Terry Hall
2004-11-12 10:58:53 UTC
TTTTT H H EEEEE
T H H E
T HHHHH EEEEE
T H H E
T H H EEEEE
PPPP OOOO RRRR TTTTT L A N N DDDD I A N N TM
P P O O R R T L A A NN N D D I A A NN N
PPPP O O RRRR T L AAAAA N N N D D I AAAAA N N N
P O O R R T L A A N NN D D I A A N NN
P OOOO R R T LLLLL A A N N DDDD I A A N N
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The Portlandian, the Internet's premier source of Tonya News
November 12, 2004 Edition - ANNUAL BIRTHDAY EDITION
(C) 2004 Portland Ice Skating Society
http://www.geocities.com/portice
*****************************************************************
It's that time of year again. And although we haven't got a
present for Tonya we have got one for Tonyaphiles, namely another
issue packed with news of our favorite skater/boxer. In this
issue we announce a new Tonya web site, find out what happened to
Shawn Eckardt (and no, he's not putting in for the James Bond
role now that Brosnan's retiring), expose a previously
undisclosed gangster connection to the Tonya/Nancy incident, and
discover what Tonya has in common with the Governor of California
(or "Kalivornia" as he prefers to call it), amongst other things.
NEW OFFICIAL TONYA WEB SITE TO MAKE ITS DEBUT
First up, we are pleased to report that Tonya will soon once
again have an official web site. Linda Lewis informs us that the
site will probably go on-line next week. It will be located at:
http://www.therealtonya.com
Needless to say this development is long overdue, as Tonya has
been without an official web presence since she was sold out by
Portland cyberpimp Jim Maxey in 1999.
We've also finally done a long-overdue update of our FAQ as well
to include all the developments in Tonya's life in recent years:
http://www.geocities.com/portice/tonyafaq.htm
TONYA DRESS FOR AUCTION
An alert Tonyaphile has informed us that one of Tonya's dresses
is up for auction, in this case the black one with gold trim that
she wore in Albertville in 1992:
http://www.albersheims.com/auction/displayitem.php?item=9&categor
y=Live%20Auction
It's described as being in near mint condition and coming with a
letter of authenticity signed by Tonya herself. Bidding closes on
November 18 (US time), though it's likely to prove expensive as
already one bid of $1000 has been received.
MEDIA ROUNDUP
There's not been much news about Tonya recently, but that's about
to change. Linda tells us that Tonya has just finished a full
interview and photo layout for "Glamour" magazine of the UK which
will come out in January 2005.
There's also an interesting article in Willamette Week today
about Tonya:
http://www.wweek.com/print.php?story=5693
Although much of it covers territory that regular followers of
Tonya will already be familiar with, it reveals that Tonya has
taken up archery and that her daily training routine consists of
six miles (10 km) of running, plus a few hours of weights,
sparring and punching-bag work.
"I have put everything behind me," she says. "Whatever I do, I do
to the best of my ability."
"Will I ever get a fair shake?" Tonya asks. We have to wonder.
In addition to the stuff about Tonya, Gillooly and his galoots
also get a mention. Seems he managed to wangle that assault
charge on his previous wife down to a lesser charge and just got
some probation. He's also found yet another woman who's a sucker
for his BS and is currently working as a car salesman.
Would you buy a used car from this guy? Apparently some people
would.
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
More interestingly, the article also discloses what happened to
Shawn Eckardt, Portland's portly "international man of mystery"
who engineered the plot. It appears that like Gillooly he did the
name-change thing and is now operating a computer networking
company in a run-down Gresham apartment complex under the name
Brian Sean Griffith.
His company's web site can be viewed at www.appliedinfosys.com,
complete with it's slogan "imagineering the future" (and if that
doesn't just reek of clichéd late-90's dot-bomb corporate
claptrap, what does?). Oddly enough for a computer networking
specialist, though, there's no e-mail address on the site that we
could find.
