It took the state 43 years before it would voluntarily remove Marshall Caifano from its infamous Black Book of people barred from entering Nevada casinos.
But Caifano -- whose ties to the Chicago mob were documented by several crime commission reports over the years -- had to die before that could happen.
In September, Caifano died of natural causes at age 92 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he had been living following his release from prison several years ago.
His removal from the Black Book, otherwise known as the List of Excluded Persons, was made official last month by the state Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission. It made headlines as one of only a few times Black Book inductees have died, the only event that has triggered removal from the list.
Similar to the situation surrounding others who have been removed from the Black Book, nobody lobbied on Caifano's behalf following his death. Instead, regulators happened upon a newspaper article about his death, leading to a procedural removal based on the determination that the man no longer presents a threat to the casino industry.
Caifano's story is more than a colorful tale for followers of mob history. It is the story of a man who would shape the future of the Black Book and the controversy surrounding its debut. It is also the story of a person whose family name would remain marred by negative publicity long after Caifano made newspaper headlines and served jail time.
Caifano was among the first 11 inductees into the Black Book when it was initiated in 1960. With his death, Southern California mob figure Louis Tom Dragna, 83, is the only member of the original group still alive.
Regulators had linked all of the original members to the mob -- a distinct change from the present-day casino cheats who now make up a significant number of new Black Book members, Nevada regulators say. Shortly after he was named, Caifano -- whose small stature belied an intimidating manner -- filed suit against then-Gov. Grant Sawyer, the Control Board and the Desert Inn casino, claiming the list violated his civil rights.
It was the first official challenge to the Black Book and would not be the last. Several reputed mob figures and fronts have fought in court to keep themselves off the list. They include Joseph Agosto, producer of the Folies Bergere show at the Tropicana, Anthony Spilotro, identified by the feds as a hidden investor in the company that operated the Stardust and Fremont casinos in the 1970s and Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, an executive in the same company known for his long and loud challenge of Nevada authorities in the 1980s.
Caifano's initial legal challenge in 1960 put the Black Book out of commission for six years. The suit was dismissed by a state court but that decision was reversed by an appeals court, which ruled the case should be heard in federal court. Caifano took the suit back to state court, where he lost. The appeals court heard it a second time and upheld the Black Book, reaching several damaging conclusions about Caifano's situation.
Caifano's exclusion wasn't based on "color, race, religion, creed or national origin" but rather, on his extensive rap sheet, judges said.
His reputation as a Chicago mob lieutenant included the use of "muscle techniques such as threats, extortions, bombings and murder," they said.
The court noted Chicago Crime Commission records revealing 18 arrests between 1929 and 1951 alone and also quoted the California Crime Commission's allegation that Caifano was a top lieutenant to a Mafia don who had succeeded Al Capone's gang. He also was linked to evidence of hidden mob ownership of the Desert Inn and Tropicana casinos.
Prior to his legal challenge, Caifano tested the law by entering the Desert Inn casino in October 1960 under the eyes of law enforcement and the media. A Desert Inn executive told Caifano to "get out" shortly after the ex-con sat down to order a drink. According to a Las Vegas Sun story, Caifano left after getting into a fistfight with a Sun photographer.
The first Black Book was issued under a cloud of secrecy and without any specific methodology for inclusion or appeal process for inductees. Those rules and others that narrowed the scope of the law didn't come until years later. Attorneys successfully fought on behalf of clients who were in prison, leading to rules allowing inductees to testify in their own defense.
It wasn't clear from the beginning whether regulators intended to add more than the original 11 names, entertaining the idea only after beating Caifano's suit six years later.
During Caifano's legal challenge, the state held a series of hearings on casino skimming in Las Vegas and Carson City during which gambling bosses denied under oath that any of their winnings bypassed tax collectors for the underworld.
Gaming regulators were skeptical of those claims and instead moved to add more men to the Black Book in the late 1970s. Nominees would fight back, giving regulators headaches for years to come.
