PLM Unchained Magazine Winter 2019

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T H E F. B. I .’s BAT T L E w it h t he M A F IA O ve r Por no g r aphy STEVE G ALL AG H E R

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A N INTE RVIEW w ith W ILLIAM KELLY, F.B.I

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the PL AGUE OF THE HEART

A. W. TO Z E R

MAGAZINE PURE LIFE MINISTRIES is fully committed to bringing the hope, healing and restoration found only in Christ to those who have been touched by the leprosy of sexual sin. Our staff members are graduates of one of our counseling programs themselves and have responded to the call of God to freely give to others the same compassion and mercy which the Father freely bestowed upon them.

They are men and women who know how to speak the truth of God in love.

In fulfilling our call, Pure Life Ministries is founded upon the authority of the Word of God as the supreme and allsufficient Truth for overcoming sin. We unashamedly preach a message of repentance unto salvation. Everything we do— whether in our counseling programs, our speaking ministry or the distribution of our books and resources—is based on the Word of God, with the goal of leading others to victory over sexual sin through a deeper life in God.

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T H E WAY I S E E I T

If the foundations be shaken, WHAT CAN THE RIGHTEOUS DO?

BY STEVE GALLAGHER Founder and President of Pure Life Ministries

Such are the whining words of a coward.

Yes, it is true, Psalms 11 & 12 tell of a time when society on the whole had turned bad.

The friend of young David who uttered the words above had certainly rightly discerned “the spirit of the age” in which he lived. A heavy blanket of evil seemed to rest upon the land. “The god of lies (had become) enthroned in the national heart.”i There was an acute shortage of truly godly men.

Society seemed to have reached the last stage of corruption “when vileness is exalted” and “the wicked strut about on every side.”

If this describes the social life a young David encountered 3,000 years ago, how much more is it true of the culture in which we live today? America has slipped far away from the decency that once established acceptable standards for our nation.

Unquestionably, we live in a day when evil is reaching its climax. Many believers respond to this spiritual blight with the same defeatist attitude expressed by David’s timid friend. “No matter how hard we try to live godly lives, the world around us only gets darker. It’s hopeless to fight this losing battle!

What can a righteous man do but bend to such times?”

What I would suggest is that the mindset represented with this sentiment is the very antithesis of righteousness. Solomon rightly said, “Like a trampled spring and a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.” (PROVERBS 25:26) The truth is that a righteous man would never express the faithless despair of David’s friend. In other words, a righteous man wouldn’t think to ask, “What can the righteous do?” He would ask, “What cannot

the righteous do?” It is in the darkest part of the night that the stars shine their brightest. It is when evil is at its malignant peak that the deeds of the righteous stand out most clearly.

Perhaps it is true that ordinary men acquiesce when “vileness is exalted,” but just as true is that those of extraordinary faith rise to the occasion.

Although godly men most keenly feel the pain of abounding wickedness, they are set apart by a dogged, stubborn unwillingness to bow to the evil of their times. Hebrews 11, the Book of Acts and the annals of Church history are chock full of the stories of courageous men and women who, equipped with nothing more than faith in an almighty God, stood up to the evil of their times and made a difference.

Don Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, is one such person. He was once asked, “Realistically, don’t you feel that the battle is already lost? If so, why do you continue fighting?” His response should motivate us all: “Some believe our country is too far gone to recover and return to a morally sound society.

I’ve not given up yet… We continue to fight because He calls us to be faithful.

Not successful. Faithful. That’s the bottom line.” i

Pulpit Commentary, The Book of Psalms, AGES Software.

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T h e F. B . I .’s B AT T L E w i t h t h e M A F IA O v e r Po r n o g r a p h y

BY STEVE GALL AGHER

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There were many people who contributed to the explosive emergence of X-rated movies in the ’70s—such as Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, John Holmes, and Linda Lovelace, to name a few—but the most important players were the gangsters lurking behind the scenes out of the public’s eye.

Members of the Mafia had been making a modest income by producing stag films for at least ten years when, in 1971, some associates of the Columbo organization (one of five Mafia families in New York City) hit the jackpot after producing the enormously successful X-rated comedy, D___ T____.

