The leader of a west side drug trafficking conspiracy operated by members and associates of the Traveling Vice Lords street gang was convicted by a jury last week of federal narcotics charges following a trial in U.S. District Court. Jason Austin, 29, of Chicago, was found guilty of conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin and five counts of distributing crack cocaine after several hours of deliberation late Wednesday and yesterday. The trial began Feb. 14.
Austin, who has been in federal custody since November 2010, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison on each count. U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow set sentencing for June 29.
Austin and 30 other members and associates of the Traveling Vice Lords were arrested in November 2010 as part of Operation Blue Knight, which focused on around-the-clock retail street sales of crack cocaine and heroin in the area of Kedzie Avenue and Ohio Street, known as “KO.” Significant amounts of crack cocaine and heroin were seized during the two-year investigation, which the Chicago Police Department’s Organized Crime Division began in 2008 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined several months later.
The verdict was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Garry McCarthy, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The investigation was conducted under the umbrella of U.S. Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), and with assistance from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force (HIDTA).
The evidence at trial showed that Austin, also known as “J Rock,” conspired with others to distribute crack cocaine, known as “rocks,” and heroin, known as “blows,” to customers via hand-to-hand transactions in the “KO.” The heroin, named “Blue Magic,” alone accounted for as much as $8,000 a day in sales, between approximately 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., seven days a week. During the investigation, law enforcement officers repeatedly surveilled the conduct of co-conspirators at KO. Surveillance, often video recorded, observed hand-to-hand drug transactions, controlled purchases of narcotics by undercover Chicago police officers, and controlled purchases of narcotics by confidential sources.
The government is being represented by Assistant United States Attorneys Maribel Fernandez-Harvath and Matthew Madden.
Get the latest breaking current news and explore our Historic Archive of articles focusing on The Mafia, Organized Crime, The Mob and Mobsters, Gangs and Gangsters, Political Corruption, True Crime, and the Legal System at TheChicagoSyndicate.com
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Legal Laboratory Uses Science To De-Stress America’s Courtrooms
Imagine your life or fortune is on the line in a courtroom in America and twelve jurors hold your fate in their hands? Easing that scary proposition out of the minds of people on trial is what led Jason Bloom to developing a path of taking the guesswork out of jury outcomes. Bloom says, “Juries are like icebergs - what you see above water is the demographics; age, ethnicity and gender. However, below the water are attitudes, life experiences and predispositions which are more predictive to the outcome of a case.”
His crystal ball has been put to the test in more than 350 cases as his company, Bloom Strategic Consulting, celebrates five years and an astonishing 90 percent accuracy rate. Bloom has become a modern-day Nostradamus taking the mystery out of the judicial process and easing clients fears so they don’t have to sit on pins and needles throughout the length of the case. His company profiles the jury through mock trials and focus groups to see what’s important and what’s not important to the men and women in the box. “What I’ve really learned and what’s still fascinating to me is that there is a gap probably the size of an ocean between what lawyers and witnesses want to tell juries and what these juries actually want to see, hear and care about towards making their ultimate decisions and rendering verdicts,” says Bloom.
Working on science and strategy not hunches also led Jason Bloom to build his own legal laboratory in Dallas, Texas, called TrialMode. It’s a state-of-the-art mock courtroom designed for realistic, trial-like examination of case strategy, fact patterns and witnesses the ultimate decision makers’ point of view.
His crystal ball has been put to the test in more than 350 cases as his company, Bloom Strategic Consulting, celebrates five years and an astonishing 90 percent accuracy rate. Bloom has become a modern-day Nostradamus taking the mystery out of the judicial process and easing clients fears so they don’t have to sit on pins and needles throughout the length of the case. His company profiles the jury through mock trials and focus groups to see what’s important and what’s not important to the men and women in the box. “What I’ve really learned and what’s still fascinating to me is that there is a gap probably the size of an ocean between what lawyers and witnesses want to tell juries and what these juries actually want to see, hear and care about towards making their ultimate decisions and rendering verdicts,” says Bloom.