There's a song that reminds us of Eckardt. It's called "Something
Big" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. It's about a guy called
"Speedball" who lives in a seedy hotel overlooking a porno movie
theater. He's always getting mysterious phone calls and going out
to mysterious meetings. The chorus goes:
and it wasn't no way to carry on,
it wasn't no way to live,
but he could put up with it for a little while,
coz he was workin' on Something Big
That pretty much describes Shawn. Always "workin' on Something
Big" rather than getting a life. We suspect that in another ten
years he'll probably be in another seedy apartment block working
on another "big project".
Of course, it could all be just a front for a "black op" he's
running for the CIA...
BREWING UP A STORM
The past few months saw the southern part of the United States
hammered by bad weather. It seemed that no sooner than one
hurricane left than another one came along. Which got us thinking
- has there ever been a "Hurricane Tonya"?
Well, no. There's never been a Tonya, though there was a Tanya in
1995. The U.S. government's National Hurricane Center explains
all about the naming of hurricanes. There are standard lists of
names that they recycle every few years, except in the case of
major storms when the names get "retired" and replaced with new
ones to avoid confusion. Tanya is due to be re-used in 2007:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml
And although there's no Tonya, there is a Nancy.
We here at the Special Duties Section think it's grossly unfair
that there's a Nancy but no Tonya. It's just another example of
her getting ripped off by the establishment. "Tonya" would be
such an appropriate name for a hurricane.
We suggest that Tonyaphiles lobby the NHC to have Tonya put on
the list next time they're adopting new names.
AT THE BOOKSTORE: THE BULLFIGHTER CHECKS HER MAKEUP
This book by Susan Orlean, subtitled "My Encounters With
Extraordinary People", features interviews (many of which
appeared previously in the New Yorker magazine) with over 35
interesting people ranging from designer Bill Blass to 15-
minutes-of-fame 80's pop star Tiffany and a 1960's girl group
with the unfortunate name of The Shaggs. And one of the chapters,
"Figures In A Mall" is of interest to us as it deals with Elaine
Stamm's Tonya Harding fan club in Portland. As such it's unique
in that it's one of the few articles about Tonya that
concentrates on Tonyaphiles rather than Tonya herself and offers
an interesting insight into how they handled the crisis and the
sort of people they were.
Orlean describes how she came to write about this subject in the introduction
to the book:
"Writing about Tonya Harding was a different kind of challenge.
She had been in the news constantly after the attack on Nancy
Kerrigan, and it was hard to imagine that there was a story
left about her that hadn't already been told and retold. But I
had noticed that all the newspaper stories mentioned she was
from Portland, Oregon, which wasn't true: She was from
the exurbs twenty miles or so outside of Portland. Because I
used to live in Oregon, I knew the two places were entirely
different, even antithetical, and I was convinced that Tonya
Harding made a lot more sense if you understood something about
where she was raised. I assumed that I wouldn't get to
interview her when I went out to Oregon, so I interviewed
people who cared about her and who lived in her town. It was a
little like studying animal tracks and concluding something
about a creature from the impression it has left behind. I
still wish I could have talked to her, but maybe that will be
another story another time."
The chapter paints an interesting word picture of Tonya, the Fan
Club, Clackamas County, and of the people who live there, and
Gene Saunders the church minister who helped to break the case.
One reviewer said "Susan Orlean's profile of the Tonya Harding
fan club in her book The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup is one of
the best things I've ever read. I grew up near Tonya, and used to
watch her rehearse at the local mall skating rink, and Orlean
really nails the story of Harding and the area."
Our view: the Tonya stuff is only 11 pages, so it definitely
isn't worth buying it for this alone unless you can pick up a
copy cheap (or also happen to be a Tiffany fan as well as a
Tonyaphile). But it certainly is worth checking out of the
library. It's also available as an e-book from various sources,
and if your library subscribes to Ebrary (or you want to set up
an account yourself at www.ebrary.com - you can view for free and
only get charged for printouts) you can read the relevant pages
on-line.
