Unsung Hero
I'd like to shake this guy's hand. Retiring FBI agent Jesse Coleman sounds like a real hero, one who avoided the limelight and told the truth.
Named a special agent in 1979 after a four-year stint on the FBI's support staff, Coleman, a McKeesport, Pa., native, began his career interpreting street jargon on court-authorized wiretaps of major Black Mafia figures.His marriage broke up because he had to send his own brother-in-law to jail, but he and his wife remarried in 2004. May his retirement be long and happy.One of his last major cases was much like his first.
Listening to drug wiretaps, he heard an elusive longtime target - Muslim imam Shamsud-din Ali, who was once in the Black Mafia - urge a drug dealer to take $5,000 to Mayor Street's office. The FBI never determined if the drug money had been delivered and what it was intended for.
The dramatic exchange sparked an investigation of Ali, who was convicted of racketeering, and led to an ongoing public corruption probe and more than 50 convictions of politicians, city officials, financial consultants, city contractors and drug dealers.
Note to Hollywood: Oscar potential right here. FADE IN already.