Filmed mostly in a motel on Biscayne Blvd. in North Miami, the movie cost less than $25,000 to produce, but within a couple of years the mob had raked in a staggering $50 million in profit. (See Pay Dirt.)

This windfall attracted other Mafioso, such as Robert DiBernardo (a “capo” in the Gambino organization), who presented himself more like a Wall Street broker than a smut-peddling thug.

He began Star Distributors, which became the main supplier of pornography in New York City. He was also responsible for bringing all of the pornographers under the control of the mob. Another key player was Michael Zaffarano, who was the main contact between the mob and the porn industry. He often mediated disputes between various Mafia families over the production of X-rated movies.

By the mid-eighties, most of the porn

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industry had moved to Southern California.

According to testimony before the Meese Commission by Captain James Doherty of the L.A.P.D., almost 90% of adult films were produced in Los Angeles. Chief Daryl Gates went on to say that at least 85% of the porn industry was controlled by organized crime.i As the sales of porno movies continued to skyrocket, the F.B.I. decided to investigate. Early in 1977, they launched the largest undercover operation in their history—known as MiPorn (Miami Pornography). Agents Patrick Livingston and Bruce Ellavsky set up shop in Miami posing as distributors of “adult entertainment.” What was initially targeted as a six-month probe with a modest budget of $25,000, eventually developed into an extremely dangerous, 2 ½-year investigation of the Mafia’s involvement in obscenity, costing taxpayers almost a half million dollars.

Bill Kelly, described by one reporter as having a “tight-lipped, no-nonsense determination to root out pornographers,”ii was assigned the task of training the two would-be smut peddlers. He spent a couple of weeks teaching the agents the ins and outs of the trade. Years later Kelly recalled the sort of things he warned them to avoid: “When you go to buy videos, don’t offer to pay $60 apiece; you offer $40. And whatever you do, don’t ask for kiddy porn because if you do, right away bells go off, and they’ll

make you for a cop.”

With their crash-course on the pornography industry behind them, the two opened Golde Coaste Distributors in a warehouse near the Miami airport.

Ostensibly a blue jean outlet, the “real” business operating out of the store was the distribution of adult films and magazines.

Unbeknownst to a number of criminals who would visit the location, an electronics expert for the Bureau had wired the building with cameras and microphones.

Much valuable and irrefutable evidence was gathered there over the coming months.

Livingston and Ellavsky began making contacts with lower-echelon players, but they were so effective that before long they had done what Kelly had deemed impossible: they were able to infiltrate the close-knit ranks of the country’s pornography leadership.

“These guys were good,” recounted Kelly years later. “Out of all the people they dealt with, only two figured them out, telling them, ‘You guys are either F.B.I. agents or you’re informants working for Bill Kelly and CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 >>

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PURE LIFE MINISTRIES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 >>

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either way, we don’t want to have anything to do with you.’” Ironically, the danger was not in the discovery of their true identities— no criminal in his right mind would knowingly murder a federal agent. It was if the gangsters mistook them for informants.

An example of the peril they lived in was manifested in a trip to New York to visit Robert DiBernardo’s operation. They were warned by one of his associates not to cross him: “There are plenty of people who would kill for DiBe.”iii But whether they were “made” as cops or not, pornography had become a dangerous business. Kelly later stated that he knew of about 80 players in the business who were either doing at least five years in prison or had been murdered.

As time went on, the Batman and Robin of obscenity investigations continued to establish significant contacts with big-time pornographers. During their time on the case they made 25 first-class flights to various cities around the country— even one trip to Hawaii to purchase child pornography.

Many of these trips were to porno conventions. Nowadays, these gatherings have become almost glamorous, but in those days they had to be presented as gettogethers of legitimate magazine publishers.

Patrick Livingston and Bruce Ellavsky continued to build their cases against the main pornographers. Their covert operation

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was so secretive that even other agents didn’t know about the case.

The dirty business of hawking obscene material appears to be a welcomed addition to the new global community.

After about a year, prosecutors with the Justice Department opened a Grand Jury investigation and began presenting evidence which the agents continually supplied.

Kelly describes the logistical nightmare involved: “We had a room about the size of a big bedroom full of obscene material that we were going to present in trial on 50+ defendants. That’s a lot of pornography! On top of that we also had an 8,000 square foot warehouse which was full of extra stuff that we weren’t going to use in the prosecution.”

