The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob (15 page)

As the burglars progressed in their efforts to get through the roof, Arnoldy and his men made their way to the scene. Using a ladder, they got onto the roof. An impressive fireworks display exploded in the sky over Las Vegas as the lawmen secreted themselves behind vents and air-conditioning units to wait for the pre-determined arrest signal to be broadcast. At that point a minor snag developed when the burglars broke through, only to realize they hadn’t hit their target: the store’s safe. Recovering quickly, they soon made another entry in the right place. At approximately 10:40 p.m., Leo Guardino dropped through the opening and into the store, carrying the tools necessary to break into the safe. The act of burglary was then complete.

Arnoldy, shotgun at the ready, heard a broadcast over his radio that he thought was the arrest signal. But due to the noise from the constantly running air conditioners, he couldn’t be sure. He hesitated for just a few seconds, then directed his team into action. When Davino and Matecki detected the lawmen approaching they scurried to the front of the building and possible escape. But when they looked down on Sahara, they saw a number of agents and officers on the sidewalk below them pointing weapons in their direction. Knowing the game was up, they surrendered without incident. A few seconds later Guardino’s head popped up through the hole in the roof and he was taken into custody.

At street level, other agents and cops were already busy apprehending the lookouts. Neumann and Cullotta were nabbed a short distance from Bertha’s. Agent Gary Magnesen and two Metro officers arrested Joe Blasko. In a 2004 interview, Magnesen recalled the incident.

“One of the Metro officers was in uniform and driving a black and white. Our plan was for the marked car to come up on the van from the rear with its lights flashing and headlights illuminating the van’s interior. Another detective, armed with a shotgun, and I with a pistol approached the van from the front and ordered the occupant out. Up until that point we thought it was Blasko inside, but we weren’t positive. In fact, some of the cops didn’t want to believe that their former colleague had really gone to the dark side. When Blasko got out, the cop recognized him and said, ‘Son of a bitch.’ This was the best joint operation I was part of while in the Bureau.”

No weapons were found on Blasko or any of the other arrestees.

When agents and officers entered the store, they found that the gang’s second hole in the roof had been accurate, located directly over the safe. Burglary tools were found nearby and several holes had been drilled into the safe in an effort to open it. Leo Guardino had been a busy man during his short time inside the building.

Joe Yablonsky and Kent Clifford held a press conference shortly after the arrests were made. They told reporters that Frank Cullotta, age 43, Joe Blasko, age 45, Leo Guardino, age 47, and Ernest Davino, age 34, all of Las Vegas, were in custody. Also arrested were Lawrence Neumann, age 53, of McHenry, Illinois, and Wayne Matecki, age 30, of Northridge, Illinois. The six men were charged with burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, attempted grand larceny, and possession of burglary tools. They were all lodged in the Clark County Jail.

When reporters asked how the lawmen happened to be in the area at the time of the burglary, Yablonsky and Clifford weren’t very specific. They denied that the arrests were the result of an informant’s tip. But they did admit being aware that Bertha’s was scheduled to be hit on the Fourth of July. The story the reporters were given that night wasn’t exactly true, though. And there had really been seven gang members present at Bertha’s, not six.

What the reporters weren’t told was that Sal Romano, an expert at disabling alarm systems, was working as a part of the HITWG’s counter-surveillance team that night. Unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, two agents from the FBI’s Tucson office, Donn Sickles and Bill Christensen, had flipped Romano several months earlier. Based on information he provided, the lawmen knew virtually every detail of the gang’s plan well before July 4. When the signal was broadcast to arrest the burglars, Romano was immediately removed from the area and placed in the Witness Protection Program. His role in the Bertha’s operation wasn’t made public until several years later.

