Garden State Gangland

by Scott M. Deitche

  Now that Russo was in, he set out to skim as much money from the casino’s profits as he could. After all, the skim was the quickest way to make money in the casino industry. For the mob, it became their main source of income in Las Vegas. The skim was a simple concept: In the back counting rooms, mob associates would merely take piles of cash out before they were entered into the books. The money simply walked out the door, either going right into the pockets of local gangsters or being shipped out to cities like Chicago or Kansas City, where the bosses got their piece of the action.

  Though he never actually entered the casino himself, so he wouldn’t tip off law enforcement that he had an interest in the property, Russo had his guys keep an eye on things and, of course, move as much money as they could out of the casino. “The only way we get money out is when they go to the room to count the money. ‘Paulie’ grabs what he could to put it on the side.”[6] The skimmed money was split up between Anthony and his brother John, with a chunk being “kicked up” to their capo, Richie the Boot Boiardo. The Boot netted up to three thousand dollars a month just from his portion of the skim from the Trolley when business was good.

  But Little Pussy Russo wasn’t quite happy with the money coming out of the Trolley. He complained to his brother John that they were not involved with a higher-class operation. “We know we’re getting clipped, John . . . you gotta remember we got a pit joint . . . everyone’s scared to work in the joint.”[7] Russo knew that he was not in the best position in Vegas. Some of his Jersey mob compatriots like Tony Pro Provenzano were involved in higher-end properties like the Dunes. But still, the Trolley was a source of income far removed from the heat that was trained on him in New Jersey.

  The deal that Russo struck with the three owners would have stayed hidden but for the copy of the contract Russo kept hidden on the back of a painting hung in his New Jersey office. And since Russo was considered one of the top racketeers in New Jersey, the police were working on a case against him. So when law enforcement raided his office in 1979, they found the contract, spurring the investigation of the casino. And less than two years after branching out to Vegas, Russo’s dream of hitting the jackpot came to an end.

  Late on April 26, 1979, Russo, who had recently returned to his home at the Harbor Island Spa in Long Branch from a trip to Florida, was visited by three of his underlings, Thomas “Pee Wee” DePhillips, Joe Zarro, and Anthony DeVingo. Russo let the three men into his home. When Russo turned to get a drink, he was shot in the head three times, a fourth bullet hitting a nearby sliding glass door. The gunmen left, locking the door behind them. The next day, one of Russo’s other associates, Louis Ferraro, found the feared mobster lying dead among a collection of stuffed cats.[8] Though no one was ever charged with the killing, police eventually closed the case, naming the three gunmen in the late 1990s. According to sources, the Russo hit was where Pee Wee made his bones and became a fully inducted member of the Genovese family.

  Russo’s killing was not wholly unexpected. He was very talkative and often viewed as someone who would cooperate with police if ever arrested. That fear was felt down the line of his organizations as well. It turns out that they were right about Russo’s big mouth; it would get them all into trouble.

  There were also some sources who indicated that Russo may have been holding back money from his superiors in the Genovese family. A recording of Little Pussy and his brother John underscored that Russo’s capo, Ritchie the Boot Boiardo, was not happy about the wait time for his portion of the Trolley’s skim. This piece of tape also shows the respect the elderly gangster, in his late eighties, still commanded and Boiardo’s never-ending chase after another dollar.

  John: Now the Old Man, he started going with me the other day, Vegas and everything else. It’s three, you know.

  Anthony: What’s three?

  John: Three months [since Boiardo was paid]. He says, tell your brother I’m eighty-seven years old. Tomorrow I may die.” He says, “I want it now.”[9]

  Upon hearing this, Little Pussy confided that he was in deep financial trouble because the casino was not as profitable as he had hoped. He also said that he had to take out a fifty thousand dollar loan from a loan shark just to keep things going. The payback on the fifty thousand dollar vig was a thousand dollars a week. This was indication that the money coming in from this particular Vegas venture was a far cry from what the crime family expected. Later in the tape it came out that the skim from the Jolley Trolley casino was sometimes as low as only a hundred dollars a week.