Other problems came in the form of alleged crime figures who were nominated for the Black Book but ultimately escaped the list. Regulators say Carl Thomas was quoted in FBI documents as planning skimming operations at the Tropicana for the Kansas City mob. But the state couldn't verify affidavits provided by the FBI, opening the door to legal challenges. Most recently, the state in 2001 dropped its case against Sam Cecola, a strip club owner with alleged ties to the Chicago mob and a conviction for tax violations. The state said it had insufficient evidence to include Cecola, while Cecola's attorney claimed regulators had relied upon "rumors" and "misinformation" from police reports.
The 11 men singled out for the first Black Book were "just examples" of the many felons that could potentially be blackballed from the industry but aren't mentioned in the Black Book, commission members admitted in news reports at the time.
One of the original names, Robert L. Garcia, was admittedly a "small time" hood who was "not in the same category with the others," commissioners said.
After Caifano's defeat, regulators dusted off the Black Book but would face another legal challenge from Spilotro, who used a similar argument to declare that the Black Book was unconstitutional.
The case was eventually heard by the state Supreme Court, which upheld the the Black Book in 1983 but said regulators had failed to properly prepare evidence that led to Spilotro's inclusion in 1978. After correcting errors, regulators put Spilotro back in the book.
Spilotro's attorney Oscar Goodman famously declared that the Black Book was "no less evil than the McCarthy Blacklist" and was "just as dangerous as Nazi Germany."
"Anthony John Spilotro has been singled out, stigmatized and disgraced under the guise of protecting the gaming industry," Goodman said. "If a notorious reputation is held to be a permissible method of excluding an individual from public places, then appellant submits there are politicians, judges, entertainers, attorneys and members of the community who should also be subjected to Black Book treatment."
The state maintained that the list was intended to protect a privileged industry from harm. The court agreed, saying the Black Book was an administrative right.
In 1984, a year after the Spilotro decision, regulators announced a different approach to the Black Book and said they expected to include cheaters and other criminals on the list besides the mob figures that had defined the city's past. Regulations determining a candidate's "notorious or unsavory reputation" also were specified to allow regulators to consider reports published by certain state and federal crime commissions.
Some politicians as well as those on the wrong end of a state investigation questioned the law enforcement purpose of the Black Book.
In 1981, a state senator openly questioned if it was "worth the trouble" to have a Black Book.
"It was a political document from the beginning," said Las Vegas resident Bill Friedman, author of one of the first books on casino management and a former professor at UNLV.
"It made the industry look good but it didn't keep the mob (from investing in) casinos," said Friedman, who is working on a multi-volume history of Las Vegas. "They weren't going after criminals. They were trying to solve issues politically." Keeping mob-linked figures out of the business proved problematic, he said.
"We had no homegrown industry," he said. "We had to pull people out of illegal casinos across the country. Almost all of these people had been involved in illegal gambling and most all had been involved in prohibition. They were looked down on as criminals elsewhere" but established themselves as legitimate businessmen in Las Vegas, he said.
Regulators who developed the Black Book "didn't think about what the consequences were" for regulating and defending the list, Friedman said. As the legal challenges piled up, the Black Book "became an albatross" for the state, he said.
Publicly, regulators say the Black Book has served its purpose over the years.
"It puts the casinos on notice that the (Gaming Control) Board doesn't want them associating with these individuals," said James Taylor, a special agent with the board's enforcement division and a Black Book specialist. "It also protects the casinos. They have a way to stop (criminals) at the door."
Former regulators say the Black Book has had a net benefit for the industry.
"A political statement can be a powerful tool," to control crime, said Jeffrey Silver, a gaming attorney in Las Vegas who served on the Gaming Control Board from 1975 to 1978.
"A political document is as important as any other announcement about what the policy of the state is. (The Black Book) is a statement of policy that says people who are in organized crime can't even walk into a casino."
Silver, who denied Rosenthal a casino license as general manager of the Stardust, said the Black Book did what regulatory policy failed to accomplish.
