Supermob

by Gus Russo

  *When Judge John Barnes finally reviewed the case, he concluded, "The kidnapping never took place." The parole board agreed.

  *In the late forties, Factor served six years in prison for mail fraud involving the sale of other people's whiskey receipts in the Midwest, but he never stood trial for the thousands he bilked in the United Kingdom, not to mention the railroading of Touhy.

  *In 1935 Berger had been indicted with another Capone hood for attempting to fence $235,000 in bonds stolen from a mail truck. In 1952, when Berger's office was raided, Ac­cardo strongarm Paul "Needle Nose" Labriola, a friend of Sidney Korshak's, was arrested there with Abe Teitelbaum, then advising Accardo. Labriola's garroted body was found in a car trunk in 1954. Berger later fronted for the Outfit by running the Latin Quarter nightclub, where he was charged with bilking customers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  *A 1958 FBI report discloses that Korshak's unlisted phone number (Rand 6-2038) was in Mickey Cohen's address book.

  *The complex, completed in 1967, includes the 3,197-seat Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which hosted the Academy Awards for the next four decades, the 750-seat Mark Taper Forum, and the Ahmanson Theatre, which offers flexible seating for 1,600 to 2,007.

  *It was reported that Factor's payoff to RFK was an Outfit practical joke: the money came from the skim the gang was taking from Las Vegas casinos.

  *Klein, the owner of America's first conglomerate, National General Corporation (which owned a theater chain and the San Diego Chargers football team), told author Dan Moldea, "I hired Sidney Korshak for National General as a labor negotiator. He was terrific. He got things done. I paid him a retainer, fifty thousand dollars a year. Whenever we had any labor problems, I picked up the phone and called Sidney. Whatever he did, it was done. He and I were as close as brothers." (Moldea, Interference, 160)

  CHAPTER 12

  Bistro Days

  DESPITE THE APPALLING lack of encouragement from Washington, agents from all federal departments continued on their own initiative to watch over Korshak and the Supermob. One such agent was Andrew Fur­faro, who, at the time, headed up the Western Division's elite, and undisclosed, Organized Crime Unit of the Internal Revenue Service. "We were IRS, but we weren't," Furfaro clarified recently. "It was a Treasury intelligence unit that blended between the Justice Department and the IRS. We could pull any t ax return anywhere in the country. We had subpoena power. We had the ability to start grand juries. We wrote the subpoenas, pocket subpoenas, for the grand juries and served them as well."1 (Furfaro would eventually run the IRS's Operation Snowball, the first major investigation of illegal contributions from corporations to politicians, focusing on thirty-one companies in Los Angeles alone.2 "It was the first political investigation in the country," said Furfaro. "We had every major corporation in the country under investigation. This is the thing that changed laws. They had to change the audit laws.")*

  Working under the IRS's Gabe Dennis, Furfaro was told to go to school on the most insidious forms of white-collar corruption, California-style. While the politically vulnerable elected authorities played cat and mouse with local crime gangs, Furfaro's IRS unit knew that these prosecutions represented little more than putting on a show for the voters. Gabe Dennis was prescient enough to deduce that the more insidious corruption practiced by the seemingly immune Supermob dwarfed that of the Mickey Cohens and Jack Dragnas of the world. Thus, Dennis knew exactly how to bring his charges up to speed. "I was sent to live with Jim Hamilton of the LAPD," said Furfaro. "He became my tutor, and we set up crime files on just about everybody." Hamilton, of course, was one of the earliest sentinels to become aware of the Western intrusion of the Supermob through his investigations of Ziffren, Greenberg, and the Hayward Hotel nexus. Furfaro also developed a close working relationship with Connie Carlson, the Supermob watcher in the state Attorney General's Office.

  In short time, Furfaro became intrigued with the transplanted Chicagoans who seemed to be the new power brokers in California. He tracked players like Al Hart, Paul Ziffren, Sid Korshak, and even the Western investments of patriarch Jake Arvey. Operating on a shoestring, Dennis, Furfaro, and the rest of their small unit tracked the Supermob up and down the West Coast and into the Nevada casinos.