SKATING WITH DA FISHES - THE USFSA, TOXIC WASTE DISPOSAL, AND
ORGANIZED CRIME
Most of us are aware that top level figure skating is as crooked
as a crankshaft. There were even suggestions that Russian
mobsters were involved in fixing the notorious Pairs result at
the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. But now the Special Duties
Section has been informed of a mob connection much closer to
home, and it's one that has relevance to the famous incident of
early 1994. In order to understand the link, however, we need to
take a close look at the Michigan trash collection business, an
industry where the garbage isn't the only thing that stinks
badly.
One of the big garbage disposal businesses in the Detroit area is
an outfit by the name of City Management Corporation, a major
player in importing garbage from Canada for disposal. City
Management Corp was at the time headed by one Tony Soave. Not to
be confused of course with Tony Soprano, though it would be an
understandable mistake since as we'll soon see, Mr. Soave has
alot more in common with Tony Soprano than just a similar
sounding name.
For a start, there's the company he keeps. Soave has had links to
Detroit mob figures, including an early 1970s partnership with
Frank Mudaro, described in 1963 U.S. Senate hearings as a section
leader in the Detroit Mafia. Earlier, Mudaro had been a business
partner of William "Black Bill" Tocco, one of the five ruling
dons of the Detroit Mob. Soave has also met regularly with others
in the trash business with dodgy backgrounds, such as John Riggi,
an ex-labor union official alleged to be the boss of the
DeCavalcante crime family in New Jersey. Soave himself was
indicted and arrested in 1971 in a federal gambling conspiracy
investigation, though his case was dismissed on a technicality
because the wiretap was not correctly authorized.
Soave also spends quite alot of time giving out bribes - oops, we
mean "campaign contributions" - to various local politicians. One
of these was former Wayne County Executive Edward H. McNamara who
is currently being investigated on bribery and corruption charges
by the FBI. McNamara's son also works for Power Vac Service Inc,
a company owned by Soave that was also given a lucrative road
sweeping contract by McNamara. Such irregularities and conflicts
of interest are not uncommon in Soave's business dealings. In
late 1991, Soave acquired a landfill from Crawford and Otsego
counties despite another bidder offering 50% more. He also
brought a trash hauling business from another local body
politician.
Then there's the nasty things that happen to his business
competitors. Another one of his companies, Warren Waste Transfer,
was awarded a garbage collection contract - with no competitive
tendering - after a rival company was mysteriously firebombed in
1991. The arsonist, a small-time punk by the name of John Pree,
later claimed that he and his accomplice Carlo Bommarito were
acting under orders from Detroit mob boss Vito Giacalone.
Bommarito and his father, Francesco, a longtime associate of
Giacalone, were later charged with arson and conspiracy. Quirino
D'Alessandro, a crony of Warren Mayor Ronald Bonkowski and who
has also faced illegal gambling and money laundering charges was
fronting for Soave as head of Warren Waste Transfer.
Soave has also been connected with toxic waste dumping. A former
CMC subsidiary, USL-City Environmental Inc, was investigated in
1999 for illegal waste disposal. Employees claimed that large
amounts of untreated toxic waste was routinely dumped down
sewers.
You'll realize by now that Tony Soave isn't a nice guy - indeed,
probably more like a wiseguy. In fact, with a background like
that there's probably only one job he's good for - a place on the
IOC! Either way, you'd assume that he's the sort of character
that a supposedly decent, corruption-hating organization like the
USFSA would run a couple of hundred miles from; after all, this
is the outfit that banned Tonya for life in the interest of
upholding ethics and sportsmanship.
But no. Because as it turns out, CMC was in fact a sponsor of the
1994 US figure skating championships - the same championships
that were the scene of "the whack heard round the world" - and
also provided the dismal security precautions for the event. This
raises an interesting point: how much did the USFSA know of the
questionable background of their sponsor and security people? And
most importantly, was Tonya railroaded by the USFSA to keep this
link out of the public gaze? Clearly it wouldn't be in CMC's best
interest to have the security setup probed too closely.
