Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

CHICAGO MOB TARGETED: Goodman, family pleased with indictment in killings

Goodman, family pleased with indictment in killings

Reputed mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro, second left, and brother Michael, second right, leave Chicago's federal building after a hearing in 1983. The brothers, former co-defendants in a 1986 racketeering trial in Las Vegas, were found slain in June 1986. Attorney Oscar Goodman is at left. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES The bodies of Anthony and Michael Spilotro were found in a grave at the edge of this cornfield near Morocco, Ind., in June 1986. The brothers had been missing for more than a week. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announces Monday in Chicago that 14 reputed mob figures have been indicted on charges of plotting at least 18 killings, some going back as far as 1970. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Anthony Spilotro and wife Nancy leave his racketeering trial in Las Vegas in 1986. Nancy Spilotro said Monday that she was glad an indictment was returned in her husband's slaying, but she wondered why the FBI took so long to resolve the case. Photo by SCOTT HENRY/REVIEW-JOURNAL Tony Spilotro smiles after leaving federal court on April 8, 1986, after jurors reported they were deadlocked in their deliberations in his racketeering trial. The case ended in a mistrial. REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO Oscar Goodman, right, represented Tony Spilotro in criminal cases in the 1980s. Goodman said Monday that he would have cleared Spilotro of cases pending at the time of his death. REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO

Upon learning that reputed mobsters in Chicago had been charged with plotting her husband's 1986 murder, the widow of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro was nothing short of elated Monday morning.

"Thank God. It's about time," Nancy Spilotro said from her Las Vegas home. "I'm thrilled, thrilled."

Two thousand miles away, the retired FBI agent who continually pursued criminal charges against Spilotro in Las Vegas was not surprised when told the 19-year-old murder mystery seems to be unraveling, saying mobsters eventually turn on their own.

"Somebody's talking back in Chicago," retired FBI agent Joseph Yablonsky said in an interview from his home in Lady Lake, Fla. "The old thing about `omerta' is out the window. In other words, the mob code of silence has been broken."

An indictment unsealed in Chicago Monday charges 14 reputed organized crime figures with plotting at least 18 murders dating back to 1970, including the 1986 hit on Spilotro, the Chicago Outfit's enforcer in Las Vegas during the group's casino-skimming heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Spilotro, 48, and his brother Michael, 41, disappeared on June 14, 1986 while Spilotro was facing three criminal indictments in Las Vegas. Their badly beaten bodies were found buried in an Indiana cornfield eight days later.

By that time, the FBI suspected Spilotro of at least 22 murders.

The indictment unsealed Monday does not accuse specific defendants of killing and burying Spilotro. Instead, it vaguely charges the defendants with the Spilotro brothers' slayings and those of 16 others as part of a conspiracy to "further the criminal objectives of the Chicago Outfit and protect the enterprise from law enforcement."

Specifics of who the government is accusing of the attack on Spilotro will be revealed as the case progresses through the courts, said Randall Sanborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Chicago.

The indictment lists among its defendants Outfit leader Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, 75, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1983 for conspiring to bribe Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev.

The bribery charges arose out of the federal investigation of the Lombardo-controlled Outfit's Las Vegas operations. Eventually, Lombardo and other mob figures were convicted of conspiring to skim nearly $2 million in untaxed profits from Las Vegas casinos fronted by the Argent Corp., a group financed by Teamsters' loans.

Lombardo was released from prison in 1992.

His younger brother, 65-year-old Rocco "Rocky" Lombardo, until recently was a shift manager three nights a week at Crazy Horse Too, the Industrial Road strip club that was raided in 2003 by dozens of federal agents seeking links between the business and organized crime.

Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo, who has been under federal investigation for a decade but never charged with a crime, knows Joey Lombardo and has dined multiple times with him, according to a 2002 deposition given by Crazy Horse General Manager Albert Rapuano.

Rapuano said Monday that Rocky Lombardo resigned from the topless cabaret in December as his health was declining. Rapuano said Rizzolo on Monday was traveling to Philadelphia and unavailable for comment on the indictment.

The Chicago Outfit's local casino-skimming operation and Spilotro's penchant for ruthless violence on Las Vegas streets served as the basis for the 1995 movie "Casino," in which a character based on Spilotro was depicted by Joe Pesci.

The indictment's contention that Spilotro was murdered to protect the mob from law enforcement echoes the longtime theory of FBI agents who investigated the crimes Spilotro was suspected of in Las Vegas.

"We put the heat on him, and we had three indictments when he got called back to Chicago for that fateful meeting," said Yablonsky, who was in charge of Las Vegas' FBI field office from 1980 to 1983. "That's what got him killed probably."

But Spilotro defense attorney Oscar Goodman on Monday discounted that premise because Goodman believes he would have easily secured acquittals in Spilotro's three pending criminal trials. The three cases were in connection with burglaries and arsons carried out by Spilotro's Hole in the Wall gang, the ordered murder of Las Vegas street hustler Jerry Lisner and the Chicago mob's skimming of casino cash through the Argent casinos.

"We weren't concerned about defending those," said Goodman, now the mayor of Las Vegas. "We had won a lot tougher cases than those."

Goodman said he is always skeptical of accusations posed in charging documents.

"My position really is to believe in the presumption of innocence. So an indictment to me is no different than making a ham sandwich," Goodman said. "But I hope it is resolved so Tony can rest in peace."

Although pleased there were new developments in the case, Goodman and Spilotro's survivors blasted what they described as the FBI's languid response to Spilotro's murder.

"I was under the impression many years ago that the folks weren't interested in solving it because they didn't even bother to give me a call to ask what I thought took place and nobody was closer to Tony than me and his family," Goodman said. "It was extraordinary and unique for a murder investigation."

The woman married to Spilotro for 25 years feels similarly, saying the FBI never interviewed her or contacted her to update her on the case.

"We always have to hear things from a half-ass down the road in Chicago rather than the feds," said Nancy Spilotro, who did not remarry after Spilotro's death.

Spilotro's family remembered their dead relative as a benevolent man undeserving of his reputation as a relentlessly violent killer who once popped a man's eyes out by squeezing his head in a vise.

"Perfect gentleman," Nancy Spilotro said of her husband.

Asked if he believed Spilotro was a mobster, a nephew demurred.

"I think he was my uncle and that I loved him very much," said John Spilotro, a Las Vegas attorney. "He was extremely generous."

Spilotro's only son said he knows of only two times his father raised his hand in anger, both times to discipline him.

"He smacked me on the ass one time when I was 3 when I had bit through my mom's lip," said Vincent Spilotro, 38, who lives with his mother. "And then a couple of years later when a couple of kids kicked my mom's car, he slapped me around a little bit, but nothing serious. That was it. He was really a nice guy."

Vincent Spilotro suggested his father's reputation for brutality was the result of rumor-mongering on the street, a device employed by low-lifes to extort businessmen.

"I think people just dropped his name sometimes to get people to pay up," he said.