Sexy Hot Photo Blogs

A timeline of gambling in Florida

1924 Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss and James Bright establish Hialeah and open Hialeah Park, determined to dedicate the town to horse racing and jai alai, even though they are not legal in Florida.
1926 Church groups prevail and shut down Hialeah's illegal racing, some attributing the destructive hurricane of that year to God's retribution on the gambling scene.
1930 Two men arrested for assassination attempt against Gov. Doyle E. Carlton, allegedly for his opposition to gambling.
1931 Horse and dog racing is legalized by a single vote in the state Senate and after overriding the veto of Gov. Doyle E. Carlton, who reportedly was offered $100,000 to sign the bill. State Racing Commission established.
1935 Jai alai and slot machines are legalized.
1937 State repeals the slot machines, known as "one-armed bandits."
1940 Cockfighting tourneys flourish in Central Florida.
1948 Possession of a federal gambling tax stamp becomes illegal.
1950 U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver's crime committee investigates illegal gambling in Miami and Tampa. Dade and Broward sheriffs are forced out of office; new sheriffs order raids on gambling dens.
1958 Former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey lobbies the Dade County Commission for permission to open four casinos. Commission votes 3-2 to give preliminary approval and then, under pressure from Gov. LeRoy Collins, reverses its vote a week later.
1959 Gov. LeRoy Collins authors a three-page article in Parade magazine entitled: "Legalized Gambling is Poison."
1960s Dog racing and jai alai experience explosive growth in Florida.
1965 A Dade County grand jury issues a report concluding that syndicate-controlled gambling and prostitution flourishes in South Florida.
1969 State Racing Commission transferred to the Division of Parimutuel Wagering within the Department of Business Regulation.
1970 Bingo is legalized.
1971 Federal agents arrest 47 people for running an illegal numbers lottery and sports betting racket in largest sting of gambling ring in Florida history. The ring operated out of Central Florida and reached from Miami to New York with links to the mob.
1972 Bolita kingpin Fred Chapman admits to a Dade County grand jury that he operated an extensive numbers racket out of Dade and Broward counties, collecting nickel and dime wagers and funneling the money into "counting houses." He had been arrested at least six times but never served a jail sentence for gambling.
1976 Legislature passes a series of bills to provide temporary relief to the horse racing industry.
1978 Gov. Reubin Askew leads "No Casinos" drive that helps defeat a casino ballot initiative.
1979 Seminole Tribe of Florida defies Florida's $100 limit on bingo jackpots and opens the nation's first high-stakes Indian bingo hall in Hollywood. Attorney General Bob Butterworth sues and loses.
1981 U.S. Supreme Court affirms tribe's right to high-stakes bingo in Hollywood. Tampa bingo hall opens.
1983 A statewide grand jury issues a 103-count indictment against a Marion County-based gambling ring.
1984 Offshore, nontaxable "cruises to nowhere" begin and simulcasting of races begins.
1986 Florida voters approve a state lottery and reject casinos by a 2 to 1 ratio.
1987 California vs. Cabazon Bank of Mission Indians opens door to tribes' self-regulation of gaming in states.
1988 Congress passes the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, giving states a role in determining the level of gaming that is available to tribes. Limited gaming facilities set up at Hollywood, Immokalee and Tampa reservations.
1994 Casino referendum fails 62-38 percent but passes in Broward and is narrowly defeated by 2,000 votes in Miami-Dade. Seminole casinos start offering poker.
1996Card rooms at parimutuel facilities are legalized. U.S. Supreme Court upholds Florida's rights to block the tribe from expanding to new casino games.
1999 Florida sues federal government to challenge new rules over state jurisdiction over tribal gambling.
2000 More than 350 illegal video slot machines are seized by state officials in nine west-central Florida counties, including Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough.
2004 Voters approve a constitutional amendment with 50.8 percent of the vote allowing Broward and Miami-Dade counties to approve slot machines at local tracks and jai alai frontons; Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos in Tampa and Hollywood open.
2005 Broward voters approve Las Vegas-style slot machines; Miami-Dade voters narrowly reject them.
2006 Broward parimutuels open slot casinos.
2007 Gov. Charlie Crist signs an agreement with the Seminoles allowing them to have Las Vegas-style slots, blackjack and baccarat at their seven tribal casinos. Legislature allows card rooms to host domino games, raises bet limits from $2 to $5, allows for regulated instant bingo and regulated poker tournaments and increases hours of operation for slot machine operators.
2008 Miami-Dade voters authorize Las Vegas-style slot machines at their horse and dog track and jai alai fronton. The state Supreme Court rules that Crist did not have the authority to make the deal with the Seminoles without legislative approval. The tribe rushes to get its table games installed.
2009 Legislature passes a bill that expands gambling and opens the door to no-limit, 24-hour-a-day poker games on weekends and possibility of video lottery terminals at dog and horse tracks if approved via local referendum; Crist signs expansive gambling bill at Design and Architecture Senior High School in Miami-Dade.

