The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob (18 page)

Cullotta’s Overall Effectiveness

Contrary to Mr. Goodman’s assessment, Frank Cullotta was a very productive cooperating witness, according to Dennis Arnoldy. The former agent believes you have to look beyond Bertha’s to properly evaluate Cullotta’s overall benefit to the government.

To support his argument, Arnoldy cites statistics of Cullotta’s productivity between 1982 and 1988. During that time, Cullotta’s testimony in front of various federal and state grand juries and trials was instrumental in obtaining a number of indictments and convictions: 19 federal racketeering-related indictments, four Illinois murder indictments, and five Nevada burglary and armed-robbery indictments. These charges resulted in 15 federal convictions, one Illinois murder conviction, and five Nevada burglary and armed-robbery convictions.

In addition, Cullotta testified before the President’s Commission on Organized Crime, the Florida Governor’s Commission on Organized Crime, and at a sentencing hearing for Chicago mobster Joseph Lombardo.

The turning of Frank Cullotta impacted on many people in one way or another. To the law-enforcement personnel who brought it about, it made the endless hours of surveillance, interviewing, confrontations, and risk-taking all worthwhile. To many of their opponents, it meant the beginning of the end. To Tony Spilotro, his former friend’s move increased the already tremendous pressure he was under. But Tony was a tough guy and he still had some fight left in him.

More Scandals and Allegations

Starting in June, Metro and Kent Clifford were hit with back-to-back charges. In the first incident a former Metro detective was arrested by Intelligence Bureau officers and charged with operating a burglary ring that preyed on drug dealers. The suspect, Larry Gandy, and his crew allegedly identified drug dealers, then broke into their residences to steal money, jewelry, and drugs. Gandy denied that there were any other current or former officers involved.

The news media pounced on the story. During an interview with Gandy, the arrestee claimed that while he worked for Clifford, his boss had once ordered him to rough up a criminal suspect. Gandy claimed he complied by breaking the suspect’s nose. Metro denied the allegation.

“Gandy’s story was incredible, because he never worked for me; I never had any supervisory authority over him. Of course, the facts couldn’t be allowed to stand in the way of a good story,” Clifford said in 2004.

He went on to give his version of events. “I met Larry Gandy when we both worked for the former Las Vegas Police Department. I was a fairly new cop at the time and Gandy was one of the stars of the department. He had a reputation as being a good narcotics officer, but a little crazy. I took Gandy’s place in the narcotics unit when he left to take a job with the State of Nevada Narcotics Division. We worked a couple of joint investigations together and shared intelligence information on dope dealers. I think we considered ourselves to be friends. But he eventually left law enforcement and became a bail bondsman, and then a burglar and dope dealer. We arrested him in 1982 for burglarizing the house of a citizen who had an ounce of cocaine for personal use. I believe that Gandy found out about the dope from the dealer who had sold it and he wanted to steal it and resell it.

“His method of operation was to have a flunky kick in the front door of the target’s residence and enter to make sure nobody was home. If it was clear, Gandy would come in and do the burglary. We had intelligence that he had done the same thing in California. When the front man went inside, he was confronted by an armed homeowner and blown away. A vehicle matching Gandy’s was spotted leaving the scene, but there was no positive ID.

“The guy he was using as a front man in Vegas, a guy he abused regularly, came to me and told me what was going on. We arrested Gandy during the commission of the burglary. I told him I felt betrayed and said I felt like kicking his ass. I didn’t say I was going to do it, just that I felt like it. On the way to the jail, he offered to become an informant and turn us on to some big dope dealers if we turned him loose. I refused to deal with him because of the way I felt about him and booked him. Two days later that story appeared in the newspaper. I didn’t respond to it, because it was the ranting of a burglar and dope dealer. Gandy was unable to identify the victim of the alleged assault and nothing came of it. I chalked it up to sour grapes and went about my work.”

