Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The Tene-Bimbo “Gypsy Sweetheart Scam,” Husband-Killing Syndicate - 1995


It was known to many the “Gypsy Sweetheart Scam,” by its many victims, all defrauded, but not all murdered. But between 1983 and 1995, after a group of five deaths came to be linked to a Gypsy family’s murder-for-profit scheme San Francisco police gave the name “Foxglove” to the case – after the suspected death tool, digitalis, a heart medicine derived from the foxglove flower. Six elderly men were apparently murdered soon after being married much younger women, all members of the Tene-Bimbo Gypsy clan, based in San Francisco. It is suspected each was killed through poisoning with digitalis (heart medication).

Five victims were San Franciscans – Philip H. Steiner Jr., 93; Konstantin K. Liotweizen, 92; Nicholas C. Bufford, 87; and Stephen Storvick, 91; Harry Glover Hughes, 94 – a sixth was a New Yorker, Andrew Vlasto, 83. In the California cases, more than $1 million in cash, real estate, jewelry and automobiles was taken by the extended family, private investigators said. Suspects arrested in the scam were Angela Tene Bufford; her mother, Mary Tene Steiner; of San Francisco, and, in New York, Sylvia Mitchell. Daniel J. Castleman of the Manhattan district attorney's office said Mitchell was tied to the Tene-Bimbo group through her boyfriend, Ephrem Bimbo.

Police say the couple filled prescriptions of digitalis at a pharmacy across the street, poisoned food made at the deli owned by the Tene family, and delivered it to the homes of elderly targets. Investigative  journalist George Cothran reported in the SF Weekly that the case had been badly botched, perhaps deliberately, due to the association of a police officer with the suspects (“Poisoned Probe: How police bungled the exotic poison-for-profit case known as Foxglove,” SF Weekly, Dec. 3, 1997)

“The two original inspectors, Greg Ovanessian and Daniel Yawczak, were taken off the case in 1994 and now face internal police misconduct charges. They are accused of "engaging in conduct which subverts the good order, efficiency and discipline of the department" in connection with their handling of the early part of the investigation in 1993.” [Jim Herron Zamora, “8 accused of plotting poison murders,” San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 7, 1997]

Ultimately the three San Francisco women and their male associates were permitted to plead to fraud charges rather than homicide. “Mitchell was arrested in Las Vegas in June 1999, and pleaded guilty in June 2000 last month to manslaughter, admitting she stole $70,000 of Andrew Vlasto’s money – and drugged him to do it.” [Laura Italiano, “Death Was In The Cards – Schemer Married Old Man And Killed For $$,” New York Post (N.Y.), July 7, 2000]

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Featured on TV program: Deadly Devotion, "Gypsy Seduction," Series 1: Episode 7. Jul. 16, 2013.

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http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2017/04/husband-killing-syndicates.html

For more than two dozen similar cases, dating from 1658 to 2011, see the summary list with links see: The Husband-Killing Syndicates

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5 comments:

  1. When I was a little child, my mother and I would go to the Portland, Oregon Goodwill store every Saturday. It was a very small store located in the heart of old "skid row" near Burnside Street. There were many gypsies in that area temporarily living in vacated businesses and selling their "wares". The old women gypsies would sit in a chair outside and try to entice us to have our horoscope read....,or, if we were a man, to come inside for sex. It gave me the "creeps" and I can picture some of the scenes to this day!

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  2. yo soy gitano. esta gentuza me a dejado
    sorprendido. eso que hacen no es de gitano. ser gitano es respetar a los ancianos y no hacer cosas de payos así como asesinar a sus propios hijos y cosas semejantes. dios n o s libre y castigue a todo aquel que le haga cosas así an un ser humano..

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    1. TRANSLATION: I am gypsy. This bunch has surprised me. What they do is not gypsy. To be a gypsy is to respect the elders and not do clownish things as well as kill their own children and similar things. God is free and punishes anyone who does such things to a human being.

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  3. I am embarrassed to say that I am linked to this family through my Birth- Mother who gave me up for adoption. I can personally say without hurting her and my "family by blood," my poor Mother went through a living hell growing up and is forever torn apart & scarred for the rest of her living life. I haven't spoken to her since I found her back in the 90's. Generational curses are real folks, so don't be so quick to judge like I did at first because I was an ignorant young 26 year old at the time. I pray that she is living the best life that she can.God bless everyone who reads this information, and ask God to give you discernment in your heart, especially before your ignorance makes you look like a fool. Blessings.

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  4. I am the real deal Bimbo Grom, i know who you are your name starts with a R
    believe me like all walks of life you have bad elements'
    to say the word gypsy is like using the N word, or kite or wasp, and yet all of these people have rights against using derogatory names !
    Except "GYPSYS"
    compare the bad things and crime that Gypsies do to the bad things the "KKK" does !
    compare the bad things and crime that Gypsies do to the bad things the "black American's" do!
    compare the bad things and crime that Gypsies do to the bad things the "Mafia" does !
    compare the bad things and crime that Gypsies do to the bad things the "white people" do !

    then come and tell me about the Grom

    posted by a real life Bimbo Grom

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