Gambling has not always been legal in Florida but it has always been here. A century before the state established the lottery, legalized slot machines, and opened the doors to casinos on Seminole reservations, Henry Flagler was enticing high rollers to the state.
Within months of opening his first hotel, the Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine in 1888, the pioneering plutocrat erected the exclusive and illegal Bacchus Club casino, a gambler's paradise of roulette wheels, craps tables and bookie boards nestled near the beach.
With every hotel, Flagler built both a house of chance and, nearby, a house of prayer. On the state's west coast, Henry Plant was building his own hotels serviced by railroads as well, which also steered wealthy patrons to local gambling houses.
Today, as legislators ponder whether to pursue the biggest expansion of gambling in history by signing off on an agreement with the Seminole Tribe, Flagler's contrasting sides of mammon and morality mirror the debate. For decades, Florida's politics and people have alternately railed against the evils of gambling and then eagerly craved the revenues it can produce.
In the 1920s, Tampa had become a hotbed of bolita, the illegal but popular numbers game imported from Cuba and Americanized in Florida. Miami was teeming with gambling houses and was the winter home for some of the country's most powerful racketeers. The city of Hialeah took root in 1924 on a spit of remote swamp land and housed Hialeah Park, an illegal but bustling horse track.
And by the 1930s, notorious organized crime bosses Al Capone and Meyer Lansky had established Florida hangouts. Tampa's illicit gambling trade spawned so many gangland-style slayings that the town earned the nickname "Little Chicago." And with a wink and a nod, casinos and speakeasies paid sheriffs, sheriffs paid chiefs of police, and politicians were welcome customers.
"Bolita had become so pervasive it was buying elections in Florida," said University of South Florida historian Gary Mormino. In the 1930s and '40s in Florida, Mormino said, "You'd have bolita in small country towns. You had black bolita bosses and white bolita bosses. It was seen as a victimless crime with small stakes and the police were in on it. It was just root and core."
Today, legalized gambling is woven into the fabric of Florida. Producing more than $2.2 billion annually from slot machines, parimutuels and the state-run lottery, it is as fundamental to the state's revenue base as tourism. There is now a Lotto machine in every convenience store and a poker room in every major county. It is easier to find a place to buy a lottery ticket than a Quarter Pounder.
But just as gambling endures in Florida, so has resistance to it. Illegal gambling rackets would flourish openly for years, then be smacked down by a high-profile scandal and demonized by church and political leaders.
Govs. Doyle Carlton, Fuller Warren, LeRoy Collins, Reubin Askew, Bob Graham, Lawton Chiles and Jeb Bush all fought its expansion.
In 1926, protests from church groups and devastation from that year's hurricane forced Hialeah to close its racetrack for a time. But it reopened illegally and, in the midst of the Depression, pushed through legislation in 1931 that legalized horse racing — marking the first time gambling was legitimized in the state. The measure passed by one vote in the Senate but was vetoed by Gov. Doyle Carlton.
Forty years later, Carlton told the Miami Herald: "If the bill had been passed without purchase and in a straight, honorable way, I might have let it pass without my signature."
But when he was approached in his office and offered a bribe, he resisted. "You know what your name is worth today?'' he said he was asked. "It is worth $100,000 on this racing bill." Carlton replied: "If it's worth that much I believe I'll keep it. It's worth more to me than anyone else.''
Carlton's veto was overridden.
In 1935, the Florida Legislature legalized slot machines as a way to raise money for its Depression-ravaged budget. Two years later, LeRoy Collins, a state representative at the time, led the fight to outlaw them. Parents testified before legislative committees that they would see children go hungry because their nickels and dimes went into slot machines in the corner grocery on the way to school. State Rep. Raymond Sheldon of Tampa told his colleagues that a Hyde Park woman killed herself after borrowing $600 and losing it all in slot machines.
In the late 1940s, outraged Miamians attempted to crack down on syndicate-controlled gambling. They created the Crime Commission of Greater Miami, and the Miami Herald launched an anticrime crusade that culminated in a Pulitzer Prize and a visit from a U.S. Senate investigating committee led by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver in 1950.
In 1959 Collins was governor and, in a three-page article in Parade magazine, voiced the argument of his generation when he proclaimed: "Gambling, legal or illegal spreads … poison through a community. It is insidious. It kills more business than it generates. It encourages public corruption and undermines the faith of citizens in their officials. Worst of all, it saps more strength and character."
But by the 1960s, while the state racing commission controlled regulated gambling, bookmaking and bolita was churning out as much cash. One estimate: Organized crime grossed $50 million a year in Dade County alone.
In 1975, as casino promoters were preparing a statewide referendum asking voters to create a 16-mile strip of casinos in Dade and Broward counties, Askew railed against the evils of gambling.
Opposition from Christian conservatives, Walt Disney World, animal-rights groups opposed to horse and dog racing, and the gambling day-cruise industry helped to defeat the 1978 referendum. The same groups worked to kill subsequent attempts to bring legalized casinos to Florida in 1986 and 1994.
Only in 2004, when the expansion was limited to slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward and the proceeds distributed to every county, did voters approve it by a slim 50.8 percent majority.
Today, Florida legislators are struggling with the same question that political leaders have encountered for decades: how far to go to expand gambling in the face of a mounting competition for the gambling dollar.
This time, the competition has taken the form of the massive casino presence of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, an operation estimated at $2 billion a year with two Hard Rock casinos and five planned resorts on the tribe's seven reservations.
The Seminoles won the right to operate Las Vegas-style slot machines when Florida voters authorized slot machines in 2004. The tribe has agreed to share at least $150 million a year of its annual earnings with the state — and more as its revenues expand — in exchange for the exclusive operation of blackjack and other table games and the ability to run the only slot games outside of Miami-Dade and Broward.
Gov. Charlie Crist has signed off on the deal and now needs legislative approval. But the same parimutuels that spent decades to fight their way into legitimacy have watched their industry go from boom to bust in the face of the tribal games, the emergence of unregulated gambling on day cruises and Internet gambling.
They have urged legislators to push back, demand more money from the tribe, and agree to accept less cash in return for a chance to persuade voters to approve video lottery terminals (lower stakes slot machines) at horse tracks, dog tracks and jai alai frontons outside of Miami-Dade and Broward.
In an extraordinary shift in attitude, some conservative legislators — including those who had been among the most ardent opponents of expanded gambling in the past — have started advocating for a voter referendum that could allow parimutuels across the state to expand into low-stakes casino games and revive their troubled industry.
"As antigaming as I am, I realize … you've got to go to Plan B and that's the free market,'' Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican, said this month at a meeting of the House gambling oversight committee.
Bogdanoff's comments mirror the shifting of public opinion in Florida. A Times/Herald poll found that 59 percent of voters believe the state should sign the Seminole gambling compact.
Today, 37 states have some form of casino gambling. A 2009 poll by Peter D. Hart for the American Gaming Association found that 81 percent of Americans think casino gaming is acceptable for themselves and others, while the majority consider casino gambling a form of entertainment, comparable to going to a concert or sporting event or the theater.
In a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of the public said they believed that legalized gambling encourages people to gamble more than they can afford but only one-third of them thought that gambling is morally wrong.
What catalyzed this remarkable shift from an ideological and moralistic crusade to an acceptance of a public policy that fosters gambling?
"That's an intriguing question,'' answers Mormino, the USF historian. "The easy answer is, desperate state, desperate times."
Florida's history also offers a glimpse at the answers. Until the early 1970s, bingo was the single most popular form of gambling in the United States but, as in many states, it was illegal in Florida except at church fundraisers and charity bingo halls. In 1971, Florida joined other states and started to legalize it, limiting jackpots to $100.
That all changed in 1979, when the Seminole Tribe of Florida pioneered the sale of tax-free cigarettes and was the first to defy the state limit on bingo. It opened a 1,200-seat bingo hall on its Hollywood reservation with nightly prizes totaling as much as $60,000.
The Indian tribe that a century ago faced extinction and 40 years ago depended on handouts from politicians soon transformed itself into a potent commercial force, now one of the largest conglomerates in Florida.
The tribe's games also launched two decades of lawsuits that would lay the legal groundwork for legalized Indian gaming in the United States. The bingo games were soon converted at tribal casinos to video lottery terminals that, by all appearances, operated like Las Vegas-style slots machines.
The tribe expanded its presence by adding small reservations in Immokalee and Tampa. It bought nine acres in Hillsborough County for a sacred shrine and cultural center and, after getting federal approval, built a 1,400-seat bingo hall and a cigarette shop that now is home to the state's largest casino, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
The tribal casinos became the critical catalyst that helped sell voters in 2004 to approve of Class III, Las Vegas-style, slot machines in Florida. With the arrival of Class III slot machines, the tribe then earned the right to ask for more games in exchange for revenue sharing.
The second contributing factor in the shift in public attitude about gambling came from the arrival of the Florida Lottery in 1988. In 2008, more than $4.2 billion was wagered on lottery tickets. In the last 20 years more than $20 billion has been channeled to the state's educational enhancement trust fund, lottery officials say.
Today, Florida not only has lottery billboards proclaiming the state Lotto and regional Powerball lotteries, it has three horse tracks, 22 poker rooms and eight tribal gaming casinos. Since 2005, casinos have installed more than 4,400 slot machines at Broward's four parimutuels and the newly opened Magic City Casino at Miami's Flagler dog track and paid a tax of 50 percent on their profits. If legislators approve a gambling compact with the Seminoles next year, the tax rate for parimutuels will drop to 35 percent and the casino money will continue to be steered to cash-strapped school districts.
Florida's gambling history is now at another crossroads. The state's elected leaders can either accept the compact and limit gambling to expansion only on Seminole reservations or allow all parimutuels to compete with them.
Jim Shore, the Seminoles' lawyer, warns what would happen if the state rejects the compact: "If they add additional games, then we will quit paying them and we might as well say we are a full-blown Las Vegas state."
And with that in mind, legislators will soon be deciding what kind future they want to bet on.

