A record producer pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he helped run a gambling operation with mob ties.
Joe Isgro, 66, of Woodland Hills, Calif., was released on a $250,000 bond after being arraigned on gambling, conspiracy and money laundering charges in Manhattan Criminal Court.
The Manhattan DA’s office says Isgro and six others have participated in a conspiracy since 2005 to promote and profit from the use of illegal online gambling software.
The software was licensed to the Gambino crime family by an Arizona couple and various mob soldiers, operating both in the U.S. and in wire rooms in Costa Rica, the indictment says. Isgro was identified as one of those soldiers.
Isgro — who helped launch the careers of Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Elton John, the Who and Marvin Gaye — was also an executive producer of 1992’s “Hoffa,”starring Jack Nicholson as Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Thanks to Barbara Ross.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Jimmy Hoffa. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Jimmy Hoffa. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, August 01, 2014
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Peter Bart's "Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob (and Sex)"
He was a tall, silver-haired man, square-jawed with a military bearing, always impeccably attired in a dark blue suit. It was only a few weeks into my Paramount job when I came to understand that His visits were a daily occurrence, but did not linger or chat with anyone other than (Paramount head of production) Bob Evans, nor did anyone on staff ever refer to him or acknowledge his visits. Korshak was the ghost who was always there but never there.
Evans had talked earlier about him once or twice
, always in a manner that betrayed not only respect but near-reverence. Sidney Korshak was not so much his personal attorney (he never paid him) or even his mentor as he was his consigliere. And when Korshak arrived for an Evans audience, all other plans would be set aside. Whoever happened to be in the reception room would have to wait until the big man had come and gone from Evans' sanctum sanctorum. And this procedure was replicated by other power players at other offices in town, as I was to learn.
Sidney Korshak, it seemed to me, was the man who knew everything -- the big corporate deals as well as the personal peccadilloes. It was some time before I also realized that Korshak was the man who knew too much.
It was Korshak's role in life to dwell simultaneously in two separate and distinct worlds which, in his grand design, would remain hermetically sealed against each other. There was his celebrity world -- he liked to drop names like Kirk Douglas or Dinah Shore or Debbie Reynolds, or to casually mention that he'd just had dinner with Sinatra in Las Vegas, or with Nancy and Ronnie Reagan in Beverly Hills. But he would never mention his other friends, like Tony Accardo or Sam Giancana from the Chicago mob or Jimmy Hoffa from the Teamsters or Moe Dalitz from Vegas.
Korshak would allude to the corporate deals he made on behalf of Lew Wasserman or Howard Hughes, but he never confided what he knew about Bugsy Siegel's murder or Hoffa's disappearance.
Korshak's life was built around a web of secrecy, and he was convinced that he would always be able to move effortlessly from one world to the next. It was only later in his life that he, too, found himself trapped. As the dangers in his nether life became more ominous, Korshak was unable to extricate himself from his underworld bonds. The celebrities would continue to decorate his life, like glitzy toys, but the bad boys would always be hovering out there with their furtive demands and threats. …
Over the years my relationship with Korshak remained distanced but cordial. He never directly asked anything from me nor subjected me to his power games. When his son, Harry, began to produce movies at Paramount -- I never figured out precisely how this deal came about -- Korshak said to me he would "appreciate it" if I were to "look out" for Harry and provide advice if he began to stray. But when young Harry's career did not go well, Korshak was the first to inform his son that he would do well to pursue other career possibilities.In observing Korshak's superbly surreptitious maneuverings over time, I began to accept a reality none of us wanted to openly address. Sidney Korshak was a gangster, albeit a very civil and well-groomed gangster. The bad boys had achieved major clout in the entertainment industry, and Korshak, despite all his secrecy, represented the embodiment of that clout.
Ironically, while Korshak yearned for the trappings of "respectability," his pals in Hollywood venerated him, not for his cool or his great wardrobe or even for his lawyering skills, but rather for his fabled underworld ties. …Bob Evans, for one, had always romanticized the lore of the gangster -- hence his lifelong ambition to make the movie about the mythic, mobster-owned Cotton Club, which ultimately came to haunt him. Charlie Bluhdorn,founder of Gulf + Western, which owned Par, had a longstanding flirtation with the shadow world out of fringe financiers in Europe and ended up doing deals that resulted in prison sentences for his partners and almost for himself. (Paramount president) Frank Yablans subscribed to mobster mythology to such a degree that he even agreed to play the role of an underworld thug in a movie titled "Mikey and Nicky." He was in rehearsal on the film before an apoplectic Bluhdorn vetoed his participation (even the often reckless Bluhdhorn realized the potential jeopardy to his corporate image).
Thanks to Peter Bart
Evans had talked earlier about him once or twice
, always in a manner that betrayed not only respect but near-reverence. Sidney Korshak was not so much his personal attorney (he never paid him) or even his mentor as he was his consigliere. And when Korshak arrived for an Evans audience, all other plans would be set aside. Whoever happened to be in the reception room would have to wait until the big man had come and gone from Evans' sanctum sanctorum. And this procedure was replicated by other power players at other offices in town, as I was to learn.Sidney Korshak, it seemed to me, was the man who knew everything -- the big corporate deals as well as the personal peccadilloes. It was some time before I also realized that Korshak was the man who knew too much.
It was Korshak's role in life to dwell simultaneously in two separate and distinct worlds which, in his grand design, would remain hermetically sealed against each other. There was his celebrity world -- he liked to drop names like Kirk Douglas or Dinah Shore or Debbie Reynolds, or to casually mention that he'd just had dinner with Sinatra in Las Vegas, or with Nancy and Ronnie Reagan in Beverly Hills. But he would never mention his other friends, like Tony Accardo or Sam Giancana from the Chicago mob or Jimmy Hoffa from the Teamsters or Moe Dalitz from Vegas.
Korshak would allude to the corporate deals he made on behalf of Lew Wasserman or Howard Hughes, but he never confided what he knew about Bugsy Siegel's murder or Hoffa's disappearance.
Korshak's life was built around a web of secrecy, and he was convinced that he would always be able to move effortlessly from one world to the next. It was only later in his life that he, too, found himself trapped. As the dangers in his nether life became more ominous, Korshak was unable to extricate himself from his underworld bonds. The celebrities would continue to decorate his life, like glitzy toys, but the bad boys would always be hovering out there with their furtive demands and threats. …
Over the years my relationship with Korshak remained distanced but cordial. He never directly asked anything from me nor subjected me to his power games. When his son, Harry, began to produce movies at Paramount -- I never figured out precisely how this deal came about -- Korshak said to me he would "appreciate it" if I were to "look out" for Harry and provide advice if he began to stray. But when young Harry's career did not go well, Korshak was the first to inform his son that he would do well to pursue other career possibilities.In observing Korshak's superbly surreptitious maneuverings over time, I began to accept a reality none of us wanted to openly address. Sidney Korshak was a gangster, albeit a very civil and well-groomed gangster. The bad boys had achieved major clout in the entertainment industry, and Korshak, despite all his secrecy, represented the embodiment of that clout.
Ironically, while Korshak yearned for the trappings of "respectability," his pals in Hollywood venerated him, not for his cool or his great wardrobe or even for his lawyering skills, but rather for his fabled underworld ties. …Bob Evans, for one, had always romanticized the lore of the gangster -- hence his lifelong ambition to make the movie about the mythic, mobster-owned Cotton Club, which ultimately came to haunt him. Charlie Bluhdorn,founder of Gulf + Western, which owned Par, had a longstanding flirtation with the shadow world out of fringe financiers in Europe and ended up doing deals that resulted in prison sentences for his partners and almost for himself. (Paramount president) Frank Yablans subscribed to mobster mythology to such a degree that he even agreed to play the role of an underworld thug in a movie titled "Mikey and Nicky." He was in rehearsal on the film before an apoplectic Bluhdorn vetoed his participation (even the often reckless Bluhdhorn realized the potential jeopardy to his corporate image).
Thanks to Peter Bart
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Martin Scorsese to Direct Robert DeNiro as Mob Assassin Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran
Paramount Pictures is plotting a return to organized crime for Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Studio has set Steve Zaillian to adapt "I Heard You Paint Houses," the book about the mob assassin who many believe was involved in the death of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Scorsese is attached to direct. De Niro will play Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, who is reputed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders. Pic will be produced by Scorsese and Tribeca partners De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. Project landed at Paramount through the overall deal that the studio has with Scorsese’s Sikelia Prods.
Pic’s title refers to mob slang for contract killings, and the resulting blood splatter on walls and floors. Book was written by Charles Brandt, who befriended Sheeran shortly before the latter’s death in 2003. Among the crimes Sheeran confessed to Brandt, according to the 2004 book, was the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa, carried out on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino.
Zaillian most recently scripted the Frank Lucas crime saga "American Gangster" and was a co-writer of the Scorsese-directed "Gangs of New York." Scorsese also brought in Zaillian to script "Schindler’s List," before turning over the project to Steven Spielberg and instead directing De Niro in "Cape Fear." Zaillian won an Oscar for his "Schindler’s List" script.
Scorsese just completed a screen adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel "Shutter Island" for Paramount with Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s in the midst of settling on his next directing project, with "Silence," "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Long Play" at the top of his list.
De Niro has wrapped the Kirk Jones-directed "Everybody’s Fine" with Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale and Drew Barrymore. He’s also plotting a re-team with "Heat" director Michael Mann on "Frankie Machine," an adaptation of the Don Winslow novel that is also at Paramount.
Thanks to Michael Flemming
Scorsese is attached to direct. De Niro will play Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, who is reputed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders. Pic will be produced by Scorsese and Tribeca partners De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. Project landed at Paramount through the overall deal that the studio has with Scorsese’s Sikelia Prods.
Pic’s title refers to mob slang for contract killings, and the resulting blood splatter on walls and floors. Book was written by Charles Brandt, who befriended Sheeran shortly before the latter’s death in 2003. Among the crimes Sheeran confessed to Brandt, according to the 2004 book, was the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa, carried out on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino.
Zaillian most recently scripted the Frank Lucas crime saga "American Gangster" and was a co-writer of the Scorsese-directed "Gangs of New York." Scorsese also brought in Zaillian to script "Schindler’s List," before turning over the project to Steven Spielberg and instead directing De Niro in "Cape Fear." Zaillian won an Oscar for his "Schindler’s List" script.
Scorsese just completed a screen adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel "Shutter Island" for Paramount with Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s in the midst of settling on his next directing project, with "Silence," "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Long Play" at the top of his list.
De Niro has wrapped the Kirk Jones-directed "Everybody’s Fine" with Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale and Drew Barrymore. He’s also plotting a re-team with "Heat" director Michael Mann on "Frankie Machine," an adaptation of the Don Winslow novel that is also at Paramount.
Thanks to Michael Flemming
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Top Ten Signs You Have A Bad Summer Job
Top Ten Signs You Have A Bad Summer Job by David Letterman
10. Each day begins with the North Korean pledge of allegiance
9. You spend ten hours a day digging for Jimmy Hoffa
8. They make you share a whistle
7. Sign in restroom reads "Employees Must Wash Each Other"
6. Your parents lie and tell people you're a stripper
5. A big part of your day involves dodging Federales
4. Even the interns address you with "Out of the way, loser!"
3. To go home at the end of the day you have to escape
2. You work alongside this guy (VT: Chinese baggage handler)
1. You greet people with, "Welcome aboard Carnival Cruise Lines"
10. Each day begins with the North Korean pledge of allegiance
9. You spend ten hours a day digging for Jimmy Hoffa
8. They make you share a whistle
7. Sign in restroom reads "Employees Must Wash Each Other"
6. Your parents lie and tell people you're a stripper
5. A big part of your day involves dodging Federales
4. Even the interns address you with "Out of the way, loser!"
3. To go home at the end of the day you have to escape
2. You work alongside this guy (VT: Chinese baggage handler)
1. You greet people with, "Welcome aboard Carnival Cruise Lines"
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Sidney Korshak and The Mafia's Shadow Men
In their quest to assemble fragments of the past into a coherent explanation for why things happened as they did, historians tend to take one of two paths.
Some stick to the deeds of kings, presidents and famous military commanders
, agreeing with Thomas Carlyle that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." Others contend that the engines of history are really to be found in the anonymous multitudes, whose collective needs and capabilities determine the overarching economic, technological and social realities that shape the world and its future. And then there is a third notion, usually discredited but always seductive, that history is the product of a different breed of great men: the kind who plot their schemes in dark shadows and keep their identities secret. Such a man was Sidney Korshak.
For someone who never got convicted of so much as jaywalking and evaded public notice for nearly his whole life, Korshak had serious clout with powerful men. Having launched his legal career by representing the heirs to the Capone mob in Chicago, he was the kind of man who could come to Las Vegas during a Teamsters conference and have Jimmy Hoffa tossed out of the presidential suite so he could occupy it himself. His occasional mistress, Jill St. John, the 1960s Hollywood "It" girl, would reportedly turn down Henry Kissinger's invitations to the White House by saying, "Sorry, I have an invitation from someone more important." His preternatural abilities as a Hollywood fixer have been credited with enabling the production of "The Godfather," in which the non-Italian consigliere character played by Robert Duvall is thought by some to be based on Korshak. Together with men such as entertainment mogul Lew Wasserman, tax lawyer Abe Pritzker and real estate speculator Paul Ziffren, Korshak represented the clean face of a dirty business, according to "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers," Gus Russo's book. He was the bridge between Mafia hoodlums and the white-collar world.
Russo, an investigate reporter who has written about the Chicago Outfit in depth before, sets out here to tell the story of the mostly Jewish lawyers who were recruited by Italian mobsters and eventually came to surpass their original paymasters in money and power. He begins in Chicago's West Side, home to Russian Ashkenazic Jews who had fled the late 19th century pogroms and were determined to protect themselves from becoming victims again. "They were always aware that their wealth and position in society could be noticed and another pogrom would ensue. Thus they worked surreptitiously, choosing to focus on the substrata of a business or event." In an era when Jews were barred from the white-shoe firms, where they might otherwise have made lucrative careers, these often brilliant men became integral parts of the Mafia's attempts to extend their westward reach into legitimate enterprises, ranging from casinos to hotel chains to real estate to the Hollywood studios. In the process, Russo contends, the underworld laid its tentacles on many great men of the more famous variety -- especially in California, where the Chicago Outfit's front men played significant roles in the careers of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, among others.
Drawing heavily from FBI case files and countless interviews, Russo opts for thoroughness rather than a breezy prose style to make his case. The weight of evidence can make the book slow going at times, but it adds up to a compelling picture of the exercise of power in the 20th century. As a labor negotiator who eschewed written notes and mysteriously solved seemingly intractable problems with one or two phone calls from the table of his favorite Los Angeles bistro -- often reaping sweetheart deals for management from unions that had been infiltrated by hoods -- Korshak sat at the center of a wide, corrupt and stupendously profitable web. And while it can be hard to work up much outrage over the details of labor racketeering, stock swindles and real estate fraud, the human costs of such things can be heartbreaking. Russo's chapter on the shameless plundering of the assets of imprisoned Japanese Americans during World War II, presided over by a bevy of Korshak's associates, is particularly stirring.
