The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob

by Dennis Griffin

  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.

  Not long after the bombing, the gambler departed Las Vegas for California, and eventually Florida. Like so many of the killings and attempted killings in the realm of the mobsters, no one was ever charged in the attack.

  The End for Geri

  Just over a month after her ex-husband narrowly escaped death, Geri Rosenthal’s life ended in California. On November 6, she stumbled into a seedy Sunset Boulevard motel and started screaming, then fell unconscious to the floor. She was transported to a hospital, but died three days later without coming out of her coma. The coroner ruled her death was the result of an accidental drug overdose. The cash and jewelry she had left Las Vegas with were never found, apparently having been spent, stolen, or both.

  Kent Clifford and other involved law enforcers don’t necessarily believe in coincidence, or that the coroner’s findings in Geri Rosenthal’s case were completely accurate. “A skilled hit man can very easily administer a lethal dose of drugs and make it appear as though the deceased accidentally did it himself,” Clifford said. “Geri had been married to Lefty and sleeping with Tony. She knew a lot and she was a druggie. That combination made her a potential threat to a lot of people. It’s my opinion that she was murdered, but in such a way that it will remain impossible to prove.” Many of Clifford’s former colleagues agree with his assessment.

  McCarthy Defeated

  After an exceptionally bitter campaign, John Moran defeated John McCarthy at the ballot box on November 2 to become the sheriff-elect of Clark County. One of Moran’s main campaign promises was that he would bring the prostitution problem under control within 90 days of taking office. He fulfilled that promise.

  Sheriff Moran also continued the department’s aggressive fight against organized crime, minus some of the familiar faces. Kent Clifford left Metro at the end of McCarthy’s term. Gene Smith stayed on, but he and some of the other detectives were transferred out of the Intelligence Bureau and replaced with officers of Moran’s choosing.

  On December 23, Sheriff McCarthy received a letter from FBI Director William Webster, thanking him for his efforts against organized crime. The Frank Cullotta case and the outstanding cooperation between Metro and the FBI under McCarthy’s guidance were specifically mentioned.

  Twenty-two years after leaving office, John McCarthy reflected on his term. “I had a lot of disappointment in the outcome of the 1982 election, but I have no regrets. I doubt I would change much if I had it to do over again. The situation required a hard-ass approach to keep others from running all over you. And the harder they got, the more it steeled me.

  “Organized crime is so insidious and pervasive that the general public doesn’t understand its influence on their everyday lives. Some people in Las Vegas feared that the common criminals would prevail if organized crime wasn’t there to keep them in line. They didn’t grasp that the mobsters were nothing but common criminals themselves.

  “I almost ended up going to jail myself over the Consent Decree. Some of my team wanted me to make a political statement by not complying with the court order and being jailed for contempt. However, in my view there wasn’t any option other than to comply, using the full powers of my office. We got the job done and that’s all that matters.

  “The Intelligence Bureau was a large player in my administration. The outcome of the election resulted in the reorganization of that unit and, in my opinion, took the focus away from the fight against organized crime. I believe that what we worked so hard to accomplish, often at great risk, was diminished to some degree. That was indeed a major regret for me.”

  Kent Clifford shared his thoughts about his days as the chief of the Intelligence Bureau with the Review-Journal in early 1983. “The public often thought organized-crime figures were something special. They weren’t. Most of them were street punks. They were common thieves, thugs, murderers, and they scratched and clawed their way to the top. It didn’t really take a lot of brains.”

  Comparing the war on the gangsters to the one in Vietnam, Clifford said, “We [Metro and the FBI] had to play by the rules and within limited budgets. Anybody who can out-finance you and has no rules will give you fits. In Vietnam, we played by the rules and nobody else did. So we didn’t win that war.”

  Clifford cited the turning of Frank Cullotta as one of the high points of Metro’s war on organized crime. “Frank Cullotta was a major accomplishment, not only for this department, but for the nation. There are very few local departments who can make that kind of a claim. I think we did very well as an intelligence unit and I have a letter from the director of the FBI commending me for my four years.”


  Former Commander Clifford also believes that the murder of Allen Dorfman had a Las Vegas connection. “I think why Dorfman was killed is because he had knowledge of everything that was going on in Las Vegas. He knew Spilotro and was a close associate of [Chicago mobster] Joey Lombardo. If Dorf-man had lived and become a government informant, he would have shaken Nevada to its roots.”

