The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob (13 page)

McCarthy quickly answered, alleging that some of the statements Goodman had made to the press constituted violations of Nevada Supreme Court rules. He quoted from Rule 199. “A member of the bar should try his cases in court, not in the news media. No statement should be made which indicates intended proof, or what witnesses will be called, or which amount to comments or arguments on the merits of the case.”

Wasting no time, Goodman again attacked McCarthy and his press release. “He advocated getting a lynch mob and running my client out of town. I find that an irresponsible statement for a public official to make.”

Judge Troubles

Within two weeks of the lawsuit being filed, three judges were disqualified in an unquestioned basis or after admitting they had opinions on the case. The fourth judge assigned to the case announced he was disqualifying himself, after being asked to bow out by the District Attorney’s Office because he had previously expressed concerns about police making traffic stops in unmarked cars. The matter had to be returned to the clerk for the random selection of yet another judge. By the time an acceptable judge was found, eight of the 12 District Court judges had either been disqualified, or disqualified themselves, from presiding.

Oscar Out?

In September, the District Attorney’s Office acted on Sheriff McCarthy’s charges that Oscar Goodman had violated Supreme Court rule 199 in regard to his statements to the press. The D.A. filed a motion to have Goodman and his law firm disqualified from the harassment case for misconduct and unethical behavior. The brief filed in support of the motion alleged that Goodman’s comments had “prejudiced the defendants’ [McCarthy and his officers’] rights and have cast this judicial district and this case in a poor public light.”

The lawsuit was dismissed when Tony Spilotro refused to give a pre-trial deposition. In
Of Rats and Men,
Oscar Goodman explains the end of the case this way. “Eventually, they wanted to take his deposition, knowing he wasn’t going to let them. I couldn’t prevent them from taking Tony’s deposition. Tony never said boo to law enforcement, so I wasn’t about to expose him and the case was dismissed.”

The Foul Fowl and Other Tales

While Sheriff McCarthy’s dealings with politicians were often contentious, there were some humorous moments, too. For example, during a September meeting of the Las Vegas Metro Police Commission, McCarthy accused the commissioners of acting like a gaggle of geese. The next day a messenger, with a group of reporters in tow, delivered a package to McCarthy aide Norm Ziola.

“It was a fifteen-pound goose,” Ziola recalled with a chuckle in 2004. “It was from Commissioner Paul Christensen and had a note that said, ‘So you will be able to tell the difference, this is a goose.’ We all had a laugh and the reporters took a lot of pictures. I was wearing a brand new sports coat that day and while we were posing for the photos, the damn goose crapped all over it.”

McCarthy named the department’s new mascot “Paul.”

Gene Smith recounted having to make a confession regarding some booze missing from McCarthy’s office. “McCarthy had a television in his office and kept a supply of Scotch inside a big world globe. It happened I had pass keys for most of the offices, including his. We were on the afternoon shift and a popular cop show was running at the time. ... I think it was ‘Hill Street Blues.’ Anyway, on the night the program was on, I’d take my squad into McCarthy’s office and watch it on his television. I considered them training sessions. On occasion we’d have a swig or two of Scotch while watching TV.

“Eventually, McCarthy noticed his Scotch inventory wasn’t what it should be. He was none too happy about it and figured that our custodian was the culprit. When I found out the janitor was going to be confronted and possibly disciplined, I had no choice but to confess. I got off pretty easy, but our TV nights were over.”

Smith also remembered a courtroom encounter with Oscar Goodman he found amusing. “Frank Cullotta was in court for a residential burglary and Oscar was representing him. I was on the stand in civilian clothes being cross-examined. Goodman noticed that I was armed and raised that as an issue with the judge. He said he didn’t feel safe having an armed witness. The judge said that police officers were welcome to be armed in his court, including while on the stand.

“We broke for lunch and when I came back I had a package with me. As soon as I got back on the stand, Oscar asked me what was in the package. I opened it and pulled out a bulletproof vest. I told him I thought he might want to put it on so he’d feel safer about me having a weapon. Oscar went ballistic and demanded the judge do something. The judge said, ‘When you asked what was inside the package you opened the door for his answer. Now let’s move on.’ I don’t know as Oscar thought it was funny, but there were a lot of chuckles in that courtroom.”

