Lombardo's Vegas connections may soon surface
On Friday night, about a dozen FBI agents descended on Lombardo in an
Elmwood Park alley
as he and an elderly friend sat inside a 1994 silver Lincoln. - Chicago Sun-Times, 01-14-06
.
Rocco and Joey Lombardo
Joey "The Clown"
Lombardo
KVBC TV News
CPD Mug Shot, 01/13/06
INSIDE VEGAS by
Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
January 16, 2006
LAS VEGAS - Back on April 25, 2005, the day Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
was indicted, I received a call from a reporter for a London daily
paper. He asked if I thought Lombardo would implicate Oscar Goodman,
the mayor of Las Vegas, in any criminal activity?
I told him
that our mayor who was once Lombardo's attorney, harbored
many secrets as do many of Goodman's former law clients, but the
mayor's omertà was probably as strong as Lombardo's, and little
may
ever be known of their internal relationship.
Coincidentally, that same evening, I received the second telephone call
I had ever received from Goodman. He asked if we could meet? We did the
next morning in the street in front of my house. This was the second
time the mayor had made such a request.
.
On April 26, 2005, Mayor Oscar Goodman visited
Steve's home. The day before, Goodman's former client,
Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, was indicted in connection with 18
murders. Lombardo is a suspected hidden
owner of the Crazy Horse Too topless bar in Las Vegas. In the street,
Steve scolded Goodman for protecting
the violence plagued business.
(AmericanMafia.com photos by
Mike Christ)
The first meeting Goodman arranged occurred on October 25, 2001 in his
office. It didn't go too well. There in city hall Goodman opened the
conversation with the statement, "I'm not doing Joey Cusumano any
favors."
Cusumano and Goodman
Cusumano is suspected
of having hidden ownership in the Crazy Horse topless bar. He was also
attorney Goodman's point man with the mob, bringing him clients, and
arranging his social schedule. When the mayor made his "favors"
statement to me, I was surprised since I had not brought up Mr.
Cusumano's name.
From that statement until the end of our brief meeting, we discussed
closing the topless bar based on its history of
violence. However, the
mayor seemed mainly interested in finding out what I knew about the
club and its owners -- some who were his former clients and present
clients of his law partner
David
Chesnoff. I sensed a hidden agenda, so I avoided answering most of
his questions.
Shortly after the city hall meeting, Goodman sponsored ordinances to
allow the club to
expand,
and employ
teenage
strippers. These actions confirmed my suspicions about him having a
hidden agenda at our first meeting.
In the meantime, the club, which enjoys a privileged business license,
employed a score of ex-felons along with Joey's brother Rocco, while
its purported owner
Rick
Rizzolo was often seen in the
company
of "The Clown" -- offenses that would have cost any other Sin City
liquor license holder its license.
At our second face to face meeting four years later, Goodman looked
disheveled. His eyes were red and his clothes wrinkled. I guessed he
had not slept the night before -- the same night Lombardo went on the
lam.
Why was he in the street in front of my house I wondered?
In a continuation of the
conversation we had four years earlier, he told me that he was not
going to take action against the bar's license. "I can't take action in
the middle of a federal investigation," Goodman said. However, one year
earlier, on March 4, 2004, the city council fined the Crazy Horse's
closest competitor,
Jack Galardi, one-million dollars in the middle of another high
profile federal
investigation.
Knowing Lombardo was on the lam, I wondered whether Goodman's stubborn refusal
to take official action to stop the violence at the Crazy Horse was the
result of fear of retaliation from one or more of his murderous former
clients? Or was he just paying them back for helping him start his
lawyer career? Nonetheless, it seemed as though Lombardo, at 77 years
old, had little to lose, and Goodman needed my help in some unexplained
way.
This brought to mind a statement made by mob informer Jimmy "The Weasel"
Fratianno. He once said the Hole
in the Wall Gang regularly used the conference room in Goodman's
law office to plan their heists, and Lombardo was part of that crew
along with the late Tony "The Ant" Spilotro. Could it be that Goodman
knew in advance of his client's activities, and did nothing to stop
them?
Goodman and Spilotro
Indeed,
the timing
of Goodman's visit to my home the morning after Lombardo's
disappearance was suspicious. If this was the action of a poker player,
I assure you he would never make it to the Championships. Or was it
Goodman's way to try to schmooze me into laying off the subject?
The old saying goes, "You can't bullshit a bullshitter," and Goodman
should know I hold a world championship in that department.
All Goodman accomplished during our two meetings was to pique my
suspicions -- suspicions that he's still very close to and doing favors
for Lombardo, and others who
were convicted of bribing public
officials, money laundering, fraud, and worse -- people he once
described as "legitimate businessmen." His actions in the street in
front of my house also made me feel that he knew the whereabouts of
Joey "The Clown."