  But there is also another rumor about the real reason for the Russo killing, and it had to do with the Jolly Trolley itself. Though Russo supposedly never went to the actual casino property, he was often out in Las Vegas. On one trip he met with Anthony Spilotro, who, in addition to being Chicago’s point man in Las Vegas, was also a frequent customer at the Trolley. Spilotro wanted a piece of the Trolley profits, reasoning that Vegas, though an open city where mobsters from around the country could operate, was his territory. Russo answered Spilotro’s request by offering him 10 percent, to which Spilotro reportedly told Russo that Chicago wasn't a 10 percent outfit. This soured the relationship between Spilotro and Russo, but, since Russo was already unpopular and on the outs with the Genovese family, the story goes that the Russo hit was done as a favor to Chicago.

  Regardless of the reasons for his murder, five months after Russo was gunned down, an indictment naming Richie Boiardo, James V. Montemarano, and the Trolley’s three owners—Paul Bendetti, Dennis Mastro, and Peter DeLamos—was handed down. Montemarano, like Russo, lived in Long Branch. He had an arrest record for larceny, auto theft, stolen property, weapons, extortion, and armed robbery. They were all accused of skimming the profits from the Jolly Trolley casino. The centerpiece of the case was the collection of tapes law enforcement had made of Russo’s musings on underworld business, including the Trolley.

  The Russo tapes were about sixty hours of conversations that the state police had collected using wiretaps, body mikes, and other listening devices. The original probe had been directed at the Genovese family and its operatives, including not only Russo but also Pee Wee DePhillips and Richie Boiardo—in his late eighties at the time but with still enough juice to dress Russo down in a restaurant, reminding Russo who was still boss and excoriating him for losing control of operations.

  The Jolly Trolley was not even a focus of the initial probe, but Russo’s big mouth allowed investigators to start piecing together information about what was going on in Las Vegas only a couple of years after the mobsters had set up operations there. Russo even outed fellow Genovese mobsters Tony Provenzano and Matty the Horse Ianniello and their Vegas connections.

  The Trolley’s three owners, whom Russo had muscled in on, were as much victims as anyone in the case, and their lawyer, Oscar Goodman, made a case to prosecutors for a lenient plea deal of a fine and probation. But the judge did not allow the plea deal, insisting the case go to trial. The three owners chose another lawyer and were found guilty on thirteen counts of conspiracy and sentenced to three years in prison and a hefty fine.

  James V. Montemarano was cleared of his role in the skimming operation, though he was in prison for a separate conviction with other members of the Genovese family’s Jersey operations. Boiardo, who cut a striking figure at the trial daily, wearing a green velour suit, was found guilty of RICO conspiracy, as were John Russo and the late Pussy. It was big win for the government and started closing the door on the Genovese operations in Vegas. With Jerry Catena more or less retired in Florida and the aging Boiardo squarely in law-enforcement’s crosshairs, New Jersey's influence in Vegas began to wane.

  But purging the mob’s overall influence in Vegas was still a few years away. The Midwest crime families still had their hand in many of the casinos, running the skim through Chicago, Kansas City, and Detroit. Smaller crime families in Saint Louis, Denver, and Milwaukee also had a seat at the table. Though the era of Howard Hughes ended mob ownership of the
casinos and the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Black Book kept many wiseguys out of the casinos, there was still money to be made both illegally and legitimately. In Vegas, law enforcement had already started on their all-out assault on mob control of the casino skim as well as ancillary services to casinos, like infiltration of the service and workers unions, not to mention Spilotro’s Hole in the Wall Gang, which was committing all kinds of street-level crimes in the tourist mecca. But for all of the crime and vice, or perhaps because of that allure, Vegas was continuing to expand not only its gambling resorts but its population as well. With that in mind, New Jersey began looking at ways to reinvigorate one of their tourist towns, which by the mid-seventies had become a fading shadow of itself—former stronghold of Enoch Johnson, Atlantic City.