Former McCarthy insiders cited a couple of other incidents that can be laughed at now, but weren’t particularly funny to them at the time. The first case involved a local newspaper reporter whose articles tended to be critical of McCarthy and his administration.

“This particular reporter was very negative toward us and frequently wrote hit pieces based on rumor and anonymous sources. I went to him and asked that he check with me before writing stories that reflected poorly on the department. I promised I’d be honest with him and if we’d screwed up, I’d admit it. But if the allegations weren’t true, I wanted a chance to refute them before they hit the paper. He agreed and our relationship improved for the next several weeks,” McCarthy’s former assistant said.

“Then one morning before leaving for work, I grabbed the paper off my porch and found it contained a scathing article about Metro. Surprised and disappointed, I stopped in to see the reporter on my way to the office. I asked why he hadn’t given me a chance to state Metro’s side of the story before he ran with it. His response was that he’d been at an event at the Riviera a couple of days earlier and Sheriff McCarthy had also been in attendance. The reporter was in the men’s room when he noticed McCarthy was at the next urinal. He said hello. John replied, ‘Fuck you,’ and walked out. Our truce was over and the reporter went back into the attack mode.”

In another incident, a senior staff member recalled working for several weeks to set up a meeting between Sheriff McCarthy and a couple of City Council members with whom he was feuding. Finally, the session was scheduled to be held in the restaurant at the top of the Mint.

“When everyone showed up, I excused myself and went to another table so the meeting would have an element of privacy. Before I had a chance to order a drink, I heard McCarthy say, ‘Go fuck yourselves.’ He then went storming out toward the elevators. I caught up with him and asked what had happened. He said, ‘They told me that if we worked together we could control Las Vegas and the entire county. I ran for office to change how these people have been doing things, not to join them.’

The maverick McCarthy had done what he thought was right. But needless to say, the encounter did little to mend any fences.

Frank Cullotta Arrested

On November 20, Metro Intelligence Bureau officers arrested Frank Cullotta on charges of possession of stolen property. While executing a search warrant at Cullotta’s residence on that date, the police found property listed on an earlier burglary report. Cullotta and a female companion refused to provide an explanation regarding how the goods came into their hands. They were both arrested and taken to jail.

This was far from Cullotta’s last trip to the lockup.

Gotcha

Also in November, it appeared that the Ant had finally made a mistake that could land him in the local slammer. He was reportedly observed having breakfast in one of the casinos, a violation for Tony and others who’d been black-booked. A security guard at the Sahara called Metro and reported that the FBI had brought the crime-in-progress to his attention. A detective was dispatched to the Sahara and arrested Spilotro, who was unable to provide any identification. The subject was whisked away to jail.

Gene Smith got word of the arrest and went to the booking area to check things out. In a matter of seconds, he realized there’d been a mistake. “The detective they sent to the Sahara wasn’t part of the Spilotro investigation and wasn’t all that familiar with Tony. He’d arrested a Spilotro all right, but it wasn’t Tony. I told him to cut the guy loose immediately.” The cops had taken Patrick Spilotro into custody. A dentist from Chicago, he was Tony’s brother, with a strong physical resemblance. Patrick had every right to be in any casino he chose to patronize.

Kent Clifford and his men knew that Metro had been the victim of a setup. The alleged FBI tip had been a fake. The flap was seized upon by the Spilotros to further their claims of harassment. The print news media had a story of police incompetence that would bring a lot of chuckles and head-shaking from their readers—all at Metro’s expense.

There was little doubt that Tony Spilotro was laughing the hardest of all.

Death at the MGM

At 7:20 a.m. on November 21, a non-Spilotro event occurred that bears mentioning because of the loss of life involved and its effect on the safety standards imposed on every hotel in Las Vegas: The MGM broke out in flames. If sprinkler systems had been required at the time, the fire would likely have resulted in relatively minor property damage. But they weren’t, so the ground-floor kitchen where the blaze started was dangerously vulnerable to fire. Before the inferno was brought under control, 85 unfortunate souls perished. A Metro helicopter crew consisting of pilot Sgt. Harry Christopher and Officer Tom Mildren became heroes that day for evacuating panicked guests and employees trapped on the roof of the 26-story building.

