Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witness (21 page)

Sickles’ office received a Teletype from the Chicago field office about a burglar who was believed to have moved from there to Tucson. His name was Sal Romano and he had the reputation of being a pretty good alarm and lock guy. After receiving the information, Sickles and another agent named Bill Christensen began checking on Romano to find out where he was and what he was doing.

One of the things they did was contact the Tucson Police Department to see if they’d experienced any recent burglaries matching Romano’s modus operandi. Sure enough, some coin-operated laundries were getting knocked off and Romano looked like a good fit. The police initiated a video surveillance and Romano was caught on tape doing a laundry burglary. The cops let Sickles know when they were going to make the arrest and he went to the station to see if Romano would be willing to talk with him, specifically if he might be interested in working a deal to stay out of jail.

Sickles and his partner got to speak with Romano and the burglar was willing to cooperate. He told them about burglaries he’d done in various places, including some with Tony Spilotro’s people in Las Vegas. He also said that a lot of the goods stolen in Vegas were fenced in Tucson. Romano was released without being charged, but he had to produce credible information in order to stay free. Based on what he told them, the agents were able to retrieve some of the items stolen in Las Vegas from the fences in Tucson.

Romano wasn’t asked to target any specific person or group, but the agents kept him on a short leash and always knew where he was. When the informant decided to go to Las Vegas and pal around with some of Spilotro’s associates, the Phoenix agents contacted Dennis Arnoldy and Joe Gersky at the Las Vegas field office and told them what was going on. That was the beginning of the excellent cooperation and coordination among various field offices and agents in handling Romano and the information he provided.

Frank’s Upper Crust was located in a strip mall. The FBI was interested in learning what went on in the back room of the restaurant, so they applied to a federal judge for a warrant to install eavesdropping equipment to find out. It wasn’t an easy placement for the G-men. The fact that the adjoining and affiliated My Place was open around the clock further complicated the job. Agents ended up accessing the roof and installing a camera and microphone down an airshaft. It was ticklish and time-consuming, but they got it done without being detected. That was the good news. The bad news for the law was that the bug was discovered less than 24 hours later.

Things began to go downhill for the agents when Leo Guardino went into a back room to take a snooze before Frank picked him up to go on a burglary. He climbed on top of a chest-type freezer and before he closed his eyes, he saw something shiny in the ceiling. He pushed up a ceiling tile and found the bug. Then he picked up a phone and called Frank at home. Without going into detail, Guardino summoned his partner to the restaurant.

When Frank arrived, Guardino motioned him into the back room. Using hand signals he directed Frank’s attention to the eavesdropping equipment. The two men left the room to discuss what to do.

Next to My Place Lounge in the shopping center were a clothing store and a real-estate office. Only a small firewall separated the stores. A crawl space above the ceilings ran through all the stores. Because it was a Sunday, the real-estate office and the clothing store were closed. Guardino was dispatched to go into the crawl space above the ceiling and follow the wire to the monitoring equipment. He returned from his mission and reported he’d traced the line to the real-estate office.

This time both Guardino and Frank went into the ceiling and dropped down into the real-estate office. Frank ripped the wires out of the equipment there, then crawled back to the restaurant, removing the camera and microphone as he descended from the ceiling.

Frank next went to My Place and called Tony. “Bring that camera to my house. We’ll check it and find out who it belongs to,” Tony said.

When Frank got to Tony’s, he found Joe Blasko there. Blasko was an ex-cop; while he was on the force, Tony recruited him to provide information on police activities. When he was caught on FBI wiretaps passing sensitive data to the mobsters, he was fired. Afterward he continued to advise Tony on police-related matters. Frank considered him to be Tony’s stooge, and the Ant threw him a bone every once in a while to keep him happy.

Blasko checked the camera and found a metal tag that had been painted over. He removed the paint with alcohol and it said “Property of the U.S. Government.”

Tony was angry. “The fuckin’ FBI,” he fumed.

“What are we going to do now?” Frank asked.

Tony pointed at the camera. “I know a Jew who can use shit like that. I’ll give it to him. Then we’ll sit back and see how the G is going to handle this.”

Not long after the transmissions from the Upper Crust stopped, agents Charlie Parsons and Emmett Michaels met at their office to discuss their options. They came to the conclusion that the bugging equipment was government property and had been legally installed. Under those circumstances they saw no reason why they shouldn’t go to the restaurant and get their property back. They decided to call on Frank the next day.

Frank spent the rest of Sunday at the restaurant waiting for the G to do something, but nothing happened. On Monday morning he and Eileen got the restaurant ready for business. He told her to be very careful about what she said and that the phones might be tapped. Then he looked out the window and saw a sea of suits; he was sure they were FBI. Five or six agents came inside. Two of them went to the pay phone and the others sat at separate tables. Frank took a seat at a table with Ernie Davino. In his pocket he had the FBI’s microphone that he’d ripped out of the ceiling the previous day. In case he was about to get searched, he removed it and set it in an ashtray. The ever-reliable Eileen noticed the move, came over, and took the ashtray. She removed the mike, went next door to My Place, and flushed it. The suits didn’t pay any attention to her.