Working on science and strategy not hunches also led Jason Bloom to build his own legal laboratory in Dallas, Texas, called TrialMode. It’s a state-of-the-art mock courtroom designed for realistic, trial-like examination of case strategy, fact patterns and witnesses the ultimate decision makers’ point of view.
Friday, February 24, 2012
William Beavers Indicted on Federal Tax Charges for Allegedly Failing to Pay Taxes on Campaign Funds and County Expense Account Used for Personal Purposes
Cook County Commissioner William Beavers was indicted yesterday on federal tax charges for allegedly obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and failing to report, and pay taxes on, all of his income. Beavers allegedly concealed his under-reporting of income and underpayment of taxes on thousands of dollars that he converted to personal use from his campaign accounts—including more than $68,000 in personal gain on one occasion that was not reported—as well as from his county discretionary spending account. Between 2006 and 2008, Beavers allegedly paid himself more than $225,000 from three separate campaign accounts and used at least a portion of those funds for personal purposes, including gambling. In 2006, he used more than $68,000 from a campaign account to boost his city pension, and between 2006 and 2008, he used his $1,200 monthly county contingency account for personal purposes without reporting any of these funds as income on his federal tax returns, the indictment alleges.
Beavers, 77, of Chicago, was charged with one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the IRS and three counts of filing false federal income tax returns in a four-count indictment that was returned today by a federal grand jury, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Alvin Patton, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Beavers, who was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, representing the 4th District, in November 2006 and began serving as a commissioner a month later, will be ordered to appear for arraignment on a date to be determined in U.S. District Court. Previously, Beavers served as the 7th Ward alderman on Chicago’s City Council from 1983 until November 2006, when he was elected to the commissioner’s post.
“If politicians choose to use their campaign funds for personal use then they, like all the citizens they serve, share the obligation to honestly report their income and pay the correct amount of taxes,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “The indictment alleges that over a course of three years, Commissioner Beavers repeatedly used his campaign accounts for personal use and then thwarted the Internal Revenue Service by causing his campaign committees to create false records to cover it up.”
Mr. Patton of the IRS said, “When public officials raise money for political campaigns and use those funds for personal expenses, they must report it as income and pay taxes. A system of government, like ours, which depends on its citizens’ voluntarily compliance with tax laws, is undermined when elected officials shirk their tax responsibilities.”
According to the indictment, Beavers had sole authority over three campaign committees that supported his political activities—Citizens for Beavers, Friends of William Beavers, also known as Friends for William Beavers, and 7th Ward Democratic Organization. As part of the corrupt endeavor to obstruct the IRS, Beavers allegedly converted campaign funds for his own personal use, provided false information to his campaign treasurers regarding the use of these funds, and understated his income and the taxes he owed in his individual income tax returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008.
During those three years, Beavers caused his campaign committees to issue checks payable to himself and to third parties on his behalf, and he allegedly used at least part of the proceeds for personal expenses, including an unspecified amount for gambling. The checks included approximately 100 payable to Beavers personally, totaling about $96,000 in 2006, $69,300 in 2007, and $61,000 in 2008, for a total of approximately $226,300.
As part of the corrupt endeavor, the indictment alleges that Beavers concealed his personal use of campaign funds by maintaining and causing campaign workers to maintain records that falsely reflected the uses of campaign checks payable to Beavers, including records used to prepare semi-annual Illinois campaign finance reports known as D-2s. Beavers caused campaign workers to falsely record, on check stubs and other records, that certain campaign checks written to him and used for personal purposes were instead used for campaign expenses, the charges allege.
In some instances, Beavers allegedly attempted to conceal his use of campaign funds for personal use by telling campaign workers that checks payable to and cashed by him were for paying campaign-related expenses, even though those expenses were not incurred by the campaign committees until months after Beavers had converted the funds. In other instances, Beavers withheld from his campaign staff any explanation of certain checks payable to him, or he caused workers to falsely record that certain checks were “void” or unused even though he had cashed them.
