an extended game. Was any of what was written down actually carried out? I get nervous when very young children are jailed etc for crimes of imagination. Perhaps arrest was not needed here, but rather some extensive work with a therapist to help these children understand fact from fiction.

I don’t think anyone has reason to worry in this case.

 

[JAP]

Very frightening indeed.

However, the Sopranos is a very popular show. My DH thought about buying the DVDs for the first season. I said no way. We would have to lock that up and to me, it just isn't worth it.

Also, there are quite a few movies out there showing how the early mafia in this country came into being.

Don't get me wrong I don't want to blame TV and movies all together. I am sure the parents have to have some part in all this.

Too bad these boys did not put their skills of making charts and grafts into scholarship materials.

So sad.

 

[browneyes]

One of my computer teachers ds's was hacking into his school's computer system when he was in elementary school. I think she was more impressed with her ds than upset. He had detailed info on his principal's personal info (including bank account info that the principal had on his work computer). Sometimes it's scary how smart kids are now.

How were they caught, TC?

 

[Towncrier]

The librarian found a crumpled up piece of paper in the library that was a note from "the boss" to one of his boys. I'm not exactly sure of the contents of the note, but it was enough that the school decided to take the threat seriously. There is a much bigger writeup in today's Akron Beacon Journal:

Posted on Wed, Mar. 26, 2003

Boy charged as aspiring mob boss
School suspends 14-year-old, friend
By Ed Meyer and Keith McKnight
Beacon Journal staff writers

"The Boss,'' police say, began hatching a plan two weeks ago to rake in as much as $100,000 through an organization styled after a Mafia "family.''

But the brains behind the operation is not some hardened criminal from the streets.

He's a 14-year-old Nordonia Middle School student who was arrested on a felony charge by Summit County sheriff's detectives Monday night, along with another school friend who was recruited to help carry out the plan.

The Nordonia district's superintendent, William C. Zwick, said in a statement Tuesday that the two students were suspended for 10 days, and that middle school Principal Jennifer Vinson recommended that both be expelled.

The felony charge of inducing panic involves two crudely made electrical devices found in The Boss' school backpack, Sheriff's Capt. Larry Momchilov said. Momchilov said the devices were never used, but they could have disabled the school's electrical system or caused a fire if they had been plugged into a standard outlet.

The other student was charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. He is accused of attempting to help The Boss carry out a moneymaking scheme that sounds as if it came from an episode of The Sopranos.

According to handwritten and computer-generated notes confiscated by Sheriff's Detective Patricia Kungle, The Boss envisioned making as much as $100,000 by assigning various "jobs'' to his friends, then taking a 25 percent cut for himself.

The Boss, according to one of the lists he compiled, envisioned his "family'' making money in prostitution, weapons sales, money laundering, recruiting hit men -- even candy sales.

Kungle said none of those activities was carried out, but The Boss did go as far as telling friends that the money they brought in would be deposited in his personal bank account. Such a bank account exists in Bedford Heights; a grandparent had opened it for the student as a favor, Kungle said.

Approximately $100 in cash was found in the student's home, Kungle said. The Boss collected the money as membership fees in the family, she said.

The impetus for the scheme was library books on the Mafia, plus material the student found in a section of a U.S. Justice Department Web site on organized crime, Kungle said.

There was no evidence of violence or specific threats against anyone, nor were weapons or illegal drugs found, Kungle said.

"I don't think he ever really wanted to hurt anybody,'' Kungle said. "It was more of an issue of how he could make money, fast.

"His front was dealing in and rebuilding computers. And if anybody asked, that's what they were doing.''

The students, who were released into the custody of their parents, are to appear in Summit County Juvenile Court to determine what happens next, Momchilov said. Their court date is pending.

The Akron Beacon Journal usually does not identify juveniles charged with crimes unless the charges involve violence.

Kungle said she interviewed 13 boys who were identified by The Boss as potential family members, but none of the others was charged.

The student who was arrested on the misdemeanor charge was nicknamed "The Hacker'' because he was supposed to alter grades in the school's computer system, Momchilov said.

"He had bragged to The Boss that he could do it,'' Kungle said, "but he really couldn't.''

The Boss, according to a computerized note to The Hacker, had given specific instructions to have all his grades raised to higher marks -- some bumped up just high enough, to C's, so as not to arouse suspicion.

Kungle said school officials checked the grades of all the students who were on The Boss' list but did not find any that had been altered.

The scheme was uncovered Friday, Kungle said, when the school librarian found a crumpled note in the library and turned it over to school administrators. The note, handwritten by The Boss, instructed one of his friends to pass along word of the moneymaking scheme to others, promising that "if they would join in and do work for the family, they will be very rich and powerful.''

Zwick said district officials have met with the middle school's students to inform them of the suspensions and that all middle school parents will soon receive a letter discussing the episode.

Zwick said he would evaluate the recommendation for expulsion and would make a decision soon.

 

[browneyes]

The Boss, according to one of the lists he compiled, envisioned his "family'' making money in prostitution, weapons sales, money laundering, recruiting hit men -- even candy sales.

Jeez! I wonder what his parents think about all this?