The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob (12 page)

“The next morning we’re following the guy and he pulls in a service station for an oil change. As soon as the mechanic got the car up on the hoist he spotted the damn thing and told the subject about it. The guy got his lawyer and they went downtown and complained about police harassment. Sometimes
we
got lucky, and other times
they
did.”

Two of Kent Clifford’s officers, Detective David Groover and Sgt. Gene Smith, decided to take advantage of Spilotro’s use of police scanners to have a little fun with him. Knowing the Spilotros were hosting Tony’s birthday party, they parked about a half-block from the Ant’s house. Using a frequency they knew Tony monitored, Smith made a radio transmission to Groover, making it seem as though they were in separate vehicles. Passing the microphone back and forth, the two cops carried on a conversation. Smith asked if Groover had the papers that were to be served on Spilotro. Groover said he did, and that he and some other officers were on their way to Spilotro’s home. Smith replied that he’d start heading that way and meet them there. Within minutes, Tony’s guests, including Joe Blasko, Herb Blitzstein, and Frank Cullotta, along with Tony and Nancy, vacated the residence. Tony had to do his celebrating elsewhere.

A few weeks later David Groover and Gene Smith had another encounter regarding the Spilotro investigation. This time it wasn’t a laughing matter. It was deadly.

The Maitre D'

On the evening of June 9, Groover and Smith were conducting another routine surveillance of the Spilotro gang. On that night they were camped outside the Upper Crust pizza parlor and the adjoining My Place bar, located at Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway. Tony’s pal Frank Cullotta had a financial interest in both establishments and they had become hangouts for the mobsters. Spilotro, Cullotta, and some of their associates were inside the Upper Crust, but nothing exciting was going on. For the two veteran cops, it had all the makings of another uneventful shift.

“We put in a lot of long tedious hours watching those guys. But in that kind of work things could change very quickly, and that night they did,” David Groover said in 2003.

The changes began when a 1979 Lincoln with Illinois license plates pulled into a parking space in front of the Upper Crust. Spilotro, Cullotta, and another associate were now sitting at a table outside the restaurant. The operator of the vehicle went inside the eatery, apparently to order a pizza to go, then came back out and joined Spilotro and the others at the table. They talked for several minutes until the new guy’s pizza was ready. At that point he got back in the Lincoln and drove away. The detectives weren’t sure who this new player was, but it was obvious that he was acquainted with Tony. Smith and Groover decided to follow the Lincoln to see what information they could gather about who he was and what he was up to.

“As soon as he pulled out onto Flamingo, he started speeding, doing eighty or better, and driving recklessly. I was driving our unmarked car and Gene was in the passenger seat,” Groover remembered.

“Eventually, we figured we had enough probable cause on the traffic violations to pull the car over and check out the driver. By that time we were on McLeod near a new housing development called Sunrise Villas and the Lincoln had slowed to the speed limit. I put the red light on the dash and activated it for the guy to pull over. The Lincoln turned onto Engresso, the street running into the development, went past an unmanned security booth, and stopped several yards beyond. I parked behind him, got out of the car, and approached the Lincoln, verbally identifying myself as a police officer and displaying my badge. As I neared the other car, it pulled away at slow speed, stopping again a short distance away. I got back in our car and followed, angling the police car in and again getting out and approaching the Lincoln. This time Gene got out and took up a position by our passenger door.”

At that time, Groover and Smith didn’t know that the Lincoln was being driven by Frank Bluestein, a 35-year-old maitre d’ at the Hacienda Hotel & Casino, one of the properties controlled by the Chicago Outfit. Also known as Frank Blue, Bluestein and his girlfriend lived in Sunrise Villas. His father, Steve Bluestein, was an official in the local Culinary Union and had been the subject of a 1978 search warrant as part of the FBI investigation of Tony Spilotro.