The indictment alleges that on Nov. 14, 2006, Beavers caused a check for $68,763.07 to be paid from Citizens for Beavers to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, a pension plan for certain City of Chicago employees including Aldermen, to increase his monthly pension from $2,890 to $6,541. The check allegedly was for personal use and should have been, but was not, reported as income on his 2006 income tax return.
Beginning in December 2006 when he began serving as a county commissioner, through November 2008, Beavers received $1,200 a month from Cook County in the form of a Commissioner Contingency Account (CCA) check for discretionary use. Any personal use of these funds was reportable as income, according to the indictment. Beavers allegedly used the total of $28,800 for personal purposes without reporting any of the funds as income on tax returns.
The three counts of filing false tax returns allege that Beavers failed to include unspecified gross income from his campaign committees and county account when he reported the following amounts of total income and taxable income on his federal returns for 2006-2008:
Each count of the indictment carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine and restitution is mandatory. In addition, defendants convicted of tax offenses must pay the costs of prosecution and remain liable for any and all back taxes, as well as a civil fraud penalty of 75 percent of the underpayment plus interest. If convicted, the court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.
The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Getter and Samuel B. Cole.
Beavers, 77, of Chicago, was charged with one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the IRS and three counts of filing false federal income tax returns in a four-count indictment that was returned today by a federal grand jury, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Alvin Patton, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Beavers, who was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, representing the 4th District, in November 2006 and began serving as a commissioner a month later, will be ordered to appear for arraignment on a date to be determined in U.S. District Court. Previously, Beavers served as the 7th Ward alderman on Chicago’s City Council from 1983 until November 2006, when he was elected to the commissioner’s post.
“If politicians choose to use their campaign funds for personal use then they, like all the citizens they serve, share the obligation to honestly report their income and pay the correct amount of taxes,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “The indictment alleges that over a course of three years, Commissioner Beavers repeatedly used his campaign accounts for personal use and then thwarted the Internal Revenue Service by causing his campaign committees to create false records to cover it up.”
Mr. Patton of the IRS said, “When public officials raise money for political campaigns and use those funds for personal expenses, they must report it as income and pay taxes. A system of government, like ours, which depends on its citizens’ voluntarily compliance with tax laws, is undermined when elected officials shirk their tax responsibilities.”
According to the indictment, Beavers had sole authority over three campaign committees that supported his political activities—Citizens for Beavers, Friends of William Beavers, also known as Friends for William Beavers, and 7th Ward Democratic Organization. As part of the corrupt endeavor to obstruct the IRS, Beavers allegedly converted campaign funds for his own personal use, provided false information to his campaign treasurers regarding the use of these funds, and understated his income and the taxes he owed in his individual income tax returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008.
During those three years, Beavers caused his campaign committees to issue checks payable to himself and to third parties on his behalf, and he allegedly used at least part of the proceeds for personal expenses, including an unspecified amount for gambling. The checks included approximately 100 payable to Beavers personally, totaling about $96,000 in 2006, $69,300 in 2007, and $61,000 in 2008, for a total of approximately $226,300.
As part of the corrupt endeavor, the indictment alleges that Beavers concealed his personal use of campaign funds by maintaining and causing campaign workers to maintain records that falsely reflected the uses of campaign checks payable to Beavers, including records used to prepare semi-annual Illinois campaign finance reports known as D-2s. Beavers caused campaign workers to falsely record, on check stubs and other records, that certain campaign checks written to him and used for personal purposes were instead used for campaign expenses, the charges allege.
In some instances, Beavers allegedly attempted to conceal his use of campaign funds for personal use by telling campaign workers that checks payable to and cashed by him were for paying campaign-related expenses, even though those expenses were not incurred by the campaign committees until months after Beavers had converted the funds. In other instances, Beavers withheld from his campaign staff any explanation of certain checks payable to him, or he caused workers to falsely record that certain checks were “void” or unused even though he had cashed them.
The indictment alleges that on Nov. 14, 2006, Beavers caused a check for $68,763.07 to be paid from Citizens for Beavers to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, a pension plan for certain City of Chicago employees including Aldermen, to increase his monthly pension from $2,890 to $6,541. The check allegedly was for personal use and should have been, but was not, reported as income on his 2006 income tax return.
