Can someone explain this for me: "...with purported ties to the mob."

As with Kerik, phrases like this can be heard on the news over and over. But 1) it's either slander or 2) or it's widely known but nobody in organization has ever been arrested, indicted, tried, etc.

It's always jarring to me.

the same thing. Suspected but not yet proven. I think if they said "...with ties to the mob," and it wasn't proven later, that would be slander.

:shrug:

:hi:

with "rumored to have"

rumored to have ties to the mob.

I think "rumored" either just looks wrong written or in fact is :)

:shrug:

on the fact that that alleged is usually reserved for people in the legal sytstem, i.e. would be factual to say "alleged crime boss" if he' be tried and acquitted or had been recently indicted, etc.

Ultimately, the media does shy away from attaching rumored bad behaviors to anyone: The mom, rumored to be abusive and a coke addict, will try to get custody. The new alderman is rumored to have killed a man when he was younger.

I mean, they can do that, can they? Or, if it is so widely known--such and open secret--that the media feels cool saying it, how come there isn't an official investigation underway, there by permitting "alleged" to be properly used? B/c those investigations go on for years and remain undercover?