As an exercise in history, "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers" is a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the "American century." Holding back from wild-eyed conspiracy theories, Russo documents unsettling connections between yesterday's underworld and a corporate oligarchy that has never been more ascendant than it is today, partly because it has adopted some of the same schemes with a still greater degree of sophistication. The conditions that spawned Korshak and his ilk have changed considerably, but only to be replaced by the likes of Enron and WorldCom. How many new Korshaks are thriving among us now, taking care to leave behind no paper trail? People like to say that history is written by the victors. What happens when the real winners have burned all their notes?
Thanks to Trey Popp
Some stick to the deeds of kings, presidents and famous military commanders
, agreeing with Thomas Carlyle that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." Others contend that the engines of history are really to be found in the anonymous multitudes, whose collective needs and capabilities determine the overarching economic, technological and social realities that shape the world and its future. And then there is a third notion, usually discredited but always seductive, that history is the product of a different breed of great men: the kind who plot their schemes in dark shadows and keep their identities secret. Such a man was Sidney Korshak.For someone who never got convicted of so much as jaywalking and evaded public notice for nearly his whole life, Korshak had serious clout with powerful men. Having launched his legal career by representing the heirs to the Capone mob in Chicago, he was the kind of man who could come to Las Vegas during a Teamsters conference and have Jimmy Hoffa tossed out of the presidential suite so he could occupy it himself. His occasional mistress, Jill St. John, the 1960s Hollywood "It" girl, would reportedly turn down Henry Kissinger's invitations to the White House by saying, "Sorry, I have an invitation from someone more important." His preternatural abilities as a Hollywood fixer have been credited with enabling the production of "The Godfather," in which the non-Italian consigliere character played by Robert Duvall is thought by some to be based on Korshak. Together with men such as entertainment mogul Lew Wasserman, tax lawyer Abe Pritzker and real estate speculator Paul Ziffren, Korshak represented the clean face of a dirty business, according to "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers," Gus Russo's book. He was the bridge between Mafia hoodlums and the white-collar world.
Russo, an investigate reporter who has written about the Chicago Outfit in depth before, sets out here to tell the story of the mostly Jewish lawyers who were recruited by Italian mobsters and eventually came to surpass their original paymasters in money and power. He begins in Chicago's West Side, home to Russian Ashkenazic Jews who had fled the late 19th century pogroms and were determined to protect themselves from becoming victims again. "They were always aware that their wealth and position in society could be noticed and another pogrom would ensue. Thus they worked surreptitiously, choosing to focus on the substrata of a business or event." In an era when Jews were barred from the white-shoe firms, where they might otherwise have made lucrative careers, these often brilliant men became integral parts of the Mafia's attempts to extend their westward reach into legitimate enterprises, ranging from casinos to hotel chains to real estate to the Hollywood studios. In the process, Russo contends, the underworld laid its tentacles on many great men of the more famous variety -- especially in California, where the Chicago Outfit's front men played significant roles in the careers of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, among others.
Drawing heavily from FBI case files and countless interviews, Russo opts for thoroughness rather than a breezy prose style to make his case. The weight of evidence can make the book slow going at times, but it adds up to a compelling picture of the exercise of power in the 20th century. As a labor negotiator who eschewed written notes and mysteriously solved seemingly intractable problems with one or two phone calls from the table of his favorite Los Angeles bistro -- often reaping sweetheart deals for management from unions that had been infiltrated by hoods -- Korshak sat at the center of a wide, corrupt and stupendously profitable web. And while it can be hard to work up much outrage over the details of labor racketeering, stock swindles and real estate fraud, the human costs of such things can be heartbreaking. Russo's chapter on the shameless plundering of the assets of imprisoned Japanese Americans during World War II, presided over by a bevy of Korshak's associates, is particularly stirring.
As an exercise in history, "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers" is a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the "American century." Holding back from wild-eyed conspiracy theories, Russo documents unsettling connections between yesterday's underworld and a corporate oligarchy that has never been more ascendant than it is today, partly because it has adopted some of the same schemes with a still greater degree of sophistication. The conditions that spawned Korshak and his ilk have changed considerably, but only to be replaced by the likes of Enron and WorldCom. How many new Korshaks are thriving among us now, taking care to leave behind no paper trail? People like to say that history is written by the victors. What happens when the real winners have burned all their notes?
Thanks to Trey Popp
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
Top Ten Mafia #AprilFools Pranks
10. Tell a guy you're going to shoot him, then kill him with a brick.
9. Tape sign to informant's back that reads: "Whack me."
8. The old "non-drying cement shoes" gag.
7. Put body in big paper bag, place it on somebody's doorstep, light it on fire, ring doorbell, run away.
6. Phone local teamsters office, say, "This is Jimmy Hoffa--any messages for me?"
5. Call up Domino's; order a pizza for Mr. Foghead A. Boutit.
4. The old severed finger in the hot dog bun trick.
3. Replace someone's "Godfather" tape with a Teletubbys video.
2. Instead of horse's head, rig it so somebody wakes up next to Linda Tripp.
1. Three words: squirting pinkie rings.
Thanks to David Letterman
9. Tape sign to informant's back that reads: "Whack me."
8. The old "non-drying cement shoes" gag.
7. Put body in big paper bag, place it on somebody's doorstep, light it on fire, ring doorbell, run away.
6. Phone local teamsters office, say, "This is Jimmy Hoffa--any messages for me?"
5. Call up Domino's; order a pizza for Mr. Foghead A. Boutit.
4. The old severed finger in the hot dog bun trick.
3. Replace someone's "Godfather" tape with a Teletubbys video.
2. Instead of horse's head, rig it so somebody wakes up next to Linda Tripp.
1. Three words: squirting pinkie rings.
Thanks to David Letterman
Wednesday, June 02, 2021
Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America by the Award Winning @BillOReilly
Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America, is the tenth book in Bill O'Reilly's #1 New York Times bestselling series of popular narrative histories, with sales of nearly 18 million copies worldwide, and over 320 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list
.
O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th Century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation’s most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers, and especially, mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O’Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face Nelson. In addition, the authors highlight the creation of the Mafia Commission, the power struggles within the “Five Families,” the growth of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the mob battles to control Cuba, Las Vegas and Hollywood, as well as the personal war between the U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
O’Reilly and Dugard turn these legendary criminals and their true-life escapades into a read that rivals the most riveting crime novel. With Killing the Mob, their hit series is primed for its greatest success yet.
.
Instant #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller!
In the tenth book in the multimillion-selling Killing series, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take on their most controversial subject yet: The Mob.
O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th Century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation’s most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers, and especially, mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O’Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face Nelson. In addition, the authors highlight the creation of the Mafia Commission, the power struggles within the “Five Families,” the growth of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the mob battles to control Cuba, Las Vegas and Hollywood, as well as the personal war between the U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
O’Reilly and Dugard turn these legendary criminals and their true-life escapades into a read that rivals the most riveting crime novel. With Killing the Mob, their hit series is primed for its greatest success yet.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Chicago's Crooked Chief of Detectives
On a gloomy winter day in 1983, two gunmen ambushed a businessman named Allen Dorfman as he walked across a hotel parking lot in suburban Chicago.
The city's infamous Outfit mob might as well have left a calling card. The killers pumped seven shots into Dorfman's head. It was a classic gangland whacking.
Dorfman, 60, had been a lieutenant of International Brotherhood of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. He got rich as proprietor of the union's murky pension funds but had been convicted of bribery a month before his murder. Facing life in prison, he was rumored to be cutting a deal to implicate both Teamsters and gangsters.
Chicago gumshoes stifled a yawn over the rubout. It was an occupational hazard murder, like a drug deal gone bad. But one detail stopped cops cold. In Dorfman's little black book, investigators found the name of Bill Hanhardt, chief of detectives of the Chicago Police Department.
Hanhardt was a Windy City legend for his devilish ability to think like a criminal. He had collared dozens of hard-to-find perps, including several cop killers.
A Chicago cop since 1953, Hanhardt was seen as a bridge between old-school, sap-carrying policing and more enlightened modern methods. By reputation, he was as brainy as Inspector Morse, as leathery as Kojak, as passionate as Detective Sipowicz.
But was he honest?
Questions about mob connections had dogged Hanhardt for much of his career, even as he was being promoted to sensitive command positions.
In 1979, Hanhardt was booted down to the traffic squad after he was accused of playing footsy with mobsters who ruled the city's corrupt downtown ward.
Yet, just months later, he was promoted to being chief of detectives by Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek after the election of Mayor Jane Byrne.
Even after his name turned up in Dorfman's black book, Hanhardt was allowed to enjoy the twilight of his police career as a district commander.
In 1986, while still on the job, he acted as a defense witness in the Nevada conspiracy trial of Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas. Hanhardt's testimony helped discredit one of the mobster's key accusers.
A few months later, he was feted by Byrne and hundreds of others at an elaborate retirement banquet. Hanhardt seemed to ride off into the sunset with a wink and a snicker. He was hired as a consultant to the TV drama "Crime Story."
In 1995, author Richard Lindberg asked him to ruminate on his career as a cop. His reply dripped with cynicism.
"You knew that you're going to get screwed over eventually, so you went into the game with that thought in mind," Hanhardt said. "You got a wife. You got kids. So you got to think about the future, right? But I never liked thinking about the future. I liked to live for the moment."
Hanhardt retired to a handsome home in the suburbs, but he stayed busy in his dotage.
In October 2000, he was indicted as the leader of a band of thieves who stole $5 million in jewelry over 12 years beginning in 1984, while he was still a top cop. Hanhardt fenced the goods through friends in the outfit.
His gang "surpasses in duration and sophistication just about any other jewelry theft ring we've seen," said prosecutor Scott Lassar.
It seemed Hanhardt was able to think like a criminal because he was one.
He used techniques he learned as commander of the police burglary squad to devise diabolically clever thefts.
He tapped active cop friends and private detectives for leads on potential victims, targeting gem salesmen traveling with valises of valuable samples.
In some cases they simply tailed a salesman and broke into his vehicle: such jobs included a $300,000 gem theft in Wisconsin in 1984, $500,000 worth of Rolex watches in California in 1986, and jewelry thefts of $125,000 in Ohio in 1989, and $1 million in Michigan and $240,000 in Minnesota in 1993.
The gang sometimes used the old spy scam of swapping identical bags with a salesman - a trick that netted $1 million worth of diamonds in Dallas in 1992 from a representative of J. Schliff and Son, a W. 48th St. jeweler.
Hanhardt's biggest score came in 1994. For two months before a gem wholesalers show at a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, a gang member checked in under the name Sol Gold and asked to store valuables in the hotel's safe-deposit boxes, which were in a secure room behind the front desk.
He systematically copied the keys until Hanhardt was able to create a master passkey. One night during the gem show, a desk clerk allowed "Mrs. Sol Gold" unsupervised access to the room. The safe-deposit boxes of eight gem dealers were relieved of some $2 million in valuables.
The jig was up when the woman went from accomplice to spurned wife and informed on the gang to the FBI.
City officials stammered to explain how Hanhardt managed to prosper as a cop and crook.
"The only thing I ever heard about him was good things," ex-Mayor Byrne told reporters.
"I know that he had an illustrious career," said his ex-police boss Brzeczek. "A lot of people knew him. He knew a lot of people. But I don't have any evidence whatsoever of him being mob-connected."
But the federal government had plenty of evidence, including 1,307 incriminating phone calls collected during a yearlong wiretap on his home phone.
For two years, cops and mobsters wondered whether Hanhardt would go to trial and give a public airing to his double life. But he pleaded guilty in 2002. He was ordered to pay $5 million in restitution and packed away to a Minnesota prison for a 12-year sentence.
As they waved goodbye, Hanhardt's kin still viewed him as his good-cop mirage.
His son-in-law, Michael Kertez, called Hanhardt "probably the most wonderful detective in the history of Chicago."
Now 79, the disgraced top snoop faces a life behind bars until at least 2012
Thanks to David J. Krajicek
The city's infamous Outfit mob might as well have left a calling card. The killers pumped seven shots into Dorfman's head. It was a classic gangland whacking.
Dorfman, 60, had been a lieutenant of International Brotherhood of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. He got rich as proprietor of the union's murky pension funds but had been convicted of bribery a month before his murder. Facing life in prison, he was rumored to be cutting a deal to implicate both Teamsters and gangsters.
Chicago gumshoes stifled a yawn over the rubout. It was an occupational hazard murder, like a drug deal gone bad. But one detail stopped cops cold. In Dorfman's little black book, investigators found the name of Bill Hanhardt, chief of detectives of the Chicago Police Department.
Hanhardt was a Windy City legend for his devilish ability to think like a criminal. He had collared dozens of hard-to-find perps, including several cop killers.
A Chicago cop since 1953, Hanhardt was seen as a bridge between old-school, sap-carrying policing and more enlightened modern methods. By reputation, he was as brainy as Inspector Morse, as leathery as Kojak, as passionate as Detective Sipowicz.
But was he honest?
Questions about mob connections had dogged Hanhardt for much of his career, even as he was being promoted to sensitive command positions.
In 1979, Hanhardt was booted down to the traffic squad after he was accused of playing footsy with mobsters who ruled the city's corrupt downtown ward.
Yet, just months later, he was promoted to being chief of detectives by Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek after the election of Mayor Jane Byrne.
Even after his name turned up in Dorfman's black book, Hanhardt was allowed to enjoy the twilight of his police career as a district commander.
In 1986, while still on the job, he acted as a defense witness in the Nevada conspiracy trial of Anthony Spilotro, the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas. Hanhardt's testimony helped discredit one of the mobster's key accusers.
A few months later, he was feted by Byrne and hundreds of others at an elaborate retirement banquet. Hanhardt seemed to ride off into the sunset with a wink and a snicker. He was hired as a consultant to the TV drama "Crime Story."
In 1995, author Richard Lindberg asked him to ruminate on his career as a cop. His reply dripped with cynicism.
"You knew that you're going to get screwed over eventually, so you went into the game with that thought in mind," Hanhardt said. "You got a wife. You got kids. So you got to think about the future, right? But I never liked thinking about the future. I liked to live for the moment."
Hanhardt retired to a handsome home in the suburbs, but he stayed busy in his dotage.
In October 2000, he was indicted as the leader of a band of thieves who stole $5 million in jewelry over 12 years beginning in 1984, while he was still a top cop. Hanhardt fenced the goods through friends in the outfit.
His gang "surpasses in duration and sophistication just about any other jewelry theft ring we've seen," said prosecutor Scott Lassar.
It seemed Hanhardt was able to think like a criminal because he was one.
He used techniques he learned as commander of the police burglary squad to devise diabolically clever thefts.
He tapped active cop friends and private detectives for leads on potential victims, targeting gem salesmen traveling with valises of valuable samples.
In some cases they simply tailed a salesman and broke into his vehicle: such jobs included a $300,000 gem theft in Wisconsin in 1984, $500,000 worth of Rolex watches in California in 1986, and jewelry thefts of $125,000 in Ohio in 1989, and $1 million in Michigan and $240,000 in Minnesota in 1993.