  Clifford has a strong opinion that John McCarthy did a good job and deserved another term. “There is no doubt, and nobody can refute this, if there hadn’t been a John McCarthy, there wouldn’t have been a new jail built in Clark County. If the voters had given him another four years, crime would have decreased significantly.”

  In summing up, Clifford said, “To erase organized crime will take a national effort, a national opinion that organized crime cannot be tolerated.”

  Kent Clifford stands by those comments today.

  11

  Indictment in Chicago

  On January 27, 1983, Richard Daley, state’s attorney for Cook County, Illinois, and Chicago mayoral candidate, held a press conference. He announced publicly that Tony Spilotro had been indicted for the 1962 torture killings of James Miraglia and William McCarthy, the M&M murders. The indictment was based in large part on the grand-jury testimony of Frank Cullotta. According to Daley, Cullotta had testified that he helped Tony set up the slayings, but hadn’t actually been present when the murders were committed. Following the press conference, Spilotro was arrested in Las Vegas and jailed without bail to await extradition to Illinois.

  Oscar Goodman learned of Tony’s troubles when he returned to Vegas after winning a major, but unrelated, case in Florida. He rushed from the airport to his office, then over to the jail to see his client. A few hours later the accused murderer was released on bail. Goodman’s ability to spring a client facing extradition on such serious charges raised some eyebrows in law enforcement and legal circles. Before the case was settled, Spilotro’s bail wouldn’t be the only thing to cause bewilderment.

  The Ant and Goodman spent a substantial amount of time preparing for the trial. In Chicago they conferred regularly with Herb Barsky, an attorney who had long represented Spilotro in the Windy City. Barsky had the reputation of knowing how to work the system and being able to get things done.

  When Judge Thomas J. Maloney was assigned to hear the case, both Barsky and Spilotro were pleased. In fact, they were so impressed with Judge Maloney that they suggested to Goodman they should forego a jury trial and let Maloney decide Tony’s guilt or innocence. It was an idea that didn’t initially sit well with the Las Vegas attorney.

  Goodman explained his feelings about trying a murder case without a jury to author John L. Smith: “Tony liked the idea, but in my career I’d tried it only once, and that was in Las Vegas at the insistence of a client who was up on income-tax charges and had drawn Harry Claiborne as a judge in federal court. I knew Harry. The client knew Harry. He insisted they were close friends and that the judge would never rule against him because of that friendship. I refused at first, but he insisted. And I’m convinced that Claiborne was harder on him than he would have been had my client taken a damn jury trial. Claiborne convicted him and threw the book at him.”

  In spite of his misgivings, Goodman went along with the wishes of Spilotro and Barsky. However, his preparation was virtually the same as it would have been if Tony were being judged by a jury of his peers. He believed the government’s chief witness, Frank Cullotta, whom the lawyer called the “King Rat,” was a liar and would lie on the stand. He planned to use Cullotta’s record, including his admission to the Lisner murder, to discredit and neutralize his testimony.

  Trying Times

  Back in Las Vegas, Vincent Spilotro closely followed his father’s case, which was broadcast on Chicago TV station WGN. While the teenager watched the television, he engaged in another pastime he had come to enjoy: drinking alcohol.

  As the son of the reputed Las Vegas crime kingpin, Vincent had experienced a rather unique childhood. He was usually well-heeled financially and able to do things that most kids his age weren’t. While his status could be viewed as beneficial in many cases, it also had some pitfalls. One of them was the ease with which he could get involved with vices such as booze. Vincent developed a taste for Jack Daniels and it became his drink of choice. He wasn’t exactly a social drinker, either. By the time of the M&M trial, the young Spilotro could polish off a fifth of JD in just a few hours. As the case unfolded, Vincent was under a great deal of stress. He relieved some of that anxiety by the use of his bottled ally.

  “I’m watching my dad’s trial on TV and hearing that he could get the death penalty if convicted. I couldn’t go to school. I was paralyzed. I sat at home watching and drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels. But he called me every day,” Vincent recalled. He later heard those conversations when they were replayed on law-enforcement wiretap tapes.

