Is Sin City Mayoral Candidate Goodman More Than a 'Mouthpiece?'

By Cathy Scott

Word on the street is that the campaign headquarters of Carolyn Goodman at last Tuesday's election night in Sin City was peppered with mobsters. Old-time mobsters.

"At least 10 were there," the source said.

It's not surprising, considering Carolyn's husband is Oscar Goodman, the self-proclaimed "Mouthpiece for the Mob" who, as a criminal defense attorney, represented the likes of Chicago mobster Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, once suspected of more than 20 killings, and Philadelphia mob underboss Philip Leonetti. Oscar, currently the mayor of Las Vegas whose three-term sting is expiring, has been vocal about his hopes for his wife succeeding him as mayor.

Back in June of 1999, Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of this gambling mecca. At the time, he said he was proud of his past: "I'm not ashamed of anything." During Goodman's tenure as mayor, he changed his popular "mouthpiece" moniker to "America's Happiest Mayor."

On Tuesday, his wife won 37 percent of the vote, with Chris Giunchigliani coming in second, inching closer to her husband's aspirations for her.

Whisperings, however, at the Goodmans' election-night party, according to the source, were that Carolyn might have been able to pull off an early first in the primary based on name recognition, but when it comes to winning in the run off, it might not be as simple.

That's because Giunchigliani, currently a Clark County commissioner, is known as a politician for the people who runs grassroots campaigns. The personable Carolyn Goodman, on the other hand, is new to politics other than as first lady of Las Vegas for the last 12 years. Mrs. Goodman is more recognized as the founder of a private school, known as a top college prep academy where people with money send their kids

"I am running against a name, let’s put it that way," Giunchigliani recently told The Washington Post. "But I think the public recognizes that the time for that type of leadership style has passed."

Now it's up to the voters. Chris, 57, and Carolyn, 72, will face each other again on June 7 in a run-off election. 

Photos courtesy of the candidates' campaign websites and philly.com.

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Smoke and Mirrors: The Truth About Las Vegas

by Cathy Scott

Watching Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman’s indignation over recent advice by President Barack Obama to a New Hampshire audience to not waste cash in Las Vegas was reminiscent of a similarly indignant Goodman a decade earlier. 


Goodman, a former criminal defense attorney and self-described “mouthpiece for the mob,” spent 35 years defending the nation’s most notorious underworld figures. His clients included mobsters Meyer Lansky, Anthony "Tony The Ant" Spilotro and Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, the latter two portrayed in the film Casino by actors Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro. Goodman, also in the film, played himself–a lawyer for the mob. 


So it came as a surprise in 1999 when Goodman tried to deny the mob’s existence in Las Vegas. It was during Goodman’s mayoral run, when he issued a statement in the midst of a colorful Las Vegas trial of two reputed Mafiosi charged in connection with the 1997 execution-style murder of another gangster, Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein. The trial spotlighted the very kind of mob activity that officials, other than Goodman, had insisted, year after year, no longer existed in Las Vegas.

It started in the early 1990s, when the Nevada Gaming Commission released the first of several statements assuring the public that the FBI had forced the last of the mob out of Las Vegas in the 1980s. That was not true, of course. Goodman himself had represented Spilotro in a mob trial in the mid-1980s, shortly before Spilotro was buried alive and left for dead in an Indiana cornfield. Blitzstein was a co-defendant with Spilotro in that trial. After Spilotro’s murder, Blitzstein pleaded guilty and went to prison. He was released in the early 1990s and returned to Las Vegas, picking up where he had left off.


The 62-year-old Blitzstein ran a downtown auto-repair shop that fronted for his rackets. Authorities said he ran loan-shark and insurance-fraud racketeering operations out of the shop. 


In January 1997, Blitzstein was gunned down in his town house. Federal prosecutors later contended that mob families in Los Angeles and Buffalo, N.Y., had ordered Blitzstein’s hit so they could take control of his business. 


Then, in May 1999, Goodman, as a mayoral candidate, issued a press release declaring the streets of the city free of traditional organized crime.