Remarkably, this isn't the only connection the Mob has to the
case. Recently the SDS was contacted by a local political
candidate and anti-corruption campaigner in Detroit who
unwittingly worked as a chemist for one of these Mob-controlled
garbage companies in the 1980s. He claims that his mother's
electricity meter was bugged by a guy who looks remarkably like a
Portland PI who was instrumental in solving the Kerrigan case.
You get the impression that all of this stuff would make a
fascinating documentary. "Fahrenheit 1/06", anybody?
SIX DEGREES OF TONYA
What does Tonya have in common with Arnold Schwarzenegger? No,
it's not that she's planning to enter politics, though heaven
knows, she could probably do better than some of the real
politicians.
In order to understand the connection it's necessary to take a
trip back in time to the mid 90's when a game known as "The Kevin
Bacon Game" or "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" started to become
popular amongst American university students and movie buffs and
eventually spread to the internet.
The game was originated by three students from Albright College
in Reading, Pennsylvania - Craig Fass, Brian Turtle and Mike
Ginelli - during January 1994. Being winter, it was so cold that
the students would spend alot of time indoors. During this
period, when just about everybody else was watching the Tonya &
Nancy saga develop "we would watch movies and drink beer all
day," says Fass. Ginelli said they had seen Bacon's 1984 movie
"Footloose" on TV one afternoon and later saw a commercial for
Bacon's then current film, "The Air Up There". Impressed with the
actor's productivity, the three film buffs speculated that Bacon
had been in a movie with just about everyone in Hollywood, or
that everyone in Hollywood had been in a movie with someone who
had been in a movie with Bacon. The trio then came up with a game
centered around the concept, which proved so fascinating that
they ended up playing it until 5am in the morning.
The rules of the game are simple: the aim is to find a movie link
between any named actor and Kevin Bacon in as few steps as
possible. For instance, Debra Winger was in "Terms of Endearment"
with Jack Nicholson, who was in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin
Bacon. Meg Ryan was in "Sleepless in Seattle" with Tom Hanks, who
was in "Apollo 13" with Bacon. The theory is that any Hollywood
actor can be connected to Bacon in six or fewer steps.
Then in 1996 a bunch of computer geeks at the University of
Virginia's computer science department took the idea a step
further: using data from the Internet Movie Database, they
created a program that automates the entire process and enables
you to find the connection between any two actors. The site was
named number 10 in a list of the best websites of 1996 by Time
magazine. You can try it yourself at:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/star_links.html
So, what does Portland's princess of the ring and rink have in
common with California's new governor? Well, it turns out that
Kevin Beard, who was a stunt double on Tonya's 1995 action movie
"Breakaway" also did some stuntwork on 2002's Arnie flick
"Collateral Damage". And in case you're wondering, Beard was also
in "JFK" (1991) with Kevin Bacon. So yes, there is also a Tonya-
Kevin Bacon link.
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/cgi-bin/oracle/movielinks?firstname=
Arnold+Schwarzenegger&game=2&secondname=Tonya+Harding
And as for Tonya, we notice that in one of the recent articles
she mentioned something about trying to get back into movies.
