Other celebrities battling lupus

Celebrities battling lupus

Celebrities battling Lupus – Selena Gomez’s struggle with lupus has interrupted two of her concert tours and forced her to undergo chemotherapy to control the disease.

Celebrities battling lupus

Celebrities battling lupus

Celebrities battling lupus

Singer Toni Braxton has been hospitalized several times to bring her lupus under control. She told the world about her condition in 2010 and in 2014 wrote “Unbreak My Heart,” a memoir in which she revealed that her uncle died from the disease.

Celebrities battling lupus

“Third Rock from the Sun” star Kristen Johnston had to take a break from work in 2013 when she developed a rare form of lupus that attacks the spinal cord. After chemotherapy, she has said she’s in remission.

Celebrities battling lupus

Soccer star Shannon Boxx has been battling lupus since she was 30 years old. She went public with her condition in 2012, continuing to play for the U.S. women’s soccer team and working with lupus organizations to spread awareness of the disease.

Celebrities battling lupus

The scars of a skin form of lupus left a distinctive pattern on British singer Seal’s face. The singer has battled the disease since he was a child.

Celebrities battling lupus

Former model and “Extra” correspondent Terri Seymour says she nearly lost her life to lupus in her early 20s, and has struggled with flares since.

Celebrities battling lupus

Actress Mary Elizabeth McDonough, best known for her work on “The Waltons,” has been advocating for those with lupus since that time. She struggled with many typical symptoms of the disease for years before getting a diagnosis.

Celebrities battling lupus

John Wayne’s oldest son Michael suffered from lupus for years before dying of complications of the disease at age 68. Michael collaborated with his famous father on several well-known films, such as “The Green Berets” and “The Train Robbers.”

Charges in alleged NYC mafia crime wave

The charges stem from what prosecutors claim was almost 20 years of organized criminal activity in and around Queens — including participation in gun battles, beatings, extortion, and arson.

“The Mafia hasn’t stopped operating and the crimes these members are charged with today prove that,” the FBI’s William Sweeny Jr. said in a statement.

The 10 defendants — Ronald “Ronnie G.” Giallanzo, Michael Padavona, Nicholas “Pudgie” Festa, Michael Palmaccio, Christopher “Bald Chris” Boothby, Evan “The Jew” Greenberg, Richard Heck, Michael Hintze, Robert Pisani and Robert “Chippy” Tanico — were arrested Tuesday and arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn.

Giallanzo, identified by the Department of Justice as an acting captain in the Bonnano family, stands at the center of the alleged crime wave.

A reputed Bonanno soldier for nearly two decades, Giallanzo used the proceeds from fraudulent stock market schemes to fund a loan-sharking business with more than $3 million, court documents state.

In the course of running his loan-sharking operation — and while awaiting trial for securities fraud — prosecutors claim Giallanzo ordered members of his crew, including Palmaccio and Padavona, to kill a suspected rival in the Howard Beach section of Queens.

The man was believed by Giallanzo to have been behind multiple robberies of Festa’s drug-dealing and loan-sharking operation, court papers state. The vendetta resulted in at least four shootouts in Howard Beach over a three-month period, according to prosecutors.

Defendants could face up to 20 years in prison

Giallanzo pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud and was sentenced in 2007 to more than seven years in prison. Prosecutors allege, however, that he continued to run his loan-sharking operation from behind bars, instructing his associates to beat up borrowers who were in arrears.

When conditionally released in April 2013, Giallanzo took a personal role in the shakedowns, prosecutors contend. He allegedly beat someone who owed $250,000 until the man “soiled himself,” court documents state.

He also met with several ranking members of the Bonanno crime family in violation of the conditions of his release. Those meetings earned him another stretch in prison, from March until December 2016. Elizabeth Macedonio, Giallanzo’s attorney, could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.

If found guilty of racketeering or loan sharking, the defendants face up to 20 years in prison.

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