"For the last 15 years," Goodman said, "there hasn't been a mob presence here." 


Coincidentally or not, Goodman issued that statement from his law office, which was around the corner from the U.S. District courthouse where the Blitzstein murder-related trial was well underway. Testimony in that case, which was heavily covered by the media, related to the life-and-death saga of Herbert Blitzstein–who had been Spilotro's right-hand man–provided new details about Las Vegas street rackets. For example, the 12-count racketeering indictment handed down in the case named 10 defendants charged with offenses ranging from Mafia-related murder-for-hire to racketeering. 


The trial surrounding Blitzstein’s murder, which ended with most of the defendants pleading out to lesser crimes, was the last Mafia-related trial in Las Vegas. 


Blitzstein’s murder also marked the last mob hit in Sin City. But don't tell Oscar Goodman. We'll just keep it between us.

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Here a Gotti, There a Gotti, Everywhere a Gotti: Fourth Time a Charm for Prosecutors?

by Stacy Dittrich

We’ll see if the fourth time is a charm for second-generation mobster John Gotti Jr., 45. As the jury began its deliberation Thursday on racketeering charges against the Gambino Family crime boss, the same circus-like atmosphere and fears of mob retaliation hung like a thick fog in the courtroom, as it had during the three previous trials involving the high-profile gangster -- trials that all resulted in a hung jury. Like his famed father before him, Gotti Jr. has managed to skirt a judicial system that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to lock him up for the rest of his life. Facing the same fate as his father, John “Dapper Don” Gotti Sr., who died in prison in 2002, Gotti Jr. now waits quietly to see if this particular jury will convict him of racketeering or on two murder charges.

The trial to date has already shown signs of an outcome in Gotti Jr.’s favor, the same problems that plagued the previous trials. Some jurors, fearful of mob retaliation and claims of anonymous threats, have requested to be dismissed, while others are clearly staging their support for the defendant — an act that caused presiding judge Kevin Castel to send two of them packing. His decision caused Gotti Jr.’s mother, Victoria, to have a complete meltdown inside the courtroom, one of many bizarre outbursts and displays by the Gotti family.

“F****** animals!” she screamed at the judge after the jurors were dismissed.

“They’re railroading you! They’re doing to you what you did to your father!”

Even though her embarrassed son tried to calm her down, she continued.

“They’re the gangsters! Right there!” she yelled, pointing at the judge and prosecutors. “The ****** gangsters! You sons of bitches! Put your own sons in there! You ********!”

She was quickly removed from the courtroom but could still be heard yelling in the hallway. Earlier in the trial, Gotti Jr. referred loudly to a prosecution witness as a “dog” and a “punk.” Prosecutors also alleged Gotti Jr. mouthed the words “I’ll kill you” to another witness. However, prosecutors are confident that their star witness, former Gotti Jr. best friend, mobster, and recent rat, John Alite, 47, will be their smoking gun. Unfortunately, Alite’s testimony sounded like it came directly from the "Goodfellas" screenplay.

“When I went to restaurants, I didn’t wait. When I went to shows, I got the best seats,” he testified. “When we went to stores, we got suits custom-made. We got treated like celebrities.

“People looked at me differently and they knew I was somebody. I didn’t have to wait in line at the bakery.”

Alite said he bought “the best of everything,” including $500 Bruno Magli shoes, Rolex watches, gold bars, diamonds, and 24 cars.

Quite frankly, his testimony may be just slightly unbelievable, as the non-Italian son of a taxi cab driver testified in a dirty, gray, sweatshirt and looked like a two-bit street thug. Not to mention, he never testified in the prior trials because he was on the run from his own charges. He only agreed to testify against Gotti Jr. (pictured left) under promises of a lesser sentence from the prosecution.

It will be interesting to see if Gotti Jr. inherits his father’s Teflon. If so, it will even be more interesting to see just how federal prosecutors get a conviction. No matter the outcome, it’s pretty obvious that the theories of mob extinction are debunked. They’re clearly as strong and powerful as ever.

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