Salem wasn't always a lively community with so many families who've engraved their legacy into its history. Believe it or not, it, like so many towns that have a lot of history, had humble beginnings. Just a five decades after the United States of America became an independent country of the British, Salem nothing more than trees sitting on rich soil and home to a lake that connected itself to the great lakes. Resting on the lake was a simple dock and an island.
Following the migration of a few tribes of Native Americans came Irish-Canadian immigrants who found themselves on a collection of a few fishing boats. They were looking for land to call their own and with the tribes, they forged a small community that had found its start as the town of Salem, Illinois, just fifty miles south of Chicago. Large enough to still be considered its own, small town, but still small enough to remain as close-knit as the original intent was. This group of Irish settlers were known as the family of Brady.
Over the years, Salem experienced an increase of its entire population. It expanded further around almost to the point where it began to evolve and progress like the larger cities around it did. Being just an hour out from one of the largest cities, Salem benefitted from getting jobs and more importantly, its name, out there. the more it made a name for itself, the more Salem saw its economy boom. By the time the Industrial Revolution had reached the midwest, Salem hit a peak. when the town had started evolve and become a city, it brought in more families; and with those families, came their businesses.
Before anyone realized, Salem was not only the home to the Brady family and various tribes of Native Americans, but families from all walks of life began to make Salem their permanent place of residence. These families represented various cultures, be it Africans from North and South Africa, various pacific island countries, the subcontinent of India, and even the larger Asiatic countries like China, Korea, and Japan. It only took 50 years into the 1900s, but Salem soon became a beacon for large corporations, worldwide business ties, and very profitable, albeit sometimes morally questionable, exchanges with third parties. That being said, Salem has always served as a town that housed both honest-earning families as well as those of organized crime origins.
And the perfect example of this is when rumored-cartel-run family out of Mexico City, Mexico, the Castillo family, led by Emilio Castillo, had found itself establishing its dominance in Salem as one of its wealthiest residents. Almost immediately after arriving sometime during the 1980s, the Castro family asserted itself in most major business practices in Salem. They brought more jobs to the city and had made it profitable, but one thing to note is the crime rate and the amount of drugs that began to surface in Salem skyrocketed in a matter of just a few months. As it was to be expected, this caused strife with the community and the Salem Police Department as that tried to figure out who was behind it and how they were going to pinpoint the cause. Eventually, they did find the source, but that didn't do much because most of the department seemed to be in the Castro's pocket.
And this ushered in a dark, dangerous age for Salem full of Godfather and Scarface-inspired levels of wars between the SPD and the Castro Crime Family. In the total time of twenty years, over one-hundred lives had been lost, not only driving a wedge between investors that once held pride in how Salem was as a city, but fortifying the tensions with the community and how corrupt the police department was. It wasn't all corrupt, but enough to not really do any good. Not even statewide law enforcement, who had joined with the SPD in task forces to help contain the problem that was the Castros. the closest any of them had gotten was getting some low level members of the family in Statesville, but that still didn't usher in any real change.
In the year of 2003, the tides changed for the better. During this time, another shady family had made its way into Salem. this family was equally, if not more, questionable like the Castillo family was. They operated under ambiguous business practices and brought equal amount of mystery, but the one thing that did benefit the city as a whole was that, when this family - the Zimas of Moscow, led by business tycoon, Dimitri Zima - kept the Castros at bay, it allowed law enforcement to focus their efforts on building their case with rock-solid evidence against the Castros. Even if the Zima family had proved to be equally as challenging, their unique business practices was a breath of fresh air. Besides, they made it their mission to act as a safeguard for the town of Salem and help out the local law enforcement. This was, if nothing else, a unique arrangement. They not only provided the goods on the family who opposed them, through independent contractors, the Zima's were able to provide more than enough manpower to combat the rising quantity of Castillo henchmen.
And with a good word from the Governor, who was doubtless in Dimitri's pocket, allowed the family to lend a hand in the matter. no matter how many select cops who weren't in the Castro's pocket didn't like it, they all saw it as the lesser of two evils. Within just weeks, the head of the Castro Crime family, Emilio Castillo, was brought in while at his own pool, and had been charged with over 100 counts of drug trafficking, bribery, conspiracy to commit murder, and other charges on a 5-page list of first-degree charges, with several other ranging from second to third.
Things have been relatively quiet since Elimio was put into prison. After five years of remaining in Salem Penitentiary and several stalling tactics from his nephew, Sergio, a highly esteemed lawyer from Mexico City, the judge overseeing his case finally decided enough was enough and the trial date was set. After months of back-and-forth from the prosecution and the defense, character witnesses, experts testifying to the credibility of the evidence, and various witnesses coming and going, the jury came back with a verdict after a full month of deliberating. In the case of the State of Illinois v. Emilio Castillo, he was found guilty on 10 counts of bribery and drug trafficking, set to serve 10 months per count, estimated eight years and three months. As for the murder charges, due to a distinct lack of evidence, they, the jury of Emilio’s peers, were unable to conclude that the prosecution had sufficient evidence to make their case. And because of double jeopardy, they couldn’t retry Elimio for the same murders.
Come 2016, after serving the entirety of his sentence, Emilio was released from Salem Penitentiary on the conditions that he remains on house arrest for an additional five years with a hearing set for 2021 that will reevaluate his conditions of an appeal to get taken off house arrest.
Outside the Castillo family drama, there was a distinct lack of excitement for the other families. Unless they were directly involved in the case of Emilio Castillo, their lives would go on as they usually did: the adults living their lives as only they knew how, the teens going to school and aiming to get good grades so they could graduate to attend college when they come of age, and the parents doing their best to make enough to support their families.
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