Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor of Las Vegas

by Oscar Goodman

  We went to Chicago to try the case. Tony had local counsel as well, and I was convinced to go along with a strategy that included a non-jury trial, so we’d be in front of a judge. They told me not to worry, but as the case drew to a close, I was very worried.

  At the end of the trial I argued that the government had failed to prove its case and that the judge should throw out the charges and dismiss the indictment. He rejected my motion. Now I had no hope. Our closing arguments would be basically the same as my motion for dismissal. Tony and his co-counsel said not to worry.

  After I made the same arguments, the judge took the case under advisement. A few days later, he came back with his verdict: not guilty. We beat the case and headed back to Las Vegas.

  Several years later, the judge was indicted for taking bribes to fix criminal cases. The M&M murder case was not one of the cases listed in the criminal complaint against him, but I have always wondered about it.

  Back in Las Vegas, we had to defend against the charges brought in the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang case. Again, Cullotta was the chief witness. In that case, we called a state court judge who testified that when he sentenced Cullotta on a burglary charge, the FBI—Yablonsky—had come to him begging for leniency. The judge said he went along, but he also said that at the time he had no idea Cullotta was a confessed murderer. The FBI had left that part out when they talked to the judge.

  I also heard from another person who had been in jail with Cullotta. He said Cullotta had told him that he was making up most of what he was saying about Tony, but that that was what the FBI wanted to hear.

  The prisoner was a guy named Frank Sweeney who apparently was in a protective custody wing of a prison in San Diego with Cullotta. Sweeney had also been a government witness in a murder case. Now he was telling me how Cullotta used to laugh about the FBI, calling them “stooges.” He said Cullotta told him, “You’ve heard of the traveling circus? I’m the traveling perjurer.” We used Sweeney to undermine Cullotta, and the prosecution in turn tried to discredit Sweeney, claiming he was unreliable and unstable.

  I found that both hypocritical and typical. The government vouched for Sweeney when he was their witness in a murder case. But when he was saying something they didn’t want to hear, then he was unreliable.

  We were in the midst of the Hole-in-the-Wall trial when the judge heard that a couple of jurors had overheard a discussion that they shouldn’t have been privy to. He reluctantly declared a mistrial. It was one thing after another.

  Tony was also charged with the Lisner murder, and again Cullotta was his chief accuser. Tony was a fighter, and I was happy to represent him. I had gotten to know him very well over the years. To me, this mobster who supposedly had killed twenty-six people was a very caring person. When he was in my law office, he was always very courteous to the staff and the paralegals. They all liked Tony, and some of them loved him. He would bring trinkets from his jewelry store if it was someone’s birthday or anniversary. He was not the kind of guy that I saw portrayed in the media; he was likable, and he had the ability to laugh at himself.

  When he saw the caption in the Tropicana skimming case, and read the words “The United States versus Anthony Spilotro,” he laughed.

  “How fair is that?” he asked.

  Even with all the trouble he was in, he could joke about the people who were trying to put him away for life. I wish every client I had had been like Tony. He came from the streets, and he knew who he was. He also listened to his lawyer.

  Don’t misunderstand me; he compensated me very well. My mother used to tell people, “Oscar’s clients always take him to the best restaurants.” But it was more than that. When I was out of town on a case, Tony would call Carolyn and ask if she or the kids needed anything. He was one of the first clients to do that, and I thought that was pretty extraordinary. And he had a great philosophy. He’d always say, “You can only eat one steak at a time.” That was the difference between him and a guy like Steve Wynn or some of these other casino owners who think they have to conquer the world. Tony wasn’t like that.

  In many ways, Tony was a family guy. And I mean that in the true sense of the word “family.” His father came to the United States from Bari, Italy, and ran a little restaurant in Chicago called “Patsy’s.” Mob boss Sam Giancana and some of the other big Outfit guys from back in the day, including Frank Nitti, used to be regular customers. I never met Tony’s father, but I did meet his mother, Antoinette, who Tony doted over. He called her “Ma” and couldn’t do enough for her. There were six brothers, Tony, Pat, Victor, Vince, John, and Michael.