The tragedy resulted in new safety codes that make the hotels in Las Vegas among the safest of any tourist city in the country.

9

1981

T
he courts are the legal mechanism for people seeking to redress perceived wrongs. The courts were used to go after the police in the Bluestein shooting case. But after the cops were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by the coroner’s inquest, some people apparently didn’t feel that the pending civil actions would provide the justice they sought. In late February, Metro was informed by the FBI’s Chicago office that they’d picked up credible information about contracts put out on the lives of David Groover and Gene Smith. The two Intelligence Bureau officers were marked for death and two hit men from Chicago were on their way to do the job. After stopping in Denver to obtain a clean weapon, the would-be cop killers would soon be in Las Vegas.

The mob tries to best the police by corrupting them or outsmarting them, not by killing them. People who prefer to stay below the law’s radar screen rarely order the murders of two cops. It brings down too much heat. The news caught Metro by surprise.

Kent Clifford remembers when he first heard about the contracts. “For quite a while after the Bluestein shooting, there had been a verbal battle in the press between the department and the Bluestein family’s lawyers. There had also been several civil cases filed, and I thought that’s all that was going on. Then we get word that Groover and Smith are going to be killed.

“I went berserk. Spilotro knew my goal was to put him in prison for the rest of his life; I’d told him that more than once. We were adversaries, but there were certain rules we played by. You didn’t put contracts out on cops. And even if Tony didn’t actually order the hits, he damn sure knew about them. Nothing like that was done in Las Vegas without Spilotro’s knowledge and approval.”

As upsetting as the news was, Smith and Groover may not have been the sole intended victims of the Chicagoans.

Were There Three?

The FBI wasn’t the only source of information Metro received regarding hit men being in town. Former Clark County Deputy District Attorney Jim Erbeck, who subsequently successfully prosecuted Frank Cullotta and convicted other members of the Hole in the Wall Gang, along with several other organized-crime figures, believes he may also have been a target. He received information from a friend, whom he considered a highly reliable source, that he was of interest to men from the Windy City. Mr. Erbeck recalled the incident during a 2005 interview.

“At that time I had been with the DA’s office for just about a year and had previously volunteered to prosecute organized-crime cases. There was a bar and restaurant called T.K. Christy’s located at 300 Las Vegas Boulevard South, across from the federal and county courthouses. It was one of the favorite watering holes for politicians, prosecutors, FBI agents, and cops. I stopped in regularly as it was handy to where I parked my car while at work.

“I remember going into Christy’s one night after the Bluestein shooting and hearing some very disturbing information. One of the female employees I was acquainted with told me that three men had been in asking questions about me and two Metro detectives. She knew one of the men from her previous job. He was from Chicago and was ‘connected.’ The other two were strangers to her. They asked her things like how often I stopped in, where I parked my car, and if I knew or hung around with certain Metro detectives. She told them that I was a customer and she knew me. But she also said she didn’t keep track of my movements or social circles and couldn’t be much help to them. The encounter had shaken her up. She was scared to the point that she wouldn’t give me a description of the men.

“I immediately called Metro Intelligence and reported what I’d been told. They asked me to go about my normal activities, including frequenting Christy’s. I was to park in my usual place in the parking garage. Metro said they would have the area under surveillance and attempt to determine if I was being watched or followed, and by whom.

“After a few days I was advised by Metro that two men were keeping an eye on me and that they had been identified as hit men from Chicago. A short time after that, I was notified that the situation had been resolved and there would be no further problems.”

Regardless of the number of intended victims, Clifford, Groover, and Smith believed then, and they believe now, that the hit men were acting on behalf of the Bluesteins.

“I moved my family out of state for their protection,” Gene Smith recalls. “Cops were assigned to stay at my house. We were waiting for those guys when they hit town and checked in at the Fremont Hotel downtown. They were under surveillance around the clock. One of the people they met with was Ron Bluestein, Frank’s brother. The supposed hit men were in Vegas for about a week, but only came near my place once. They stopped a couple of blocks away, then left the area. I don’t know what happened; maybe they got cold feet. We eventually confronted them and had a little chat. They headed back to Chicago shortly afterward.”