The gang sometimes used the old spy scam of swapping identical bags with a salesman - a trick that netted $1 million worth of diamonds in Dallas in 1992 from a representative of J. Schliff and Son, a W. 48th St. jeweler.
Hanhardt's biggest score came in 1994. For two months before a gem wholesalers show at a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, a gang member checked in under the name Sol Gold and asked to store valuables in the hotel's safe-deposit boxes, which were in a secure room behind the front desk.
He systematically copied the keys until Hanhardt was able to create a master passkey. One night during the gem show, a desk clerk allowed "Mrs. Sol Gold" unsupervised access to the room. The safe-deposit boxes of eight gem dealers were relieved of some $2 million in valuables.
The jig was up when the woman went from accomplice to spurned wife and informed on the gang to the FBI.
City officials stammered to explain how Hanhardt managed to prosper as a cop and crook.
"The only thing I ever heard about him was good things," ex-Mayor Byrne told reporters.
"I know that he had an illustrious career," said his ex-police boss Brzeczek. "A lot of people knew him. He knew a lot of people. But I don't have any evidence whatsoever of him being mob-connected."
But the federal government had plenty of evidence, including 1,307 incriminating phone calls collected during a yearlong wiretap on his home phone.
For two years, cops and mobsters wondered whether Hanhardt would go to trial and give a public airing to his double life. But he pleaded guilty in 2002. He was ordered to pay $5 million in restitution and packed away to a Minnesota prison for a 12-year sentence.
As they waved goodbye, Hanhardt's kin still viewed him as his good-cop mirage.
His son-in-law, Michael Kertez, called Hanhardt "probably the most wonderful detective in the history of Chicago."
Now 79, the disgraced top snoop faces a life behind bars until at least 2012
Thanks to David J. Krajicek
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Keith Corbett, Federal Prosecutor Who Helped Break the Detroit Mafia, to Retire
The federal prosecutor who helped break the Detroit Mafia is calling it quits.
Keith Corbett, 59, the cigar-chomping assistant U.S. Attorney who ran the office's Organized Crime Strike Force, said he plans to retire on Jan. 3 because of shifting priorities in the Justice Department and because, well, he's worn out.
"I don't want to be one of those old guys sitting around talking about the good old days and telling people how we used to do it," Corbett told the Free Press. He said he hasn't decided what he'll do next.
Coworkers -- as well as criminal lawyers who've matched wits with Corbett -- said they'll be sorry to see him go.
"He's as good on his feet as any lawyer who ever walked into a courtroom," said Detroit criminal lawyer Robert Morgan, a former federal prosecutor.
Morgan and others say Corbett can try cases with little preparation, yet recall key evidence with lethal precision.
Corbett is a cocky, street-smart Irish kid from Brooklyn, the son of a New York City cop.
After graduating in 1967 from a seminary with plans to become a priest, Corbett enrolled at Canisius College in Buffalo, where his plans changed. After getting a political science degree in 1971, he enrolled at Notre Dame University and got his law degree in 1974.
Corbett, who by then had married, landed a job at the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office.
In 1977, he joined a Pontiac law firm to boost his income, but didn't like civil law. The next year, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit and eventually was assigned to the strike force.
In 1980, he won racketeering convictions against Detroit Mafia captains Peter Vitale and Rafaelle Quassarano for extorting money from a western Michigan cheese company. The FBI has long suspected that the body of former Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa was incinerated at their garbage disposal facility in Hamtramck.
In the mid-1980s, Corbett helped convict mayoral associate Darralyn Bowers and then-Detroit Water and Sewer Director Charles Beckham in the Vista Disposal bribery scandal.
Corbett went back to private practice in 1989, but quickly returned to his prosecutor job and was put in charge of the strike force a year later.
His biggest victory came in the late 1990s when he helped convict the top leaders of the Detroit Mafia of racketeering and other charges spanning three decades. The case demolished the Detroit mob. But he got in trouble in 2003 by helping a subordinate, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, prosecute the first terrorism trial to result from the federal 9/11 probe.
Though two North African immigrants were convicted of aiding terrorism, the case imploded when the U.S. Attorney's Office learned that the prosecutors had withheld key evidence from the defendants.
Convertino resigned. He was indicted on a charge of obstruction of justice, but was later acquitted. He sued his former bosses.
Corbett told investigators he joined the case at the last minute and didn't know evidence was being withheld. Though he wasn't charged, Corbett did suffer the indignity of having his strike force merged with another unit and was demoted.
Defense lawyers said they don't hold Corbett responsible for hiding evidence, but added that he should have done a better job of supervising Convertino.
Earlier this year, Corbett's bosses considered putting him on the trial team that pursued prominent Southfield lawyer Geoffrey Fieger on campaign-finance charges, knowing that Corbett wouldn't be intimidated by the outspoken Fieger or his legendary criminal lawyer, Gerry Spence. Corbett ultimately was not assigned to the case, which Fieger won.
"I don't know if it would have had any impact, but it would have been a lot of fun," Corbett said mischievously.
Thanks to David Ashenfelter
Keith Corbett, 59, the cigar-chomping assistant U.S. Attorney who ran the office's Organized Crime Strike Force, said he plans to retire on Jan. 3 because of shifting priorities in the Justice Department and because, well, he's worn out.
"I don't want to be one of those old guys sitting around talking about the good old days and telling people how we used to do it," Corbett told the Free Press. He said he hasn't decided what he'll do next.
Coworkers -- as well as criminal lawyers who've matched wits with Corbett -- said they'll be sorry to see him go.
"He's as good on his feet as any lawyer who ever walked into a courtroom," said Detroit criminal lawyer Robert Morgan, a former federal prosecutor.
Morgan and others say Corbett can try cases with little preparation, yet recall key evidence with lethal precision.
Corbett is a cocky, street-smart Irish kid from Brooklyn, the son of a New York City cop.
After graduating in 1967 from a seminary with plans to become a priest, Corbett enrolled at Canisius College in Buffalo, where his plans changed. After getting a political science degree in 1971, he enrolled at Notre Dame University and got his law degree in 1974.
Corbett, who by then had married, landed a job at the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office.
In 1977, he joined a Pontiac law firm to boost his income, but didn't like civil law. The next year, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit and eventually was assigned to the strike force.
In 1980, he won racketeering convictions against Detroit Mafia captains Peter Vitale and Rafaelle Quassarano for extorting money from a western Michigan cheese company. The FBI has long suspected that the body of former Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa was incinerated at their garbage disposal facility in Hamtramck.
In the mid-1980s, Corbett helped convict mayoral associate Darralyn Bowers and then-Detroit Water and Sewer Director Charles Beckham in the Vista Disposal bribery scandal.
Corbett went back to private practice in 1989, but quickly returned to his prosecutor job and was put in charge of the strike force a year later.
His biggest victory came in the late 1990s when he helped convict the top leaders of the Detroit Mafia of racketeering and other charges spanning three decades. The case demolished the Detroit mob. But he got in trouble in 2003 by helping a subordinate, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, prosecute the first terrorism trial to result from the federal 9/11 probe.
Though two North African immigrants were convicted of aiding terrorism, the case imploded when the U.S. Attorney's Office learned that the prosecutors had withheld key evidence from the defendants.
Convertino resigned. He was indicted on a charge of obstruction of justice, but was later acquitted. He sued his former bosses.
Corbett told investigators he joined the case at the last minute and didn't know evidence was being withheld. Though he wasn't charged, Corbett did suffer the indignity of having his strike force merged with another unit and was demoted.
Defense lawyers said they don't hold Corbett responsible for hiding evidence, but added that he should have done a better job of supervising Convertino.
Earlier this year, Corbett's bosses considered putting him on the trial team that pursued prominent Southfield lawyer Geoffrey Fieger on campaign-finance charges, knowing that Corbett wouldn't be intimidated by the outspoken Fieger or his legendary criminal lawyer, Gerry Spence. Corbett ultimately was not assigned to the case, which Fieger won.
"I don't know if it would have had any impact, but it would have been a lot of fun," Corbett said mischievously.
Thanks to David Ashenfelter
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Degenerate Gambler Accountant Aides the Feds in Bringing Down Mobsters
Las Vegas has always been an attractive place for the hail-fellow, the hustler, and the man on the make.
With its shadowy history, seductive setting and proximity to a limitless river of cash, it brims with dreamers, scufflers and schemers. It's a spot where a guy who knows a guy can make a good living.
It was perhaps the ideal spot for the FBI to turn a man like Stephen Corso loose with a recording device. By all accounts, Corso was the street-wise guy Las Vegas tourists fantasize about and most locals rarely experience, the one who exists in dimly lighted bars and nondescript strip mall offices.
Corso was an accountant by training, a salesman by calling, and a high-rolling degenerate gambler by compulsion when he got caught swiping clients' money to feed his blackjack Jones and penthouse lifestyle. He spent $5 million that didn't belong to him and was on his way to a prison stretch when he began cooperating with the FBI in 2002.
From what I've pieced together from public documents and street sources, the smooth-talking accountant found his true calling as an undercover informant. Reliable sources say Corso worked his way into the local mob scene and pulled the pants off some very experienced wiseguys.
According to a federal document from the Eastern District of Virginia, where Corso's efforts helped nail securities attorney David Stocker on a "pump and dump" stock manipulation scheme with connections reaching into the Securities and Exchange Commission, the accountant was a one-man La Cosa Nostra census worker.
"He provided information related to the activities of individuals with ties to several LCN organized crime families to include: the Chicago Outfit, Lucchese LCN, Bonanno LCN, Genovese LCN, Colombo LCN, Philadelphia LCN, Decavalcante LCN, and Gambino LCN," the document states. "Corso was also instrumental in providing FBI agents with information on individuals with ties to Russian organized crime, Youngstown, Ohio gangsters, and the Irish Mob which exists in the Boston, Mass. area."
Sounds like the guy did everything but dig up Jimmy Hoffa. Corso back-slapped his way into the Las Vegas underworld, then used his accounting and tax preparation skills to give the wiseguys a financial endoscopic treatment.
He played an integral role in sealing the deal in the lengthy "Mafia Cops" case, in which Las Vegas residents and former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were found guilty of acting as contract killers for the Lucchese crime family. Corso's work in Las Vegas proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Mafia Cops continued their criminal conspiracy years after leaving New York.
"Corso's testimony was critical to the ... conclusion that the conspiracy continued into the limitations period," one government document states.
It's as simple as this: No Corso, no Mafia Cops conviction. And it will be intriguing to see whether the government gets a victory in a related drug case involving Eppolito's son, Anthony Eppolito, and Guido Bravatti now that Corso has been sentenced to a year and a day for his own transgressions.
It's also been reported Corso worked in connection with the Crazy Horse Too investigation. I imagine former Crazy Horse official Bobby D'Apice, who now resides at government expense, won't be sending his former tax consultant, Corso, a letter of reference.
At his February sentencing in Connecticut, U.S. District Judge Janet Hall seemed almost apologetic. Although she called Corso's crime "an extraordinary violation of trust," she admitted, "I can't find the words to describe the value, at least in my judgment, of this cooperation."
The feds have a long tradition of going to embarrassing lengths to help their most effective informants. Not this time. Corso, the accountant, will serve longer than some informants with murder convictions.
Who could blame him if he told the government to get stuffed? The FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut credit Corso with generating at least seven arrests, 20 convictions, and $4.2 million in seizures and forfeitures. And it isn't over.
"The LCN is well known for its tradition of seeking retribution against those who cooperate with law enforcement," a federal memo states. "Corso knew of the danger, but continually put himself in harm's way for the benefit of the government."
So much for loyalty.
Now all Stephen Corso has to do is watch his back the rest of his life.
Thanks to John L. Smith
With its shadowy history, seductive setting and proximity to a limitless river of cash, it brims with dreamers, scufflers and schemers. It's a spot where a guy who knows a guy can make a good living.
It was perhaps the ideal spot for the FBI to turn a man like Stephen Corso loose with a recording device. By all accounts, Corso was the street-wise guy Las Vegas tourists fantasize about and most locals rarely experience, the one who exists in dimly lighted bars and nondescript strip mall offices.
Corso was an accountant by training, a salesman by calling, and a high-rolling degenerate gambler by compulsion when he got caught swiping clients' money to feed his blackjack Jones and penthouse lifestyle. He spent $5 million that didn't belong to him and was on his way to a prison stretch when he began cooperating with the FBI in 2002.
From what I've pieced together from public documents and street sources, the smooth-talking accountant found his true calling as an undercover informant. Reliable sources say Corso worked his way into the local mob scene and pulled the pants off some very experienced wiseguys.
According to a federal document from the Eastern District of Virginia, where Corso's efforts helped nail securities attorney David Stocker on a "pump and dump" stock manipulation scheme with connections reaching into the Securities and Exchange Commission, the accountant was a one-man La Cosa Nostra census worker.
"He provided information related to the activities of individuals with ties to several LCN organized crime families to include: the Chicago Outfit, Lucchese LCN, Bonanno LCN, Genovese LCN, Colombo LCN, Philadelphia LCN, Decavalcante LCN, and Gambino LCN," the document states. "Corso was also instrumental in providing FBI agents with information on individuals with ties to Russian organized crime, Youngstown, Ohio gangsters, and the Irish Mob which exists in the Boston, Mass. area."
Sounds like the guy did everything but dig up Jimmy Hoffa. Corso back-slapped his way into the Las Vegas underworld, then used his accounting and tax preparation skills to give the wiseguys a financial endoscopic treatment.
He played an integral role in sealing the deal in the lengthy "Mafia Cops" case, in which Las Vegas residents and former NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were found guilty of acting as contract killers for the Lucchese crime family. Corso's work in Las Vegas proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Mafia Cops continued their criminal conspiracy years after leaving New York.
"Corso's testimony was critical to the ... conclusion that the conspiracy continued into the limitations period," one government document states.
It's as simple as this: No Corso, no Mafia Cops conviction. And it will be intriguing to see whether the government gets a victory in a related drug case involving Eppolito's son, Anthony Eppolito, and Guido Bravatti now that Corso has been sentenced to a year and a day for his own transgressions.
It's also been reported Corso worked in connection with the Crazy Horse Too investigation. I imagine former Crazy Horse official Bobby D'Apice, who now resides at government expense, won't be sending his former tax consultant, Corso, a letter of reference.
At his February sentencing in Connecticut, U.S. District Judge Janet Hall seemed almost apologetic. Although she called Corso's crime "an extraordinary violation of trust," she admitted, "I can't find the words to describe the value, at least in my judgment, of this cooperation."
The feds have a long tradition of going to embarrassing lengths to help their most effective informants. Not this time. Corso, the accountant, will serve longer than some informants with murder convictions.
Who could blame him if he told the government to get stuffed? The FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut credit Corso with generating at least seven arrests, 20 convictions, and $4.2 million in seizures and forfeitures. And it isn't over.