  John and Michael were the only ones I really got to know. John had a restaurant in Las Vegas and lived down the street from Tony. They both had beautiful homes in a nice residential area. Michael, the youngest brother, lived in Chicago. He also had a restaurant and like John, was very close to Tony.

  Probably the most interesting of the brothers was Pat. He was a highly regarded dentist back in Chicago. He had eleven kids and was very well-educated. We had some great discussions when he would come out to visit. Pat was a bigger version of Tony. Of all the brothers, Pat and Tony looked the most alike. I remember sitting in a coffee shop with Pat at the Sahara early one morning. We’re drinking coffee. Pat was having some breakfast, and, as usual, the discussion focused on the Black Book and how unconstitutional we both thought it was. I got up to go to the men’s room and when I came back, Pat was gone.

  It took me a few minutes, but I found out the Metropolitan Police had grabbed him. They had gotten a tip—I figure it was someone who worked in the place—that Tony Spilotro was in the restaurant. Since it was part of the casino and since Tony was in the Black Book, he wasn’t permitted to be there.

  Pat, to his credit, didn’t say a word and let the whole thing play out. They questioned him in the security room of the casino and blew me off when I tried to tell them they were making a big mistake. They took Pat down to the Detention Center and told him he was going to be arrested. They were just about to book him when someone thought better of it. They finally established Pat’s identity and let him go.

  Unlike his brother Pat, Tony got his education on the streets. Short and stocky, but tough both mentally and physically, he already had a reputation as a wiseguy when he got to Las Vegas and became my client. By that point, if you believed the police and the FBI, he was a one-man crime wave and was behind almost every act of violence that occurred in the city.

  Tony and I used to meet for dinner at Joe Pignatello’s restaurant, Villa d’Este. Tony said that Joe had once been the chef for Giancanna back in Chicago. Tony loved a veal-and-peas dish that Joe used to make. One year during Christmas week we had dinner there with Sister Domenica, who had gained fame as “the singing nun.” It was Tony, his wife Nancy, his son Vince, the good sister, and myself.

  My wife says I’m wrong to say this, but if I had read the script for Casino before they made the movie, I would have told the writer, Nick Pileggi, and director Martin Scorsese that they had it wrong. They really didn’t capture Tony’s personality. Robert DeNiro was good as Lefty Rosenthal. However, Joe Pesci as Spilotro throws around words like “peckerwood” or “mullanyan,” racial epithets that I never heard Tony use.

  But I have to say that Pesci got Tony’s look perfect. I played myself in the movie, and there was a scene where I was walking out of court with him. It was remarkable how much he resembled Tony: his mannerisms, his gait, the crook of his arm.

  This is the kind of guy Tony was. We would be out of town for a trial, staying at the same hotel. I always got a room next to his. And in the morning, he would never wake me up. But he would start moving around his room and I would hear the clinking of coffee cups and breakfast plates. He was subtly letting me know he was awake.

  All the times I was with him, I never saw any indication that he was using drugs, yet that’s the way he was portrayed in the movie. Other clients would come to see me with their noses running, but I never saw that with Tony. And
I never dreamed that he was having an affair with Geri Rosenthal.

  The idea that Tony Spilotro and Lefty Rosenthal weren’t getting along, or that Spilotro was sleeping with Rosenthal’s wife, never occurred to me. I didn’t have an inkling; both were my clients, and neither one ever said anything that indicated they were at odds.

  My relationship with Rosenthal began to cool a little bit after the car explosion. I don’t know if he thought Spilotro was behind it, but our relationship changed after that, maybe because he thought I was too close to Tony. I would hear that they continued to meet secretly, and Rosenthal never indicated to me that there was any problem.