By Mary Ellen Klas, Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau

" Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions." Hal Turner Records show feds used ultra-right radio host for years
Sunday, November 29, 2009Last updated: Sunday November 29, 2009, 9:21 AM
BY MIKE KELLY AND PETER J. SAMPSON
The Record
STAFF WRITERS
They called him "Valhalla."
But it was more than a nickname.
For more than five years, Hal Turner of North Bergen lived a double life.
The public knew him as an ultra-right-wing radio talk show host and Internet blogger with an audience of neo-Nazis and white supremacists attracted to his scorched-earth racism and bare-knuckles bashing of public figures. But to the FBI, and its expanding domestic counter-terror intelligence operations in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Turner was "Valhalla" — his code name as an informant who spied on his own controversial followers.
Turner's clandestine past was confirmed this past summer when he was jailed on charges that he made threats on his blog against three federal judges in Chicago. In court after his arrest, federal prosecutors acknowledged Turner's FBI ties but downplayed his importance and even described him as "unproductive."
But an investigation by The Record — based on government documents, e-mails, court records and almost 20 hours of jailhouse interviews with Turner — shows that federal authorities made frequent use of Turner in its battle against domestic terrorism.
As Turner took to his radio show and blog to say that those who opposed his extremist views deserve to die, he received thousands of dollars from the FBI to report on such groups as the Aryan Nations and the white supremacist National Alliance, and even a member of the Blue Eyed Devils skinhead punk band. Later, he was sent undercover to Brazil where he reported a plot to send non-military supplies to anti-American Iraqi resistance fighters. Sometimes he signed "Valhalla" on his FBI payment receipts instead of his own name.
His dual life of shock jock and informant offers a window into the murky realm of domestic intelligence in the years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks — in particular, the difficult choices for the FBI in penetrating controversial fringe groups with equally controversial informants.
In interviews, conducted before Turner was released on bail, he said the FBI coached him to make racist, anti-Semitic and other threatening statements and now he feels double-crossed by the bureau after his arrest. The documents reviewed by The Record, however, show repeated instances of federal agents admonishing Turner for his extremism.
Federal prosecutors in Newark and Chicago declined to respond to Turner's claims, as did FBI officials. "We do not comment on matters before the courts and will not address Mr. Turner's allegations in the press," said the FBI's Weysan Dun, who runs the bureau's Newark field office.
Turner's "Valhalla" life will likely be on display this week when he is scheduled to go on trial for his alleged blog threats against three federal appeals court judges in Chicago who upheld a law banning handguns. The trial, originally set for Chicago, was switched to Brooklyn, with a judge flying in from Louisiana.
The trial may have its share of political intrigue. Turner's defense attorney, Michael Orozco, said he plans to subpoena Governor-elect Chris Christie to testify about whether he advised the FBI about Turner while Christie was U.S. attorney in Newark. On Friday, Orozco filed a motion to dismiss the case, accusing the government of "outrageous conduct."
But the center of the court battle will likely be the story of Hal Turner and his FBI connections, which began in 2003 with the Newark-based Joint Terrorism Task Force, and continued on and off until this year.
Rumors of Turner's FBI work surfaced two years ago after unknown Internet hackers electronically broke into his Web site and found e-mails between Turner and an FBI agent. Turner never acknowledged his FBI role until after his arrest in June — and then with a mix of anger and chagrin.
"Imagine my surprise," he wrote in one of several letters from jail to The Record, "when agents from the very FBI that trained and paid me came to my house to arrest me."
In a memo only two years earlier, the FBI said Turner "has proven highly reliable and is in a unique position to provide vital information on multiple subversive domestic organizations." The memo went on to say that Turner's "statistical accomplishments include over 100 subjects identified, over 10 acts of violence prevented and multiple subjects arrested."
"I was not some street snitch," Turner said in one of several lengthy interviews at the Hudson County Jail, where he was kept until the terms of his bail were worked out in October — terms that prevented him from talking to reporters after his release. "I was a deep undercover intelligence operative."
Misgivings on both sides
Whatever his role, one thing is clear: The relationship between Turner and the FBI often was rocky, with both sides cutting ties several times.
In March 2005, Turner abruptly quit. In a letter to his FBI handlers, he cited a "complete failure" by the agency "to achieve the goals for which I began the relationship," the "dismal lack of arrests," the failure to track down a "threat to kill me and my family" and "exploitation" by the FBI "to interfere with content of my Internet Web site."
By June, however, Turner was again on the FBI payroll. The FBI, meanwhile, harbored its own doubts about Turner.
Five days after Turner's March 2005 letter, an internal FBI memo summarized rising concerns that his rhetoric was too controversial and possibly dangerous.
"Is he a big mouth? Yes," the memo said. "Does he say really deplorable things? Yes. Is he a physical threat to anyone? I don't think so."
Records show the FBI continued this kind of questioning throughout its connection to Turner — valuing his ties to right-wing hate groups, but also worrying that his audience might follow up on his violence rhetoric.
In a July 2007 memo, Turner's primary FBI handler, Special Agent Stephen Haug, wrote that Turner "will continue to be admonished in the strongest possible terms and on a periodic basis about his rhetoric and the potential of it inciting acts of violence."
Haug went on to say that Turner would be "instructed to utilize his celebrity status to insure he continues to remind those who follow his rhetoric that such rhetoric is not intended to incite violence."
"In balance," Haug wrote, "this source's value outweighs the discomfort associated with source's rhetoric. Source's unique access provides important intelligence which, if lost, would be irreplaceable."
Turner, meanwhile, often tried to assure the FBI that his shock jock rhetoric was not serious. "The audience loves the rip-roaring radio psycho," he wrote in one e-mail to the FBI. "They literally throw money at it. Just be confident that the personality you hear (or hear about) on radio is not real life. I have zero intention of doing anything stupid."
Nonetheless, Turner's statements were closely watched.
In February 2008, in the midst of the presidential primary season, Turner attracted the attention of federal officials when he turned against then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
"I'm starting to come to the realization that it may be up to a sole person, acting alone, to make certain this guy is never allowed to hold the most powerful office in the world," Turner wrote on his Web site. He later removed the statement.
But later that year, court records show that he contacted federal authorities to say that he had heard of a possible assassination plot by white supremacists against the president-elect.
"I didn't like Barack Obama," Turner explained in an interview. "But he won the election."
Seven months after the possible threat to Obama, Turner was in FBI handcuffs — for allegedly threatening the Chicago judges.
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed," Turner wrote on his blog on June 2. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty."
Turner also posted photos of the judges, their work phone numbers and office addresses as well as a map of the courthouse that pointed out "anti-truck bomb barriers."
"The word 'deserve' is just an opinion," Turner later told The Record. As for posting the photos of the judges, he added: "I can't tell you to this day how sorry I am."
Even if he wins his federal case, Turner's legal problems will not be over. In June, Connecticut authorities charged Turner with inciting violence against state officials who supported a proposed state law to give Roman Catholic parishioners greater control over church finances.
In each case, Turner contends his words are protected as free speech under the First Amendment. Turner's attorney, Orozco, adds that other federal prosecutors routinely ignored his outlandish statements. "He has made other controversial remarks about judges, none of which have ever been prosecuted," wrote Orozco in a legal brief.
"I never intended for anybody to feel threatened," Turner said.