  In 1963, Furfaro's band was in the midst of "following the money" when they became aware of Sidney Korshak. While investigating an L.A. bookie named Benny Ginsburg, Furfaro stumbled onto the "Chicago connection" and Korshak specifically. "I served Ginsburg with a subpoena, but his doctor, Dr. Elliott Korday said he had too bad a heart to appear before the grand jury" Furfaro remembered. While checking out Ginsburg, the team learned that his bets were being "covered" in Las Vegas. "The L.A. bookie layoff bets were handled in Vegas, because the locals couldn't cover it," added Furfaro.

  When the trail led them to Vegas, the IRS unit stumbled into the rat's nest of skimming and money laundering that w7as Las Vegas in midcentury. "We learned right away that the Vegas authorities couldn't be trusted, so we covered it out of L.A.," said Furfaro. "Vegas became a 'suburb' of L.A. because the FBI w7asir t doing it. We knew that Hoover was with Al Hart in Del Mar, so we just said, 'The hell with the Bureau. We'll cover it.' By 1962, we controlled Vegas writh a team of one hundred and fifty guys from the ATF and IRS," recalled Furfaro. "We sat at every table in every hotel. We did a count. This has never been written about."

  The investigation quickly focused on Jake Factor's Stardust and a close friend of Sid Korshak's named Mai Clarke. "The Stardust's bad-ledger book was the way they got the money out. The Stardust was writing off bad debts for guys who never even went there. This was the way to hide the skim by saying they lost it to a gambler who didn't pay off his marker. Technically, a guy supposedly goes to the count room and gets twenty-five grand. They put the marker in the cage, but the guy never comes back and pays off his marker. Mai Clarke was one of the names they used for the fake-debt write­offs. And he never even went to Vegas. He didn't even know where Vegas was."

  The background check of Mai Clarke opened up the proverbial can of worms. Clarke was a Chicago racketeer associated with none other than Korshak's pal Charlie Gioe.3 Early in his career, he was the front owner for Tony Accardo of Gioe's Clark Street bookie joint, where Sid's brother Bernie had also worked.4 He was also an investor in Vegas' Sands Hotel, which had been financed by a consortium that included Al Hart's former partner Joe Fusco.5 Sidney Korshak, in fact, admitted to authorities that he had known Clarke, a fellow part-time inhabitant of Palm Springs (and a frequent guest at Korshak's condo), for twenty-five years, sponsored Clarke into the Beverly Hills Friars Club, and helped his son Malcolm Jr. gain admission to Loyola of Chicago, where the Korshak brothers were trustees. Clarke paid Korshak's brother Bernard $250 a month to run the cigar shop in the front of Clarke's Chicago bookie joint.6

  But what drew the investigation into sharper focus was the IRS unit's scrutiny of Clarke's tax filings, which showed that he was receiving a substantial paycheck from a notorious Chicago business for which he performed no discernible service.

  "We traced Clarke back to Duncan Parking Meters in Chicago," said Furfaro. "He was getting twenty-five thousand dollars a year from Duncan as their meter representative in Mexico—but there were no parking meters in Mexico!"

  The Duncan Parking Meter Company was well-known to Chicago authorities. The firm was ostensibly owned by Jerome Robinson, whom the Chicago Tribune referred to as "somewhat of a mystery." Robinson, locally described as connected to the Chicago Outfit, lived at Chicago's Carlyle, where he was a neighbor of Abe Pritzker's and Henry Crown's brother Irving's. In January 1963, Robinson had been convicted of perjury in a New York grand jury investigation of his supposed bribery in the sale of parking meters to New York City, for which he received a suspended sentence.7 Robinson was well acquainted with the Korshak brothers; Marshall Kor­shak would obtain tickets for Robinson and his family to attend a 1980 Washington, D.C, reception for Pope John Paul II.

  According to an FBI info
rmant, Sidney Korshak had "muscled out" the original ownership of Chicago's Duncan Parking Meter Company, thus allowing his good friend Jerry Robinson to take over. Robinson then bought a house in Beverly Hills, while Korshak's Chicago friends actually ran the company. In an interview with the FBI, Korshak admitted to being the "legal counsel" for Duncan. The FBI report concluded that Duncan "was controlled by the Outfit, specifically Gus Alex . . . and Sidney Korshak." The Bureau was also told that Robinson often visited Korshak in his Palm Springs condo.8

  Furfaro concluded that Clarke was being paid by Duncan for the use of his name and likely his address in Palm Springs, from where the money was being funneled to Mexico, and from there to offshore Caribbean banks. "Duncan Parking Meters was the conduit," said Furfaro, "but I don't think the old man [Jerome Robinson] necessarily knew about it."