  It was hard for me to say what was going on because, as I stated earlier, I tried not to get involved in people’s personal lives. I was the same way with my office staff. I would do anything for my staff, but I didn’t get involved in their private business. That’s just my personality.

  I never felt endangered when I was around those guys. If anything, they protected me, and they would not allow me to get involved in their business activities because I was their lawyer. As I said, my wife, Carolyn, would always tell me, “Don’t become your client.” And I listened.

  I was never worried about my personal safety. I was more concerned with the FBI trying to entrap or frame me. My clients viewed me as an asset, someone who they valued and someone whom they protected. They would never put me in any situation that might compromise my ability to defend them.

  Lefty got out of Las Vegas shortly after the bombing. He took his kids and moved to the San Diego area. Later, he relocated to Florida, and I didn’t have much contact with him after that.

  While speculation put Tony behind the attempt on Lefty’s life, I later heard that some investigators believed the car bomb was because the guys in Kansas City thought Rosenthal was cooperating with the FBI. In fact, there was a wiretap in which Nick Civella was on the phone with me asking about Rosenthal. This was when Lefty was making all those public statements and arguing with the gaming regulators and going on television.

  “Is he crazy?” Civella asked me on the recording.

  The feds took it to mean that Civella was asking me if Rosenthal was cooperating, but I don’t represent rats.

  I knew Rosenthal talked to guys on the Gaming Control Board, but to my knowledge, there was never any quid pro quo. Rosenthal just thought he was smarter than a lot of these guys, and sometimes I think he really believed he could convince them that he deserved to be licensed. He thought he had a relationship with some of them, but he was deluding himself. Newspaper guys and politicians weren’t his friends, but he always thought he could beat the system. He didn’t believe he was doing anything wrong, and he thought they owed him. He was indomitable, as far as his spirit was concerned. But he wouldn’t listen; not to me, anyway.

  He wasn’t like a lot of the others who went before the board. He accused the regulators of being hypocrites, which they were. They were taking comps at the Stardust, getting rooms, seeing shows, and Rosenthal started blasting them. That’s why Civella asked me if I thought he was crazy, and I said, “No.”

  In fact, I thought the things Lefty was saying, either before the Gaming Control Board or on his television show, were the truth. Now obviously, people in the underworld didn’t like all that attention, all that publicity. I think that was where he had a problem. See, Rosenthal never thought he was mobbed up. He thought the authorities were abusing him. Although I have to say, if there was such a thing as being a “dry snitch,” Lefty might have been that. You know, someone who talks to the authorities, but not because he has a deal or is an informant, but because he thinks he’s smarter than them or just wants to establish some kind of relationship.

  Despite his arrogance, sometimes I think Lefty just wanted to be liked. I don’t think he ever gave authorities any damaging information. I think it was more about who he was talking to rather than what he said.

  Look, I know that the guys I represented had some questionable dealings and associations. But I always thought my job was to be their lawyer, and to give them the same legal benefits any citizen deserved. There’s no question that being a so-called mob lawyer gave me the opportunity to practice law at a very high level. Every day I would wake up to some monumental issue concerning wiretaps or the Rico law, or a search and seizure, or the Black Book. I had to perform at the peak of my ability, or my clients would have been gobbled up by the system.

  Tony Spilotro is a prime example. He was never convicted, but they said he was the mob’s guy in Chicago, and that he committed twenty-six murders. They were never able to prove that, so they labeled him. They called him a vicious Mafia killer and they went after him. I thought that was out of line; that they should make the case and prove the case. I was there to make sure they played by the rules. If that’s being a mob lawyer, then that’s what I was. I have no problem with that.

  When Tony got killed, no one from the FBI ever asked me anything about it. Not that I would have told them anything, because I didn’t know anything. But that’s not the point. They didn’t want to solve that case; they were just happy he was gone.