  In the aftermath of Prohibition, the perception of Atlantic City as an epicenter of organized crime had diminished, as had the former resort town itself. The old hotels and their fading facades were becoming vestiges of a bygone era. But in the neighborhood on the south side of the boardwalk, economic despair was buffered by a thriving illegal-gambling scene. Law enforcement found at the time that “The city is riddled with rackets, including every known type of gambling operation. Its famous boardwalk is lined with stands operating devices purporting to be games of skill but looked upon by their customers as games of chance. It contains two substantial numbers syndicates, and nearly every cigar store is a front for a bookmaker.”[10]

  Enoch Johnson himself had fallen out of power when indicted in 1941 for income tax evasion and served four years in prison. When he was released in 1945, the political winds had changed, Frank S. Farley was the new political power broker, and Johnson found himself having to take a backseat to Farley, though he supported the politician and his machine. Unlike the TV version of Nucky Johnson portrayed in Boardwalk Empire, Johnson was not killed on the boardwalk by a boy seeking revenge. In real life Johnson spent the rest of his years working as a salesman before dying on December 9, 1968.

  The one remnant of the old days that still stood strong through the mid-century blues of Atlantic City was the 500 Club. Located at 6 Missouri Avenue, the 500 Club was the premiere entertainment establishment on the South Shore for decades. An iconic presence in the city, the 500 was owned and operated by Paul Emilio “Skinny” D’Amato, a larger-than-life Atlantic City legend. Today a historical marker in Atlantic City commemorates D’Amato, along with a 500 Club Lane. His zeal for entertainment was matched only by his style, which made him stand out even in a room of celebrities. D’Amato knew better than anyone what would bring people to Atlantic City. “By mid-century, he had created an environment where anyone could temporarily jettison his conscience, thereby enabling the average guy to be in possession, if only for a night, of a sense of self-importance, specialness, power—even fame. The average guy could be . . . cool.”[11]

  The 500 Club was where Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis developed their stage banter and comedy routines that led to their huge successes. Another of Skinny D’Amato’s friends was Frank Sinatra. During Sinatra’s early years, D’Amato offered his help and a place to perform. When his star rose again, Sinatra did not forget D’Amato’s outreach and often returned for performances at the 500 Club, sometimes with the whole Rat Pack in tow. Sinatra was even pallbearer at D’Amato’s funeral when the club owner died in 1984. Entertainment was not an afterthought at the 500. All the top stars of the mid-twentieth century played there. It was also the epicenter for gambling in Atlantic City before gambling became legal. The club would open up at 5 p.m. and stay open, through the night, ’til 10 a.m. the next day. The backrooms drew hundreds of people eager to try their luck at gambling. Police and federal law enforcement were sure that D’Amato was involved with the mob. The FBI referred to the 500 Club as a “notorious Atlantic City hoodlum hangout.”[12]

  D’Amato was not a made member of the mob himself, and according to people who knew him always maintained that he was a legitimate businessman who was merely looking to show people a good time. However, in the business of operating a nightclub that was a major gambling establishment it was inevitable that not only would the 500 become a big hangout for wiseguys but that D’Amato would also find his business interests entangled with them.

  Philly boss Angelo Bruno was a regular at the 500 Club, spending many of his summer evenings there. He attended many shows—like Sammy Davis Jr.’s residency at the club in the summer of 1958. Bruno was also reportedly close to Skinny D’Amato. Some sources say that Skinny’s son Angelo had been named after Bruno. There are other connections between Bruno and the 500 Club that may indicate Bruno had more than a passing interest in the club’s entertainment roster.

  Two Bruno family soldiers, Alfred Iezzi and Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio, worked at the 500 Club in the early 1960s and, according to the FBI, may have held a proprietary interest in the venue. Iezzi, in fact, was overheard discussing with Angelo Bruno in 1962 his desire to sell his shares of the club because he was having troubles keeping things in order while he ran his other establishments back in Philadelphia and that the 500 itself was not making a profit. He also discussed getting Nicky Scarfo a job at the 500 Club. The young Scarfo, at that time, had recently moved to Atlantic City and needed some income. Iezzi had first gotten involved with the club “to look after a couple hundred thousand dollar loan from the Philadelphia LCN [la Cosa Nostra] to aid D’Amato in a financial crisis.”[13]

  D’Amato, when pressed about this by the FBI in 1961, “denied that he has ever had any type of business transaction with Bruno and has never been approached in any way by Bruno or any members of his family in respect to any business transactions. He stated that he never loaned or borrowed money form Bruno or members of his family at any time.”[14] D’Amato did admit to knowing Bruno and said their association dated back to 1946, but he declined any further comment. He later told a newspaper, “Why shouldn’t I be friendly with them? They were good guys to me. But I never made a penny from them.”[15] Accusations of mob involvement in the 500 Club continued until the club itself was consumed by a fire on the afternoon of Sunday June 10, 1973.