But the Outfit knew there had been a traitor and they didn’t like it. It wasn’t Romano individually; it was that he, Weasel Fratiano, and others were becoming snitches. A pattern seemed to be developing that made Chicago nervous. Once-trusted members and associates were making deals to save their own skins. Honor among thieves seemed to be rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

Prostitution

Sheriff McCarthy was making good on his promise to fight organized crime. Other issues, however, were giving him real headaches. One major problem that came to the forefront in late 1981 was the world’s oldest profession. Prostitution was illegal in Clark County.

The Valley Times
ran an article on November 3 stating that the situation was so bad that tourists were unable to walk the Strip without being confronted by working girls. There had been 15,000 prostitution-related arrests so far in the year, with a scant 48 convictions. The girls tended to be aggressive and didn’t like to take no for an answer. They sometimes physically grabbed onto a male and tried to take him along with them. If he had a female companion with him, she’d be invited to either come and watch or join the action.

Sheriff McCarthy responded that he not only had insufficient personnel to mount the foot patrols necessary to deal with the problem, but that the laws were inadequate. The District Attorney said he couldn’t do much with bad arrests and weak cases. The judges argued that they were only able to impose sentences based on the laws currently on the books. Whatever the reasons, more aggressive enforcement was demanded. And that responsibility fell to Metro.

Although the public generally supported McCarthy’s efforts to combat organized crime, people seemed more concerned about prostitutes than the thieves and killers of the Spilotro gang. Why?

In the opinion of one retired detective, most of the violence related to Spilotro was gangster-on-gangster and didn’t have a visible impact on the average citizen, some of whom even found that the mob’s presence added intrigue and excitement to Las Vegas. Spilotro’s burglars targeted businesses or wealthy residents and tourists for the most part, again not involving a large segment of the overall population. But when a situation became more personal, attitudes changed; when a resident couldn’t take his visiting uncle on a tour of the Strip without being propositioned, well, that was just too much.

The former cop compared the public attitude toward organized crime to that of a farmer who has a rat-eating snake in his barn. “He may not like snakes, but as long as the reptile doesn’t pose a threat to him or his family and it helps to control the vermin population, he’s willing to let it go about its business.”

The prostitution problem became a major campaign issue the following year.

Cullotta Jailed Again

Frank Cullotta had been released from jail on bail following his arrest for the Bertha’s burglary. But in November he was back in the slammer for a previous caper. In this case, a woman’s home had been burglarized and her furniture stolen. The missing items were subsequently found in Cullotta’s residence. He was indicted for possession of stolen property. Due to already being free on bond from the Bertha’s arrest, the judge set a high bail. But the resourceful Cullotta was able to come up with the assets necessary to extricate himself from the crowbar hotel.

Spilotro’s Days Are Numbered

To close out the year for Sheriff McCarthy, his son Michael—already on probation for a drug conviction—was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs following a traffic accident on Flamingo Road.

Meanwhile, events occurring in 1982 proved to be the turning point in the law’s fight against Tony Spilotro and his street-crime activities.

Left—Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel & Casino in 1946. This was the first Strip resort financed primarily with mob money (courtesy of UNLV Special Collections).

Below—Moe Dalitz (center) with Barbara Schick and Lee Majors 1979 (courtesy of UNLV Special Collections)

Above—Meeting of the Chicago Outfit, circa 1970s. From left to right (front row)—Anthony “Joe Batters” Accardo, Joseph “Black Joe” Amato, Joseph “Little Caesar” DiVarco, James “Turk” Torello; (back row)—Joseph “Doves” Aiuppa, Martin Accardo, Vincent Solano, Alfred Pilotto, Jackie Cerone, Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo (courtesy of Gene Smith).

Right—Allen Click, President of ARGENT Corp. which owned the mob-controlled Stardust and Fremont Hotel and Casinos, circa 1978 (courtesy of UNLV Special Collections).

Left—Tony Spilotro with his criminal defense attorney Oscar Goodman (courtesy of Gene Smith).

Left—Sheriff John McCarthy (courtesy of John McCarthy).

Below—John McCarthy was sworn in by Judge Paul Goldmann, 1979 (courtesy of John McCarthy).