After Rosenthal's denial, the casino tried to appoint him to lesser positions that wouldn't have required as much regulatory scrutiny, Silver said.
"They tried to do everything they could to keep him in the building so that he could make decisions on how the place was to be run," he said. "The Black Book finally did it" by kicking him out, he said.
The Black Book "didn't have any major effect in keeping the industry clean," said Frank Schreck, a Las Vegas gaming attorney and former member of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1970 to 1975.
Still, it sent a strong message to undesirables and gave regulators more legal authority to take a stand against the mob, Schreck said.
"If you've got some Mafia guy ... sitting (in a casino) having a drink and he's not doing anything wrong, what do you do?" he said.
"We were always being accused by the federal government and religious and other action groups (of) being (crime-ridden)," Schreck said. "(Regulators) had to do what they could in order to make a statement. The Black Book was a statement that we will not tolerate that kind of brazen activity."
As an example, word that Frank Sinatra was playing host to reputed Mafia figure and Black Book member Sam Giancana at Sinatra's Cal Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe led to the revocation of the singer's casino license, he said.
If Caifano's generation is dying, it isn't gone altogether, regulators say.
"There's still an organized crime element in society," Taylor said. New ways of cheating casinos also are being developed, he added.
Of the 18 Black Book members who have passed away over the years, all were considered "mobbed up," he said. Of the 37 people remaining on the list, nearly half are newer inductees who aren't affiliated with organized crime and have instead been associated with crimes such as illegal bookmaking and cheating.
Casino cheats have been known to be part of well-organized rings not unlike mob organizations and are "relentless" about casing out casinos, Silver said.
Law enforcement officials over the years had linked Caifano to murders as well as theft and illegal bookmaking. His final encounter with the law came in 1980 when he was sentenced to 20 years for transporting stolen stock certificates. He was released in 1991, already an old man. News of Caifano's removal from the Black Book serves as little comfort to his family.
"The man is dead -- he was 92 years old," Marcella Romeo, Caifano's daughter, said. Romeo, reached by telephone this week for comment, said the family has lived with negative publicity for years.
"Let the family rest," she said. @@@
But Caifano -- whose ties to the Chicago mob were documented by several crime commission reports over the years -- had to die before that could happen.
In September, Caifano died of natural causes at age 92 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he had been living following his release from prison several years ago.
His removal from the Black Book, otherwise known as the List of Excluded Persons, was made official last month by the state Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission. It made headlines as one of only a few times Black Book inductees have died, the only event that has triggered removal from the list.
Similar to the situation surrounding others who have been removed from the Black Book, nobody lobbied on Caifano's behalf following his death. Instead, regulators happened upon a newspaper article about his death, leading to a procedural removal based on the determination that the man no longer presents a threat to the casino industry.
Caifano's story is more than a colorful tale for followers of mob history. It is the story of a man who would shape the future of the Black Book and the controversy surrounding its debut. It is also the story of a person whose family name would remain marred by negative publicity long after Caifano made newspaper headlines and served jail time.
Caifano was among the first 11 inductees into the Black Book when it was initiated in 1960. With his death, Southern California mob figure Louis Tom Dragna, 83, is the only member of the original group still alive.
Regulators had linked all of the original members to the mob -- a distinct change from the present-day casino cheats who now make up a significant number of new Black Book members, Nevada regulators say. Shortly after he was named, Caifano -- whose small stature belied an intimidating manner -- filed suit against then-Gov. Grant Sawyer, the Control Board and the Desert Inn casino, claiming the list violated his civil rights.
It was the first official challenge to the Black Book and would not be the last. Several reputed mob figures and fronts have fought in court to keep themselves off the list. They include Joseph Agosto, producer of the Folies Bergere show at the Tropicana, Anthony Spilotro, identified by the feds as a hidden investor in the company that operated the Stardust and Fremont casinos in the 1970s and Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, an executive in the same company known for his long and loud challenge of Nevada authorities in the 1980s.