In his book, Lost Undercover, author Ron LaBrecque describes a dangerous situation that arose toward the end of the MiPorn investigation when Livingston visited Michael Zaffarano in New York: As a powerful mob boss, Zaffarano played the game in classic fashion and was typically insulated from the daily work. It was primarily because of his less public stance that the agents had never met him. Pat decided to force an encounter… (flying) to New York

(to) confront Zaffarano in his Times Square office, located near his Pussycat Theater on Forty-Second Street. The confrontation, however, was unnerving; Pat unexpectedly encountered the Mafia figure in the hallway outside his sixth-floor office.

Zaffarano was a menacing man whom Pat immediately feared, especially since he was unarmed.

He knew he would have to make (his undercover character) totally believable. To this end, he kept the conversation as vague as possible until Zaffarano acknowledged some mutual acquaintances. When they moved from the hallway into Zaffarano’s back office, however, Pat pushed too hard with his questioning, asking whether it was true that one of Zaffarano’s acquaintances had gone to jail for him.

The pornographer immediately tensed, as if a revelation had come to him, and a grim look came over his face as he told Pat to “get (out) and never come around here again.” He accused Pat of being a police officer trying to set him up.

Pat left the office quickly, running down the stairs to the street rather than waiting for the elevator. He felt a rush of adrenaline as he took a cab back to the airport and returned to Baltimore.

NO REPRESENTATIONS MADE OF INDIVIDUALS DEPICTED.

It had been a potentially dangerous situation, but despite the fact that he had been kicked out of the office, Zaffarano’s statements during the meeting were enough to link him to others under investigation, so that he, too, could be named in an indictment.iv This episode marked the end of the undercover phase of the operation. On February14, 1980, 400 F.B.I. agents began making arrests in 16 cities around the country. Fifty-three defendants were arrested in all. By the time the dust had settled, 45 defendants in the MiPorn investigation had been successfully convicted.

One of the targets who didn’t go to prison was Michael Zaffarano. He dropped dead of an apparent heart attack when agents attempted to arrest him during the nation-wide roundup. Robert DiBernardo was convicted, but his conviction was later overturned. No matter, he disappeared in 1986, murdered on orders of a powerful mob boss.

Unfortunately, the biggest culprit in this story, escaped practically unscathed.

The pornography industry has tripled in size since those early days and more importantly, has managed to gain a degree of credibility in the mind of the American public. Today’s leaders in the industry are more likely to be young computer geeks like Seth Warshavsky, owner of Internet Entertainment Co., who reportedly made nearly $50 million off Internet pornography in 1998 alone.

It seems highly unlikely that there will ever be another MiPorn investigation.

The F.B.I. continues to pursue obscenity cases but, for the most part, has confined its attention to child pornography. The lack of concern shown by most Americans over the effects of pornography on our culture has stymied any momentum law enforcement previously had. The sad fact is that the dirty business of hawking obscene material appears to be a welcomed addition to the new global community. i

The Attorney General’s Commission on PORNOGRAPHY, Rutledge Hill Press, 1986.

ii

Ron LaBrecque, Lost Under-Cover, Dell Publishing Co., NY, NY, 1987, p. 47.

iii

Ibid, p. 76.

iv

Ibid, pps. 115-116.

Pay DIRT!

As a special agent with the Miami office of the F.B.I., I was assigned to investigate Joseph and Louis Peraino—long suspected members of the Mafia—about their involvement in the production and distribution of D_____ T_____. The movie had been running for a couple of years when, one day, I received a call from a criminal informant who was actively involved in the daily operation of the Peraino gang.

“Kelly, you are absolutely not going to believe this,” the informer said. “We’ve got so much money piled up in our office that we can’t even move around!”

“Aw, come on,” I replied. I was very skeptical because the office he was referring to was about the size of my living room.

“I’m not kidding,” he retorted. “We’ve got garbage bags full of money scattered all over the office. In fact, we got so much cash in here that we don’t even bother counting it anymore; we just weigh it!”

“You weigh it?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” he insisted. “The other day we put a stack of 20’s on the scale, and it came to ten pounds. So we called the bank and asked them how much ten pounds of twenty-dollar bills come to.

