Being Oscar
Authors: Oscar Goodman
BEING
OSCAR
ALSO BY GEORGE ANASTASIA
Blood and Honor
Mob Father
The Goodfella Tapes
The Summer Wind
The Last Gangster
Mob Files
Philadelphia True Noir
The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies
BEING
OSCAR
FROM MOB LAWYER
TO MAYOR OF LAS VEGAS,
ONLY IN AMERICA
OSCAR GOODMAN
WITH GEORGE ANASTASIA
W
EINSTEIN
B
OOKS
Copyright © 2013 by Oscar Goodman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher. For information address Weinstein Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this book.
ISBN 978-1-60286-189-3 (e-book)
Published by Weinstein Books
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Book design by Jane Raese
First edition
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FOR MY BRIDE, CAROLYN,
AND THE DYNASTY
CONTENTS
3
What They Don’t Teach in Law School
9
A Visit to the Mustang Ranch
14
Problems with the President
Once in awhile there is a mayor whose personality defines his city. Richard Daley in Chicago. Fiorello LaGuardia in New York. Frank Rizzo in Philadelphia.
Oscar Goodman, who recently completed his third and by law final four-year term as mayor of Las Vegas, belongs on that list.
Vegas. Sin City.
Goodman. Mob Mouthpiece.
Could there be a better fit?
Oscar Goodman
is
Las Vegas at the neon-lit start of the twenty-first century. No excuses; no alibis. Life is short—grab it with both fists. Let others whine, moan and complain. Do your best. Be who you are.
Vegas is a town built on glitz and glitter. Its foundation is an industry that used to be illegal in most other states. The city offers people a chance to lose their money. In fact, it almost guarantees it. Yet millions flock there every year to live the fantasy—to roll the dice. To be, for just a few hours or a few days, somebody they’re not: a high roller. A player.
Vegas is mostly make-believe. An adult fantasy world. Yet Oscar Goodman is for real—he embodies the city. Go figure.
This is his story, told in his own words and through his perspective. It’s the way he saw things go down, the way he interpreted what happened, the way he played the hands that were dealt to him.
President Obama, casino executives, U.S. senators, federal prosecutors, and FBI agents will all have their own versions of
these stories. Oscar Goodman doesn’t care what they think. If they disagree, let them go write their own book.
Over the years, he’s dealt with mobsters and moguls, pimps and politicos. His take on who they are and how they fit in society is fascinating. His is a unique look at life through a prism that only Las Vegas could provide.
The fiction, of course, is that the mob created Vegas. Gambling existed in the Nevada desert long before the wiseguys came along. But you could make an argument, and Oscar does, that it was the vision of men like Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel that turned the city into something special.
What Las Vegas got in return was the problem.
There was a time when organized crime had its hooks in some of the biggest gambling palaces in town—places like the Tropicana, the Stardust, the Hacienda, the Fremont, and the Marina. The skimming scandals of the 1970s and 1980s documented this. Mob families from Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, and other parts of the country were said to be sharing in cash taken out of the counting rooms before any earnings were reported. Estimates put the annual take at anywhere from $7 million to $20 million.
In street corner terms, the mob was cooking the books at some of the city’s biggest gambling halls. What grew out of these scandals was a push to clean up the industry. The exclusion list, the “Black Book” that contained the names of individuals whose very presence in a casino was deemed to be inimical to the integrity of the industry, was established, and individuals were banned.
Oscar Goodman was in the middle of dozens of legal battles and criminal cases that sprang from the controversy. Two of his major clients, Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, became the poster boys for all that the do-gooders said was wrong with casino gambling. He also represented reputed
Kansas City mob boss Nick Civella and a dozen other wiseguys throughout the country, including Vinny Ferrara in Boston and Phil Leonetti in Philadelphia.
They were the “bad guys.” But Oscar also dealt with a lot of so-called “good guys.” Sometimes he had trouble telling the difference.
While he was doing all this, his persona and his reputation grew. His ego—and Oscar would be the first to acknowledge this—can fill up a room. Arrogant, self-deprecating, opinionated, understanding, aggressive, caring; they’re all part of the package. His emotions are the pistons that drive his engine. But what sometimes gets lost in all the hype is his abiding belief in, and love of, the law.
The caricature—a martini in one hand, a showgirl on each arm—is sometimes so strong that people miss the person behind it.
Twelve years in City Hall and nearly twice as many bobblehead dolls fashioned in his likeness. What other mayor in America can make that claim? Goodman loved the attention. It made him feel, he has often said, “like a rock star.”
When he defeated a tic-tac-toe-playing chicken at a media event, he quipped, “I don’t cluck around.” When the College of Southern Nevada asked him to teach a class on mixing martinis, he jumped at the chance.
But his three terms were more than just headlines and photo ops; more than show girls and martinis. In a political world where form is often more important than substance, Oscar delivered the goods. Las Vegas is a better place now than when he was first elected. That sometimes gets overlooked in the hype and sizzle that he brought to local government.
What he said sometimes overshadowed what he did. He could often be outlandish in an effort to make a point or, his detractors might argue, to call attention to himself. The point is, becoming
mayor didn’t change the way Oscar Goodman operated. He was as aggressive an advocate for the city as he had been for his criminal clients.
After 9/11, when the economy was tanking and Las Vegas casinos laid off 30,000 workers, he railed against the industry, arguing that it was taking advantage of a bad situation to enhance its own bottom line. Then he stood in front of the media and suggested that every man should get a lap dance in order to boost the economy.
When a local health clinic was endangering its patients through the faulty use of products in colon cancer testing, Goodman didn’t hesitate to act. Nearly 14,000 patients had been warned of their potential exposure to hepatitis because of the questionable practices of the clinic, but neither the health department nor the medical board thought it had the power to do anything about the situation. Oscar ordered the city to pull the clinic’s business license, effectively shutting down the facility.
When the FBI exposed a little known Arab-American as a publicity seeker who sought to stir a media firestorm by falsely claiming that he knew of a terrorist plot targeting the gambling capital of America, Goodman suggested the guy should be “whacked.” It was a sentiment no doubt shared by many, but one that you might not expect would come out of the mouth of the mayor of the city.