Caifano's initial legal challenge in 1960 put the Black Book out of commission for six years. The suit was dismissed by a state court but that decision was reversed by an appeals court, which ruled the case should be heard in federal court. Caifano took the suit back to state court, where he lost. The appeals court heard it a second time and upheld the Black Book, reaching several damaging conclusions about Caifano's situation.
Caifano's exclusion wasn't based on "color, race, religion, creed or national origin" but rather, on his extensive rap sheet, judges said.
His reputation as a Chicago mob lieutenant included the use of "muscle techniques such as threats, extortions, bombings and murder," they said.
The court noted Chicago Crime Commission records revealing 18 arrests between 1929 and 1951 alone and also quoted the California Crime Commission's allegation that Caifano was a top lieutenant to a Mafia don who had succeeded Al Capone's gang. He also was linked to evidence of hidden mob ownership of the Desert Inn and Tropicana casinos.
Prior to his legal challenge, Caifano tested the law by entering the Desert Inn casino in October 1960 under the eyes of law enforcement and the media. A Desert Inn executive told Caifano to "get out" shortly after the ex-con sat down to order a drink. According to a Las Vegas Sun story, Caifano left after getting into a fistfight with a Sun photographer.
The first Black Book was issued under a cloud of secrecy and without any specific methodology for inclusion or appeal process for inductees. Those rules and others that narrowed the scope of the law didn't come until years later. Attorneys successfully fought on behalf of clients who were in prison, leading to rules allowing inductees to testify in their own defense.
It wasn't clear from the beginning whether regulators intended to add more than the original 11 names, entertaining the idea only after beating Caifano's suit six years later.
During Caifano's legal challenge, the state held a series of hearings on casino skimming in Las Vegas and Carson City during which gambling bosses denied under oath that any of their winnings bypassed tax collectors for the underworld.
Gaming regulators were skeptical of those claims and instead moved to add more men to the Black Book in the late 1970s. Nominees would fight back, giving regulators headaches for years to come.
Other problems came in the form of alleged crime figures who were nominated for the Black Book but ultimately escaped the list. Regulators say Carl Thomas was quoted in FBI documents as planning skimming operations at the Tropicana for the Kansas City mob. But the state couldn't verify affidavits provided by the FBI, opening the door to legal challenges. Most recently, the state in 2001 dropped its case against Sam Cecola, a strip club owner with alleged ties to the Chicago mob and a conviction for tax violations. The state said it had insufficient evidence to include Cecola, while Cecola's attorney claimed regulators had relied upon "rumors" and "misinformation" from police reports.
The 11 men singled out for the first Black Book were "just examples" of the many felons that could potentially be blackballed from the industry but aren't mentioned in the Black Book, commission members admitted in news reports at the time.
One of the original names, Robert L. Garcia, was admittedly a "small time" hood who was "not in the same category with the others," commissioners said.
After Caifano's defeat, regulators dusted off the Black Book but would face another legal challenge from Spilotro, who used a similar argument to declare that the Black Book was unconstitutional.
The case was eventually heard by the state Supreme Court, which upheld the the Black Book in 1983 but said regulators had failed to properly prepare evidence that led to Spilotro's inclusion in 1978. After correcting errors, regulators put Spilotro back in the book.
Spilotro's attorney Oscar Goodman famously declared that the Black Book was "no less evil than the McCarthy Blacklist" and was "just as dangerous as Nazi Germany."
"Anthony John Spilotro has been singled out, stigmatized and disgraced under the guise of protecting the gaming industry," Goodman said. "If a notorious reputation is held to be a permissible method of excluding an individual from public places, then appellant submits there are politicians, judges, entertainers, attorneys and members of the community who should also be subjected to Black Book treatment."
The state maintained that the list was intended to protect a privileged industry from harm. The court agreed, saying the Black Book was an administrative right.
In 1984, a year after the Spilotro decision, regulators announced a different approach to the Black Book and said they expected to include cheaters and other criminals on the list besides the mob figures that had defined the city's past. Regulations determining a candidate's "notorious or unsavory reputation" also were specified to allow regulators to consider reports published by certain state and federal crime commissions.