Another shoe dropped when a Metro detective charged that Clifford had permitted a confidential informant to sell cocaine on the street three years earlier. According to the allegation, the informant had purchased three ounces of cocaine from a casino executive and turned the information and drugs over to Clifford. He wanted to be reimbursed for the purchase. The Intelligence Bureau chief didn’t want to pay $2,500 for what he thought was a weak case. On the other hand, he didn’t want to lose a valuable informant. As a compromise, Clifford allegedly told the informant to sell the drugs and get his money back.

This charge was also denied by Metro and attributed to McCarthy’s political adversaries getting an early start on the election campaign. When reporters questioned John Moran about the timing of the accusation, he denied having any role in the release of the information.

In late July, the District Attorney’s office announced that there was insufficient information to charge Clifford with any wrongdoing in the cocaine case. Metro officers opposed to McCarthy claimed the decision not to prosecute was a whitewash. McCarthy maintained that the allegations were unfounded and politically motivated.

This was another case in which the accused says the newspaper accounts didn’t match the facts. “The amount of cocaine involved was actually one ounce, not three,” Kent Clifford said. “By Nevada law, an officer could trade or sell an ounce of narcotics as long as it was done in a controlled situation. We traded the ounce of cocaine for an ounce of heroin to get into a drug dealer. An arrest was subsequently made in the case. Someone in the Intelligence Bureau knew bits and pieces of the deal and told one of John Moran’s cronies. As the story circulated, everything was blown out of proportion. The newspapers ran with it and never contacted me to find out what was really going on. My relationship with the DA’s office wasn’t very good then. They cleared me, because I hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no whitewash.”

The Campaign Officially Begins

In September, Sheriff McCarthy and John Moran won their respective primaries. The charges began to fly almost immediately. Frank Cullotta got into the fray by stating that Tony Spilotro had donated $40,000 to the Moran campaign and supplied booze for his campaign parties. Moran emphatically denied Cullotta’s claims, calling them “out-and-out lies.” He blamed the allegations on dirty tricks by the McCarthy people. Two days later Moran announced that he had taken a polygraph test that proved Cullotta’s story was baseless. He also suggested that Sheriff McCarthy submit to a polygraph examination regarding the old allegations that Spilotro had contributed to McCarthy’s campaign of four years earlier.

For his part, McCarthy admitted having heard about the accusations, but denied having anything to do with their becoming public.

In early October, Moran came under additional fire for dropping out of a scheduled debate with McCarthy on KLAS-TV. He claimed that one of the panelists was a staunch McCarthy supporter, so he wouldn’t get a fair shake.

The allegation game became a two-way street a week later when McCarthy was accused of receiving a $2,000 donation from Joe Conforte, a fugitive Nevada brothel owner, during his 1978 campaign against Ralph Lamb. McCarthy admitted receiving the money, but said it was made by a third party and the identity of the actual donor was never known to him. The person who had kept the campaign’s books at the time said the donation had been in the form of a cashier’s check. The man who had actually made the contribution on behalf of Conforte disputed that, saying it’d been a cash transaction. No record of that donation was found on file with the Secretary of State.

On October 20, McCarthy attacked Moran’s character in a newspaper article. He accused his opponent of conducting a campaign based on slanted commercials and fraudulent statements to the press. “I wonder what else he’s lying about to deceive the people of Clark County,” McCarthy said.

Moran wasted little time in responding. He challenged both McCarthy and Clifford to take a polygraph exam to prove they hadn’t been responsible for leaking the allegation that Spilotro had made a contribution to his campaign. Both men declined his invitation, stating that the charges were a matter between Moran and Cullotta. As October neared an end, the news for Sheriff McCarthy wasn’t good. Polls showed that the incumbent was pulling only 29% of the vote.

Lefty’s Big Bang

Rosenthal’s stock with the Chicago Outfit and Tony Spilotro had been dwindling for some time. His highly publicized fight with the gaming authorities and his controversial television show hadn’t gone over very well in Chicago or with some of the other crime families. And the fiasco over Tony’s affair with Geri caused the bosses to be concerned about the judgment of both men. Spilotro was unhappy with his former buddy, because Lefty hadn’t backed his play to expand his power in Vegas and California. The situation with Geri had placed a further wedge between them.