  Sid Korshak's name not only surfaced because of his connection to Clarke and Duncan, but also through his direct linkage to the original Benny Gins­burg investigation in Los Angeles. Furfaro ran the numbers in the gambling sachem's phone records and determined that one number belonged to Kor­shak. Furfaro described what happened next: "So Clarence Turner and I went to Korshak's home in Bel-Air, and his valet came out and told us not to park in the driveway because the grease was getting on it. When we got into the house, it was not a normal house—it w^as an office. It had about ten card tables set up all around the house. This was a meetinghouse. Korshak made reference to 'holding labor meetings' at the house. Initially, he was appalled by us; we were a nuisance. 'I've been interrogated by experts,' he said. 'Who do you guys think you are?' "

  Eventually, Korshak relaxed and spoke casually with the agents. "He talked about his brother more than himself," remembered Furfaro. The agents served Korshak with the grand jury subpoena, and he dutifully appeared downtown to answer more questions. What follows are highlights of Fur­faro and Turner's report of the interview, dated October 23, 1963:

  • "The interview was quite cordial and informal, and in most instances Mr. Korshak volunteered information without being asked."

  • Korshak talked freely about his close friendship with Jake Arvey, and about Arvey's son, Irwin. Jake was "very ill" and had lost "3/4 of his stom­ach," but Jake was still alive and kicking political asses at this [Furfaro's] writing.

  • Korshak was the "first person to be subpoenaed by the Kefauver committee to testify from Chicago," but "he was not asked to testify."

  • He admitted that "he is a member of the Friars Club, but he is not proud of, nor does he go near the place. That the Friars Club is a 'cesspool.' That the members are not a social and charitable fraternity but a collection of gamblers who wager on anything if the odds are right. That he suggested that they seal up the Friars." This was a prescient observation, since, at the time—and for the next five years—the Beverly Hills Friars Club harbored a scam wherein many of Korshak's friends, including Harry Karl and Tony Martin, were being cheated out of many thousands of dollars each in rigged poker games, courtesy of a peephole drilled into the wall that allowed the cheats to pick up their "pigeon's" hands* The fix, which netted in the low millions, was run by Maurice Friedman, a real estate mogul and former owner of Las Vegas' New Frontier Hotel; George Emerson Seach; and Ben Teitelbaum. The inclusion of Teitelbaum's name in the scheme had to have been vexing for Karl, since Teit­elbaum was Sid Korshak's partner in Affiliated Parking.

  • In reference to the McClellan Committee: "Robert Kennedy and Pierre Salinger appeared in his [Korshak's] office, and questioned him about sweetheart contracts between unions and management. He appeared before the committee for one hour, and Kennedy questioned him again, and then thanked him for appearing."

  • Korshak said that "he represents racetracks in the Chicago area. Mervyn LeRoy called him one day before the expected strike at Hollywood Park and asked him to help. He went to Hollywood Park, and met with twenty-eight attorneys from other racetracks, and union officials for the employees. The other attorneys resented his presence, but he was able to settle the strike for which he received a three-year contract. He maintained that this wasn't a sweetheart contract but that he merely brought union and management into accord through some of his contacts."

  • Korshak admitted that he "was the legal counsel for the Duncan Parking Meter Company." He also admitted to his long and close friendship with Mai Clarke.

  • He named some close friends (Dinah Shore, Cyd Charisse, Kirk Douglas, Debbie Reynolds, Harry Karl, etc.) and said "he uses his influence to get employment for his friends at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. That he would rather not say anymore about Las Vegas."

  Only when the agents brought up the Benny Ginsburg case did Korshak bristle. "Mr. Korshak became extremely angry at this point," the report states.9 Furfaro said that the only result of all this hard work was a lawsuit—against the IRS. "When we busted Ginsburg, we were sued out of Chicago," Furfaro pointed out. "I was sure Korshak was behind it. The suit dragged on for years and was eventually thrown out."