Well, here's one film that we're sure Tonya would be very eager
to participate in!
http://www.geocities.com/portice/kjmovie.htm
*****************************************************************
VISIT THESE GREAT TONYA WEB SITES:
PortIce - http://www.geocities.com/portice
David House - http://www.tonyaharding.org
Charlie Main - http://www.charliesweb.com/tonya/tonya.html
Puppetboy - http://www.puppetland.com/tonya/
Valerie Smith - http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/LilHam.html
Swan Lake - http://members.tripod.com/~TonyaHarding/index.html
Blades of Gold - http://members.tripod.com/tmhfan/index.html
*****************************************************************
T H H E
T HHHHH EEEEE
T H H E
T H H EEEEE
PPPP OOOO RRRR TTTTT L A N N DDDD I A N N TM
P P O O R R T L A A NN N D D I A A NN N
PPPP O O RRRR T L AAAAA N N N D D I AAAAA N N N
P O O R R T L A A N NN D D I A A N NN
P OOOO R R T LLLLL A A N N DDDD I A A N N
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The Portlandian, the Internet's premier source of Tonya News
November 12, 2004 Edition - ANNUAL BIRTHDAY EDITION
(C) 2004 Portland Ice Skating Society
http://www.geocities.com/portice
*****************************************************************
It's that time of year again. And although we haven't got a
present for Tonya we have got one for Tonyaphiles, namely another
issue packed with news of our favorite skater/boxer. In this
issue we announce a new Tonya web site, find out what happened to
Shawn Eckardt (and no, he's not putting in for the James Bond
role now that Brosnan's retiring), expose a previously
undisclosed gangster connection to the Tonya/Nancy incident, and
discover what Tonya has in common with the Governor of California
(or "Kalivornia" as he prefers to call it), amongst other things.
NEW OFFICIAL TONYA WEB SITE TO MAKE ITS DEBUT
First up, we are pleased to report that Tonya will soon once
again have an official web site. Linda Lewis informs us that the
site will probably go on-line next week. It will be located at:
http://www.therealtonya.com
Needless to say this development is long overdue, as Tonya has
been without an official web presence since she was sold out by
Portland cyberpimp Jim Maxey in 1999.
We've also finally done a long-overdue update of our FAQ as well
to include all the developments in Tonya's life in recent years:
http://www.geocities.com/portice/tonyafaq.htm
TONYA DRESS FOR AUCTION
An alert Tonyaphile has informed us that one of Tonya's dresses
is up for auction, in this case the black one with gold trim that
she wore in Albertville in 1992:
http://www.albersheims.com/auction/displayitem.php?item=9&categor
y=Live%20Auction
It's described as being in near mint condition and coming with a
letter of authenticity signed by Tonya herself. Bidding closes on
November 18 (US time), though it's likely to prove expensive as
already one bid of $1000 has been received.
MEDIA ROUNDUP
There's not been much news about Tonya recently, but that's about
to change. Linda tells us that Tonya has just finished a full
interview and photo layout for "Glamour" magazine of the UK which
will come out in January 2005.
There's also an interesting article in Willamette Week today
about Tonya:
http://www.wweek.com/print.php?story=5693
Although much of it covers territory that regular followers of
Tonya will already be familiar with, it reveals that Tonya has
taken up archery and that her daily training routine consists of
six miles (10 km) of running, plus a few hours of weights,
sparring and punching-bag work.
"I have put everything behind me," she says. "Whatever I do, I do
to the best of my ability."
"Will I ever get a fair shake?" Tonya asks. We have to wonder.
In addition to the stuff about Tonya, Gillooly and his galoots
also get a mention. Seems he managed to wangle that assault
charge on his previous wife down to a lesser charge and just got
some probation. He's also found yet another woman who's a sucker
for his BS and is currently working as a car salesman.
Would you buy a used car from this guy? Apparently some people
would.
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
More interestingly, the article also discloses what happened to
Shawn Eckardt, Portland's portly "international man of mystery"
who engineered the plot. It appears that like Gillooly he did the
name-change thing and is now operating a computer networking
company in a run-down Gresham apartment complex under the name
Brian Sean Griffith.
His company's web site can be viewed at www.appliedinfosys.com,
complete with it's slogan "imagineering the future" (and if that
doesn't just reek of clichéd late-90's dot-bomb corporate
claptrap, what does?). Oddly enough for a computer networking
specialist, though, there's no e-mail address on the site that we
could find.