  To reinvigorate Atlantic City, New Jersey put a referendum to the citizens to allow legalized gambling, but restricting it to Atlantic City. The vote came in on November 2, 1976, and gambling was legalized in Atlantic City. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission was immediately formed to oversee the hiring of casino personnel and the operation of games and to handle any recommendations made by the Division of Gaming Enforcement, a branch of the state attorney general’s office. Law enforcement as well as some elected officials had some concerns that organized crime might make a move to infiltrate the casinos and the myriad of ancillary services attached to them. The Atlantic City police chief at the time assured the public and press that there was no indication of widespread organized-crime involvement in their city. Others were not so sure. Some resorted to outright histrionics, declaring that “hand-in-hand with gambling, whether it be legal or illegal, comes organized crime and corruption. Gambling fosters crime, attracts crime, breeds crime, and finances crime.”[16]

  Though the heyday of the 500 Club and the era of Enoch Johnson were gone by the time Atlantic City gambling was legalized, organized-crime figures in the area had been operating on the fringes for years, overseeing illegal gambling operations and making a living off the dying city. One of the crime figures still active in the area was Herman “Stumpy” Orman, a gambling kingpin of Atlantic City, who traced his tutelage back to the days of Nucky Johnson. He was active into the late 1970s and considered by the State of New Jersey to be one of the big racket kings in Atlantic City. Even Gyp DeCarlo was caught on tape calling Orman the man to see in Atlantic City. By the time gambling was legalized, Orman was brokering commercial real estate. He was involved with negotiations between Resorts International and MGM Grand for a casino in Atlantic City and brokered a number of commercial deals, including the sale of the Mayflower Hotel to Penthouse magazine. Resorts Internationa
l had previously been linked to Meyer Lansky and Dino Cellini, a top crime figure active in casinos in Havana and London and throughout the Caribbean.

  Even Little Pussy Russo was looking to get into Atlantic City, to supplement his Vegas “empire”—prior to getting clipped. He was talking about insinuating himself before the casinos and resorts under construction opened to the public. And likely before law enforcement had a chance to nip his incursion in the bud. Russo looked at getting into the parking business and floated the idea of involvement in residential high-rise construction. He was also looking to set up a deal with Jerry Catena, who, after serving his five-and-a-half-year bid in Yardville, had decided to pack up and “retire” to Boca Raton, though he was still very much sought after for advice and business deals. And in that deal, as wiretaps revealed, Russo turned to Catena’s partner and old Zwillman associate, Abe Green.

  “I’m waiting for a guy to call me, guy with Jerry—Abe Green. This is with the machines. There’s a new guy they chased, they’re getting rid of, and Jerry’s behind the guy here, Jerry and Abe Green. I’m supposed to call Abe Green; Jerry is supposed to be there, to try and straighten them out in Vegas with the joint’s machines. In other words, a couple of joints that are down in Vegas wanna come to Atlantic City. So Jerry’s gonna find out if I can throw them the machines.”[17]

  But the biggest beneficiary of legalized gambling in Atlantic City was the Bruno family—specifically, Nicky Scarfo, who had been forced to make do with low-level rackets. Now, with the advent of legalized gambling, the associated surge in real estate development, and the promise of increased economic opportunity and population growth, Atlantic City was the place to be, and the Bruno family had a grip on the town. Or so that’s what Nicky and many rank-and-file soldiers thought. They believed that Angelo Bruno, named the Gentle Don, would show at least enough strength to keep the New York families from staking a claim in Atlantic City. After all, Nicky had been sticking it out during the lean times. Now, with riches on the horizon, why shouldn’t the Philly mob take Atlantic City all for themselves?