"The LCN is well known for its tradition of seeking retribution against those who cooperate with law enforcement," a federal memo states. "Corso knew of the danger, but continually put himself in harm's way for the benefit of the government."
So much for loyalty.
Now all Stephen Corso has to do is watch his back the rest of his life.
Thanks to John L. Smith
Sunday, August 03, 2014
Mafia Involvement in JFK's Killing Investigated in Assassination Theater
After decades of controversy, investigating the Kennedy assassination has earned a reputation as bad news for many reporters, a radioactive topic no one wants to approach.
“It’s one of the black holes of journalism,” said investigative reporter/playwright Hillel Levin. “It’s the sort of story reporters get sucked into and are never heard from again.”
That, however, hasn’t stopped him from spending seven years working on “Assassination Theater,” a theatrical investigation making a case for an organized crime conspiracy to kill JFK. The play debuts with a one-night-only staged reading Aug. 9 in the Arts Center of Oak Park.
Levin,
an Oak Park resident and former editor of Chicago magazine, has made a specialty of true-crime books since co-authoring 2004’s “When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down” about the ’90s Gambat trials exposing the Chicago mob’s rigging of the city’s legal system.
After that book and a 2007 Playboy article about the burglarizing of Chicago mafia boss Tony Accardo’s home (a movie version starring Robert De Niro will be shot this fall in Chicago), Zachariah Shelton, an FBI agent featured in that story, asked Levin why he didn’t write the real Chicago mob story. Namely, their active involvement in the Kennedy assassination.
“I admit that I cringed a bit when he said that,” Levin said. “But having leaned about the mob here, about their power and influence, I couldn’t easily dismiss it. And I could understand why they might have been motivated to do it, since they were very involved in building Las Vegas in 1963 with funds from the Teamsters Central States pension — and the Kennedys, especially Bobby Kennedy as attorney general, were threatening that by going after Jimmy Hoffa.”
Levin said he was never a believer in the official story that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted as a lone assassin, but he had never thought of the mafia as a likely suspect until Shelton showed him FBI evidence he had discovered by accident, along with corroborating evidence the agent uncovered in a private investigation. And even then, he wasn’t convinced until he’d spent years going over the official evidence, including medical reports and statements from witnesses unsealed in the ’90s.
His findings are dramatized by four actors in “Assassination Theater,” one playing himself, one playing Shelton and two playing various characters including Oswald, LBJ, Jack Ruby, autopsy morticians, mob figures and more. A large screen shows photos supporting their statements, including one purporting to show an assassin walking away from the grassy knoll immediately after the shooting.
“I’m not a zealot and I’m not saying everyone has to believe me,” Levin said. “But I think anyone who looks at the evidence with any attention will realize Oswald couldn’t have done it alone. My central thesis is that it was theater in a lot of ways and part of the show was putting the blame on only one actor, when in fact he was part of a much bigger production.”
Hence, in large part, Levin’s decision to present his findings on stage instead of writing a book. That, plus his belief that theater provides an immersive experience that will help people process the information and come to an understanding of it.
“The thing about the assassination I’d most like to dispel is people simply accepting the idea that this is a mystery that can never be known. I believe a great deal of it can in fact be known — that it is not unfathomable,” he said.
“That’s the way I hope everyone will feel when they leave the theater.”
Thanks to Bruce Ingram.
“It’s one of the black holes of journalism,” said investigative reporter/playwright Hillel Levin. “It’s the sort of story reporters get sucked into and are never heard from again.”
That, however, hasn’t stopped him from spending seven years working on “Assassination Theater,” a theatrical investigation making a case for an organized crime conspiracy to kill JFK. The play debuts with a one-night-only staged reading Aug. 9 in the Arts Center of Oak Park.
Levin,
an Oak Park resident and former editor of Chicago magazine, has made a specialty of true-crime books since co-authoring 2004’s “When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down” about the ’90s Gambat trials exposing the Chicago mob’s rigging of the city’s legal system.After that book and a 2007 Playboy article about the burglarizing of Chicago mafia boss Tony Accardo’s home (a movie version starring Robert De Niro will be shot this fall in Chicago), Zachariah Shelton, an FBI agent featured in that story, asked Levin why he didn’t write the real Chicago mob story. Namely, their active involvement in the Kennedy assassination.
“I admit that I cringed a bit when he said that,” Levin said. “But having leaned about the mob here, about their power and influence, I couldn’t easily dismiss it. And I could understand why they might have been motivated to do it, since they were very involved in building Las Vegas in 1963 with funds from the Teamsters Central States pension — and the Kennedys, especially Bobby Kennedy as attorney general, were threatening that by going after Jimmy Hoffa.”
Levin said he was never a believer in the official story that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted as a lone assassin, but he had never thought of the mafia as a likely suspect until Shelton showed him FBI evidence he had discovered by accident, along with corroborating evidence the agent uncovered in a private investigation. And even then, he wasn’t convinced until he’d spent years going over the official evidence, including medical reports and statements from witnesses unsealed in the ’90s.
His findings are dramatized by four actors in “Assassination Theater,” one playing himself, one playing Shelton and two playing various characters including Oswald, LBJ, Jack Ruby, autopsy morticians, mob figures and more. A large screen shows photos supporting their statements, including one purporting to show an assassin walking away from the grassy knoll immediately after the shooting.
“I’m not a zealot and I’m not saying everyone has to believe me,” Levin said. “But I think anyone who looks at the evidence with any attention will realize Oswald couldn’t have done it alone. My central thesis is that it was theater in a lot of ways and part of the show was putting the blame on only one actor, when in fact he was part of a much bigger production.”
Hence, in large part, Levin’s decision to present his findings on stage instead of writing a book. That, plus his belief that theater provides an immersive experience that will help people process the information and come to an understanding of it.
“The thing about the assassination I’d most like to dispel is people simply accepting the idea that this is a mystery that can never be known. I believe a great deal of it can in fact be known — that it is not unfathomable,” he said.
“That’s the way I hope everyone will feel when they leave the theater.”
Thanks to Bruce Ingram.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
How Al Capone's Successors Built a National Syndicate & Controlled America
He was dubbed with one of the all-time greatest gangland nicknames, The Fixer. The tag fit Sidney Korshak like a calfskin glove.
Born to immigrant parents, Korshak beamed his bright light on a law career and - with the connections of several underworld mentors - got his start representing wiseguys against criminal charges. But his real value to the Chicago Outfit, as the inheritors of Al Capone's criminal empire came to be called, was as a labor consultant and negotiator.
With Korshak in the foreground, Gus Russo's "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers" tells the story of how a tightknit claque of mostly Russian Ashkenazi Jews rose from the rough-and-tumble rackets to seats of influence and power in some Fortune 500 companies.
In their heyday, around 1960, the gang had long tentacles in Hollywood, controlled an interest in the Hilton hotel chain and held sway over ally Jimmy Hoffa's Teamster's union. That's to say nothing of their outright, if well-hidden, ownership of several Las Vegas casinos, including the Desert Inn - the high roller's haunt where Frank Sinatra made his Sin City debut.
Organized crime's ultimate objective is to make the lucre go in filthy and come out clean, through investments in legitimate businesses. In this, the Supermob had no equal.
Their most sophisticated scheme involved buying property that Japanese-Americans were forced to sell during World War II. Korshak, his cronies and their man inside the Roosevelt administration's Office of Alien Property, turned this land grab into a dandy cash-washing machine. Their exertions were so diabolically intertwined with legal maneuvers that the exact details have eluded two generations of investigators.
The complete story, the author admits, is still unknown. This complex trail is also difficult to follow, and though germane to the work, makes for some glacially paced reading.
When he wasn't perverting a union or arranging a sweetheart loan, Sidney's activities were far more entertaining. The Fixer hustled Dean Martin out of Chicago in one piece after Dino's roving eye locked on the moll of one of the Outfit's boys. Korshak also hot-wired a hooker-filled hotel room with an infrared camera, blackmailing a Senate investigator into going easy on his Chi-town pals.
"Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers" is chocked with anecdotes like this. The gangland gossip and Hollywood scuttlebutt ultimately outweigh Russo's dissection of Byzantine financial chicanery, and in the end, the book adds up to an exhaustive Who's Who of the dark power players of 20th century America.
Thanks to Peter Pavia
Born to immigrant parents
, Korshak beamed his bright light on a law career and - with the connections of several underworld mentors - got his start representing wiseguys against criminal charges. But his real value to the Chicago Outfit, as the inheritors of Al Capone's criminal empire came to be called, was as a labor consultant and negotiator.With Korshak in the foreground, Gus Russo's "Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers" tells the story of how a tightknit claque of mostly Russian Ashkenazi Jews rose from the rough-and-tumble rackets to seats of influence and power in some Fortune 500 companies.
In their heyday, around 1960, the gang had long tentacles in Hollywood, controlled an interest in the Hilton hotel chain and held sway over ally Jimmy Hoffa's Teamster's union. That's to say nothing of their outright, if well-hidden, ownership of several Las Vegas casinos, including the Desert Inn - the high roller's haunt where Frank Sinatra made his Sin City debut.
Organized crime's ultimate objective is to make the lucre go in filthy and come out clean, through investments in legitimate businesses. In this, the Supermob had no equal.
Their most sophisticated scheme involved buying property that Japanese-Americans were forced to sell during World War II. Korshak, his cronies and their man inside the Roosevelt administration's Office of Alien Property, turned this land grab into a dandy cash-washing machine. Their exertions were so diabolically intertwined with legal maneuvers that the exact details have eluded two generations of investigators.
The complete story, the author admits, is still unknown. This complex trail is also difficult to follow, and though germane to the work, makes for some glacially paced reading.
When he wasn't perverting a union or arranging a sweetheart loan, Sidney's activities were far more entertaining. The Fixer hustled Dean Martin out of Chicago in one piece after Dino's roving eye locked on the moll of one of the Outfit's boys. Korshak also hot-wired a hooker-filled hotel room with an infrared camera, blackmailing a Senate investigator into going easy on his Chi-town pals.
"Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers" is chocked with anecdotes like this. The gangland gossip and Hollywood scuttlebutt ultimately outweigh Russo's dissection of Byzantine financial chicanery, and in the end, the book adds up to an exhaustive Who's Who of the dark power players of 20th century America.
Thanks to Peter Pavia
Friday, September 02, 2016
Did @RealDonaldTrump Join Investors with Reputed Mobs Ties on First Casino?
For years, Donald Trump has boasted that his casinos are free of the taint of organized crime, using this claim to distinguish his gambling ventures from competitors. But Trump's casinos turn out not to be so squeaky clean.
One of his prime Atlantic City developments, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, relied on a partnership with two investors reputedly linked to the mob, prompting New Jersey regulators to force Trump to buy them out. And he employed a known Asian organized crime figure as a vice president at his Taj Mahal casino for five years, defending the executive against regulators’ attempts to take away his license, according to law enforcement officials.
As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump's rise to fortune -- one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.
As voters learn more about such links between Trump and reputed organized crime figures, "it will get more difficult for him," says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. "Under that withering examination, his past associations and troubles will all emerge and could make it tough in a Republican primary."
In his 2000 book
, “The America We Deserve,” released to coincide with an earlier prospective presidential campaign, Trump boasted:
“One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean -- something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.”
Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations -- in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses.
On Oct. 5, 1993, Trump told a Congressional panel examining the rise of Indian casinos -- then, a rapidly emerging threat to Atlantic City -- that the proprietors were vulnerable to organized crime.
It is “obvious that organized crime is rampant,” Trump told the panel, according to a transcript, drawing a direct contrast to his own operations. “At the Taj Mahal I spent more money on security and security systems than most Indians building their entire casino, and I will tell you that there is no way the Indians are going to protect themselves from the mob.”
That broadside garnered Trump a reprimand from then-House Interior Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, who complained that he had never heard more irresponsible testimony. But Trump continued, predicting that Indian casinos would spawn “the biggest crime problem in the nation’s history.”
Trump’s neglected to mention that his initial partners on his first deal in Atlantic City reputedly had their own organized crime connections: Kenneth Shapiro was identified by state and federal prosecutors as the investment banker for late Philadelphia mob boss Nicky Scarfo according to reports issued by New Jersey state commissions examining the influence of organized crime, and Danny Sullivan, a former Teamsters Union official, is described in an FBI file as having mob acquaintances. Both controlled a company that leased parcels of land to Trump for the 39-story hotel-casino.
Trump teamed up with the duo in 1980 soon after arriving in Atlantic City, according to numerous news reports and his real estate broker on the deal, Paul Longo. The developer seized on a prime piece of property and partnered with Shapiro and Sullivan, but the state’s gambling regulators were concerned enough about Shapiro and Sullivan’s mob links that they required Trump to end the partnership and buy out their shares, according to several Trump biographies.
Trump's office did not respond to requests for comment. Both Sullivan and Shapiro died in the early 1990s.
Trump later confided to a biographer that the twosome were “tough guys
,” relaying a rumor that Sullivan, a 6-foot, 5-inch bear of a man, killed Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss who disappeared in July 1975.
“Because I heard that rumor, I kept my guard up. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be friends with this guy.’ I’ll bet you that if I didn’t hear that rumor, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now,” Trump told Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald” and current national editor of The Huffington Post.
Trump told a different story to casino regulators who were deciding whether to grant him the lucrative gambling license. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people,” he said about Shapiro and Sullivan during licensing hearings in 1982, according to "TrumpNation : The Art of Being The Donald." “Many of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of.”
Sullivan's unsavory reputation did not stop Trump from later arranging for him to be hired as a labor negotiator for the Grand Hyatt, a hotel project on Manhattan’s East Side, according to People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Trump also introduced Sullivan to his own banker at Chase, though he declined to guarantee a loan to Sullivan, reported the L.A. Times.
Longo
, the real estate broker Trump used in Atlantic City on the Trump Plaza deal, says he wasn’t aware of Shapiro or Sullivan having any mob ties, and insisted Trump didn’t have any problems at all obtaining his gaming license. “In AC, you always had to be careful who you were dealing with, but Donald did things on the level,” Longo told The Huffington Post. But Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” alleges Trump considered using Shapiro as a go-between to deliver campaign contributions to Atlantic City mayor Michael Matthews, in violation of state law.
Casino executives are prohibited from contributing to Atlantic City political campaigns in New Jersey. Sullivan later claimed that he was present when Trump proposed funneling contributions through Shapiro. Trump denied the allegation in an interview with O’Brien. Matthews, who was later forced out of office and served time in prison for extortion, did not return calls from HuffPost.
Barrett also reported that Trump once met Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, front boss of the Genovese crime family, at the Manhattan townhouse of their mutual lawyer -- infamous J. Edgar Hoover sidekick Roy Cohn. The author explained that Salerno’s company supplied all the concrete used in the Trump Towers in New York.
At the time of its publication, Trump slammed Barrett's book as “boring, nonfactual and highly inaccurate.”
Barrett's book prompted New Jersey casino regulators to investigate some of its allegations, but the state never brought any charges. "If there had been a provable charge, they would have brought it,” said former casino commission chairman Steven P. Perskie.