Beginning in December 2006 when he began serving as a county commissioner, through November 2008, Beavers received $1,200 a month from Cook County in the form of a Commissioner Contingency Account (CCA) check for discretionary use. Any personal use of these funds was reportable as income, according to the indictment. Beavers allegedly used the total of $28,800 for personal purposes without reporting any of the funds as income on tax returns.
The three counts of filing false tax returns allege that Beavers failed to include unspecified gross income from his campaign committees and county account when he reported the following amounts of total income and taxable income on his federal returns for 2006-2008:
- $208,561 total income and $98,453 taxable income for 2006;
- $487,568 total and $204,228 taxable for 2007; and
- $300,408 total and $171,507 taxable for 2008.
Each count of the indictment carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine and restitution is mandatory. In addition, defendants convicted of tax offenses must pay the costs of prosecution and remain liable for any and all back taxes, as well as a civil fraud penalty of 75 percent of the underpayment plus interest. If convicted, the court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.
The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Getter and Samuel B. Cole.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
In Mob Museum, Las Vegas Embraces Its Bad Guys of Old
Lefty, Lucky, the Ant, Bugsy, the Snake, the Chin, Scarface, the Brain. The monikers of mobsters are like the nicknames of odd superheroes. They are two syllables of rat-tat firing, evoking creepy animals, physical protrusions or uncanny powers. And now, here in a city where such figures were once as comfortably in their element as Zeus and his family on Olympus, they are finally getting something close to the museum they deserve: the Mob Museum, a $42 million survey of the American gangster, unfolding in 17,000 square feet of exhibition space, on three floors of a 41,000-square-foot landmark building on Stewart Avenue.
With artifacts, clever interactive displays, atmospheric exhibits, photographs and videos, we learn how Las Vegas developed out of the early 20th century desert, and how workers on the nearby Hoover Dam gave the town its first population explosion. We see how the mob maneuvered into businesses of pleasure, not releasing its hold until late in the 20th century when corporate casinos trumped their almost quaint predecessors.
We learn, too, of these Jewish and Italian immigrants who treated the “land of opportunity,” as “the opportunity to grab what they could,” and by trafficking in blood and booze built up national empires, until they were brought down with wiretaps, informants and more blood.
Like many things in mob-related American culture (even those nicknames), the museum mixes attraction and repulsion, sentimentality and hard-edged realism, relish and disgust. Like a gangster movie, it seduces us with these figures with one hand, and reminds us, with the other, of the demands of justice. Its alluring colloquial title, Mob Museum, is countered with a stern subtitle on the facade of this 1933 neo-Classical former post office and courthouse: the “National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.”
And while the museum seeks a kind of romantic appeal by opening on Valentine’s Day – the 83rd anniversary, it points out, of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, when members of George “Bugs” Moran’s gang were murdered by Al Capone’s rival thugs posing as police officers – it also makes sure to deflate gangster romance by reminding us that this cold-blooded episode was so horrific, it led to a turning point, spurring expanded federal investigation. We even see a portion of the original brick wall where the massacre took place, pockmarked by circled bullet holes; it serves as an eerie screen on which one of the museum’s many short films, “Bootleg Wars,” is projected.
The tension between allure and disgust recurs throughout. We may be shocked by the description of Bruno Facciola’s murder in New York City in 1990 (shot in both eyes, stabbed and a dead canary jammed in his mouth), but we also see photographs of 1950s celebrities in mob-run casinos and of glamorous film stars playing criminals. The mob is portrayed as weaving a web of evil (the museum believes John F. Kennedy’s assassination was the result of mob involvement in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro) but also as an object of fascination.
The exhibition designers, Gallagher & Associates, and the “content developers” Barrie Projects and the curator, Kathleen Coakley Barrie, begin their double-edge treatment soon after you enter the lobby where the original post boxes are still in place behind video screens and text panels.
You are lured in with an overused museological conceit: You are treated as a mobster “under suspicion.” The elevator to the third floor where the exhibitions begin includes a video of a policeman sternly reading you your Miranda rights, and the first “gallery” is a police “lineup” where photos are taken (eventually to be sold at the museum shop).
