Mafia death threat to UK newspaper boss

The Mafia issued death threats against Richard Desmond, the owner of Express Newspapers, in a dispute over pornographic phone lines, according to court documents.

A member of the Gambino crime family travelled to London to issue a warning to Mr Desmond, who had struck a deal to carry adverts for adult chat lines in his pornographic magazines.

The Brooklyn court heard that one of Desmond's employees was told: "We want our money back. If your boss sets foot here, he's a dead man."

Richard Martino, 45, has admitted personally extorting money from Mr Desmond by threatening force in a London hotel in

1992. Five other men are accused of a ?320 million porn fraud. Users of the sites were charged over and over at high rates. There is no suggestion Mr Desmond was aware of the fraud.

A spokesman for Northern & Shell said today the company "has not had any business dealings with any unscrupulous sections of society".

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in