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They gave us the amount and we wrote it down. We did the same thing for 10’s and 5’s.”

“Good heavens! How much money you got there?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but it must be at least a couple of million dollars,” he replied.

I knew the man was a reliable source, but I still had a hard time believing these guys would keep that much money laying around like that.

“Why don’t you take the money to the bank?” was my question.

“Well, the Perainos saw you and another guy sitting in your car checking us out the other day,” he explained.

“They’re not too concerned about you because they know that all the F.B.I. could do would be to put them in prison. They’re worried that the other guy was an IRS agent and that he’s going to take their money from them!”

Well, as it turned out we were able to successfully prosecute them on the D____ T____ case, and they were convicted and sent to prison.

Unfortunately, they still had $50 million dollars waiting for them after their release. In this particular case, the dirty movie paid off. I guess you could say that the gangsters hit Pay Dirt.

888.254.2884 // www.purelifeministries.org

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A N I N T E RV I EW W I T H

WILLIAM KELLY The late Bill Kelly was hired as a special agent with the F.B.I. in 1952. During his 28-year career, he helped capture the famous jewel thief, Jack Murphy (a.k.a. Murph the Surf), and also played a small role in the Watergate investigation. Soon after being assigned to the Bureau’s Miami office in the early ‘60s, Kelly started investigating obscenity cases, which he continued to do until his retirement in 1980. In the following interview, conducted in 2002, he gives us his perspective on the pornography problem in America today.

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Unchained (UC): How has the level of morality in America changed over the past 40 years?

UC: Considering the current level of immorality, where do you see America 20 years from now?

BK: Morality in America has dropped from street level into the sewer... and then some lower. What’s really troubling is how brazen pornographers have become.

For instance, 40 years ago they went to the trouble to conceal their identities.

Today they peddle their wares right out in the open for everyone to see.

BK: Unless there’s a strong revival of morality in America—and soon—I see the pornography that is illegal today— not only widely available—but fully tolerated by the average citizen. What’s frightening is that a number of years ago the Supreme Court ruled that the true test of whether or not obscenity can be prosecuted is determined by that community’s acceptance of it.

This became painfully evident a few years ago when the owner of a video rental store (in Utah of all places) was acquitted of obscenity charges for the X-rated movies he offered. The defense attorney was able to convince the jury of the community’s acceptance of pornography by subpoenaing the records of a local Marriott Hotel which offered adult movies on one of its channels. It seems that we are headed to the point where the ballgame is over for decency and morality.

UC: Do you see any correlation between pornography and sexual crime?

BK: There’s no question that there’s a very strong connection between porn and sex crimes. To believe otherwise is to defy common logic. For instance, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Alaska, which has more pornography per capita than any other state, also consistently has the highest rape rate in the country.

UC: How has the Internet affected the use of porn in America?

BK: First of all, the Internet has made the filthiest kinds of pornography available to an entire segment of the population that previously would not have had that kind of easy access to it. Secondly, there’s very little U.S. law enforcement agencies can do about pornographers located in other countries—many of which don’t even have laws against obscenity.

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UC: Because most baby boomers have never known anything else, we cannot imagine what it would be like to live in a culture that was not saturated with pornography. Bill Kelly’s passion to see America return to the comparatively porn-free environment of the ‘50s and ‘60s comes from knowing the difference between the two. Thank God for men like him willing to fight for the restoration of decency in our culture.

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PL AGUE OF THE HEART

the

The plague of the heart is more dangerous than Satan. Satan can only destroy that which has the plague in it. He cannot harm a man without the plague. If a man has a plague in his heart, that’s Satan’s invitation. And it’s through that that Satan gets at the souls of men. Jesus said, “The prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me.” JOHN 14:30b But when the prince of this world came to Peter he found cowardice. And when he came to Judas, he found love of money. He found the plague in those two men and he ruined one and almost ruined the other. Satan is destructive only when he has somewhere to work, something that belongs to him.

And the strange accompaniment of this plague of the heart is that hardly anyone will admit its presence. Few are willing to admit that there’s any plague there because it carries shame and fear.

But there is no help possible until we know—that is, until the Holy Spirit has

made it plain. Nobody goes to the blood for cleansing until he knows that he is ill—that he is unclean, that he has a plague.

