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February 14, 2007
Key figure in Blood & Volume killed in Israel: Ran Efraim, one of Ron Gonen's best friends in the 1970's and 1980's before turning on him as Gonen refused to deal heroin for the Israel mafia, was killed on Feb. 1 in Tel Aviv:
"Investigators believe that the shooting may be related to gangland vengeance, like Wednesday's bombing attempt that seriously injured known criminal Shuli Rokach. Unlike that attack, however, police believe this suspected hit is tied events that occurred over a decade ago."  And those events are all the events covered in Blood & Volume. The Jerusalem Post article about Efraim's killing butchers some of the facts (for example, no one ever found out who killed Johnny Attias, only who plotted to have him killed) and they go with some different spellings of the names than the U.S. Court system. But for the most part, it's a fairly good overview and shows that people in the Tel Aviv underworld are still rather pissed about what happened in the 1980's.
Last week I mentioned that Ron Gonen had been terminated from the federal Witness Protection Program and faces possible deportation back to Israel. He remains calm about his plight and has begun working with an immigration attorney to make sure he can stay in the United States, as he realizes that going back to Israel would be a death sentence.
Since then I've gotten some interesting questions, including one from Potts in comments:
"I know that Henry Hill eventually got booted from the program, as did Sammy Gravano, but I don't believe that either of the books about them had anything to do with it. If you can discuss it, what makes your book different for Gonen?" The short answer is "I don't know." Anyone entering the program agrees to not discuss their life in the program, so this wasn't entirely unexpected by me or Gonen. Why the U.S. Marshal's chose to terminate Gonen before the book was even released and waited until Hill and Gravano had committed other crimes isn't quite clear to me. By all accounts, Ron Gonen has led a law-abiding life since his arrest and entry into the program in 1990, but I suspect the government is a bit more sensitive to these issues after seeing the very public antics of people like Hill.
In an email, Finy asked the following:
"Was reading the post you wrote about the Gonen and the Witness Protection Program. You talked a lot about how Gonen was feeling about it, and you're right he seems to be dealing amazingly well, but I was wondering how YOU felt about it. I know we don't really know each other, hell we've never even met save for a few emails here and there, but I can't help but put myself in your shoes. I have no idea how I'd deal if I knew that something I had written had had that kind of effect on someones life." I guess the realist in me says that Ron Gonen is an adult, and a rather intelligent and competent adult at that, so he knew what he was getting into. This was a risk we talked about in our very first conversation in January 2005. But at the same time, and journalism rules be damned, when you spend more than two years talking to someone by telephone almost every day, you do develop some sort of relationship. I'm still hard-pressed to define that relationship but I would, without a doubt, feel an impact if anything bad were to happen to him.
The real dilemma for Gonen is not that he got thrown out of the program but that he faces deportation to a country where people he testified against still allegedly operate as criminals. If he were a U.S. citizen he would be, in a word, fine. He could remain in hiding forever. For now, Gonen remains in hiding and will do so in the coming months of immigration status hearings.
And until those hearings play out, it's too soon to see how much of a gamble Gonen took. And, by extension, it's too soon for me to figure out how I'm feeling about it.Labels: bloodandvolume
Posted at 6:48 AM
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