There's a song that reminds us of Eckardt. It's called "Something
Big" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. It's about a guy called
"Speedball" who lives in a seedy hotel overlooking a porno movie
theater. He's always getting mysterious phone calls and going out
to mysterious meetings. The chorus goes:
and it wasn't no way to carry on,
it wasn't no way to live,
but he could put up with it for a little while,
coz he was workin' on Something Big
That pretty much describes Shawn. Always "workin' on Something
Big" rather than getting a life. We suspect that in another ten
years he'll probably be in another seedy apartment block working
on another "big project".
Of course, it could all be just a front for a "black op" he's
running for the CIA...
BREWING UP A STORM
The past few months saw the southern part of the United States
hammered by bad weather. It seemed that no sooner than one
hurricane left than another one came along. Which got us thinking
- has there ever been a "Hurricane Tonya"?
Well, no. There's never been a Tonya, though there was a Tanya in
1995. The U.S. government's National Hurricane Center explains
all about the naming of hurricanes. There are standard lists of
names that they recycle every few years, except in the case of
major storms when the names get "retired" and replaced with new
ones to avoid confusion. Tanya is due to be re-used in 2007:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml
And although there's no Tonya, there is a Nancy.
We here at the Special Duties Section think it's grossly unfair
that there's a Nancy but no Tonya. It's just another example of
her getting ripped off by the establishment. "Tonya" would be
such an appropriate name for a hurricane.
We suggest that Tonyaphiles lobby the NHC to have Tonya put on
the list next time they're adopting new names.
AT THE BOOKSTORE: THE BULLFIGHTER CHECKS HER MAKEUP
This book by Susan Orlean, subtitled "My Encounters With
Extraordinary People", features interviews (many of which
appeared previously in the New Yorker magazine) with over 35
interesting people ranging from designer Bill Blass to 15-
minutes-of-fame 80's pop star Tiffany and a 1960's girl group
with the unfortunate name of The Shaggs. And one of the chapters,
"Figures In A Mall" is of interest to us as it deals with Elaine
Stamm's Tonya Harding fan club in Portland. As such it's unique
in that it's one of the few articles about Tonya that
concentrates on Tonyaphiles rather than Tonya herself and offers
an interesting insight into how they handled the crisis and the
sort of people they were.
Orlean describes how she came to write about this subject in the introduction
to the book:
"Writing about Tonya Harding was a different kind of challenge.
She had been in the news constantly after the attack on Nancy
Kerrigan, and it was hard to imagine that there was a story
left about her that hadn't already been told and retold. But I
had noticed that all the newspaper stories mentioned she was
from Portland, Oregon, which wasn't true: She was from
the exurbs twenty miles or so outside of Portland. Because I
used to live in Oregon, I knew the two places were entirely
different, even antithetical, and I was convinced that Tonya
Harding made a lot more sense if you understood something about
where she was raised. I assumed that I wouldn't get to
interview her when I went out to Oregon, so I interviewed
people who cared about her and who lived in her town. It was a
little like studying animal tracks and concluding something
about a creature from the impression it has left behind. I
still wish I could have talked to her, but maybe that will be
another story another time."
The chapter paints an interesting word picture of Tonya, the Fan
Club, Clackamas County, and of the people who live there, and
Gene Saunders the church minister who helped to break the case.
One reviewer said "Susan Orlean's profile of the Tonya Harding
fan club in her book The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup is one of
the best things I've ever read. I grew up near Tonya, and used to
watch her rehearse at the local mall skating rink, and Orlean
really nails the story of Harding and the area."
Our view: the Tonya stuff is only 11 pages, so it definitely
isn't worth buying it for this alone unless you can pick up a
copy cheap (or also happen to be a Tiffany fan as well as a
Tonyaphile). But it certainly is worth checking out of the
library. It's also available as an e-book from various sources,
and if your library subscribes to Ebrary (or you want to set up
an account yourself at www.ebrary.com - you can view for free and
only get charged for printouts) you can read the relevant pages
on-line.