Longing to be heard
Whatever his intentions, it remains unclear who the real Hal Turner is.
A fraud? A serious threat to homeland security? A white supremacist? A loyal citizen trying to help the FBI? A radio showman trying to build an audience — and income — with shocking statements?
After he was arrested by FBI agents in June, Turner was sent on a journey that took him to jails in Newark, Oklahoma and Chicago — often in solitary confinement. By late September, he was transferred back to New Jersey and sent to the Hudson County Jail in Kearny. In all, he spent 119 days behind bars.
In the interviews at the Hudson County Jail, Turner offered many glimpses of his personality and motivation.
"My country needed me," he said when asked why he accepted the FBI's offer in June 2003 to become an informant. "I'm a loyal, patriotic decent American citizen."
But why did he say — or hint — that some judges and other officials should be killed? Turner blames the FBI, saying that while agents never said he could threaten judges, they coached him on the limits of what he could say. As a result, Turner said he felt he had wide latitude.
"I was given specific instructions," he said. "Here, I am in prison, betrayed."
In one of his more controversial statements, Turner gloated over the murder of the husband and mother of a federal judge in Chicago in 2005. But Turner described his rhetoric as fake, arguing he hoped it "would solidify my anti-government credentials" among ultra-right-wing groups he was spying on.
As for hanging out with neo-Nazis and skinheads, Turner said, "That's not me. It never has been."
Raised in Ridgefield Park, the 47-year-old Turner labored more than a decade in a variety of positions with several moving-van companies. In 1988, while working for a moving company in Atlanta, Turner was arrested on a drug possession charge. In interviews, he said he had a cocaine addiction at the time and checked into a rehab program.
By the early 1990s, Turner moved to North Bergen and worked as a real estate agent. Within a few years, however, he began to dabble in politics, trying to beef up the Republican Party in overwhelmingly Democratic Hudson County. He also was a campaign manager in New Jersey for Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
Politics seemed to offer Turner something he never realized he had — a voice and a need to speak out on hot topics. Now, however, several close associates question whether that voice is authentic or just the work of someone looking for the limelight.
In 1997, when Ramapo College Finance Professor Murray Sabrin ran for governor on a libertarian platform, he hired Turner to manage his campaign. Turner was a frequent caller on WABC's popular talk radio shows with Bob Grant and Sean Hannity — "Hal from North Bergen," as he came to be known.
Turner surely had a conservative flair, especially on such issues as abortion and immigration. But Sabrin noticed a complete shift after Turner started his own talk radio show. In particular, Sabrin, who is Jewish, found some of Turner's remarks to be anti-Semitic.
"People have a public face and a private face," said Sabrin. "Everything that he is doing now is a complete 180-degree shift. It's totally opposite from what I knew. I don't know where this is coming from. I certainly wouldn't have tolerated it."
For several years, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group, has regularly monitored Turner's radio broadcasts and blog. Indeed, the center was one of the first organizations to raise questions that Turner might be an FBI informant.
Hearing now that Turner admits to being an informant, the center's director of research, Heidi Beirich, was especially critical of the FBI. "We've never seen anything like this with informants. It's essentially idiotic on the part of the FBI. Anybody who spent two seconds looking at Hal Turner's Web site would know he is a wild hare," she said.
Indeed, Turner's own recounting of his life with the FBI does not always mirror what records show he did.
Turner, for example, says the FBI asked him to participate in a mission to plug leaks of information inside the Department of Justice to a variety of groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti Defamation League. Turner also says the FBI asked him to specifically criticize such African-American leaders as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
"I was supposed to be a counterbalance to Sharpton," Turner said.
Officially, the FBI declined comment on those unproven stories by Turner. The documents bear no trace of those operations.
Expedition to Brazil
Unofficially, FBI and other federal officials expressed a mix of dismay and outright anger when told of Turner's claims of being coached to make provocative statements.
"Absurd," said one. Another added: "And pigs will fly beginning with the next full moon. It never happened."
During interviews with The Record, Turner was at times unclear on some details. FBI records indicate, for example, that he did not become an informant until June 2003; Turner originally said he was recruited by federal agents in 2002, but later said he was mistaken.
Along with Haug of the FBI, his other regular contact was Leonard Nerbetski, a New Jersey State Police detective assigned to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Requests to interview Haug and Nerbetski were turned town by the FBI and by the state police.
In an early communication, Turner reported to the FBI about a meeting in Elmwood Park by the National Alliance. A few months after that, FBI records show that Turner was reaching out to several national leaders of the alliance.
FBI memos indicate that the bureau had appropriated as much as $100,000 for Turner's work as an informant.
"It was good money," said Turner, who would not say how much he was ultimately paid by the FBI.
Turner said he was earning about $15,000 a month from his suddenly popular radio show and blog.
As 2004 wore on, Turner found himself reporting to the FBI about a possible theft of evidence in a Bergen County drug case and about an attempt to set up a chapter of the Aryan Nations in northern New Jersey.
A year later, with the FBI paying for his visa and passport renewal, Turner embarked on his most ambitious mission — to confer with a wealthy white supremacist in Brazil who was considering making a $1 million donation to his American counterparts.
While in Brazil, Turner also reported meeting a World War II German Luftwaffe flying ace and linking up with a representative of the Brazilian Arab Society, who discussed a plan to ship $10 million in consumer goods to anti-American Iraqi resistance fighters.
After Turner returned to New Jersey, the records show that the FBI investigated the Arab Society representative and even reached out to U.S. officials in Brazil for help in monitoring his activities. But it's not clear if the $10 million shipment was attempted.
The $1 million donation also never materialized, records show. The Brazilian benefactor backed out of the deal when an American white supremacist did not accompany Turner on the trip.
Records indicate the FBI wanted Turner to return to Brazil to spy on white-supremacist training there. But Turner never went. While in Brazil, Turner said, he carried a gun for protection, which was not authorized by the FBI.
Only a few weeks after returning to the United States from Brazil, Turner again found controversy. In a radio broadcast, he targeted African-Americans.
"A full day of violence against blacks would be a really nice thing," he said.
Turner went on to call for "lynchings, church burnings, drive-by shootings and bombings to put these subhuman animals back in their place," according to a report complied by the Anti-Defamation League.
The episode illustrates the complicated relationship between the FBI and Turner. Despite Turner's racist radio rhetoric, the FBI also valued his undercover work — and was apparently willing to take a risk with him again — and pay him, too.
For example, a July 2005 memo by the FBI said Turner had been paid $10,365 in the previous fiscal year and that he "provided information which continues to be highly accurate and sensitive."
Turner continued to reach out intermittently to the FBI — with tips including a possible KKK murder plot — until June 2, 2009, the day he posted the alleged threats on his blog about the Chicago judges.
In an e-mail that day to the FBI, Turner says he has heard reports that agents had interviewed skinheads and others about him.
"Am I unapproachable?" Turner asked in the e-mail. "Geez, I'd think by now I would have proved myself. It's not like I'm gonna go postal or anything."
Three weeks later, Turner was arrested.
Four months after that, Turner, unshaven and wearing frayed green prison garb and fumbling with a loose tooth, sat in an interview room at the Hudson County Jail and pondered his journey — from shock jock to FBI informant to inmate charged with a serious federal crime.
"I can't believe this is happening to me," he said.
E-mail: kellym@northjersey.com and sampson@northjersey.com