While Trump was making his bold statements about the integrity of the Taj Mahal at the 1993 congressional hearing on Indian gaming, a reputed organized crime figure was running junkets for the hotel, bringing in well-heeled gamblers from Canada. Danny Leung, the hotel’s former vice president for foreign marketing, was identified by a 1991 Senate subcommittee on investigations as a member of the 14K Triad, a Hong Kong group linked to murder, extortion and heroin smuggling, according to the New York Daily News.
Canadian police testified at a 1995 hearing before New Jersey’s casino commission that they observed Leung working in illegal gambling dens in Toronto alongside Asian gang leaders. Leung, who denied any affiliation with organized crime, had his license renewed by the commission over the objection of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Back in the early 1980s, just as Trump was dipping his toes into Atlantic City real estate, the developer did express concern to the FBI that his casino ventures might expose him to the mob and “tarnish his family’s name.” He even offered to place undercover FBI agents in his casinos, according to an FBI memo uncovered by TheSmokingGun.com. When Trump asked one of the agents his “personal opinion” on whether he should build in Atlantic City, the agent replied that there were “easier ways that Trump could invest his money.”
That proved prescient: In early 2009, Trump’s casino company in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just days after Trump resigned from the board.
Thanks to Marcus Baram
One of his prime Atlantic City developments, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, relied on a partnership with two investors reputedly linked to the mob, prompting New Jersey regulators to force Trump to buy them out. And he employed a known Asian organized crime figure as a vice president at his Taj Mahal casino for five years, defending the executive against regulators’ attempts to take away his license, according to law enforcement officials.
As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump's rise to fortune -- one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.
As voters learn more about such links between Trump and reputed organized crime figures, "it will get more difficult for him," says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. "Under that withering examination, his past associations and troubles will all emerge and could make it tough in a Republican primary."
In his 2000 book
, “The America We Deserve,” released to coincide with an earlier prospective presidential campaign, Trump boasted:“One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean -- something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.”
Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations -- in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses.
On Oct. 5, 1993, Trump told a Congressional panel examining the rise of Indian casinos -- then, a rapidly emerging threat to Atlantic City -- that the proprietors were vulnerable to organized crime.
It is “obvious that organized crime is rampant,” Trump told the panel, according to a transcript, drawing a direct contrast to his own operations. “At the Taj Mahal I spent more money on security and security systems than most Indians building their entire casino, and I will tell you that there is no way the Indians are going to protect themselves from the mob.”
That broadside garnered Trump a reprimand from then-House Interior Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, who complained that he had never heard more irresponsible testimony. But Trump continued, predicting that Indian casinos would spawn “the biggest crime problem in the nation’s history.”
Trump’s neglected to mention that his initial partners on his first deal in Atlantic City reputedly had their own organized crime connections: Kenneth Shapiro was identified by state and federal prosecutors as the investment banker for late Philadelphia mob boss Nicky Scarfo according to reports issued by New Jersey state commissions examining the influence of organized crime, and Danny Sullivan, a former Teamsters Union official, is described in an FBI file as having mob acquaintances. Both controlled a company that leased parcels of land to Trump for the 39-story hotel-casino.
Trump teamed up with the duo in 1980 soon after arriving in Atlantic City, according to numerous news reports and his real estate broker on the deal, Paul Longo. The developer seized on a prime piece of property and partnered with Shapiro and Sullivan, but the state’s gambling regulators were concerned enough about Shapiro and Sullivan’s mob links that they required Trump to end the partnership and buy out their shares, according to several Trump biographies.
Trump's office did not respond to requests for comment. Both Sullivan and Shapiro died in the early 1990s.
Trump later confided to a biographer that the twosome were “tough guys
,” relaying a rumor that Sullivan, a 6-foot, 5-inch bear of a man, killed Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss who disappeared in July 1975.“Because I heard that rumor, I kept my guard up. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be friends with this guy.’ I’ll bet you that if I didn’t hear that rumor, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now,” Trump told Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald” and current national editor of The Huffington Post.
Trump told a different story to casino regulators who were deciding whether to grant him the lucrative gambling license. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people,” he said about Shapiro and Sullivan during licensing hearings in 1982, according to "TrumpNation : The Art of Being The Donald." “Many of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of.”
Sullivan's unsavory reputation did not stop Trump from later arranging for him to be hired as a labor negotiator for the Grand Hyatt, a hotel project on Manhattan’s East Side, according to People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Trump also introduced Sullivan to his own banker at Chase, though he declined to guarantee a loan to Sullivan, reported the L.A. Times.
Longo
, the real estate broker Trump used in Atlantic City on the Trump Plaza deal, says he wasn’t aware of Shapiro or Sullivan having any mob ties, and insisted Trump didn’t have any problems at all obtaining his gaming license. “In AC, you always had to be careful who you were dealing with, but Donald did things on the level,” Longo told The Huffington Post. But Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” alleges Trump considered using Shapiro as a go-between to deliver campaign contributions to Atlantic City mayor Michael Matthews, in violation of state law.Casino executives are prohibited from contributing to Atlantic City political campaigns in New Jersey. Sullivan later claimed that he was present when Trump proposed funneling contributions through Shapiro. Trump denied the allegation in an interview with O’Brien. Matthews, who was later forced out of office and served time in prison for extortion, did not return calls from HuffPost.
Barrett also reported that Trump once met Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, front boss of the Genovese crime family, at the Manhattan townhouse of their mutual lawyer -- infamous J. Edgar Hoover sidekick Roy Cohn. The author explained that Salerno’s company supplied all the concrete used in the Trump Towers in New York.
At the time of its publication, Trump slammed Barrett's book as “boring, nonfactual and highly inaccurate.”
Barrett's book prompted New Jersey casino regulators to investigate some of its allegations, but the state never brought any charges. "If there had been a provable charge, they would have brought it,” said former casino commission chairman Steven P. Perskie.
While Trump was making his bold statements about the integrity of the Taj Mahal at the 1993 congressional hearing on Indian gaming, a reputed organized crime figure was running junkets for the hotel, bringing in well-heeled gamblers from Canada. Danny Leung, the hotel’s former vice president for foreign marketing, was identified by a 1991 Senate subcommittee on investigations as a member of the 14K Triad, a Hong Kong group linked to murder, extortion and heroin smuggling, according to the New York Daily News.
Canadian police testified at a 1995 hearing before New Jersey’s casino commission that they observed Leung working in illegal gambling dens in Toronto alongside Asian gang leaders. Leung, who denied any affiliation with organized crime, had his license renewed by the commission over the objection of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Back in the early 1980s, just as Trump was dipping his toes into Atlantic City real estate, the developer did express concern to the FBI that his casino ventures might expose him to the mob and “tarnish his family’s name.” He even offered to place undercover FBI agents in his casinos, according to an FBI memo uncovered by TheSmokingGun.com. When Trump asked one of the agents his “personal opinion” on whether he should build in Atlantic City, the agent replied that there were “easier ways that Trump could invest his money.”
That proved prescient: In early 2009, Trump’s casino company in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, just days after Trump resigned from the board.
Thanks to Marcus Baram
Thursday, July 02, 2015
US Attorney General and the Director of the FBI Battle over the Mob
In Washington, turf warfare can be blood sport. Colin Powell versus Dick Cheney in the W years. Nancy Reagan versus Don Regan in the 1980s. Henry Kissinger versus everyone in the Nixon and Ford days. But eclipsing these power feuds is the titanic clash between Robert Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover. This grudge match entailed much more than personality or policy. It was, in a way, a fight over the meaning of justice in America.
In “Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America,” Burton Hersh, a journalist and historian
, chronicles a struggle that began years before Bobby Kennedy became attorney general in his brother’s administration and — in nominal terms — Hoover’s superior. The story is familiar. While Jack Kennedy thrived in the 1950s as a sex-crazed, drug-dependent, ailment-ridden party-boy politician, Bobby, the family’s complicated sourpuss, hooked up with the redbaiting Joe McCarthy, then spun off as a crusading and corners-cutting scourge of labor corruption. He pursued mobsters and was obsessed with Jimmy Hoffa. But there was a problem. Bobby’s father had built a fortune the old-fashioned way — by hook and by crook. As a banker and bootlegger, Joseph Kennedy had nuzzled with the not-so-good fellas Bobby wanted to hammer.
There was another problem as well. Hoover, the entrenched F.B.I. chieftain and pal of McCarthy, was not so keen on catching mobsters. He even denied the existence of organized crime and kept his agents far from its tracks, partly because, Hersh contends, Hoover knew too well that the mob had infiltrated the worlds of politics and business. Hunting the thugs could have placed Hoover and the F.B.I. on a collision course with the powerful. Communists were easier prey. So when Jack became president and appointed his ferocious brother attorney general, combat was unavoidable.
As Hersh describes it, this duel of leaks, blackmail and power plays occurred against the backdrop of Kennedy excess and pathos. The stakes were higher than the individual fortunes of Hoover and Bobby Kennedy. America was racked with crisis: the civil rights movement was challenging the nation’s conscience, a war was growing in Vietnam and an arms race was threatening nuclear war. Bobby may have had presidential prerogative on his side, but Hoover could wield files full of allegations about Jack and others. How this pas de deux played out helped define the nation at this transformational moment.
It was quite a story, with a supporting cast that was A-list — Martin Luther King Jr., Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Sam Giancana, Gloria Swanson, Lyndon Johnson, Roy Cohn — history as a Don DeLillo novel. But sad to say, Hersh, who years ago wrote a much-regarded book on the origins of the C.I.A., fails his material.
“Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America” is little more than a recycling of previously published books. Hersh lists 54 people he interviewed, but about a quarter of them are authors and journalists who have tilled the overworked Kennedy field. The rest offer little that is new. Worse, Hersh appears to regard all sources as equal. If an assertion, particularly a sleazy one, has ever appeared in a book, that’s apparently good enough for him. Some eye-popping tales of Kennedy sex and corruption have indeed been confirmed by reputable authors. (Yes, Jack shared a mistress with Sinatra and the mob man Giancana. Yes, Bobby bent to Hoover’s request to wiretap King.) But mounds of Kennedy garbage have also been peddled over the years, and Hersh does not distinguish between the proven and the alleged (or the discredited). Did Bobby really tag along on drug busts in the 1950s and engage in sex with apprehended hookers? Well, one book said he did. Covering the death of Marilyn Monroe, Hersh maintains that she and Bobby were lovers and that the Mafia had Monroe killed hours after Bobby was in her company in order to frame him. For this, Hersh relies on two unreliable books, one written by Giancana’s brother and nephew, the other by a deceased Los Angeles private investigator. Monroe’s death remains an official suicide, and as Evan Thomas notes in his biography of Bobby, “all that is certain” regarding his interactions with Monroe is that he “saw her on four occasions, probably never alone.” But it’s when the book reaches Nov. 22, 1963, that it truly jumps the rails. The assassination of John Kennedy is the black hole of contemporary American history, and Hersh doesn’t escape its pull. He repeats the well-worn claims of the it-wasn’t-just-Oswald partisans and brings nothing fresh to the autopsy table. Citing one book of uncertain credibility, he claims former President Gerald Ford publicly confessed he had covered up F.B.I. and C.I.A. evidence indicating that Kennedy “had been caught in a crossfire in Dallas” and that two Mafia notables “had orchestrated the assassination plot.” An Internet search I conducted turned up no confirmation of such a momentous confession.
Hersh fares better when it comes to the bigger picture. Hoover and Kennedy, he notes, possessed profoundly contrasting views of midcentury America. For Hoover, Hersh writes, “America amounted to a kind of Christian-pageant fantasy of the System” that was threatened by “Commies and beatniks and race-mixers ... hell-bent to eradicate this utopia.” Kennedy saw “gangsters” undermining unions, corporate America and, yes, even politics. Here was the nub of their quarrel: subversion versus corruption. Though Hersh goes soft on Hoover toward the end, his book renders a clear judgment: Bobby Kennedy was closer to the mark than his rival. That he did not live long enough to better Hoover and, more important, prove the point compounds the tragedy of his sad death.
Thanks to David Corn
In “Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America,” Burton Hersh, a journalist and historian
, chronicles a struggle that began years before Bobby Kennedy became attorney general in his brother’s administration and — in nominal terms — Hoover’s superior. The story is familiar. While Jack Kennedy thrived in the 1950s as a sex-crazed, drug-dependent, ailment-ridden party-boy politician, Bobby, the family’s complicated sourpuss, hooked up with the redbaiting Joe McCarthy, then spun off as a crusading and corners-cutting scourge of labor corruption. He pursued mobsters and was obsessed with Jimmy Hoffa. But there was a problem. Bobby’s father had built a fortune the old-fashioned way — by hook and by crook. As a banker and bootlegger, Joseph Kennedy had nuzzled with the not-so-good fellas Bobby wanted to hammer.There was another problem as well. Hoover, the entrenched F.B.I. chieftain and pal of McCarthy, was not so keen on catching mobsters. He even denied the existence of organized crime and kept his agents far from its tracks, partly because, Hersh contends, Hoover knew too well that the mob had infiltrated the worlds of politics and business. Hunting the thugs could have placed Hoover and the F.B.I. on a collision course with the powerful. Communists were easier prey. So when Jack became president and appointed his ferocious brother attorney general, combat was unavoidable.
As Hersh describes it, this duel of leaks, blackmail and power plays occurred against the backdrop of Kennedy excess and pathos. The stakes were higher than the individual fortunes of Hoover and Bobby Kennedy. America was racked with crisis: the civil rights movement was challenging the nation’s conscience, a war was growing in Vietnam and an arms race was threatening nuclear war. Bobby may have had presidential prerogative on his side, but Hoover could wield files full of allegations about Jack and others. How this pas de deux played out helped define the nation at this transformational moment.
It was quite a story, with a supporting cast that was A-list — Martin Luther King Jr., Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Sam Giancana, Gloria Swanson, Lyndon Johnson, Roy Cohn — history as a Don DeLillo novel. But sad to say, Hersh, who years ago wrote a much-regarded book on the origins of the C.I.A., fails his material.
“Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America” is little more than a recycling of previously published books. Hersh lists 54 people he interviewed, but about a quarter of them are authors and journalists who have tilled the overworked Kennedy field. The rest offer little that is new. Worse, Hersh appears to regard all sources as equal. If an assertion, particularly a sleazy one, has ever appeared in a book, that’s apparently good enough for him. Some eye-popping tales of Kennedy sex and corruption have indeed been confirmed by reputable authors. (Yes, Jack shared a mistress with Sinatra and the mob man Giancana. Yes, Bobby bent to Hoover’s request to wiretap King.) But mounds of Kennedy garbage have also been peddled over the years, and Hersh does not distinguish between the proven and the alleged (or the discredited). Did Bobby really tag along on drug busts in the 1950s and engage in sex with apprehended hookers? Well, one book said he did. Covering the death of Marilyn Monroe, Hersh maintains that she and Bobby were lovers and that the Mafia had Monroe killed hours after Bobby was in her company in order to frame him. For this, Hersh relies on two unreliable books, one written by Giancana’s brother and nephew, the other by a deceased Los Angeles private investigator. Monroe’s death remains an official suicide, and as Evan Thomas notes in his biography of Bobby, “all that is certain” regarding his interactions with Monroe is that he “saw her on four occasions, probably never alone.” But it’s when the book reaches Nov. 22, 1963, that it truly jumps the rails. The assassination of John Kennedy is the black hole of contemporary American history, and Hersh doesn’t escape its pull. He repeats the well-worn claims of the it-wasn’t-just-Oswald partisans and brings nothing fresh to the autopsy table. Citing one book of uncertain credibility, he claims former President Gerald Ford publicly confessed he had covered up F.B.I. and C.I.A. evidence indicating that Kennedy “had been caught in a crossfire in Dallas” and that two Mafia notables “had orchestrated the assassination plot.” An Internet search I conducted turned up no confirmation of such a momentous confession.