  The Bistro

  The L.A. grand jury investigation was just another one of countless bullets dodged by Korshak in his career, and his grand lifestyle was, typically, unaffected. In fact, it only seemed to become grander, if that was possible.

  In the fall of 1963, Korshak was most often seen at a new upscale restaurant with French decor in the heart of Beverly Hills. Opening for business on November 1, 1963, the chic Beverly Hills eatery called The Bistro was at 246 N. Canon Drive, in the Beverly Hills business district. Korshak was an original investor (8 percent, or seven shares) when it was incorporated three months earlier. The restaurant was the brainchild of Oscar-winning director Billy Wilder* and local maitre d' extraordinaire Kurt Niklas. Niklas was a thirty-seven-year-old German Jew who had barely escaped Hitler's holocaust, then coming to America, where for years he was the maitre d' at Romanoff's Restaurant on Rodeo Drive, a magnet for Hollywood elite. When Romanoff's closed on New Year's Eve, 1962, Wilder, a Romanoff's regular, persuaded Niklas to open his own place. After Niklas obtained a thirteen-year lease for the Canon Drive storefront, he went back to Wilder. Niklas later recalled, "I went to see him and within twrenty-four hours he had checks in the mail for ninety thousand dollars."10 The sixty shareholders put up $3,000 each. The resultant $180,000 was deposited in Al Hart's bank—Hart was also among the original shareholders.11

  For Bistro investor Sidney Korshak, the appeal of the place was obvious. In Chicago and New York, Korshak conducted his business in upscale eateries like the Ambassador East's Pump Room and the Cafe Carlyle. A creature of habit, Korshak liked to keep things simple, positioning himself in the center of activity, and usually within walking distance of his closest associates. The Bistro was at most a three-block stroll from them all: Paul Ziffren's and Harvey Silbert's law7 offices, both on Wilshire, Al Hart's flagship bank at Wilshire and Roxbury, Wasserman and Stein's MCA offices on Burton Way, and the two places Sidney used when he needed clerical assistance, the Associated Booking office on Brighton Way, and the Riviera Hotel booking office, also on Wilshire (#9571).

  Korshak had known Niklas since 1956, having been introduced by a Las Vegas scion and associate of Mickey Cohen's, Moe A4orton, at a party Morton hosted at Romanoff's.12 Korshak quickly upped his investment to twelve shares, and by 1974, twenty-one shares, second only to Niklas (135). Besides Korshak, the investing partnership represented a who's who of the Hollywood "in crowd": Al Hart, Greg Bautzer, Jack Lemmon, Jack Benny, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Jack Warner, Robert Stack, Otto Preminger, Swifty Lazar, Frank Sinatra, and Doris (Mrs. Jules) Stein.

  Site of Sid Korshak's "secret" office on Wilshire Boulevard (author photo)

  The Bistro (Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives)

  Wilder suggested the French motif after a film he was shooting at the time, Irma la Douce. When completed, the cozy cafe seated about ninety, with an upstairs room reserved for private parties. An early contribution of Korshak's was the retaining of Richard Gulley as the Bistro's "public relations c
onsultant." Gulley, an old friend of Bugsy Siegel's, first gained work, a "walk around job," at Warner Brothers courtesy of a Siegel phone call to a Warners executive. In addition to his PR work for the Bistro, Gulley performed the same service for the Riviera in Vegas, again enlisted by Korshak. Over the years, Gulley's chief function seemed to be "girl procurer" for male celebrities and their studio executive counterparts.

  The night before the Bistro's public grand opening on November 1, Niklas hosted a private opening-night black-tie dinner party for the restaurant's stockholders and their guests. Promptly at eight P.M., stars such as Dean Martin, Jack Lemmon, Polly Bergen, Louis Jourdan, and Korshak pal Tony Curtis joined studio moguls such as Walter Mirisch and Jack Warner. Sid Korshak's close friends such as Paul Ziffren, Alfred Bloomingdale, and Bel-don Katleman joined the festivities. "It was a happening," Niklas wrote. As for the Fixer, who was not known as a great partyer, he was his typical low-key self. "Sidney Korshak spent most of the party in the shadows, avoiding photographers," Niklas wrote. Interestingly, Niklas noted, "Sammy Davis, Jr. was conspicuously absent."13