MIKE KELLEY OF "THE RECORD" SHOULD GET A PULITZER PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM FOR HIS COVERAGE OF HAL TURNER AND HIS FEDERAL PERSECUTION, I MEAN, PROSECUTION. I USED TO LISTEN TO HAL'S SHOW ON SHORTWAVE AND HELL YES, IT WAS PROVACATIVE, RACIST AND ANTI-SEMITIC BUT IT WAS ALSO FUNNY AS HELL. HIS WEBSITE BROKE A LOT OF CUTTING EDGE NEWS AND HE HAD INSIDE SOURCES THAT CAUSED EMBARRASMENT TO PUBLIC AND MILITARY OFFICIALS. HAL WAS A ONE MAN INTEL SOURCE, WHO IS SORELY MISSED. ALL THE TIME I LISTENED TO HIS SHOW, HOWEVER, I NEVER HEARD HIM DIRECT PEOPLE TO ACT USING VIOLENCE EVEN THOUGH HE HAD STRONG OPINIONS OF WHAT "SHOULD" BE DONE. NOW IT LOOKS LIKE HE WAS AN FBI ASSETT WHO HANDED HIS COMPUTER RECORDS OVER TO THE FBI, TAPES OF ALL HIS SHOWS AND THE CALL LOGS TO HIS PHONE LINES. SO IF YOU CALLED HAL, ACCESSED HIS WEBSITE, POSTED COMMENTS ON HALOSCAN AT HIS WEBSITE THEN THE FBI PROBABLY HAS YOUR NUMBER. DON'T WORRY THOUGH IF YOUR NOT PLANNING TO COMMIT VIOLENCE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT OR ANY PERSON BECAUSE THIS IS STILL AMERICA AND YOU STILL HAVE THE FIRST AMMENDMENT AND THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.

Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent(s)") is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.

An agent provocateur may be a police officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a crime under conditions where evidence can be obtained; or who suggests the commission of a crime to another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion and be convicted of the crime.
A political organization or government may use agents provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite the opponent to counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain—or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent (see Red-baiting).
Historically, labor spies, hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, or subvert union activities, have used agent provocateur tactics.
Agent provocateur activities raise ethical and legal issues. In common law jurisdictions, the legal concept of entrapment may apply if the main impetus for the crime was the provocateur.

In the United States, the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of radical political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
New York City police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.[1]
Denver police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This ultimately resulted in the accidental use of chemical agents against their own men.

Notorious were the activities of agents provocateurs against revolutionaries in Imperial Russia. Yevno Azef is an example of such an agent provocateur.
It is alleged by British Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake that the Metropolitan Police made use of agents provocateurs during the G20 Protests in London

Three protesters in Montebello, Canada during the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America were caught acting as police provocateurs on August 20, 2007, by Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. The entire incident was filmed and posted on YouTube before being picked up by mainstream media. The video [4] shows three masked men, one of whom was armed with a large rock, being confronted by peaceful protesters. After the men breached the police line, they were brought to the ground, handcuffed, and taken away. Photographs revealed that their boot-tread matched that of the arresting officers. Although they at first denied that the individuals in question were agents provocateurs, the Sûreté du Québec issued a news release on August 23 admitting that the three protesters were, in fact, police officers. SEE ALSO-

Entrapment
Sting operation
Informant
Grant Bristow
False flag terrorist actions
Security culture
Black Bloc
COINTELPRO

Hal Turner

Harold Charles "Hal" Turner is an American white nationalist and white supremacist from North Bergen, New Jersey. He was arrested in June 2009 for threats which he allegedly made against politicians, and he is currently jailed without bail. Turner has a history of making threats, though he has helped FBI agents with their investigations of right-wing terrorists. Prior to Turner's arrest, his program, The Hal Turner Show, was a webcast from his home once a week, and it depended on listener donations.
Turner promotes antisemitism (including the rounding up and killing of Jews),[1] he opposes the existence of the state of Israel[1] and he denies the Holocaust.[2]