Hersh fares better when it comes to the bigger picture. Hoover and Kennedy, he notes, possessed profoundly contrasting views of midcentury America. For Hoover, Hersh writes, “America amounted to a kind of Christian-pageant fantasy of the System” that was threatened by “Commies and beatniks and race-mixers ... hell-bent to eradicate this utopia.” Kennedy saw “gangsters” undermining unions, corporate America and, yes, even politics. Here was the nub of their quarrel: subversion versus corruption. Though Hersh goes soft on Hoover toward the end, his book renders a clear judgment: Bobby Kennedy was closer to the mark than his rival. That he did not live long enough to better Hoover and, more important, prove the point compounds the tragedy of his sad death.
Thanks to David Corn
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Mobsters at the Apalachin Mob Meeting
The Apalachin Meeting was a historic summit of the American mafia held on November 14, 1957 at the home of mobster Joseph "Joe the Barber" Barbara in Apalachin, New York.
It was attended by roughly 100 mafia crime bosses from the United States, Canada and Italy. Expensive cars with license plates from around the country aroused the curiosity of the local and state law enforcement, who raided the meeting, causing mafiosi to flee into the woods and the surrounding area of the Apalachin estate.
The direct and most significant outcome of the Apalachin meeting was that it helped to confirm the existence of a National Crime Syndicate, which some - including J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations - had long refused to acknowledge.
Mob Members at Apalachin
1. Dominick Alaimo: Member of the Barbara family.
2. Joseph Barbara: Boss of his own family. Presently called the Bufalino family.
3. Joseph Bonanno: Boss of his own New York family; deposed in 1964.
4. John Bonventre: Uncle of Bonanno, former underboss to Bonanno. Had retired to Italy prior to Apalachin and probably couldn't resist meeting old friends.
5. Russell Bufalino: Underboss to Barbara. Became head of the Bufalino family when Barbara died in 1959. A suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance in 1975. Bufalino controlled organized crime in the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area and upstate New York, including Utica. He died in 1994.
6. Ignatius Cannone: Member of the Barbara family.
7. Roy Carlisi: Member of the Magaddino family from Buffalo.
8. Paul Castellano: Capo in the Gambino family. Took over as boss when Gambino died in 1976. Whacked by John Gotti in 1985.
9. Gerardo Catena: Underboss to Vito Genovese. Later helped run the family when Genovese went to prison.
10. Charles Chivi: Member of the Genovese family.
11. Joseph Civello: Boss of Dallas family.
12. James Colletti: Boss of the Colorado family. Partner of Joe Bonanno in the cheese business.
13. Frank Cucchiara: Member of the New England family. Most commonly called the Patriarca family.
14. Dominick D'Agostino: Member of the Magaddino family.
15. John DeMarco: Capo or perhaps underboss in the Cleveland family then run by John Scalish.
16. Frank DeSimmone: Boss of the Los Angeles family; he was a lawyer.
17. Natale Evola: Capo in the Bonanno family; later became boss of the family circa 1970.
18. Joseph Falcone: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
19. Salvatore Falcone: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
20. Carlo Gambino: Had just ascended to the head of the Gambino family after Albert Anastasia was whacked in October 1957.
21. Michael Genovese: Believed to be underboss of the Pittsburgh family.
22. Vito Genovese: Had just recently ascended to the head of the Genovese family after previous boss, Frank Costello, was wounded in a murder attempt and then retired.
23. Anthony Guarnieri: Capo in the Barbara family.
24. Bartolo Guccia: Believed to be member of the Barbara family or an associate of the family.
25. Joseph Ida: Boss of Philadelphia. He retired shortly after Apalachin.
26. James LaDuca: Capo in the Magaddino family; related by marriage to Magaddino.
27. Samuel Laguttuta: Member of the Magaddino family.
28. Louis Larasso: Capo in the New Jersey family then led by Phil Amari. Became underboss to Nick Delmore when he took over for Amari in 1957. He was whacked in the 1990s.
29. Carmine Lombardozzi: Capo in the Gambino family.
30. Antonio Magaddino: Capo in the Magaddino family and brother of boss Stefano Magaddino.
31. Joseph Magliocco: Underboss of the Joseph Profaci family, which is now the Colombo family.
32. Frank Majuri: Underboss in the New Jersey family of Phil Amari. Slid down to capo when Amari retired later in 1957 and was replaced by Nick Delmore. Bumped up later to underboss in the regime of Sam DeCavalcante in the 60s after Delmore died.
33. Rosario Mancuso: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
34. Gabriel Mannarino: Capo in the Barbara family.
35. Michael Miranda: Capo in the Genovese family.
36. Patsy Monachino: Member of the Barbara or Magaddino family.
37. Sam Monachino: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
38. John Montana: Underboss in the Magaddino family, demoted after Apalachin.
39. Dominick Olivetto: May have been a member of the New Jersey family.
40. John Ormento: Capo in the Luchese family. Not too long after Apalachin, he got yet another narcotics conviction and spent the rest of his life in prison.
41. James Osticco: Capo in the Barbara family.
42. Joseph Profaci: Longtime boss of his own family until his death in 1962. Family is now called the Colombo family.
43. Vincent Rao: Consigliere (counselor) in the Luchese family.
44. Armand Rava: Member of the Gambino family. Was whacked not long after Apalachin because he was an ally of the slain Albert Anastasia.
45. Joseph Riccobono: Consigliere in the Gambino family.
46. Anthony Riela: Capo in the Bonanno family.
47. Joseph Rosato: Member of the Gambino family.
48. Louis Santos (Santo Trafficante): Boss of the Tampa family.
49. John Scalish: Boss of the Cleveland family.
50. Angelo Sciandra: Capo in the Barbara family.
51. Patsy Sciortino: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
52. Simone Scozzari: Underboss in the L.A. family.
53. Salvatore Tornabe: Member of the Profaci (now Colombo) family; died Dec. 30, 1957.
54. Patsy Turrigiano: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
55. Costenze Valente: Probable member of the Buffalo family. The debate is whether Rochester was an independent family or simply a part of the larger Buffalo family.
56. Frank Valente: Probable member of the Buffalo family.
57. Emanuel Zicari: Member of the Barbara family.
58. Frank Zito: Boss of the Springfield, Illinois family.
59. Joe Barbara Jr. Was not at the meeting, although he was probably going to be. He arrived from the family bottling works after the troopers were set up and is not listed as an attendee.
60. Stefano Magaddino: Some clothes of the Buffalo boss were found in a car stashed in a barn at Barbara's home a day or two after Nov. 14, 1957.
61. Joe Zerilli: Detroit boss used his license to rent a car in Binghamton shortly after the fiasco.
62. John LaRocca: Pittsburgh boss was registered at an area motel but was never caught.
63. James Lanza: Like LaRocca, the San Francisco boss was registered at a local motel but never caught.
64. Nick Civella, the Kansas City boss and soldier J. Filardo were tentatively identified as the two men who called a cab from a local business.
65. Neil Migliore: A soldier in the Luchese family, Migliore allegedly was involved in a traffic accident in Binghamton the day after the fiasco. The speculation was that he came to pick up Tommy Luchese.
66. Tommy Luchese: Boss of his own family. He was never caught, though logic says he would have attended.
67. Carmine Galante: One of Barbara's housekeepers, tentatively identified as Bonanno's new underboss, was one of several men still at Barbara's a day after the Apalachin fiasco.
Many other mob powers, including the Chicago delegation, were on their way to Barbara's and lucked out by arriving late and were able to avoid the fiasco.
It was attended by roughly 100 mafia crime bosses from the United States, Canada and Italy. Expensive cars with license plates from around the country aroused the curiosity of the local and state law enforcement, who raided the meeting, causing mafiosi to flee into the woods and the surrounding area of the Apalachin estate.
The direct and most significant outcome of the Apalachin meeting was that it helped to confirm the existence of a National Crime Syndicate, which some - including J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations - had long refused to acknowledge.
Mob Members at Apalachin
1. Dominick Alaimo: Member of the Barbara family.
2. Joseph Barbara: Boss of his own family. Presently called the Bufalino family.
3. Joseph Bonanno: Boss of his own New York family; deposed in 1964.
4. John Bonventre: Uncle of Bonanno, former underboss to Bonanno. Had retired to Italy prior to Apalachin and probably couldn't resist meeting old friends.
5. Russell Bufalino: Underboss to Barbara. Became head of the Bufalino family when Barbara died in 1959. A suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance in 1975. Bufalino controlled organized crime in the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area and upstate New York, including Utica. He died in 1994.
6. Ignatius Cannone: Member of the Barbara family.
7. Roy Carlisi: Member of the Magaddino family from Buffalo.
8. Paul Castellano: Capo in the Gambino family. Took over as boss when Gambino died in 1976. Whacked by John Gotti in 1985.
9. Gerardo Catena: Underboss to Vito Genovese. Later helped run the family when Genovese went to prison.
10. Charles Chivi: Member of the Genovese family.
11. Joseph Civello: Boss of Dallas family.
12. James Colletti: Boss of the Colorado family. Partner of Joe Bonanno in the cheese business.
13. Frank Cucchiara: Member of the New England family. Most commonly called the Patriarca family.
14. Dominick D'Agostino: Member of the Magaddino family.
15. John DeMarco: Capo or perhaps underboss in the Cleveland family then run by John Scalish.
16. Frank DeSimmone: Boss of the Los Angeles family; he was a lawyer.
17. Natale Evola: Capo in the Bonanno family; later became boss of the family circa 1970.
18. Joseph Falcone: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
19. Salvatore Falcone: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
20. Carlo Gambino: Had just ascended to the head of the Gambino family after Albert Anastasia was whacked in October 1957.
21. Michael Genovese: Believed to be underboss of the Pittsburgh family.
22. Vito Genovese: Had just recently ascended to the head of the Genovese family after previous boss, Frank Costello, was wounded in a murder attempt and then retired.
23. Anthony Guarnieri: Capo in the Barbara family.
24. Bartolo Guccia: Believed to be member of the Barbara family or an associate of the family.
25. Joseph Ida: Boss of Philadelphia. He retired shortly after Apalachin.
26. James LaDuca: Capo in the Magaddino family; related by marriage to Magaddino.
27. Samuel Laguttuta: Member of the Magaddino family.
28. Louis Larasso: Capo in the New Jersey family then led by Phil Amari. Became underboss to Nick Delmore when he took over for Amari in 1957. He was whacked in the 1990s.
29. Carmine Lombardozzi: Capo in the Gambino family.
30. Antonio Magaddino: Capo in the Magaddino family and brother of boss Stefano Magaddino.
31. Joseph Magliocco: Underboss of the Joseph Profaci family, which is now the Colombo family.
32. Frank Majuri: Underboss in the New Jersey family of Phil Amari. Slid down to capo when Amari retired later in 1957 and was replaced by Nick Delmore. Bumped up later to underboss in the regime of Sam DeCavalcante in the 60s after Delmore died.
33. Rosario Mancuso: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
34. Gabriel Mannarino: Capo in the Barbara family.
35. Michael Miranda: Capo in the Genovese family.
36. Patsy Monachino: Member of the Barbara or Magaddino family.
37. Sam Monachino: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
38. John Montana: Underboss in the Magaddino family, demoted after Apalachin.
39. Dominick Olivetto: May have been a member of the New Jersey family.
40. John Ormento: Capo in the Luchese family. Not too long after Apalachin, he got yet another narcotics conviction and spent the rest of his life in prison.
41. James Osticco: Capo in the Barbara family.
42. Joseph Profaci: Longtime boss of his own family until his death in 1962. Family is now called the Colombo family.
43. Vincent Rao: Consigliere (counselor) in the Luchese family.
44. Armand Rava: Member of the Gambino family. Was whacked not long after Apalachin because he was an ally of the slain Albert Anastasia.
45. Joseph Riccobono: Consigliere in the Gambino family.
46. Anthony Riela: Capo in the Bonanno family.
47. Joseph Rosato: Member of the Gambino family.
48. Louis Santos (Santo Trafficante): Boss of the Tampa family.
49. John Scalish: Boss of the Cleveland family.
50. Angelo Sciandra: Capo in the Barbara family.
51. Patsy Sciortino: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
52. Simone Scozzari: Underboss in the L.A. family.
53. Salvatore Tornabe: Member of the Profaci (now Colombo) family; died Dec. 30, 1957.
54. Patsy Turrigiano: Member of Barbara or Magaddino family.
55. Costenze Valente: Probable member of the Buffalo family. The debate is whether Rochester was an independent family or simply a part of the larger Buffalo family.
56. Frank Valente: Probable member of the Buffalo family.
57. Emanuel Zicari: Member of the Barbara family.
58. Frank Zito: Boss of the Springfield, Illinois family.
59. Joe Barbara Jr. Was not at the meeting, although he was probably going to be. He arrived from the family bottling works after the troopers were set up and is not listed as an attendee.
60. Stefano Magaddino: Some clothes of the Buffalo boss were found in a car stashed in a barn at Barbara's home a day or two after Nov. 14, 1957.
61. Joe Zerilli: Detroit boss used his license to rent a car in Binghamton shortly after the fiasco.
62. John LaRocca: Pittsburgh boss was registered at an area motel but was never caught.
63. James Lanza: Like LaRocca, the San Francisco boss was registered at a local motel but never caught.
64. Nick Civella, the Kansas City boss and soldier J. Filardo were tentatively identified as the two men who called a cab from a local business.
65. Neil Migliore: A soldier in the Luchese family, Migliore allegedly was involved in a traffic accident in Binghamton the day after the fiasco. The speculation was that he came to pick up Tommy Luchese.
66. Tommy Luchese: Boss of his own family. He was never caught, though logic says he would have attended.
67. Carmine Galante: One of Barbara's housekeepers, tentatively identified as Bonanno's new underboss, was one of several men still at Barbara's a day after the Apalachin fiasco.