In a further effort to build a case against the Bluesteins, after the hit men arrived in town, an application was made to wiretap the phone of Steve Bluestein. The tap was approved, but only after an altercation with Clark County District Attorney, Bob Miller.

“The DA didn’t like to use wiretaps,” Kent Clifford recalls. “When we met to discuss the matter, he asked me why I didn’t like him. I said it wasn’t that I didn’t like him. It was that I had raw intelligence information that he was associating with one of the people who had organized the skim from the casinos. The DA said the guy was an old friend and that there was nothing the matter with them socializing. I argued that in his position as DA, he shouldn’t have that kind of a relationship with an organized-crime figure. He said I could think what I wanted, but the association would continue.

“While the wiretap was running, we made reports to the judge who had issued the warrant. On the second day of the tap, he told me that a high-ranking member of the DA’s office had called him and asked that the tap be shut down. After our conversation, the judge refused the request. The next day a piece appeared in the
Las Vegas Sun
stating that an informant had told them about the Bluestein wiretap. When that article appeared, Bluestein’s phone went dead. Besides Metro, the only other people who were aware of the tap were the DA’s office and the judge.”

Ned Day Weighs In

Gene Smith and Dave Groover hadn’t been intimidated by the death threats and proved it a few days later. The following piece by reporter Ned Day, writing for
The Valley Times,
appeared on March 18:

“You had to be there. But believe me, it was a classic.

“Picture the My Place cocktail lounge (Tony Spilotro’s favorite hangout) about 11 p.m. last Friday night. Just a few of the boys bending their elbows and trading war stories.

“Then, the door opens and in walks six feet and 230 pounds worth of Metro Intelligence cop Gene Smith, who grabs a corner barstool and nonchalantly orders a drink.

“Smith, you may remember, is the cop who trailed Frank Bluestein from a meeting with Spilotro outside My Place, a trail that ended in a hail of gunfire with Bluestein very dead.

“In case the My Place crowd didn’t instantly recognize him, Smith grandly introduced himself to the bartender in a stage whisper loud enough to be heard the length of the bar.

“Smith and his partner then just sat in the corner, smiling sweetly and sipping on drinks for about 20 minutes.

“I mean, talk about showing the colors in enemy territory. That’s like sending a PT boat up the Volga River. You have to admit, the guy’s got flair.”

Gene Smith remembers the incident. “There was one thing left out of that story. While we were there Tony Spilotro bought us a drink. I took the two glasses over to Tony and told him we were pretty damn particular about who we drank with or accepted drinks from. Then I told him what he could do with his drinks.”

Not long after that, Smith received a picture mailed to him anonymously. The photo was of Tony Spilotro accompanied by attorney Neil Bellar. It contained a caption that read, “To Gene, Thanks for everything, you rotten bastard.” It was signed “The Ant.” The picture generated a lot of laughs around Smith’s unit, but he doubts it was actually sent by Spilotro. It was likely a prank by one of his detectives.

The immediate threat was over, but would someone else show up to make an attempt on the lives of the detectives? In Kent Clifford’s mind, the only way to remove the danger once and for all was to have the contracts lifted. He was also quite sure that Spilotro had authorized the hits on his own and his bosses in Chicago weren’t aware of them, but there was only one way to find out for certain. In an unprecedented move, Clifford decided that he needed to go to Chicago and have a face-to-face with Tony’s superiors.

Trip to the Windy City

Clifford took his plan to Sheriff McCarthy, who agreed that he and another detective could make the trip. Distrusting the DA’s office, they decided not to consult with them or inform them of the pending visit. The department would pick up the tab for the plane fare; the officers had to pay for their own accommodations. He next called the FBI in Chicago and obtained the home addresses of Joe Aiuppa, Tony Accardo, and Joseph Lombardo. It was time to head east.

