"Aggravated Assault.
No Intent to Kill"
Six suspicious new words
suddenly appear on a
Florida probation document
to minimize
the impact of a serious
crime
INSIDE VEGAS by Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
September 7, 2009
LAS VEGAS - Authorities accused Dominic
Rizzolo in January 2008 of trying to extort $20,000 from a former high
school class mate. When the extortion attempt failed, Rizzolo stabbed the
man according to a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police report.
Ten months later on October 28, 2008, Dominic,
the 26 year old son of convicted racketeer Rick
Rizzolo, pleaded guilty to Battery With Use Of A Deadly
Weapon.
The
Rizzolos are no strangers to acts of violence. On September 6, 2006, during
a license revocation hearing before the Las Vegas City Council, City
Attorney Brad Jerbic informed the council that Rick Rizzolo, 50, (photo
by the late Buffalo
Jim Barrier) admitted in a plea bargain that "...the government would
have sought to prove at trial 35 to 40 beatings had occurred at Rizzolo's
Crazy Horse Too topless bar in three years."
Admitting that federal prosecutors would
have probably prevailed at trial, Dominic's father pleaded guilty to lesser
charges and accepted a one year reduced sentence in federal prison in exchange
for agreeing to the forfeiture of his bar, and paying court ordered debts
totaling over $27 million dollars including $9 million to a man whose neck
was broken in 2001 by a Crazy Horse manager during a dispute over an $88
bar tab.
The family's history of violence began
years earlier according to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John
L. Smith who wrote
on October 17, 2003: "Rick Rizzolo was part of a 1987 incident in which
a Colorado tourist was assaulted with a baseball bat at the club. The incident,
the attorneys allege, resulted in the customer suffering permanent brain
damage."
In 1990, Rick Rizzolo with the help of
a friendly District Attorney plea bargained his Battery charges down to
a gross misdemeanor, and served no time in jail. The victim, Rick
Sandland, died three years later of complications caused by the attack.
A friendly judge sealed the record, but the file became public when the
FBI in 2002 began its racketeering investigation of the Crazy Horse Too.
Twenty-one years after the baseball bat
attack, Rick's son proved the apple doesn't fall far from the tree by pleading
guilty to Battery With Use Of A Deadly Weapon. And
like his father, Dominic's light penalty also reflected the extent of the
Rizzolo's political
clout in Las Vegas.
According to the Las
Vegas Review-Journal; "Authorities accused Dominic Rizzolo of trying
to extort $20,000 from a man whom he suspected of credit card theft. Dominic
Rizzolo ended up stabbing the man, according to a Las Vegas police report.
He was charged with extortion and battery with a deadly weapon but police
said prosecutors should consider attempted murder and conspiracy charges.
In October, Dominic Rizzolo pleaded guilty to one count of battery with
use of a deadly weapon."
On January 21, 2008, at approximately 10
PM, Dominic, accompanied by an unidentified man and woman, drove to William
Moyer's home in a dark colored SUV with the license place covered by a
T-shirt -- an obvious premeditated act.
Moyer, 26, reported he received a phone
call earlier that evening asking if he was staying home? Fifteen minutes
later, Rizzolo knocked at his door.
Moyer's mother answered the door and summoned
her son. The two men conversed on the front lawn for several minutes until
Rizzolo reportedly asked Moyer, "Do you know who my family is?" then demanded
$20,000.
Moyer said he refused the demand and ordered
Rizzolo off the property which he said inspired Rizzolo to hit him in the
face. A fight ensued in which Rizzolo pulled a switch blade knife and stabbed
Moyer in the upper abdomen. The blade came within a half inch of Moyer's
aorta. Rizzolo fled the scene.
Moyer's mother called 911. Moyer received
three hours of emergency surgery followed by three days in intensive care.
However, according to newly released information
from the Florida Department of Corrections, the stabbing was not
intended to kill Moyer. This flies in the face of the fact no discussion
about Dominic's intent occurred during hearings in court, and especially
since the victim was not even put on the stand to tell his side of the
story.
The hearings seemed very contrived to court
observers, especially when no Rizzolo family members were ever seen in
the audience.
The latest Florida Department of Corrections
Supervised Population Information only describes Rizzolo's offense as:
"Aggravated Assault With Weapon. No Intent to Kill," though Rizzolo clearly
pleaded guilty to "Battery With Use Of A Deadly Weapon" in
Nevada!
It's too obvious that someone in Nevada
or Florida tampered with the record after-the-fact to minimize Dominic
Rizzolo's crime.
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/ActiveOffenders/detail.asp?Bookmark=1&From=list&SessionID=510101835
"Offense: Aggravated Assault With Weapon.
No Intent to Kill" (?)
Please notice the
word "Battery" was omitted along with the words "Deadly Weapon" in the
Offense section of the Florida document.
Then compare that
document with the original "Offense" section on Dominic's Nevada GUILTY
PLEA MEMORANDUM/AGREEMENT (below) which clearly lists his crime as "Battery
With Use Of A Deadly Weapon."
The two documents
when held side by side tell a very troubling story that may include Obstruction
of Justice.
"BATTERY"
means an offensive touching or use of force on a person without
the person's consent.
"AGGRAVATED
ASSAULT" means the assailant uses a gun or knife to threaten
harm or contact.
There's a big difference!
Dominic Rizzolo pleaded guilty to "Battery
With a Deadly Weapon;" not "Aggravated Assault." He used lethal
force on Moyer. He was not performing acupuncture when he plunged a knife
into Moyer's chest. He clearly went beyond just threatening harm
or contact -- he tried to kill a man - nothing less can be said!