Early career
Identifying himself as "Hal from North Bergen", Turner became notable in American conservative circles as a frequent caller to and supporter of WABC radio talk show hosts Bob Grant and Sean Hannity.[3] Turner parlayed this fame into a role as the northern New Jersey coordinator for Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign. He went on to serve as campaign manager for Libertarian Party candidate Murray Sabrin in New Jersey in the 1990s, including a 1997 gubernatorial campaign.[4]
Turner claims he established a friendship with Sean Hannity, on whose program he was a frequent presence.[3] However, when confronted by the New Black Panther Party's Malik Zulu Shabazz in 2008 about his association with Turner (in light of Hannity's scrutiny of Barack Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright), Hannity at first denied knowing Turner, then said he had banned Turner from his radio station. Turner subsequently posted this response on his website: "I was quite disappointed when Sean Hannity at first tried to say he didn't know me. In fact, Sean does know me and we were quite friendly a few years ago."[5][6]
Turner became a talk radio host, joining fellow regular callers Frank from Queens and John from Staten Island to start the program The Right Perspective. Turner left the program in 2002, citing artistic differences. In 2002, Turner became a solo host, purchasing a time slot on shortwave radio station WBCQ, over which he broadcast for approximately four years. On WBCQ on March 22, 2004 he left the show "after harshly criticizing his supporters, listeners, and WBCQ."[7] The show lacked financial support[8] the owner of the station Allan Weiner was Jewish, and Turner had health problems[9][unreliable source?]. This led to the temporary closure of his website and show.[citation needed]
Activism and assault claims
In the 2000 US congress election, Turner sought, but did not receive, the Republican Party nomination for election to the United States Congress from New Jersey's 13th congressional district, losing to Theresa de Leon.[10][11] Turner has identified himself as the "Chairman of the Republican Party of Hudson County, NJ Corp," a group which has no connection to the official Hudson County Republican Party recognized by the state and national party. According to news reports, Hudson County Republican officials have stated that Turner's party is a "paper corporation with little or no membership".[12]
In response to an October 7, 2005 assault against a white student by a black student at Kingston High School, Turner, working with the white nationalist group National Vanguard, organized a rally which he called a "rally against violence".[13] The case resulted in the perpetrator being indicted as an adult with two felony counts: assault and attempted assault.[14][15] He characterized the rally both as "pro-white" and "against violence".[16] The victim's mother chose not to attend the rally.[16] In response, local residents, including political and religious leaders, organized a number of "Unity Rallies" with a tolerance theme.[17] When the rally occurred on November 19, 2005, Turner and the National Vanguard attracted approximately 50 demonstrators, compared to the 100 counter-demonstrators.[18]
On April 12, 2006, Turner had a physical altercation with Jaime Vazquez, a former Jersey City Deputy Mayor and a member of the Jersey City Council, who was the Jersey City Commissioner of Veterans Affairs at the time. The North Bergen Reporter quoted Turner as saying "(t)he illegal immigrants are breaking the law, and people like me should break the law as well by shooting them down." In response, Vazquez picketed with a sign reading "Hal Turner — shoot me! Racists and bigots like you are cowards."[19] Vazquez suffered a back injury and a fractured wrist. Turner and Vazquez later filed criminal charges against each other. On July 16, 2006 North Bergen Municipal Court Judge Joseph Romano found both men to be equally credible and thus neither criminally liable.[20]
Broadcasting and website issues
In 2002, Turner started broadcasting, but quit the show in July 2008 and resumed in April 2009. In August 2008 his website also closed down, though he retained a blog, it was shut down by his host, Google's Blogger, for violations of terms of service.
Anonymous website raid
According to Turner, in December 2006 and January 2007, individuals who identified themselves as Anonymous took Turner's website offline, and cost him thousands of dollars in bandwidth bills. He retaliated by sending a "formal legal notice of criminal activity in violation of several federal laws" by email to 7chan, multacom, and multicom, as well as redirecting his domain to 420chan, causing that site to take a bandwidth hit as well.[21][22] He also sued 4chan, eBaum's World, 7chan, and other websites in court over copyright infringement. He lost his plea for an injunction, however, and failed to receive letters from the court, which caused the lawsuit to lapse.[23]
Informant
Turner was a paid FBI informant for several years, supplying information about right-wing terrorism to federal agents.[24] The original allegations that Turner acted as an informant for the FBI surfaced in 2008 after unidentified hackers claimed on Turner's website's forums that they had read email correspondence between him and an FBI agent, apparently his handler.[25] This led to a discussion on a neo-Nazi website on January 10, 2008, in which Turner revealed he was quitting political work, was ending his radio show and that he was separating "from the 'pro-White' movement".[25] At the time, the FBI declined to comment on the matter and Turner denied being an informant.[25] The Southern Poverty Law Center[26] and the Anti-Defamation League reported on the emails that "a neo-Nazi Website had posted material reportedly found by the hackers, including alleged exchanges between himself and law enforcement agents which indicated that Turner had been providing information to them."[27]
On July 28, 2009 in a Chicago courtroom, Turner's defense lawyer said that Turner worked as a paid informant for the FBI.[28] During an August 11, 2009 hearing prosecutors acknowledged "that Turner has been an FBI informant, paid by the government to spy on radical right-wing organizations."[29]
Threats against judges and political figures
Turner has a history of making threats against various public figures.[30] In 2005, Turner publicized the names of three federal court judges who handled lawsuits involving Matt Hale.[31] Turner posted the judges' names and addresses on his Web site.[31][32]
On December 6, 2006, Turner announced on his website:
"We may have to ASSASSINATE some of the people you elect on Nov. 7! This could be your LAST ELECTION CHANCE, to save this Republic... Sorry to have to be so blunt, but the country is in mortal danger from our present government and our liberty is already near dead because of this government. If you are too stupid to turn things around with your vote, there are people out here like me who are willing to turn things around with guns, force and violence. We hope our method does not become necessary."[33]
Since the announcement was made, Turner has had difficulties finding a host for his website. He alleged that his website has been the target of denial of service attacks, and subsequently filed a pro se lawsuit.[34][35][36]
On April 4, 2008, Turner encouraged violence against Lexington, Massachusetts school superintendent Paul Ash for establishing a new curriculum supporting gays and lesbians. On his website, he stated:
"I advocate parents using FORCE AND VIOLENCE against Superintendent Paul B. Ash as a method of defending the health and safety of school children presently being endangered through his politically-correct indoctrination into deadly, disease-ridden sodomite lifestyles."[37]
He went on to provide Ash's personal information, including his address.[37] Fourteen months later, on June 2, 2009, Turner posted on his blog
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions."
The next day Turner posted information on how to find Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Joseph Bauer.[38]
Arrest
On June 3, 2009, Turner was arrested and charged with inciting injury to two politicians in Connecticut and a state ethics official.[39] The warrant issued was for inciting his website's readers to "take up arms" against the officials.[40] He was arrested in New Jersey and is pending extradition to Connecticut.[41] Turner was subsequently re-arrested on June 24, 2009 at his New Jersey home for making threats against the judges of the United States Court of Appeals in Chicago.[42] Turner was denied bail and FBI officials revealed that they had found 200 rounds of ammunition and 150 hollow-point bullets in Turner’s home.[43][44]
On June 30, 2009, the website for Turner's blog was shut down and replaced with a notice stating that the website has been taken down by Turner's family, directing interested parties to a blog for the Family of Hal Turner, with entries by his mother.[45]
In July the Connecticut case was handed to a division of the state court that handles more serious matters.[46] On July 28 in the Chicago case, Turner pleaded not guilty to threatening to kill three federal appellate judges there and then sought his release from custody, saying he had been an informant for the FBI.[47] The judge gave Turner 10 days "to produce concrete evidence of Turner's help to the FBI or federal marshals."[47] On August 11 Turner was denied bail again. The judge cited the fact that Turner, from his prison cell, recorded and posted on the internet a telephone conversation that included the names of his arresting FBI agents. The Judge said that Turner's act "tells me something about the disposition of Mr. Turner."[48]
He pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer said the defense will use "Turner's background as an FBI informant" and argue he was "trained by the FBI" as "an agent provocateur" to incite people."[49] Subsequently, in late October Turner was freed on $500,000 bond, and was ordered not to use a computer or any device that can access the Internet.[50]