“This time as I neared the Lincoln, the driver lowered his window. I again identified myself and displayed my badge. Suddenly Gene hollered, ‘Watch out, Dave! He’s got a gun.’ I returned to our car and took up a position behind the driver’s door. Gene and I continued to yell at the guy that we were cops and to put down his gun. He never said a word, but instead of getting rid of the weapon, he turned slightly in his seat, opened his door, and started to get out of the car. The gun was still in his hand and aimed toward Gene. Believing the guy was about to shoot, Gene and I opened fire.”

At approximately 11:45 p.m., shots rang out. Several rounds struck Bluestein. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died a couple of hours later. A .22 handgun was recovered at the scene. But as far as the Bluestein family, Tony Spilotro, and Oscar Goodman were concerned, this was not a justified use of deadly force. It was a police execution, with the cops planting a gun on their victim to add legitimacy to their actions.

It was a time that Dave Groover will never forget. “There was a real firestorm over the Bluestein shooting. We were accused of murdering the guy, planting a gun, and all that stuff. We ran a check on the gun Bluestein had and traced it to his brother, Ronald. The gun had been purchased in Chicago. That pretty much blew the planted-gun charge out of the water. We didn’t release that information right away, though. We waited until the coroner’s inquest to make it public.”

Less than two weeks later, a coroner’s jury ruled the death of Frank Bluestein to be a case of justifiable homicide. The cops were okay in that regard, but the verdict didn’t prevent the filing of numerous civil suits against them. One was a $22 million whopper accusing the cops of violating Bluestein’s civil rights. All of the cases were eventually decided in favor of the police, but the civil-rights suit dragged on for five long years.

As the civil actions were being filed, Groover and Smith knew they had acted appropriately and were confident they would prevail in the end. Other than the annoyance of dealing with the lawsuits, they weren’t overly concerned. But they learned a few months later that whatever was being done to them by the Bluestein family’s attorneys was the least of their worries.

Upper Crust

Metro wasn’t the only law-enforcement agency interested in the Upper Crust pizza parlor. The FBI also knew that Tony and his colleagues frequented the restaurant. And when the gangsters went into a back room there, it was logical to assume it wasn’t to discuss the weather. Agents wanted to know exactly what was being talked about in private. They made their case to a federal judge, who issued an order to bug the eatery. It wasn’t easy.

“The place was in the middle of a strip mall, with legitimate businesses on either side. They were open around the clock, besides. We ended up going across the roof and installed a camera and microphone down an airshaft. It was very ticklish and time-consuming, but we got it done without being detected,” Emmett Michaels said.

That was the good news. The bad news was that an Upper Crust employee discovered the bugs less than 24 hours later. He informed Frank Cullotta, who in turn summoned Tony Spilotro. The camera and microphone were ripped out and all transmissions ceased.

Soon afterward, agents Charlie Parsons, Emmett Michaels, and Michael Glass met at their office to figure out what to do next. “We came to the conclusion that the camera and microphone were government property and had been legally installed. We decided to go to the Upper Crust and get our equipment back,” Charlie Parsons said, recalling the incident.

When the agents arrived at the restaurant, they found Cullotta and Spilotro in no mood to cooperate. Emmett Michaels warned Spilotro that he’d better surrender the FBI’s property or there would be trouble. Tony attempted to contact Oscar Goodman, but the lawyer was out of town. A second attorney, Dominic Gentile, was reached and responded to the restaurant. Gentile directed his client to comply and the camera and microphone were returned without incident.

According to Charlie Parsons, that confrontation laid the groundwork for future events. “Getting the property back wasn’t the real story. The most important thing that happened that night was that Frank Cullotta saw Tony try to back us down and fail. Tony intimidated a lot of people and he tried that crap with us. I know Cullotta was impressed that we stuck to our guns and walked out of that place with what we came for.”

Another Lawsuit

On August 5, just weeks after Frank Bluestein was killed, Oscar Goodman launched an attack directly on Sheriff McCarthy and Metro for allegedly harassing Tony Spilotro and his associates. In a class-action lawsuit, Goodman asked the court to restrain John McCarthy from continuing a program of harassment that had been ongoing since November 2, 1979.