Nick Civella, boss of the Kansas City mob that controlled the Tropicana, had been suspicious of Lefty for some time. He believed the gambler was way too friendly with the FBI and might be acting as an informant. At one point Civella called Oscar Goodman and asked if he thought Lefty was crazy. The lawyer said he didn’t think Rosenthal was crazy, that he was okay. An FBI agent later testified at the mob chief’s racketeering trial that to Civella, “crazy” was code for “trustworthy.”

Goodman said he wasn’t aware of the dual meaning at the time. When he learned about it, he realized that had he given the wrong answer, Lefty might have been killed. Still, was Rosenthal providing the authorities with information?

Attorney Goodman explained it this way: “There are snitches and then there are snitches. There is such a thing as a dry snitch, a person who talks to the FBI or police, but doesn’t necessarily say anything. I think Frank Rosenthal enjoyed playing with people in power. I think a lot of people played the game with him. But did he sit down and say, ’Make a deal for me not to be prosecuted’? I don’t think so. I think he’d been through too much in his life to become a rat.”

The mob bosses may not have been sufficiently convinced that Lefty needed to be eliminated. Tony Spilotro was another matter. In mid-September, Metro picked up word that the Ant had ordered Lefty killed. Similar to the policy of their FBI colleagues, the cops were required to inform the potential victim that he was in danger. Gene Smith and his partner were tasked with telling Rosenthal.

“We found Lefty in a restaurant with some of his buddies,” Smith said. “I told him we’d like to talk with him in private. He said no. The other men were his friends and anything we had to say could be said in front of them. Under those circumstances, I said, ‘Okay, you’re going to be killed.’ We turned around and walked out, with a suddenly interested Lefty right on our heels. Outside the restaurant we told him the whole story. He didn’t believe it, though. We’d done what we had to do. Our obligation to Lefty was over.”

A couple of weeks later on the evening of October 4, Rosenthal left Tony Roma’s restaurant on East Sahara. He got into his Cadillac and turned the key in the ignition. In the past, this action had always resulted in the Caddy’s engine coming to life and settling into a smooth purr. Things were a bit different this time. A charge of C-4 explosive had been placed under the trunk next to the gas tank and wired to the ignition. When Lefty turned the key the bomb ignited. Had he been in any other car, the gambler would no doubt have been killed instantly. But the Caddy was built with a steel plate under the driver’s seat as standard equipment. The steel barrier diverted the blast toward the passenger side of the vehicle and gave Lefty a chance to jump out of the car before the interior became fully engulfed. The gas tank exploded seconds later, sending the car’s roof 60 feet into the air. The lucky Lefty escaped the inferno with only some singed clothes and minor injuries. He was alive, but someone had sent a strong message.

The day after the bombing, Rosenthal called Metro and demanded police protection. Kent Clifford and Gene Smith went to Lefty’s house to discuss the situation. “I asked him what he’d do for us in return for protecting him,” Kent Clifford said. “His answer was, ‘Nothing.’ I told him I wasn’t going to put my men at risk under those circumstances. I tried to scare him into talking to us or the FBI by telling him he was a walking dead man. He decided to take his chances rather than cooperate, though.”

Who was responsible for the attempt on Lefty’s life? The theories varied among the lawmen. Those who believed Tony Spilotro was behind the incident admitted that the Ant wasn’t known for using explosives. But they argued that he had motive and could have brought in an outside expert to handle the bombing. Others thought Chicago, with pressure from Kansas City, had ordered the hit, because they felt Lefty was either already in bed with the authorities or soon would be. Those who supported this idea pointed out that car bombings were common in assassinations by mob families throughout the Midwest.

Some outside of law enforcement attributed Lefty’s near-death experience to Geri Rosenthal’s friends in California. Their rationale was that Geri was rapidly going through the money she’d left Las Vegas with. Her friends—comprised primarily of drug users, dealers, and biker gang members—believed she stood to gain a windfall from Lefty’s estate should he suffer a premature demise. In that case, the free-spending Geri would be able to support their bad habits for the foreseeable future. Therefore, it made sense that these unsavory characters would attempt to knock Lefty off.