SKATING WITH DA FISHES - THE USFSA, TOXIC WASTE DISPOSAL, AND
ORGANIZED CRIME
Most of us are aware that top level figure skating is as crooked
as a crankshaft. There were even suggestions that Russian
mobsters were involved in fixing the notorious Pairs result at
the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. But now the Special Duties
Section has been informed of a mob connection much closer to
home, and it's one that has relevance to the famous incident of
early 1994. In order to understand the link, however, we need to
take a close look at the Michigan trash collection business, an
industry where the garbage isn't the only thing that stinks
badly.
One of the big garbage disposal businesses in the Detroit area is
an outfit by the name of City Management Corporation, a major
player in importing garbage from Canada for disposal. City
Management Corp was at the time headed by one Tony Soave. Not to
be confused of course with Tony Soprano, though it would be an
understandable mistake since as we'll soon see, Mr. Soave has
alot more in common with Tony Soprano than just a similar
sounding name.
For a start, there's the company he keeps. Soave has had links to
Detroit mob figures, including an early 1970s partnership with
Frank Mudaro, described in 1963 U.S. Senate hearings as a section
leader in the Detroit Mafia. Earlier, Mudaro had been a business
partner of William "Black Bill" Tocco, one of the five ruling
dons of the Detroit Mob. Soave has also met regularly with others
in the trash business with dodgy backgrounds, such as John Riggi,
an ex-labor union official alleged to be the boss of the
DeCavalcante crime family in New Jersey. Soave himself was
indicted and arrested in 1971 in a federal gambling conspiracy
investigation, though his case was dismissed on a technicality
because the wiretap was not correctly authorized.
Soave also spends quite alot of time giving out bribes - oops, we
mean "campaign contributions" - to various local politicians. One
of these was former Wayne County Executive Edward H. McNamara who
is currently being investigated on bribery and corruption charges
by the FBI. McNamara's son also works for Power Vac Service Inc,
a company owned by Soave that was also given a lucrative road
sweeping contract by McNamara. Such irregularities and conflicts
of interest are not uncommon in Soave's business dealings. In
late 1991, Soave acquired a landfill from Crawford and Otsego
counties despite another bidder offering 50% more. He also
brought a trash hauling business from another local body
politician.
Then there's the nasty things that happen to his business
competitors. Another one of his companies, Warren Waste Transfer,
was awarded a garbage collection contract - with no competitive
tendering - after a rival company was mysteriously firebombed in
1991. The arsonist, a small-time punk by the name of John Pree,
later claimed that he and his accomplice Carlo Bommarito were
acting under orders from Detroit mob boss Vito Giacalone.
Bommarito and his father, Francesco, a longtime associate of
Giacalone, were later charged with arson and conspiracy. Quirino
D'Alessandro, a crony of Warren Mayor Ronald Bonkowski and who
has also faced illegal gambling and money laundering charges was
fronting for Soave as head of Warren Waste Transfer.
Soave has also been connected with toxic waste dumping. A former
CMC subsidiary, USL-City Environmental Inc, was investigated in
1999 for illegal waste disposal. Employees claimed that large
amounts of untreated toxic waste was routinely dumped down
sewers.
You'll realize by now that Tony Soave isn't a nice guy - indeed,
probably more like a wiseguy. In fact, with a background like
that there's probably only one job he's good for - a place on the
IOC! Either way, you'd assume that he's the sort of character
that a supposedly decent, corruption-hating organization like the
USFSA would run a couple of hundred miles from; after all, this
is the outfit that banned Tonya for life in the interest of
upholding ethics and sportsmanship.
But no. Because as it turns out, CMC was in fact a sponsor of the
1994 US figure skating championships - the same championships
that were the scene of "the whack heard round the world" - and
also provided the dismal security precautions for the event. This
raises an interesting point: how much did the USFSA know of the
questionable background of their sponsor and security people? And
most importantly, was Tonya railroaded by the USFSA to keep this
link out of the public gaze? Clearly it wouldn't be in CMC's best
interest to have the security setup probed too closely.
