◆ SpookStack

co PRATT, J: I. ABSCAM "Abscam" is the code word. given by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to an undercover "sting" operation conducted out of the FBI office at Hauppauge, Long Island, - New York, under the supervision of agent John Good. Abscam began after Melvin Weinberg in 1977 was convicted in the Western District of Pennsylvania on his plea of guilty to fraud. In return for a sentence of probation Weinberg agreed to cooperate with the FBI in setting up an undércover operation similar to the London Investors, Ltd. “business" that Weinberg had used with remarkable success before his arrest and conviction in Pittsburgh. For most of his life Weinberg. had been a "con man" operating in the gray area between legitimate enterprise. and crude criminality. For a number of years in the 1960s and early 1970s, he had. been listed as an informant by the FBI and had provided his contact agent from time to time with intelligence about various known and suspected criminals and criminal activities in the New York metropoli- _ tan area and elsewhere, for which he had received in return occasional small payments of money. When he was arrested on the charge that led to his guilty plea, his informant status was cancelled, later to be reinstated after his +o nerememevn yo