The terrible thing about the plague of the heart is that you can’t get to it. No surgeon can cut it away, no psychologist can probe it. It goes deep into the nature and you can’t get at it. Nobody can help you and you can’t help yourself. It lies there incubating. Maybe it isn’t very large yet, but it’s growing, hatching, developing, getting into the bloodstream, into the life.

But the danger is that we don’t know we have this plague. It’s like a panther. It has protective coloration and it can sneak up on you. It can take over unsuspected. It can lay its deadly eggs under the leaves of the Garden of Eden and there it can incubate and suddenly it appears and spreads and bursts out into the open, into ruinous conduct and habits. Like the plague of lust. A man can work hard and sweat out a ministry and never know that there lies

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in his heart undetected, uncorrected and unpurified the plague of lust. And the next day, it may be in all the papers. There is pride that lies in the human breast and we don’t know it’s there; but it lies there and incubates. I meet a lot of people who are resentful. Then there are secret sins. Then there are hidden grudges. And there is envy.

There’s no help possible except God and God alone. Only God can stop a plague; nobody else can. The old writers called it “the cleansing of the forgiving love of God.” I like that expression. They also talked about “the restoration of moral innocence.” You know you’ve sinned, but you’ve been so completely cleansed that you feel as if you haven’t. You know you have and you’re penitent for all your past; but the cleansing is so complete that it leaves you like a child again, like a baby again, naked as the day you were born, innocent by the forgiving love of God and the cleansing of the blood.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 >>

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NO REPRESENTATIONS MADE OF INDIVIDUALS DEPICTED.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 >>

HEALING THE PLAGUE

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God can heal the plague. He heals it by blood and by fire. There is a word that has been lost from our Christian vocabulary— it’s the word, “purgation,” or the word “purge.” We don’t use it any more. We invite people to the altar to get something; but we forget that what they ought most to receive is purgation—a purging, a cleansing. Jesus Christ purges and cleanses and takes the plague spot out and fixes that in there.

I don’t know what to call this doctrine I’m preaching. I only know that there is blood and fire and that it will take the impurity out and make you clean and keep you clean so that you’ll not be in danger of having an incubation of iniquity in your spirit that’ll break out on you. Call it what you will, and classify yourself where you will doctrinally on this subject, there is such a thing as a victorious life.

What we need is a refining fire to fall on our hearts to kill the plague. Some people have coddled the plague spot and made a pet out of it. Men have euphemized it, fixed it up with a euphonious name so that it doesn’t sound the way it used to. We may rename things, but they’re the same old plagues. What we need is cleansing.

I know what God can do for a man.

I had a temper so bad that one time I got so mad it made me sick. I went to bed in illness. I’ve seen my father get so mad that he would pull a horse back on her haunches until the bit almost made her mouth bleed.

I’ve seen my father lose his temper and get so angry that he would grab a shovel and beat the wheelbarrow in insane anger.

I had that same thing, a temper that would leap and go. And the precious blood of Jesus and the fire of the Holy Spirit has made me unlike my father—though I grew up to be like him.

God can deliver you from evil habits and evil dispositional tendencies and tempers. Little Frances Ridley Havergal testified, “This experience came to me when I arrived at the place where I knew in my heart that when the Holy Spirit said, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin,’ He meant from all sin.”

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A PRAYER FOR THE PLAGUED HEART If Rev. Tozer’s article has made you aware of some “plague spot” on your heart, make this your daily prayer: “Oh God! You know my heart! For Your Word says, “there is no creature hidden from (Your) sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (HEBREWS 4:13) All my secret sin lays exposed to your penetrating gaze.

“Dear Lord, please cleanse my conscience with the precious Blood of the Lamb.” (HEBREWS 9:14) “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me… Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being... Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me… The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” (PSALM 51:2-17)

Pastor,

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Our 9-month Residential Program is for men who are desperate for freedom and real answers to their sexual addictions.

Why is this program is so effective?

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The presence of God that brings a man into deep repentance Complete separation from old sources of temptation Regular biblical counseling by men who have overcome sexual sin themselves Structured environment where a sexual addict can learn a life of discipline Local employment covers low-cost weekly fees Two-phase program with emphasis on readjusting to life afterward

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