The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a
deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Delete, possibly speedy delete (oops - can't be speedied since it survived a previous AFD) as a violation of
WP:BLP. The article states as fact that the subject is guilty of various crimes, but the only source is an arrest warrant alleging the accusations. See
WP:CRIME, "A living person accused of a crime is presumed not guilty unless and until this is decided by a court of law. Editors must give serious consideration to not creating an article on an alleged perpetrator when no conviction is yet secured." --
MelanieN (
talk)
18:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)reply
Comment. Although Perna is presumed not guilty on the current charges, he has a history of convictions related to illegal gambling. Per the
NJ.com story cited in the article, "Perna, a well-known bookmaker and the brother of the onetime New Jersey underboss for the Lucchese crime family, has been sentenced on criminal gambling charges at least a half-dozen times in the past 25 years. Most recently, the 61-year-old from East Hanover was sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison for running a gambling racket with his sons." Presumably, the guidelines in
WP:CRIME are intended to avoid tainting people's reputations by tying them to crimes of which they may or may not be guilty. Since Perna has a history of involvement in crimes similar to those of which he's now accused, I don't think we have to be quite so solicitous about protecting his reputation.
Ammodramus (
talk)
17:40, 12 October 2012 (UTC)reply
Weak keep. I've gone through the article and replaced assertions of fact with "alleged" and "purported" phrasings, and have found sources for every statement in the article. I removed a passage about prison smuggling that shouldn't have been in this article (according to the source, the accused wasn't the subject of the article, but one of his sons). I think it now meets BLP standards.
I don't think
WP:CRIME is properly applied in this situation. It begins "A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial..." Perna is not known in connection with a single criminal event: he is alleged to be a higher-up in a major criminal organization. He's featured prominently enough in the NJ AG's press releases and the stories written about the bust of the allged gambling/extortion ring to create a reasonable presumption of notability.
Ammodramus (
talk)
18:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)reply
Merge to
Lucchese crime family per
WP:CRIME: "A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there is an existing article that could incorporate the available encyclopedic material relating to that person." The Lucchese crime family can clearly accommodate this material; once the body of information and citations about this person gets larger, it may warrant a separate article, but not yet. --
Batard0 (
talk)
07:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)reply
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Re:Batard0 - You make a good point, but the article has only been up for 3 months. I think more time is necceasry to determine wether it can be expanded more and kept. I give it a weak keep for now. --
Ted87 (
talk)
22:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a
deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.