In a related article in the
Las Vegas Sun
on August 5, Goodman is quoted as saying, “I believe the lawsuit will protect the citizens of the state of Nevada from false arrests, harassment, and possibly injury or death that has taken place in the past.” Goodman charged that Bluestein’s death was the direct result of police harassment. He added of the alleged police conduct, “I think it’s un-American. These are really Gestapo-like tactics. It literally has become a police state in this community.”

In the lawsuit, the lawyer said, “The object and purpose of this program is to make unlawful any unfounded investigatory detentions and arrests of Spilotro and any persons observed in his company or known to be an associate of Spilotro.”

In addition to McCarthy, the suit named nine Metro intelligence officers, including Kent Clifford, and 20 unnamed officers as defendants.

The
Sun
article went on to report the specific charges leveled by Goodman. He said that since November 1979, the police had kept Spilotro and nearly a dozen of his friends under intensive surveillance, stopped and interrogated Spilotro and his friends without lawful or reasonable ground under the false guise of making some police investigative inquiry, and made false accusations or alleged minor traffic violations as a pretext for jailing persons known to be associated with Spilotro.

Attacking the Sheriff directly, Goodman said, “[McCarthy] didn’t care whose rights were being violated. He said it was legitimate police work.”

The attorney said the killing of Bluestein was the “last straw” in leading to the filing of the lawsuit. In Goodman’s opinion, Metro officers had conducted a high-speed chase of Bluestein, who had committed no violations of the law, and gunned him down while carrying out Metro’s harassment policy against Spilotro.

Goodman and the Ant were clearly on the offensive.

McCarthy Fires Back

On the same day, Sheriff McCarthy issued a press release in response to the lawsuit and Goodman’s comments. The release read:

“It appears that we have struck a nerve in organized crime in this community.

“When high-priced criminal lawyers attempt to restrain this department from enforcing the law against their clients, this sets the tone for less affluent criminals to take note of these exceptions and conclude that they should also be exempted to prey on this community.

“Criminals and organized crime figures operate behind closed doors and at night to avoid the scrutiny of law enforcement. These legal maneuvers are merely a ploy.

“Our interpretation of the U.S. Constitution extends to everyone the right to be secure from the hoodlum element, and I for one am sick and tired of the courts in this country preserving the rights of the criminals at the expense of the public.

“It’s really a pity that Mr. Goodman has gone to the extreme to make his point in his pleadings by dragging out the Bluestein shooting again. This matter was settled by a coroner’s inquest that determined the shooting was in self-defense, and that the deceased was armed with a weapon that had been in his possession for several days before the shooting took place. This shows me that Mr. Goodman’s scruples are in question here.

“Mr. Goodman also asks for damages in behalf of Mr. Spilotro. I say let the self-respecting citizens of this county sue Mr. Spilotro for the black eye he has given us and run him out of town.”

Sheriff McCarthy’s statement was printed in the
Review-Journal
the next day, and the media war was on.

Sniping

In the days that followed, Oscar Goodman and Sheriff McCarthy engaged in verbal battle by way of the news media. The
Sun
and
Review-Journal
found that the combatants were rock-solid in defending their positions and neither was reserved when it came to making comments to the press.

In response to the Sheriff s press release, the attorney claimed that McCarthy had a “Neanderthal” attitude toward Tony Spilotro. “He should be running for Grand Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan,” Goodman suggested. “Wherever I go the people are expressing phenomenal support for my position. They believe that Sheriff McCarthy’s statement was so juvenile.”

He offered McCarthy some advice on how he should be doing his job. “Instead of engaging in personalities, he had better spend his time apprehending murderers, rapists, robbers, and kidnappers who are running loose on the streets of Las Vegas.”

Goodman also expressed puzzlement over the amount of attention the law was giving to Tony Spilotro. “It’s incredible to me that Mr. Spilotro is subject to so much criticism, when the only arrest for which he has ever been convicted was to help someone fill out a bank application for which he received a $1 fee. The Sheriff must be hallucinating, because I’m sure if Mr. Spilotro were committing any crimes, the Sheriff would arrest him. And he hasn’t done that.”