Some politicians as well as those on the wrong end of a state investigation questioned the law enforcement purpose of the Black Book.
In 1981, a state senator openly questioned if it was "worth the trouble" to have a Black Book.
"It was a political document from the beginning," said Las Vegas resident Bill Friedman, author of one of the first books on casino management and a former professor at UNLV.
"It made the industry look good but it didn't keep the mob (from investing in) casinos," said Friedman, who is working on a multi-volume history of Las Vegas. "They weren't going after criminals. They were trying to solve issues politically." Keeping mob-linked figures out of the business proved problematic, he said.
"We had no homegrown industry," he said. "We had to pull people out of illegal casinos across the country. Almost all of these people had been involved in illegal gambling and most all had been involved in prohibition. They were looked down on as criminals elsewhere" but established themselves as legitimate businessmen in Las Vegas, he said.
Regulators who developed the Black Book "didn't think about what the consequences were" for regulating and defending the list, Friedman said. As the legal challenges piled up, the Black Book "became an albatross" for the state, he said.
Publicly, regulators say the Black Book has served its purpose over the years.
"It puts the casinos on notice that the (Gaming Control) Board doesn't want them associating with these individuals," said James Taylor, a special agent with the board's enforcement division and a Black Book specialist. "It also protects the casinos. They have a way to stop (criminals) at the door."
Former regulators say the Black Book has had a net benefit for the industry.
"A political statement can be a powerful tool," to control crime, said Jeffrey Silver, a gaming attorney in Las Vegas who served on the Gaming Control Board from 1975 to 1978.
"A political document is as important as any other announcement about what the policy of the state is. (The Black Book) is a statement of policy that says people who are in organized crime can't even walk into a casino."
Silver, who denied Rosenthal a casino license as general manager of the Stardust, said the Black Book did what regulatory policy failed to accomplish.
After Rosenthal's denial, the casino tried to appoint him to lesser positions that wouldn't have required as much regulatory scrutiny, Silver said.
"They tried to do everything they could to keep him in the building so that he could make decisions on how the place was to be run," he said. "The Black Book finally did it" by kicking him out, he said.
The Black Book "didn't have any major effect in keeping the industry clean," said Frank Schreck, a Las Vegas gaming attorney and former member of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1970 to 1975.
Still, it sent a strong message to undesirables and gave regulators more legal authority to take a stand against the mob, Schreck said.
"If you've got some Mafia guy ... sitting (in a casino) having a drink and he's not doing anything wrong, what do you do?" he said.
"We were always being accused by the federal government and religious and other action groups (of) being (crime-ridden)," Schreck said. "(Regulators) had to do what they could in order to make a statement. The Black Book was a statement that we will not tolerate that kind of brazen activity."
As an example, word that Frank Sinatra was playing host to reputed Mafia figure and Black Book member Sam Giancana at Sinatra's Cal Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe led to the revocation of the singer's casino license, he said.
If Caifano's generation is dying, it isn't gone altogether, regulators say.
"There's still an organized crime element in society," Taylor said. New ways of cheating casinos also are being developed, he added.
Of the 18 Black Book members who have passed away over the years, all were considered "mobbed up," he said. Of the 37 people remaining on the list, nearly half are newer inductees who aren't affiliated with organized crime and have instead been associated with crimes such as illegal bookmaking and cheating.
Casino cheats have been known to be part of well-organized rings not unlike mob organizations and are "relentless" about casing out casinos, Silver said.
Law enforcement officials over the years had linked Caifano to murders as well as theft and illegal bookmaking. His final encounter with the law came in 1980 when he was sentenced to 20 years for transporting stolen stock certificates. He was released in 1991, already an old man. News of Caifano's removal from the Black Book serves as little comfort to his family.
"The man is dead -- he was 92 years old," Marcella Romeo, Caifano's daughter, said. Romeo, reached by telephone this week for comment, said the family has lived with negative publicity for years.
"Let the family rest," she said. @@@