What happened to the words "BATTERY" and
"DEADLY" in the newly discovered Florida document? Who was responsible
for excising the two most important words?
Five years probation in sunny Florida may
be ample punishment for just threatening harm on another person,
but Dominic's punishment does not fit the crime of trying to take a person's
life!
Someone is obstructing justice in this
case. I believe that person tampered with the files, probably from the
start, and probably took money or other favors for doing so. Dominic's
father Rick Rizzolo has long been accused of paying
off politicians, and he is a convicted racketeer!
On January 13, 2009, Clark County District
Court Judge Jackie Glass sentenced Dominic to a minimum term of twenty-four
months and maximum term of seventy-two months in the Nevada Department
of Corrections. Then Judge Glass (wife of Las Vegas City Councilman Steve
Wolfson, a criminal defense attorney with mayoral ambitions) suspended
the sentence and placed Rizzolo on probation for what her court record
called an "indeterminate" period not to exceed five years.
("Indeterminate" means "not definitely
or precisely determined or fixed" according to Webster's Dictionary.)
Judge Glass attached the following conditions
to Dominic's probation: "1. Deft. shall submit his/her person, property,
place of residence, vehicle or areas under his/her control to search
at any time, with or without a search warrant or warrant of arrest,
for evidence of a crime or violation of probation by the Division
of Parole and Probation or its agent. 2. Comply with any curfew imposed
by Parole & Probation. 3. Complete anger management counseling. 4.
Complete 20 hours of community service work per month. 5. Obtain and maintain
full-time employment. 6. Defendant to have no contact with the victim,
William Moyer, or his family."
But because of recent developments, I doubt
the above conditions are being enforced.
Then the judge in a coddling way accepted
Dominic's request to relocate to Florida to serve out his sentence. She
was informed that he was promised a job with Paramount
Hospitality, a time share and resort company founded by Marco
A. Manzie, a close friend of Rick Rizzolo.
At
the end of the hearing, Judge Glass (left), turned to Dominic and almost
apologetically stated, "If you keep out of trouble, you can come back here
in a year and request that I reduce the charges to a misdemeanor."
This all occurred after Las Vegas Police
clearly asked prosecutors working under the command of Clark County District
Attorney Dave Roger to consider attempted murder and conspiracy charges
against Dominic, but Roger has been known to accept the largesse
of Rick Rizzolo, and may have gone easy on his son for that reason.
In 2002, Rick Rizzolo donated $10,000 and
organized several fundraisers for then-DA candidate David Roger; one in
Rizzolo's Canyon Gate home; the other at known mob hang out Piero's restaurant.
At the Canyon Gate get together, Rizzolo reportedly introduced Roger to
most of the town's adult business owners and their wallets. Although Roger
later said he had second thoughts (after the story hit the news) and claimed
he returned most of the money, in total he collected over $50,000 based
on Rick Rizzolo's efforts.
During
the time Rizzolo was raising funds for Roger's election, the outgoing DA
had five pending police Requests for Prosecution of Crazy Horse employees.
After his successful election, Roger's first order of business was to drop
all five cases including one that involved Kirk
Henry, the Kansas tourist whose neck was broken by a Crazy Horse employee.
With no family members present in the courtroom,
a young Deputy District Attorney sat silent as Judge Glass pronounced her
sentence. The absence of family in the court inspired questions as to whether
the light sentence had been predetermined? The question was heightened
by the fact that William Moyer was never put on the stand or interviewed
by prosecutors in the year this case took to go to trial.
If there was no intent to kill,
why was Dominic required to post $13,000.00 bail? And if there was no intent
to kill, why did the restitution Dominic pay include $1,650 to Anesthesia
Critical Care and Trauma, and another $6,903 paid to Sunrise Hospital for
emergency surgery and intensive care? Moyer was not getting cosmetic surgery.
He was fighting for his life!
The offense was certainly not: "Aggravated
Assault With Friendly Weapon. No Intent To Kill." It was as LV police
described -- an "attempted murder."
Moyer
filed charges as soon as he was released from the hospital, but Rizzolo
was not immediately arrested. Six weeks following the attack, Moyer called
INSIDE VEGAS. I authored an E-Brief reporting the stabbing for the first
time, and Dominic was arrested the next day at the home of Rick Rizzolo's
god son Rick Belcastro.
Dominic's family posted bail and he was released several hours later.
It was not determined if Belcastro was
just mentoring Dominic for six weeks, or harboring a fugitive because no
action had been taken by the District Attorney since the stabbing.
But most troubling is the fact that when
Dominic Rizzolo's files arrived at the Florida Department of Corrections,
six new words were added. Or were the false words generated off-the-record
by Judge Glass in Nevada prior to Dominic's probation being transferred
to Florida?
Being taught no lessen at all at the hands
of Judge Glass and David Roger may set the stage for Dominic Rizzolo's
recidivism knowing his family can easily influence the justice system in
two states. In the likely event that occurs, I hope federal authorities
look into why his 2009 court records were obviously altered.
-----------------------------------------------
MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.americanmafia.com/inside_vegas/8-4-08_Inside_Vegas.html
http://www.americanmafia.com/inside_vegas/1-12-09_Inside_Vegas.html
http://www.lvrj.com/news/37559984.html
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Belcastro_Rick_1279389939.aspx
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=6903