In March, Clifford and his previous partner, Galen Kester, boarded a plane for Chicago. The people they planned to talk with were violent individuals and meeting with them could prove dangerous. Both Clifford and Kester carried handguns in their briefcases in the event things didn’t go well. The cops checked into a motel and were on the road in a rental car early the next morning. Their first stop was at the home of Joseph “Doves” Aiuppa, current head of the Chicago Outfit. Kent Clifford recalls that eventful and sometimes frustrating day.

“Aiuppa wasn’t home when we arrived; only his wife was there and she wouldn’t let us in. I told her it was very important that I talk with her husband. I left her the phone number for our motel and asked her to make sure he called me.

“Our next visit was to the home of Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo. He wasn’t home either, but his wife invited us into the house and we talked for about ten minutes. We left the same message with her as with Mrs. Aiuppa. From there we stopped at Tony Accardo’s, but he was out, too. Three stops and three misses.”

Not ready to give up, Clifford remembered a man from Chicago who had visited Spilotro in Las Vegas and was known to be mob-connected. He contacted the local FBI office and obtained the office address for Allen Dorfman.

Dorfman ran a business as an insurance broker, but his real forte was in obtaining Teamster Pension Fund money to finance the Outfit’s Las Vegas interests. He’d been tried along with Jimmy Hoffa in 1964 for diverting pension-fund money for their personal use. Dorfman was acquitted, but Hoffa was found guilty. The broker was convicted in 1971 of accepting a $55,000 kickback to arrange a Teamster loan and spent nine months in prison. Not long after getting out of stir, he was a co-defendant with Tony Spilotro and Joe Lombardo on another pension-fund-related fraud charge. All three got off the hook when the government’s chief witness against them was murdered.

“When we got to Dorfman’s office I walked past the reception desk looking for him. The secretary said I couldn’t do that and I told her to watch me. I guess it was quite an entrance,” Clifford continued. “Anyway, we got to see Dorfman and explained the situation to him. He said to go back to the motel and someone would be in touch.

“That afternoon a lawyer representing the mobsters called. I ran the whole scenario by him and requested a personal meeting with his clients. He said he’d talk with them and get back to me. He called back awhile later and said there would be a meeting that evening, but I wasn’t invited. Although that didn’t make me very happy, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I told the lawyer to relay a message to his clients just like I gave it to him. I said, ‘If you kill my cops I’ll bring forty men back here and kill everything that moves, walks, or crawls around all the houses I visited today. And that is not a threat, but a promise.’ The lawyer said he’d deliver my message exactly as I gave it. If the contracts were lifted, he said I’d get a phone message saying, ‘Have a safe journey home, Commander.’ If I didn’t get a call, it meant all bets were off.

“I dozed off and around 2 a.m. the phone rang. A voice I couldn’t identify told me to have a safe trip home. The contracts were lifted.”

As for Allen Dorfman, the insurance broker and conduit for illegal loans was gunned down in a gangland-style murder in January 1983.

Shotguns Roar

Kent Clifford returned from Chicago believing the war against Tony Spilotro would again be fought within the acceptable guidelines. A sense of normalcy did return, but only for a few weeks. At around 10 p.m. on April 9, someone launched a shotgun attack on the home and vehicle of Tony Spilotro and the nearby house of his brother John. Fortunately, no one was hurt during the shooting, but both houses and their parked vehicles were damaged. At 10:47 p.m., John Spilotro reported the incident to the police. The subsequent investigation failed to identify the assailants.

In August, John Spilotro contacted Bob Miller, Clark County District Attorney, and demanded an investigation. He told a
Las Vegas Sun
reporter that he went to the DA, because the police had failed to do a thorough investigation and that he believed the shooters had actually been cops. He alleged that the shotguns had been in the hands of Gene Smith and Detective Bob Gillispie. Spilotro said that not only had his property been damaged, the shotgun blasts had placed him and his family in great personal peril, with some pellets narrowly missing the heads of his two sons. The police motive was supposedly the continuing policy of harassment that had been initiated by Sheriff McCarthy and Kent Clifford.

The
Sun
also reported that a secret witness had come forward claiming to have observed Gene Smith in the act of loading a shotgun in the vicinity of the Spilotro homes the night of the shootings. The witness had allegedly identified Smith from a photo lineup.