When the mayor of a major
American city goes out of his way to protect a bunch of thugs the way
Goodman has time and again in the case of the mob's favorite playpen,
reasonable people wonder about his loyalties.
Even after the U.S. Department of Justice last year said the Crazy
Horse "constituted
a racketeering enterprise,"
Goodman let the bar stay open.
Meanwhile, last week MGM Grand drew the attention of the Nevada Gaming
Control Board for a controversial
business relationship they have with Rizzolo and his strip club. It
seems that anywhere Rizzolo goes, law enforcement is close behind
watching to make sure the mob never again gains a foothold in Sin City.
Rizzolo is known as a "whale" in Vegas casinos having a half million
dollar line of credit in most. Based on his spectacular gambling
losses, he somehow was able to
stage an event promoting the strip club's calendar on MGM
property. Because of his shady reputation, the Control Board red
flagged and MGM Grand may be told to sever the relationship or face
disciplinary action.
Columnist Jeff Simpson in Sunday's
Las
Vegas SUN wrote:
"Only two years ago the Control Board roasted license applicant Tim
Poster for his friendship with Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo,
telling the future (and now former) Golden Nugget owner that Rizzolo
was the subject of an FBI investigation and that the club employs
several people with organized crime connections."
"'I'm very familiar with Mr. Rick Rizzolo,' Control Board member
Bobby Siller said at Poster's January 2004 licensing hearing. Siller, a
former FBI special agent in charge of the bureau's Las Vegas
operations, told Poster why he thought Rizzolo had befriended him:
'People such as you, very successful, very young, are considered marks.
People in organized crime try to set you up, get some of your funds.
And I think that's what they were trying to do with you.'"
The Crazy Horse Crew (KVBC TV News)
When
indictments
are finally handed down,
many
of the current Crazy Horse crew stand to enrichen Goodman's law partner
and lawyer sons by hiring them as their defense attorneys. Anticipating
that the Feds have no intention of letting the
crew walk, Chesnoff and the Goodman boys can't help but see dollar
signs, especially knowing that the mayor will secretly be in the wings
watching their every move at trial time, and offering his guidance.
No wonder he lets the place stay open! Chesnoff and the Goodman kids
can retire
on the legal fees!
To
prove his skewed loyalties, especially to the fortunes of his former
law firm, when the Crazy Horse crew in 2004 brought national shame upon his city, Goodman curtly
stated, "I did not see that."
TRANSCRIPT FROM MAYOR'S PRESS CONFERENCE
August 5, 2004
MICHAEL SQUIRES - LAS
VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: This week Dateline
NBC had a program on the Crazy Horse Too...
MAYOR GOODMAN: I did not see that.
(A
videotape of DATELINE NBC was hand delivered to Goodman two
days prior to the press conference.)
SQUIRES: Some of the
allegations against the club that have been known for some time. Is
there any appetite for a Show Cause Hearing...
GOODMAN: No!
SQUIRES: ...against the club,
and why not?
GOODMAN: Ah, I've taken a
position publicly, you know, that's no different than where I was
before. I'm under the impression that there's a federal investigation
that is underway or is taking place, and I'm not going to, ah, screw it
up by having, ah, some kind of hearing in front of the City Council,
ah, until somebody tells me that that is not the case.
SQUIRES: Given the facts that
are known publicly that have been published, moving forward on that
basis wouldn't screw up any...
GOODMAN: No one, no one's
asked that other than "Captain Truth*," no one's ask me to ah, I, I
haven't had a request from anybody to have an order to Show
Cause.
JON RALSTON - LAS VEGAS SUN:
Steve Miller sends out seven e-mails a day...
GOODMAN: Yea, right...
RALSTON: Give credit...
GOODMAN: I know...but, I,
ah...Steve Miller is, ah, he's afraid of me. I don't wanna, I don't
wanna, I don't wanna scare him. Excuse me...
SQUIRES: Are you looking for
some credible outside source to call for this, or...
GOODMAN: Well I would would, I
would assume that, ah, we have a Business License Department that I
don't agree with on many occasions, ah, and ah, if ah ah they felt
there was a need, I hope they would come forward and bring an order to
show... say "Mayor, we're gonna bring an order to Show Cause." If they
do that I'm certainly not gonna, ah ah, squelch it, that's for sure.
(The Business License
Department works at the pleasure of the mayor and council.)
*Steven "Captain Truth" Dempsey holds a law degree and
appears twice monthly before the Las Vegas City Council to report
crimes at the Crazy Horse and demand that the bar's license be revoked.
His testimony has been consistently ignored for more than four years.
