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

JOHN L. SMITH: 'Tony the Ant' was tadpole in big pond, but his legend won't die

Tony Spilotro was a little man with a big reputation for violence in Las Vegas.

Depending on the source, Spilotro, barely 5 feet 5 inches tall, was involved in as many as 22 murders. He was never convicted of homicide, but was himself brutally murdered.

Although Spilotro's legend has grown into a colossus thanks to the news media and Hollywood, on his best day "Tony the Ant" was still a diminutive cog in a big wheel of organized crime. It's something reporters and crime buffs sometimes forget as they recount his many alleged exploits.

On Monday morning in Chicago, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and 13 other mob members and associates were indicted on charges of planning nearly two dozen murders, including the June 14, 1986, hits of Spilotro and his brother, Michael.

Suddenly, Tony the Ant was back in the news.

At least two books about Spilotro's life and death have been published. Joe Pesci played the Spilotro character in the Martin Scorsese movie "Casino."

Almost 20 years after his death, Tony the Ant is a bigger gangster than ever.

Veteran mob cops, FBI agents and former federal prosecutors try to shrug off the hype, but by now they've come to accept Spilotro's larger-than-life media status.

"He was so short, I'm not even sure he could go on all the rides at Disneyland," retired Metro Lt. Loren Stevens says. Stevens ran Metro's Intelligence Bureau for nearly 20 years. "He'd have to stand up to the mark.

"The feeling was here that, between a few attorneys and a few reporters, Tony was made a bigger frog than he was in terms of his organizational status. He was a big tadpole here, but he was still a tadpole."

As an FBI Agent, Gary Magnesen worked numerous mob cases, including one against Spilotro and his "Hole in the Wall Gang" of burglars. Magnesen didn't lose sleep when Spilotro was killed.

"He was just a soldier," Magnesen says. "He was one of many out of the Chicago mob. But I think what set him apart was his just total viciousness. It wasn't just enough to kill somebody, oftentimes. He had to do more than that to them."

Like stick a man's head in a vice. Like torture a potential witness before eliminating him. Like whacking a woman who might have been able to expose the mob's 1980s influence on the Strip.

Former Organized Crime Strike Force attorney Stan Hunterton worked cases against established mob families before coming to Las Vegas, where Spilotro was the big man on the Boulevard.

"He was, I thought, right from the beginning , largely a creation of the media, compared with the guys I'd known before," Hunterton says. "Was he a vicious killer? Sure. But in terms of a leader of organized crime, he was more like a button man (soldier) than a capo regime."

Review-Journal columnist Ned Day pulled Spilotro's tail best. The exploits of Tough Tony and his gang of knuckle-draggers were regularly chronicled in Day's column. Day, who died in 1987, kept Spilotro's name in the headlines, and that put heat on Tony the Ant while building him up in the eyes of the citizenry as Public Enemy No. 1.

Spilotro's attorney, Oscar Goodman, was quoted almost daily defending his client's interests. Spilotro had enough cases working against him to keep a team of attorneys busy, but Goodman handled every motion. Goodman's glibness also added to Spilotro's pop celebrity status.

"When he was alive, they wanted it both ways," Mayor Goodman says. "They wanted to say he was the mob's man in Vegas. On the other hand, they wanted to say he was insignificant. You can't have it both ways.

"All I know is, he always treated me right. If there's any truth to this (indictment), then maybe their souls will finally rest in peace."

I'm betting they won't.

At the rate the mob guys are talking, there's no telling how many crimes will soon be exposed. The Chicago FBI is calling its latest investigation "Operation Family Secrets," because Nicholas Calabrese has snitched on his older brother, Frank Calabrese.

It's a catchy title, but the Calabrese brothers can't touch the gangster celebrity of Tony the Ant.

The little guy is bigger than ever.

John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.