Remarkably, this isn't the only connection the Mob has to the
case. Recently the SDS was contacted by a local political
candidate and anti-corruption campaigner in Detroit who
unwittingly worked as a chemist for one of these Mob-controlled
garbage companies in the 1980s. He claims that his mother's
electricity meter was bugged by a guy who looks remarkably like a
Portland PI who was instrumental in solving the Kerrigan case.
You get the impression that all of this stuff would make a
fascinating documentary. "Fahrenheit 1/06", anybody?
SIX DEGREES OF TONYA
What does Tonya have in common with Arnold Schwarzenegger? No,
it's not that she's planning to enter politics, though heaven
knows, she could probably do better than some of the real
politicians.
In order to understand the connection it's necessary to take a
trip back in time to the mid 90's when a game known as "The Kevin
Bacon Game" or "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" started to become
popular amongst American university students and movie buffs and
eventually spread to the internet.
The game was originated by three students from Albright College
in Reading, Pennsylvania - Craig Fass, Brian Turtle and Mike
Ginelli - during January 1994. Being winter, it was so cold that
the students would spend alot of time indoors. During this
period, when just about everybody else was watching the Tonya &
Nancy saga develop "we would watch movies and drink beer all
day," says Fass. Ginelli said they had seen Bacon's 1984 movie
"Footloose" on TV one afternoon and later saw a commercial for
Bacon's then current film, "The Air Up There". Impressed with the
actor's productivity, the three film buffs speculated that Bacon
had been in a movie with just about everyone in Hollywood, or
that everyone in Hollywood had been in a movie with someone who
had been in a movie with Bacon. The trio then came up with a game
centered around the concept, which proved so fascinating that
they ended up playing it until 5am in the morning.
The rules of the game are simple: the aim is to find a movie link
between any named actor and Kevin Bacon in as few steps as
possible. For instance, Debra Winger was in "Terms of Endearment"
with Jack Nicholson, who was in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin
Bacon. Meg Ryan was in "Sleepless in Seattle" with Tom Hanks, who
was in "Apollo 13" with Bacon. The theory is that any Hollywood
actor can be connected to Bacon in six or fewer steps.
Then in 1996 a bunch of computer geeks at the University of
Virginia's computer science department took the idea a step
further: using data from the Internet Movie Database, they
created a program that automates the entire process and enables
you to find the connection between any two actors. The site was
named number 10 in a list of the best websites of 1996 by Time
magazine. You can try it yourself at:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/star_links.html
So, what does Portland's princess of the ring and rink have in
common with California's new governor? Well, it turns out that
Kevin Beard, who was a stunt double on Tonya's 1995 action movie
"Breakaway" also did some stuntwork on 2002's Arnie flick
"Collateral Damage". And in case you're wondering, Beard was also
in "JFK" (1991) with Kevin Bacon. So yes, there is also a Tonya-
Kevin Bacon link.
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/cgi-bin/oracle/movielinks?firstname=
Arnold+Schwarzenegger&game=2&secondname=Tonya+Harding
And as for Tonya, we notice that in one of the recent articles
she mentioned something about trying to get back into movies.
Well, here's one film that we're sure Tonya would be very eager
to participate in!
http://www.geocities.com/portice/kjmovie.htm
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VISIT THESE GREAT TONYA WEB SITES:
PortIce - http://www.geocities.com/portice
David House - http://www.tonyaharding.org
Charlie Main - http://www.charliesweb.com/tonya/tonya.html
Puppetboy - http://www.puppetland.com/tonya/
Valerie Smith - http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/LilHam.html
Swan Lake - http://members.tripod.com/~TonyaHarding/index.html
Blades of Gold - http://members.tripod.com/tmhfan/index.html
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