Many other mob powers, including the Chicago delegation, were on their way to Barbara's and lucked out by arriving late and were able to avoid the fiasco.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Goodbye Fellas
Friends of ours: Joseph Valachi, Bugsy Siegal, Frank Sinatra, Sam Giancana, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, John Gotti
The perspective on organized crime that Thomas A. Reppetto developed from his career in law enforcement and more than 20 years as president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, tempered by a Harvard Ph.D., paid off handsomely in his 2004 book, “American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power
,” which described the mob’s growth to its pinnacle in the mid-20th century. The writing was lucid, concise and devoid of sensationalism, rare qualities in the plethora of books by turncoat mobsters and their ex-wives, journalists, cops and aged Las Vegas insiders. This equally well-written sequel, “Bringing Down the Mob,” chronicles the Mafia’s near demise over the past 50 years. Following this specific thread of American history, general readers will benefit from Reppetto’s cogent examples of how changes in the culture at large affected both the mob itself and the tactics employed by law enforcement. Organized-crime buffs will be familiar with much of the material, but unaccustomed to seeing it assembled into so big and coherent a picture.
In 1950 and ’51, the Kefauver Senate committee’s televised hearings on the Mafia introduced mobsters into American living rooms, the lasting images being close-ups of Frank Costello’s manicured hands — he did not want his face on camera. The public outcry was short-lived and the Mafia cruised comfortably until 1957, when, in Apalachin, N.Y. (population 350), more than 60 Mafia notables attended a conference that was raided by the state police. As Reppetto says, the media have often presented the raid as “some hick cops stumbling on a mob conclave.” He debunks that interpretation and shows how the publicity moved the resistant J. Edgar Hoover to action, so that “from Apalachin on, the United States government was at war with the Mafia.”
As attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy led the next sustained attack on organized crime. He focused obsessively and successfully on Jimmy Hoffa, who was allied with the Mafia while serving as president of the two-million-member Teamsters union. Kennedy also brought before the TV cameras Joe Valachi, a low-level Mafia soldier who, with some coaching, provided extensive information “without revealing that much of it had been obtained through legally questionable electronic eavesdropping.” A new name for the Mafia emerged from the hearings — La Cosa Nostra — which allowed Hoover to say he had been right all along: there was no Mafia; there was a Cosa Nostra organization, exposed by the F.B.I.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Las Vegas provided a battlefield on which the F.B.I., armed with bugging equipment (and caught using it illegally in 1965), defeated the mob, which had been involved from the start of significant gambling in Nevada in the 1940s. Bugsy Siegel put up one of the first casinos on the Strip, the Flamingo. Las Vegas was designated an “open city,” in which any mob family could operate. As Reppetto writes, mobsters “secured Teamster loans to build casinos that they controlled through fronts, or ‘straw men.’ ” (Frank Sinatra lost his license as owner of a Nevada resort for allowing the Mafia boss Sam Giancana, reputedly his “hidden backer,” to frequent the hotel.) These casinos had overseers appointed by the controlling family to run “the skim,” cash siphoned off before the casino take was put on the books for tax purposes. The poorly chosen overseers played a large role in bringing down the mob in Las Vegas, generally being far too violent and unsophisticated to operate in a milieu that demanded a veneer of respectability. Reppetto points out the factual basis of much of Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese’s script for the film “Casino
,” including the chilling scene of Joe Pesci squeezing a victim’s head in a vise until an eye pops out (although that incident actually happened in Chicago). The mob’s management of Las Vegas turned out to be “a disaster,” Reppetto says. “Once it was the Mafia that was well run, while law enforcement plodded along. ... The situation was now reversed.” In the 1980s, corporations began to take control of the casinos.
One of the great hurdles the government had to clear at the start of its war on the Mafia, Reppetto says, was that the approach required to bring down a criminal organization ran “counter to general principles of American criminal justice”: “The usual practice, investigating a known crime in order to apprehend unknown culprits, was reversed. Now the government was investigating a known criminal to find crimes he might be charged with.” The most potent weapon was developed in 1970 — the RICO statute, to which Reppetto devotes a full chapter, pointing out that it took its creator, G. Robert Blakey, a decade of proselytizing before prosecutors would employ it.
A minor quibble: I think the book gives short shrift to the effect of the witness protection program, without which far fewer mobsters could have “flipped” over the years. As to Reppetto’s belief that the Mafia is in serious decline? At any time in the past, asking an average American to name major mob guys might well have elicited several of the following: Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, John Gotti. Who comes to mind today?
Thanks to Vincent Patrick whose novels include “The Pope of Greenwich Village
” and “Smoke Screen
.”
The perspective on organized crime that Thomas A. Reppetto developed from his career in law enforcement and more than 20 years as president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, tempered by a Harvard Ph.D., paid off handsomely in his 2004 book, “American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power
,” which described the mob’s growth to its pinnacle in the mid-20th century. The writing was lucid, concise and devoid of sensationalism, rare qualities in the plethora of books by turncoat mobsters and their ex-wives, journalists, cops and aged Las Vegas insiders. This equally well-written sequel, “Bringing Down the Mob,” chronicles the Mafia’s near demise over the past 50 years. Following this specific thread of American history, general readers will benefit from Reppetto’s cogent examples of how changes in the culture at large affected both the mob itself and the tactics employed by law enforcement. Organized-crime buffs will be familiar with much of the material, but unaccustomed to seeing it assembled into so big and coherent a picture.In 1950 and ’51, the Kefauver Senate committee’s televised hearings on the Mafia introduced mobsters into American living rooms, the lasting images being close-ups of Frank Costello’s manicured hands — he did not want his face on camera. The public outcry was short-lived and the Mafia cruised comfortably until 1957, when, in Apalachin, N.Y. (population 350), more than 60 Mafia notables attended a conference that was raided by the state police. As Reppetto says, the media have often presented the raid as “some hick cops stumbling on a mob conclave.” He debunks that interpretation and shows how the publicity moved the resistant J. Edgar Hoover to action, so that “from Apalachin on, the United States government was at war with the Mafia.”
As attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy led the next sustained attack on organized crime. He focused obsessively and successfully on Jimmy Hoffa, who was allied with the Mafia while serving as president of the two-million-member Teamsters union. Kennedy also brought before the TV cameras Joe Valachi, a low-level Mafia soldier who, with some coaching, provided extensive information “without revealing that much of it had been obtained through legally questionable electronic eavesdropping.” A new name for the Mafia emerged from the hearings — La Cosa Nostra — which allowed Hoover to say he had been right all along: there was no Mafia; there was a Cosa Nostra organization, exposed by the F.B.I.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Las Vegas provided a battlefield on which the F.B.I., armed with bugging equipment (and caught using it illegally in 1965), defeated the mob, which had been involved from the start of significant gambling in Nevada in the 1940s. Bugsy Siegel put up one of the first casinos on the Strip, the Flamingo. Las Vegas was designated an “open city,” in which any mob family could operate. As Reppetto writes, mobsters “secured Teamster loans to build casinos that they controlled through fronts, or ‘straw men.’ ” (Frank Sinatra lost his license as owner of a Nevada resort for allowing the Mafia boss Sam Giancana, reputedly his “hidden backer,” to frequent the hotel.) These casinos had overseers appointed by the controlling family to run “the skim,” cash siphoned off before the casino take was put on the books for tax purposes. The poorly chosen overseers played a large role in bringing down the mob in Las Vegas, generally being far too violent and unsophisticated to operate in a milieu that demanded a veneer of respectability. Reppetto points out the factual basis of much of Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese’s script for the film “Casino
,” including the chilling scene of Joe Pesci squeezing a victim’s head in a vise until an eye pops out (although that incident actually happened in Chicago). The mob’s management of Las Vegas turned out to be “a disaster,” Reppetto says. “Once it was the Mafia that was well run, while law enforcement plodded along. ... The situation was now reversed.” In the 1980s, corporations began to take control of the casinos.One of the great hurdles the government had to clear at the start of its war on the Mafia, Reppetto says, was that the approach required to bring down a criminal organization ran “counter to general principles of American criminal justice”: “The usual practice, investigating a known crime in order to apprehend unknown culprits, was reversed. Now the government was investigating a known criminal to find crimes he might be charged with.” The most potent weapon was developed in 1970 — the RICO statute, to which Reppetto devotes a full chapter, pointing out that it took its creator, G. Robert Blakey, a decade of proselytizing before prosecutors would employ it.
A minor quibble: I think the book gives short shrift to the effect of the witness protection program, without which far fewer mobsters could have “flipped” over the years. As to Reppetto’s belief that the Mafia is in serious decline? At any time in the past, asking an average American to name major mob guys might well have elicited several of the following: Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, John Gotti. Who comes to mind today?
Thanks to Vincent Patrick whose novels include “The Pope of Greenwich Village
” and “Smoke Screen.”
Monday, September 30, 2019
Friday, March 04, 2005
JFK Connected to Mob DNA?
Solving a Mafia murder case is a tall order. Since the early 1900s, more than 1,100 murders have been linked to Mafia activities in Chicago but only 14 people have been convicted in those killings. Soon though, the FBI may be able to resolve dozens of mob hits, many with links to Las Vegas. It's a case that might even shed light on the assassination of a president.
The FBI calls it Operation Family Secrets, (Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob). The I-Team has reported on it in the past
. It's been underway in Chicago for more than two years and may finally be getting close to the indictment stage. The targets include major figures in the Chicago mob. The victims include tough Tony Spilotro, once the king of the Las Vegas streets. If the FBI hits the jackpot though, this operation could resolve even bigger mysteries.
Lawmen in Las Vegas and elsewhere harbored all kinds of suspicions about Tony The Ant Spilotro. They suspected him in as many as 22 gangland murders. They indicted him for skimming Las Vegas casinos. And regarded him as the Nevada ambassador for the feared Chicago mob. But the law never managed to put Spilotro away. That job was carried out by his Mafia associates.
In 1986, Spilotro returned to Chicago to meet with the family. His body and that of his brother Michael Spilotro were found days later, buried in an Indiana cornfield. Both were savagely beaten. Spilotro's widow Nancy told the I-Team the FBI never tried to solve the murder, but she's convinced that her husband knew the people who did it. "When he went away like that, left all their stuff behind and they go -- you know. That's no good. They leave their watch and their wallet. They had to know somebody to get them to go to the place," said Nancy Spilotro, Tony Spilotro's widow.
Sometime later this year, someone may finally be charged in Tony Spilotro's murder. That someone will likely be Spilotro's former boss, Joey The Clown Lombardo, for decades a reputed top figure in the Chicago mob.
John Flood, former Chicago Police officer, said, "Lombardo in Chicago is the last of the major giants and in the United States few men have his stature in organized crime."
Former Chicago cop John Flood should know. For years, he was part of a Chicago Police team that chased the mob and says Lombardo once tried to kill him. Flood expects the FBI's Operation Family Matters to produce indictments soon.
The two-year probe reportedly has mob informants and is aimed at the top tier of the Chicago outfit, which means Joey The Clown. Tips have already led FBI agents to unearth the bodies of murder victims. DNA evidence has been obtained from crime scenes and is now being analyzed in forensic labs around the country. It is all but certain that the Spilotro murders are among the cases that are being analyzed. But there are many more unsolved cases in the Las Vegas-Chicago nexus and Lombardo, allegedly, was in a position to know about all of them.
John Flood says, "There is not a shadow of doubt that because he was such a young man involved with major mob figures going back to Al Capone, he would know anything that happened regarding assassinations, not only in Chicago but Las Vegas, across the country. He's a top guy and a tough guy."
Flood says Lombardo would have to know about the murder of teamsters pension fund executive Alan Dorfman, who loaned millions to Las Vegas casinos and was indicted with Lombardo for trying to bribe Nevada Senator Howard Cannon.
Former mob ambassador to Las Vegas, Johnny Rosselli was preparing to testify to Congress about mob plots to kill Fidel Castro. His body was found floating in a drum. Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, once the overlord of Las Vegas rackets, was murdered in his home just before he had to testify. Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975 and is believed to have been murdered by Midwestern mob families. Lawmen think Lombardo knew about all of them, including one of the biggest murders of all time.
John Flood says, "Sam Gianacana, supposedly involved in the building of Las Vegas, his brother said Sam told him before he died it was Chicago organized crime guys that assassinated John Kennedy."
That's a whopper of a story, but there is other testimony hinting at a Chicago connection to the JFK slaying. Jack Ruby was a Chicago mob flunky before moving to Dallas. But Flood says he doubts Lombardo would talk, indictment or not.
Lombardo's Chicago attorney acknowledges that his client is a target of the FBI investigation, but he denies any wrong doing by Lombardo. Lombardo has given a DNA sample to the FBI. So have three other suspected mobsters.
Ex-cop John Flood says he doubts Lombardo would roll over or spill the beans about any murder, let alone the JFK assassination, but says it depends on who else might be indicted with him.
Stranger things have happened.
Thanks to George Knapp
The FBI calls it Operation Family Secrets, (Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob). The I-Team has reported on it in the past
. It's been underway in Chicago for more than two years and may finally be getting close to the indictment stage. The targets include major figures in the Chicago mob. The victims include tough Tony Spilotro, once the king of the Las Vegas streets. If the FBI hits the jackpot though, this operation could resolve even bigger mysteries.Lawmen in Las Vegas and elsewhere harbored all kinds of suspicions about Tony The Ant Spilotro. They suspected him in as many as 22 gangland murders. They indicted him for skimming Las Vegas casinos. And regarded him as the Nevada ambassador for the feared Chicago mob. But the law never managed to put Spilotro away. That job was carried out by his Mafia associates.
In 1986, Spilotro returned to Chicago to meet with the family. His body and that of his brother Michael Spilotro were found days later, buried in an Indiana cornfield. Both were savagely beaten. Spilotro's widow Nancy told the I-Team the FBI never tried to solve the murder, but she's convinced that her husband knew the people who did it. "When he went away like that, left all their stuff behind and they go -- you know. That's no good. They leave their watch and their wallet. They had to know somebody to get them to go to the place," said Nancy Spilotro, Tony Spilotro's widow.
Sometime later this year, someone may finally be charged in Tony Spilotro's murder. That someone will likely be Spilotro's former boss, Joey The Clown Lombardo, for decades a reputed top figure in the Chicago mob.
John Flood, former Chicago Police officer, said, "Lombardo in Chicago is the last of the major giants and in the United States few men have his stature in organized crime."
Former Chicago cop John Flood should know. For years, he was part of a Chicago Police team that chased the mob and says Lombardo once tried to kill him. Flood expects the FBI's Operation Family Matters to produce indictments soon.
The two-year probe reportedly has mob informants and is aimed at the top tier of the Chicago outfit, which means Joey The Clown. Tips have already led FBI agents to unearth the bodies of murder victims. DNA evidence has been obtained from crime scenes and is now being analyzed in forensic labs around the country. It is all but certain that the Spilotro murders are among the cases that are being analyzed. But there are many more unsolved cases in the Las Vegas-Chicago nexus and Lombardo, allegedly, was in a position to know about all of them.
John Flood says, "There is not a shadow of doubt that because he was such a young man involved with major mob figures going back to Al Capone, he would know anything that happened regarding assassinations, not only in Chicago but Las Vegas, across the country. He's a top guy and a tough guy."
Flood says Lombardo would have to know about the murder of teamsters pension fund executive Alan Dorfman, who loaned millions to Las Vegas casinos and was indicted with Lombardo for trying to bribe Nevada Senator Howard Cannon.