That conceit, though, is soon left behind. The emphasis is ultimately placed not on the mysterious appeal of the mob, but on the fight against it. The museum’s heart is a splendidly restored courtroom, where the Senate’s Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce held its seventh hearing in 1950, led by Sen. Estes Kefauver. The Kefauver hearings were held in cities across the country, televised live and seen by 30 million people – the first media sensation. Here, that courtroom becomes the backdrop to a film about the hearings.
Emphasis on enforcement grows as the exhibitions proceed, with accounts of bugged homes and telephone booths, informants marked for death, and undercover agents trying to prevent killings. The museum never leaves behind hints of mob romance – one gallery includes heart-warming family photos of mob figures – but such fascination is never allowed to go unanswered: The next gallery is a chronicle of thuggery and blood.
There can be no surprise in the ultimate emphasis. The president of the nonprofit governing board of the museum, Ellen B. Knowlton, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and had been in charge of the agency’s Las Vegas division. Another board member, and one of the forces behind the museum, is Oscar B. Goodman, who served as Las Vegas mayor until term limits forced his retirement; he was then able to swear in his wife, Carolyn G. Goodman, the current mayor, in his place.
Even Goodman has two perspectives, one as former mayor, and the other as a former defense lawyer for many of the city’s mobsters, including Meyer Lansky and Anthony Spilotro. Las Vegas, to no surprise, doesn’t come off badly in this account of its mob-marred past. This museum is meant to be an anchor to revive the downtown area. The bulk of the funding has come from the city, with additional assistance from the state and federal governments including almost $9 million in grants for the restoration and preservation of the landmark building by the architects, Westlake Reed Leskosky.
Does Las Vegas get off too easy? Maybe it always did. One comment cited here is credited to Tony Accardo, a Chicago mob boss: “We don’t want no blood there,” he said. “It’s bad for tourist business.”
And in a gallery devoted to what is wryly called the mob’s “greatest hits,” the murders are mainly in cities other than Las Vegas. Besides, look around, outside of downtown: the economic veneer has chipped in recent years, but the legacy of mob-run spectacle and sensation is still astonishing.
But the gangster romance is far more dominant in another mob exhibition in town. Called “Las Vegas Mob Experience” when it opened last year at the Tropicana, it turned visitors into mob aspirants on a journey through various stage sets representing mob history, met along the way by moving images of James Caan, Mickey Rourke and other cinematic mob personas addressing them.
The show went melodramatically bankrupt but will soon be revived under new ownership as “Mob Attraction Las Vegas.” Visitors will move through stage sets of mob history; at the center is a series of galleries of artifacts provided by local gangster families. In a gallery labeled “To Meyer Lansky,” there are his home movies, outfits and favorite poems; in another is living-room furniture of Sam Giancana, Capone’s “efficient and ruthless triggerman.” We are indeed meant to be attracted by these figures; and a tour I took of the show’s planned script suggests that it will turn the mob into an amusing entertainment, refusing to take itself too seriously.
The Mob Museum has entirely different interests, but the tension with mob romance remains. And to a certain extent, that may be unavoidable, partly because of where we are standing: “Las Vegas was an ‘open city,”’ the exhibition tells us, “meaning that no one syndicate dominated the town. That made it an exciting destination for mobsters nationwide who were eager to start fresh and launch new ventures.”
The mob-run hotels even shaped Las Vegas culture as we know it. Sure, they were bad guys, but the appeal here was to the potential bad guy in everyone, while guaranteeing a degree of immunity: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” In displays here, the hotels of the 1950s and '60s have an avant-gardish freewheeling style. We see a photo of Elvis Presley and Liberace clowning around in the 1950s, or of Marlene Dietrich performing with Louis Armstrong at the Riviera in 1962. One picture here from the Sands shows a floating crap game that puts Nathan Detroit to shame: It is being played on a pool raft.