North Bergen blogger Hal Turner subpoenas Chris Christie
Tuesday, December 1, 2009Last updated: Tuesday December 1, 2009, 6:52 PM
BY MIKE KELLY
The Record
STAFF WRITER
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Governor-elect Chris Christie was subpoenaed Tuesday to testify as a defense witness for an ultra-right-wing blogger, shock jock and former FBI operative from North Bergen who is on trial for allegedly threatening the lives of appeals court judges in Chicago.
Hal Turner’s defense attorney, Michael Orozco, said he hopes to question Christie about whether federal prosecutors in Newark made a blanket decision not to file charges against Turner after previous threatening statements on the radio or on his blog.
A spokesman for Christie, who oversaw the federal prosecutors as U.S. Attorney, confirmed he had received the subpoena, but declined comment.
Turner claims the FBI coached him on how far he could go with provocative rhetoric on his radio show and blog and that previous threats were never prosecuted. The FBI and federal prosecutors have declined comment, but documents reviewed by The Record show repeated attempts by the FBI to admonish Turner.
Turner, who broadcast racist and anti-Semitic radio diatribes from his North Bergen condominium to a national audience of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, was charged in June with threatening judges in Chicago who upheld a handgun ban.
The trial, originally set for Chicago, was switched to federal court in Brooklyn – and is being presided over by a judge from Louisiana, District Court Judge Donald Walter.
Of particular interest if Christie testifies is whether federal prosecutors made a decision several years ago to not prosecute Turner for making threats against federal officials. At least one government document reviewed by The Record raises the possibility that Turner may have received a “blanket letter of declination” from federal prosecutors – meaning that he would not be charged for the allegedly threatening rhetoric that was common on his radio program and blog.
“I would like to ask Christie to confirm or deny a blanket letter of declination was ever written,” Orozco said, adding that he expected Christie to challenge the subpoena and perhaps successfully avoid testifying. “It remains to be seen what Christie is going to do.”
Turner’s role as an FBI informant was described in The Record this past Sunday. The article, based on government documents, emails, court records, and lengthy interviews with Turner before a gag order was imposed, showed how Turner routinely supplied the FBI with information on the same neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups that made up his audience.
Beginning in 2003, Turner supplied information to the FBI on such extremist groups as the Aryan Nation, the National Alliance, the Ku Klux Klan and a variety of other neo-Nazi operatives.
But on Tuesday, it remained unclear how the judge might try to limit evidence on Turner’s FBI exploits. After jurors had been dismissed, assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan, told the judge he would file a motion to limit testimony of an FBI agent.
Walter also denied a request by Orozco to delay the trial, as well as a First Amendment objection to the trial itself.
E-mail: kellym@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/state/120109_North_Bergen_blogger_Hal_Turner_subpoenas_Chris_Christie.html

Saturday, October 29, 2005 10:21 PM
ARMY CALLED IN!
NORTH AFRICAN SAVAGES RIOT IN PARIS
PROTESTING DEATHS OF TWO OTHER SAVAGES WHO WERE ELCTROCUTED TO DEATH WHILE TRYING TO HIDE FROM POLICE IN ELECTRIC SUB-STATION
More than 30 cars burned, cops overwhelmed; seek French Army Troops to quell "civil war."