Former mob ambassador to Las Vegas, Johnny Rosselli was preparing to testify to Congress about mob plots to kill Fidel Castro. His body was found floating in a drum. Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, once the overlord of Las Vegas rackets, was murdered in his home just before he had to testify. Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975 and is believed to have been murdered by Midwestern mob families. Lawmen think Lombardo knew about all of them, including one of the biggest murders of all time.
John Flood says, "Sam Gianacana, supposedly involved in the building of Las Vegas, his brother said Sam told him before he died it was Chicago organized crime guys that assassinated John Kennedy."
That's a whopper of a story, but there is other testimony hinting at a Chicago connection to the JFK slaying. Jack Ruby was a Chicago mob flunky before moving to Dallas. But Flood says he doubts Lombardo would talk, indictment or not.
Lombardo's Chicago attorney acknowledges that his client is a target of the FBI investigation, but he denies any wrong doing by Lombardo. Lombardo has given a DNA sample to the FBI. So have three other suspected mobsters.
Ex-cop John Flood says he doubts Lombardo would roll over or spill the beans about any murder, let alone the JFK assassination, but says it depends on who else might be indicted with him.
Stranger things have happened.
Thanks to George Knapp
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Married to The Ice Man
Friends of ours: Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski
Barbara Pedrin was a naive 19-year-old Italian Roman Catholic girl who lived in West New York and rarely dated - until one night in the early 1960s.
That night, "I did a friend of mine a favor and went on a double date," she said last week. "He was seven years older and very good looking. He couldn't have been more of a gentleman. We went to the movies at Journal Square in Jersey City, then for pizza. I never thought I would see him again."
Little did Barbara Pedrin know that the 26-year-old man she met that night would later become her husband - and one of the most notorious murderers in United States history.
Because on that night, Barbara Pedrin went on a date with Richard Kuklinski, a man who would later be known as "The Ice Man," the famed Mafia hit man who reportedly killed as many as 200 people over the years, before he was apprehended in 1986 and died earlier this year.
Recently, a new book was released on the "Ice Man" by Philip Carlo: "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" (St. Martin's Press). The book has caused some controversy because of Kuklinski's boasts in it, including saying he was involved in the death of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
In an exclusive interview last week, Barbara Kuklinski talked about living with her husband.
Barbara Kuklinski lived in North Bergen until she was 9. She moved to West New York, and today lives in Dumont in Bergen County. She still goes by her husband's name, even though she divorced the serial killer five years after he was convicted of a handful of murders.
One of his murders included a North Bergen ice cream salesman. That man and other victims were subsequently stored into a freezer, earning Richard the name "The Ice Man."
Barbara Kuklinski said that her controlling relationship with the Ice Man began on the day after the first date. "On the day after that first double date, my mother came to get me to say that the fellow I was with last night was at the door," Barbara Kuklinski said in an exclusive interview. "He was there with flowers and candy at about 1 p.m. that next day. We went to Journal Square again, and then all of sudden, he was there every single day. No one ever paid attention to me like that before."
However, it didn't take long for Barbara Kuklinski to realize that Richard was not your average paramour. "He stabbed me in the chest once with a little knife as a way to say that I was his forever," Barbara Kuklinski recalled. "He said, 'I know your mother doesn't want you to go out with me, but you're going to marry me.' He said that if I didn't marry him, he would kill my mother and sister. So I married him out of fear."
Once they were married, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski made West New York their home in a two-family house owned by her mother. All three of their children (a son and two daughters) were born while they resided in West New York. They moved to Dumont in 1971, where Kuklinski bought a home.
Barbara Kuklinski insists that she never had an idea that her husband was a mass murderer. "He always worked," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He always tried to provide for his family. He always had a second job, driving a truck, doing what he had to. He always aspired to make more money. In the early parts of our marriage, I got him a job with Twentieth Century Fox, where he carried a brown bag to work and he brought home the money." But she had no idea that he was making extra money as a paid hit man for the Mafia. "He was extremely private," Kuklinski said.
Her ex-husband died in a prison hospital earlier this year and is now the subject of a new book, "Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," written by Philip Carlo and released by St. Martin's Press earlier this month.
"No one came to the house," she said. "He had his own telephone number. When he wasn't in the house, the door to his office was locked. He didn't call anyone his friend. When he got up in the middle of the night and left, I never asked him where he was going. He always had legitimate businesses, as a wholesale distributor, as an accountant. When he went to Europe, he said it was to do currency exchange deals. I never knew anything. He definitely kept his home and his family apart from what he did." But Barbara Kuklinski knew that something was not right with her husband.
"He was a raging psychopath," Kuklinski said. "That pretty much covers it. He would constantly abuse me, slashing me, throwing things at me. He was so huge, strong and frightening. But he loved me. I have no doubt about that. He never hurt my children. He was insane. Someone asked me why I didn't leave him early on, but there was no leaving. I wish there was some magic that would have made him go away. I know there are thousands of abused women who walked in my shoes and didn't walk away."
Added Kuklinski, "With Richard, it wasn't so much rage. It was control. He wanted to control everything. He was just a sick man and I have the scars to prove it."
Kuklinski said that she never had a clue that Richard Kuklinski was carrying out the assortment of murders, both for his own enjoyment and the paid ones for the mob, according to Carlo's book. "I didn't have a single hint that was going on," Barbara Kuklinski said. "Not a clue." However, Barbara Kuklinski got clues soon enough when federal officials moved in. Kuklinski was allegedly taped by an undercover police officer while trying to set up another contract killing.
In December, 1986, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski were grocery shopping after having breakfast, when the federal officials moved in to make the arrest. "We were driving down the street when a van came right at us," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I think they wanted to make sure I was in the car, so this way, he wouldn't do anything crazy. They came out of the van, some 30 or so officials. They jumped on the hood of the car and pointed guns through the windshield and each window. They got him out the car and put leg shackles on his wrists. They pushed me to the ground."
At first, Barbara Kuklinski was taken into custody as well, because there was a gun inside the car. "He remained silent while we were being arraigned," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He never said a word. I then heard from one of the detectives that he was being held for $2 million bail. I kept saying, 'What for? What did he do?' And one of the detectives said, 'Murder. We have him for murder.' I saw Richard as he was being brought to [Bergen County] jail and asked him what was going on and he said, 'Don't even worry. I'll be home soon.' " But Richard Kuklinski never came home.
He stood trial and was convicted for two murders and was sentenced to life in Trenton State Prison. While in prison, he confessed to the string of hired murders, complete with gruesome details that have been written about in Carlo's book.
"Richard never told me anything," Barbara Kuklinski said. "At first, he never admitted to anything. But when I heard the transcripts in court, I was mortified and couldn't believe them. I then asked him, 'Did you do those things?' and he said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I did things they'll never know.' Once I heard his voice, that's when I believed him."
Barbara Kuklinski said that she divorced the "Ice Man" in 1993, after he was in Trenton State Prison for six years. "Actually, he divorced me for money reasons," Kuklinski said. "Money is a wonderful thing. I actually [had] wished he had dropped dead when we were together. I still would go to see him in prison, but after we were divorced, I only went like once a year with my daughter."
When two HBO documentaries came out on the "Ice Man," with Kuklinski being interviewed about some of the gruesome murders he committed, Barbara Kuklinski was stunned. "It was incomprehensible to me that he could talk about all those things with no feeling and no remorse," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I really couldn't believe it."
She still keeps his last name. "I'm not going to change my name," she said. "Neither will my children. But we're known as Richard Kuklinski's family and now we're treated like dirt. My e-mail address starts 'Just me' and that's who I am and still who I am. I'm just me. I don't like confrontation and I don't like the publicity." She added, "Am I ashamed that I was married to him? No. I didn't do anything wrong. I wish people had sorrow for me and my children. Believe me, we cried for all his victims."
Barbara Kuklinski has not remarried since her divorce to Richard. She still resides in Dumont and has been trying to get on with her life. "It's taken a long time to heal," Kuklinski said. "I'm not totally over it and I still can't believe it. I still have nightmares about him. But I'm doing fine and the kids are all doing OK. I'm not afraid anymore, that's for sure. He's dead. He's gone. It's over. He can't hurt anyone else anymore."
Thanks to Jim Hague
Barbara Pedrin was a naive 19-year-old Italian Roman Catholic girl who lived in West New York and rarely dated - until one night in the early 1960s.
That night, "I did a friend of mine a favor and went on a double date," she said last week. "He was seven years older and very good looking. He couldn't have been more of a gentleman. We went to the movies at Journal Square in Jersey City, then for pizza. I never thought I would see him again."
Little did Barbara Pedrin know that the 26-year-old man she met that night would later become her husband - and one of the most notorious murderers in United States history.
Because on that night, Barbara Pedrin went on a date with Richard Kuklinski, a man who would later be known as "The Ice Man," the famed Mafia hit man who reportedly killed as many as 200 people over the years, before he was apprehended in 1986 and died earlier this year.
Recently, a new book was released on the "Ice Man" by Philip Carlo: "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" (St. Martin's Press). The book has caused some controversy because of Kuklinski's boasts in it, including saying he was involved in the death of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
In an exclusive interview last week, Barbara Kuklinski talked about living with her husband.
Barbara Kuklinski lived in North Bergen until she was 9. She moved to West New York, and today lives in Dumont in Bergen County. She still goes by her husband's name, even though she divorced the serial killer five years after he was convicted of a handful of murders.
One of his murders included a North Bergen ice cream salesman. That man and other victims were subsequently stored into a freezer, earning Richard the name "The Ice Man."
Barbara Kuklinski said that her controlling relationship with the Ice Man began on the day after the first date. "On the day after that first double date, my mother came to get me to say that the fellow I was with last night was at the door," Barbara Kuklinski said in an exclusive interview. "He was there with flowers and candy at about 1 p.m. that next day. We went to Journal Square again, and then all of sudden, he was there every single day. No one ever paid attention to me like that before."
However, it didn't take long for Barbara Kuklinski to realize that Richard was not your average paramour. "He stabbed me in the chest once with a little knife as a way to say that I was his forever," Barbara Kuklinski recalled. "He said, 'I know your mother doesn't want you to go out with me, but you're going to marry me.' He said that if I didn't marry him, he would kill my mother and sister. So I married him out of fear."
Once they were married, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski made West New York their home in a two-family house owned by her mother. All three of their children (a son and two daughters) were born while they resided in West New York. They moved to Dumont in 1971, where Kuklinski bought a home.
Barbara Kuklinski insists that she never had an idea that her husband was a mass murderer. "He always worked," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He always tried to provide for his family. He always had a second job, driving a truck, doing what he had to. He always aspired to make more money. In the early parts of our marriage, I got him a job with Twentieth Century Fox, where he carried a brown bag to work and he brought home the money." But she had no idea that he was making extra money as a paid hit man for the Mafia. "He was extremely private," Kuklinski said.
Her ex-husband died in a prison hospital earlier this year and is now the subject of a new book, "Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," written by Philip Carlo and released by St. Martin's Press earlier this month.
"No one came to the house," she said. "He had his own telephone number. When he wasn't in the house, the door to his office was locked. He didn't call anyone his friend. When he got up in the middle of the night and left, I never asked him where he was going. He always had legitimate businesses, as a wholesale distributor, as an accountant. When he went to Europe, he said it was to do currency exchange deals. I never knew anything. He definitely kept his home and his family apart from what he did." But Barbara Kuklinski knew that something was not right with her husband.
"He was a raging psychopath," Kuklinski said. "That pretty much covers it. He would constantly abuse me, slashing me, throwing things at me. He was so huge, strong and frightening. But he loved me. I have no doubt about that. He never hurt my children. He was insane. Someone asked me why I didn't leave him early on, but there was no leaving. I wish there was some magic that would have made him go away. I know there are thousands of abused women who walked in my shoes and didn't walk away."
Added Kuklinski, "With Richard, it wasn't so much rage. It was control. He wanted to control everything. He was just a sick man and I have the scars to prove it."
Kuklinski said that she never had a clue that Richard Kuklinski was carrying out the assortment of murders, both for his own enjoyment and the paid ones for the mob, according to Carlo's book. "I didn't have a single hint that was going on," Barbara Kuklinski said. "Not a clue." However, Barbara Kuklinski got clues soon enough when federal officials moved in. Kuklinski was allegedly taped by an undercover police officer while trying to set up another contract killing.
In December, 1986, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski were grocery shopping after having breakfast, when the federal officials moved in to make the arrest. "We were driving down the street when a van came right at us," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I think they wanted to make sure I was in the car, so this way, he wouldn't do anything crazy. They came out of the van, some 30 or so officials. They jumped on the hood of the car and pointed guns through the windshield and each window. They got him out the car and put leg shackles on his wrists. They pushed me to the ground."
At first, Barbara Kuklinski was taken into custody as well, because there was a gun inside the car. "He remained silent while we were being arraigned," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He never said a word. I then heard from one of the detectives that he was being held for $2 million bail. I kept saying, 'What for? What did he do?' And one of the detectives said, 'Murder. We have him for murder.' I saw Richard as he was being brought to [Bergen County] jail and asked him what was going on and he said, 'Don't even worry. I'll be home soon.' " But Richard Kuklinski never came home.
He stood trial and was convicted for two murders and was sentenced to life in Trenton State Prison. While in prison, he confessed to the string of hired murders, complete with gruesome details that have been written about in Carlo's book.
"Richard never told me anything," Barbara Kuklinski said. "At first, he never admitted to anything. But when I heard the transcripts in court, I was mortified and couldn't believe them. I then asked him, 'Did you do those things?' and he said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I did things they'll never know.' Once I heard his voice, that's when I believed him."
Barbara Kuklinski said that she divorced the "Ice Man" in 1993, after he was in Trenton State Prison for six years. "Actually, he divorced me for money reasons," Kuklinski said. "Money is a wonderful thing. I actually [had] wished he had dropped dead when we were together. I still would go to see him in prison, but after we were divorced, I only went like once a year with my daughter."
When two HBO documentaries came out on the "Ice Man," with Kuklinski being interviewed about some of the gruesome murders he committed, Barbara Kuklinski was stunned. "It was incomprehensible to me that he could talk about all those things with no feeling and no remorse," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I really couldn't believe it."
She still keeps his last name. "I'm not going to change my name," she said. "Neither will my children. But we're known as Richard Kuklinski's family and now we're treated like dirt. My e-mail address starts 'Just me' and that's who I am and still who I am. I'm just me. I don't like confrontation and I don't like the publicity." She added, "Am I ashamed that I was married to him? No. I didn't do anything wrong. I wish people had sorrow for me and my children. Believe me, we cried for all his victims."
Barbara Kuklinski has not remarried since her divorce to Richard. She still resides in Dumont and has been trying to get on with her life. "It's taken a long time to heal," Kuklinski said. "I'm not totally over it and I still can't believe it. I still have nightmares about him. But I'm doing fine and the kids are all doing OK. I'm not afraid anymore, that's for sure. He's dead. He's gone. It's over. He can't hurt anyone else anymore."
Thanks to Jim Hague
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