Moreover, in their embrace of lawlessness and in their assertion of power over life and death, mobsters could seem masters of the very forces of chance to which gamblers here are in thrall. Their gestures and decisions were as swift and sure as the click of a ball falling into a slot on the roulette wheel; their killings as mechanically ruthless as the spinning fruit on one-arm bandits. They are still the gods of Vegas. And here, with great verve, they have become objects of both homage and retribution.
Thanks to LVS
With artifacts, clever interactive displays, atmospheric exhibits, photographs and videos, we learn how Las Vegas developed out of the early 20th century desert, and how workers on the nearby Hoover Dam gave the town its first population explosion. We see how the mob maneuvered into businesses of pleasure, not releasing its hold until late in the 20th century when corporate casinos trumped their almost quaint predecessors.
We learn, too, of these Jewish and Italian immigrants who treated the “land of opportunity,” as “the opportunity to grab what they could,” and by trafficking in blood and booze built up national empires, until they were brought down with wiretaps, informants and more blood.
Like many things in mob-related American culture (even those nicknames), the museum mixes attraction and repulsion, sentimentality and hard-edged realism, relish and disgust. Like a gangster movie, it seduces us with these figures with one hand, and reminds us, with the other, of the demands of justice. Its alluring colloquial title, Mob Museum, is countered with a stern subtitle on the facade of this 1933 neo-Classical former post office and courthouse: the “National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.”
And while the museum seeks a kind of romantic appeal by opening on Valentine’s Day – the 83rd anniversary, it points out, of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, when members of George “Bugs” Moran’s gang were murdered by Al Capone’s rival thugs posing as police officers – it also makes sure to deflate gangster romance by reminding us that this cold-blooded episode was so horrific, it led to a turning point, spurring expanded federal investigation. We even see a portion of the original brick wall where the massacre took place, pockmarked by circled bullet holes; it serves as an eerie screen on which one of the museum’s many short films, “Bootleg Wars,” is projected.
The tension between allure and disgust recurs throughout. We may be shocked by the description of Bruno Facciola’s murder in New York City in 1990 (shot in both eyes, stabbed and a dead canary jammed in his mouth), but we also see photographs of 1950s celebrities in mob-run casinos and of glamorous film stars playing criminals. The mob is portrayed as weaving a web of evil (the museum believes John F. Kennedy’s assassination was the result of mob involvement in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro) but also as an object of fascination.
The exhibition designers, Gallagher & Associates, and the “content developers” Barrie Projects and the curator, Kathleen Coakley Barrie, begin their double-edge treatment soon after you enter the lobby where the original post boxes are still in place behind video screens and text panels.
You are lured in with an overused museological conceit: You are treated as a mobster “under suspicion.” The elevator to the third floor where the exhibitions begin includes a video of a policeman sternly reading you your Miranda rights, and the first “gallery” is a police “lineup” where photos are taken (eventually to be sold at the museum shop).
That conceit, though, is soon left behind. The emphasis is ultimately placed not on the mysterious appeal of the mob, but on the fight against it. The museum’s heart is a splendidly restored courtroom, where the Senate’s Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce held its seventh hearing in 1950, led by Sen. Estes Kefauver. The Kefauver hearings were held in cities across the country, televised live and seen by 30 million people – the first media sensation. Here, that courtroom becomes the backdrop to a film about the hearings.
Emphasis on enforcement grows as the exhibitions proceed, with accounts of bugged homes and telephone booths, informants marked for death, and undercover agents trying to prevent killings. The museum never leaves behind hints of mob romance – one gallery includes heart-warming family photos of mob figures – but such fascination is never allowed to go unanswered: The next gallery is a chronicle of thuggery and blood.
There can be no surprise in the ultimate emphasis. The president of the nonprofit governing board of the museum, Ellen B. Knowlton, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and had been in charge of the agency’s Las Vegas division. Another board member, and one of the forces behind the museum, is Oscar B. Goodman, who served as Las Vegas mayor until term limits forced his retirement; he was then able to swear in his wife, Carolyn G. Goodman, the current mayor, in his place.