  We were waiting to retry the Hole-in-the-Wall case when Tony went back to Chicago to see his brother, Michael. Michael was somewhat involved in Tony’s business, and he also had a great little restaurant in Chicago called “Hoagies.”

  About a week after Tony left, I got a call from his wife Nancy telling me that she was worried. She hadn’t heard from Tony in several days, and he and Michael were missing. The next thing I knew, their bodies were found in a cornfield in Indiana. They had been beaten and buried alive; just planted in the ground. Whatever happened to him had to be a surprise or an ambush. He was one tough fireplug, and he would have gone down swinging.

  After he was murdered, I never heard from anybody other than the family. I had tried cases with Tony all over the country. We had appeared at grand juries in different jurisdictions, and had spent an inordinate amount of time together because he had so many outstanding issues. But nobody from law enforcement came to see me when he “went missing.” I was even more shocked when no one, especially no one from the FBI, came to see me when his body was found. Did I know anything? Had I heard anything? Did Tony have any pressing problems? None of these questions were asked of me.

  I came to the conclusion that they were happy to be rid of him. I didn’t believe them when they said they were trying to solve the murder. After Tony was killed, the media coverage shifted. Tony wasn’t the mob’s guy in Vegas anymore; he was just a street punk. Now that he was gone, there was a media campaign to belittle him.

  That’s not who he was. I saw him as a human being, not some dime-store fictional character.

  I went back to Chicago for the funeral, curious to see who would be in attendance. The FBI and the Chicago Police Department were there, taking notes and snapping pictures as they do at most “mob funerals.” But the thing that struck me was that several of the so-called wiseguys who Tony was supposedly representing in Las Vegas weren’t there. They saw no need to pay their final respects.

  That said a lot to me about who was behind Tony’s murder. A few years ago, there was a federal investigation in Chicago that included details about Tony’s death and those who were behind it. The feds love to give sensational names to their investigations, and this one was called “Family Secrets.”

  Actually, it was a fairly accurate description. A mobster in Chicago became an informant and testified against dozens of members of the Outfit, including his own father and brother. That’s how far the “men of honor” have fallen.

  According to the informant, Tony and his brother were killed on the orders of James Marcello, one of the bosses back there. The Spilotro brothers were lured to a hunting lodge, beaten, tortured, and shot, and then buried in a cornfield.

  I find it somewhat ironic that the government could only solve this case when a rat came forward.

  At a trial in 2008, there was testimony that one of the Outfit
’s hitmen had boasted that he had orders to kill Tony, his brother Michael, and me. The hitman said he planned to use an Uzi submachine gun and take all three of us out.

  By the time I heard about this, of course, I was mayor and no longer practicing criminal law. I always said I never worried about my own safety when I was representing mobsters, but maybe I should have.

  CHAPTER 9

  A VISIT TO THE MUSTANG RANCH

  A month after Tony’s body was found, and while I was still trying to make sense of it all, the House of Representatives in Washington handed up articles of impeachment against my good friend Harry Claiborne.

  Harry was a federal judge who had been convicted in an income tax case. I represented him in that matter. After his conviction he was sentenced to jail, but he refused to resign as a judge. So congress moved to impeach.

  Lawyers are supposed to remain above it all, detached, focused. But Tony and Harry were more than just clients; they were friends. And I took what happened to them personally. I never shied away from events surrounding either of them. My relationship with them was on a different level than most of my other clients. And just because they had been charged with a crime, I wasn’t going to stop being their friend.

  The interesting thing was that while they came from entirely different backgrounds, they shared some common traits. They were fearless, honorable to a fault with me, and neither one of them ever complained about the hand they were dealt. They were fighters; they believed in themselves and they never backed down.

  The fact that one was an alleged gangster and the other was a lawyer and judge was of no consequence to me. I dealt with people as I found them, not as others might describe or label them.

  The move to impeach Harry was, as far as I was concerned, the last act in a vindictive, personal witch hunt.