  But after all the evidence was in and the judge was deliberating, Tony didn’t call. “So I’m drunk. I’m holding a bottle of Jack Daniels and I call him. I screamed at him because he didn’t call from the courthouse.”

  For Vincent, this was a period of torment. But his father, the man whose life was on the line, remained calm, cool, and upbeat. He exhibited none of the anxiety attacks and heart trouble that later kept him in bed for days at a time. On the contrary, in Chicago Tony arose early, ate well, and showed his lawyer around the Windy City during the evening. Did the Ant know something his son didn’t?

  Acquittal

  Tony Spilotro was acquitted of the charges against him. After careful deliberation, Judge Maloney ruled that the prosecution hadn’t proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. According to Goodman, as quoted in John L. Smith’s Of Rats and Men, the decision was somewhat of a surprise to him.

  “In Illinois courts, after the prosecution rests its case, it’s common for the defense to file a motion to dismiss due to a lack of evidence. In Tony’s case, it was obvious the prosecution suffered from a lack of evidence. I made what I thought was an excellent argument and the judge ruled against me. I was devastated. In my mind, I’d clearly shown the flaws in the case. It left me taken aback a bit. I wasn’t going to put Tony on the stand. I was really worried.

  “I said to Tony, ‘We’re history.’ Tony said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  “In retrospect, it should have made me wonder more than it did at the time. I was too worried about putting on a defense. The defense was brief. Obviously, my client hadn’t been at the scene of the crime and Frank Cullotta was a proven liar. I had shown that much when I cross-examined him. I had a sleepless night, which is usual for me, prior to making the closing argument in the case. The prosecution got to go last. Finally, the judge came back and ruled the prosecution hadn’t proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  It looked as though Oscar Goodman had worked his courtroom magic once again. But there were questions. Had Goodman’s skills really been necessary or had the outcome of the trial been pre-determined?

  Judge Maloney

  In 1993, ten years after the M&M trial, Thomas Maloney, the presiding judge, had the dubious distinction of being the only Illinois judge ever convicted of fixing a murder case. Although Maloney wasn’t charged in conjunction with the Spilotro trial, a closer look at his history and the Chicago court system of the time may help explain why Spilotro and Barsky insisted on foregoing a jury trial and why Tony wasn’t overly concerned when Goodman’s motion to dismiss was denied.

  Thomas Maloney was a practicing defense attorney in Chicago in 1977 when he was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to fill a vacancy in the Circuit Court. One year later, he ran for that office and was elected by the voters. Maloney retained the position until his retirement in 1990.

  In the early 1980s, the feds launched Operation Greylord, designed to investigate suspicions of corruption in the Chicago courts. One of the key players in a subsequent probe, Operation Gambat, which began in 1986, was Robert Cooley, a Chicago cri
minal defense lawyer in the 1970s and ’80s. Cooley represented, and fixed cases for, organized-crime figures. He was very successful in purchasing influence in the courts and didn’t lose a case for approximately four years.

  “I had no problem paying people money to make sure I got a decision in a case. In fact, I wanted to win all my cases and I did,” Cooley explained. But all that changed in the late 1980s when a client asked the attorney to arrange to have a witness murdered. That’s when Robert Cooley became an FBI informant.

  As a result of Operations Greylord and Gambat, 92 individuals, including defense attorneys, bailiffs, clerks, and 13 judges, were indicted. One of those 13 was Thomas Maloney. Maloney was convicted in 1993 on charges of racketeering conspiracy, racketeering, extortion under color of official right, and obstruction of justice. These violations of the law all arose from three cases in which Judge Maloney took bribes in cases before him. In 1994 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $200,000.

  The first of the three cases took place in 1981. In that instance, three hit men were accused of attempted murder. During the course of the trial, the victim died and the charges were elevated to murder. Defense attorney Robert Cooley was retained by political friends of the defendants and assured that Judge Maloney could be bought, but that the price would be high. The politicians contributed $100,000 to grease the various hands involved in the fix, including Maloney’s. At trial, the judge admitted as evidence a dying declaration from the victim identifying the defendants as his killers. But he then ruled that the declaration was unreliable, resulting in acquittals for all three defendants. After turning informant, Cooley covertly taped a conversation with one of the politicians who acknowledged the case had been fixed.