Even Goodman has two perspectives, one as former mayor, and the other as a former defense lawyer for many of the city’s mobsters, including Meyer Lansky and Anthony Spilotro. Las Vegas, to no surprise, doesn’t come off badly in this account of its mob-marred past. This museum is meant to be an anchor to revive the downtown area. The bulk of the funding has come from the city, with additional assistance from the state and federal governments including almost $9 million in grants for the restoration and preservation of the landmark building by the architects, Westlake Reed Leskosky.
Does Las Vegas get off too easy? Maybe it always did. One comment cited here is credited to Tony Accardo, a Chicago mob boss: “We don’t want no blood there,” he said. “It’s bad for tourist business.”
And in a gallery devoted to what is wryly called the mob’s “greatest hits,” the murders are mainly in cities other than Las Vegas. Besides, look around, outside of downtown: the economic veneer has chipped in recent years, but the legacy of mob-run spectacle and sensation is still astonishing.
But the gangster romance is far more dominant in another mob exhibition in town. Called “Las Vegas Mob Experience” when it opened last year at the Tropicana, it turned visitors into mob aspirants on a journey through various stage sets representing mob history, met along the way by moving images of James Caan, Mickey Rourke and other cinematic mob personas addressing them.
The show went melodramatically bankrupt but will soon be revived under new ownership as “Mob Attraction Las Vegas.” Visitors will move through stage sets of mob history; at the center is a series of galleries of artifacts provided by local gangster families. In a gallery labeled “To Meyer Lansky,” there are his home movies, outfits and favorite poems; in another is living-room furniture of Sam Giancana, Capone’s “efficient and ruthless triggerman.” We are indeed meant to be attracted by these figures; and a tour I took of the show’s planned script suggests that it will turn the mob into an amusing entertainment, refusing to take itself too seriously.
The Mob Museum has entirely different interests, but the tension with mob romance remains. And to a certain extent, that may be unavoidable, partly because of where we are standing: “Las Vegas was an ‘open city,”’ the exhibition tells us, “meaning that no one syndicate dominated the town. That made it an exciting destination for mobsters nationwide who were eager to start fresh and launch new ventures.”
The mob-run hotels even shaped Las Vegas culture as we know it. Sure, they were bad guys, but the appeal here was to the potential bad guy in everyone, while guaranteeing a degree of immunity: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” In displays here, the hotels of the 1950s and '60s have an avant-gardish freewheeling style. We see a photo of Elvis Presley and Liberace clowning around in the 1950s, or of Marlene Dietrich performing with Louis Armstrong at the Riviera in 1962. One picture here from the Sands shows a floating crap game that puts Nathan Detroit to shame: It is being played on a pool raft.
Moreover, in their embrace of lawlessness and in their assertion of power over life and death, mobsters could seem masters of the very forces of chance to which gamblers here are in thrall. Their gestures and decisions were as swift and sure as the click of a ball falling into a slot on the roulette wheel; their killings as mechanically ruthless as the spinning fruit on one-arm bandits. They are still the gods of Vegas. And here, with great verve, they have become objects of both homage and retribution.
Thanks to LVS
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Mark Hay Gets Six Years in Prison
A burglar who was a key government informant against reputed Chicago mobsters has been sentenced to six years in prison for his crimes.
Prosecutors sought leniency for 56-year-old Mark Hay, noting that he'll likely be in the witness protection program for the rest of his life.
Hay was in a criminal group overseen by Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno, a mob boss recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for racketeering and other charges.
Hay wore a wire during meetings with group members and helped the government get others to become witnesses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu says the so-called Chicago Outfit "does not look kindly on individuals who cooperate against it."
Hay allegedly continued to commit burglaries after promising the government he wouldn't commit crimes while cooperating.
Prosecutors sought leniency for 56-year-old Mark Hay, noting that he'll likely be in the witness protection program for the rest of his life.
Hay was in a criminal group overseen by Michael "The Large Guy" Sarno, a mob boss recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for racketeering and other charges.
Hay wore a wire during meetings with group members and helped the government get others to become witnesses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu says the so-called Chicago Outfit "does not look kindly on individuals who cooperate against it."
Hay allegedly continued to commit burglaries after promising the government he wouldn't commit crimes while cooperating.
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