Frank walked up to one of the men and asked, “Are you with the FBI?”

The man laughed. “Me with the FBI? No way.”

“I know you guys have to identify yourselves if you’re asked.” “Sorry. You’re mistaken,” the man said.

Frank knew it was a lie, but decided not to challenge him any further and returned to his seat. The agents hung around a few more minutes and then left.

Charlie Parsons returned in about an hour with Emmett Michaels. Parsons asked Frank outside to talk. He said, “We want our camera back.”

Frank said, “I don’t have your fucking camera.”

“We know damn well you’ve got it. If you don’t give it back, we’ll ride you day and night.”

“You can go fuck yourself. I wouldn’t give you the camera back now even if I did have it.”

“Contact your lawyer and have him give me a call,” Parsons said. He and Michaels left, but they weren’t happy.

Frank contacted Tony and told him about the FBI’s visit. Tony tried to reach his lawyer, Oscar Goodman, but Goodman was out of town and couldn’t fly back. So he called Dominic Gentile, a lawyer originally from Chicago. Frank also got in touch with his own lawyer, John Momot. Gentile was dispatched to handle the FBI. The lawyer contacted Charlie Parsons and arranged a meeting at the Upper Crust that night. Frank, Tony, Gentile, Parsons, and Michaels all got together to talk.

While Parsons was pleading his case that the camera was government property and had been placed pursuant to court order, Tony was standing with his hand stuck inside his shirt. Michaels said to him, “You look like a little Caesar standing there like that.”

Tony didn’t find the agent’s comment amusing. “Fuck you, you bald-headed motherfucker.”

Michaels and Tony eyed each other like a mongoose and a cobra as the tension built. Knowing any further comments could escalate into a physical confrontation, Frank intervened. He said to the agents, “Look, this is my place and your beef is with me. If you’ve got anything to say, say it to me, not Tony.” That defused the situation and there was no further interaction between Michaels and Spilotro.

After some negotiating, the agents said that if they got their camera back, that would be the end of it. Gentile called Frank and Tony aside to talk it over. Frank wanted to play hardball, but Tony figured if the camera was returned, the feds would back off a little. Frank reluctantly went along with him. Frank told Parsons he’d get his camera back, but that the mike was probably somewhere in Lake Mead.

That night Frank picked up the camera from Tony’s friend and got it to Parsons. It wasn’t until later that he figured out how the agents determined where to plant their bug.

Around the same time the FBI placed their surveillance devices in the Upper Crust, Metro detectives got in the bugging business as well. Their target was the vehicle operated by Ernie Davino, an old restored Caddy Frank had sold him.

Frank found out about it three days after giving Charlie Parsons his camera back. He was in the restaurant when he received a phone call from a man he didn’t know. He didn’t recognize the guy’s voice and the caller wouldn’t give his name. He said, “Right now your man has a transmitter on his car. I’m listening to a police radio and can hear what they’re saying. They’re following this guy Ernie Davino around.”

Ernie was getting ready to drive to Chicago to deliver some merchandise and was out getting an oil change when Frank tried to get hold of him. As soon as Ernie got home Frank went over to talk with him.

“I got word the cops are on you,” Frank said.

“You might be right. I’ve been noticing some cars that always seem to be around me.”

“There’s one way to find out for sure,” Frank said.

They went out to Davino’s car and found a tracking device under the right fender. Walking away from the car Frank told Davino, “We should probably pull the goddamn transmitter. But in case the cops did anything wrong here, I want to check with John Momot first.”

Davino agreed. “Good idea. Maybe he’ll be able to back those bastards off a little.”

They left Davino’s car parked and drove Frank’s vehicle to the restaurant. When they walked in, Eileen said a man had brought in some audiotapes. She didn’t know who the guy was, but it seemed likely it was Frank’s mystery caller from earlier.

The tapes were recordings of Metro’s surveillance of Ernie Davino. The two men listened to the radio transmissions as the cops followed Davino around. When his car was being serviced, one of the cops said, “Holy Christ! The car’s up on the rack and they’re changing the oil. I hope they don’t see that transmitter.”

Another cop said, “Yeah. If they do I’ll drive in there and rip it out of their fucking hands.”

Frank called Tony and told him about the bug. “The G and now Metro,” Tony said in disgust. “Those cocksuckers are on us big time. Who’s this fuckin’ guy that tipped you?”

“I told you I don’t know. I’m just glad he got hold of me, whoever he is.”

Tony was silent for a few seconds. Then said, “You guys are causing all this goddamn heat. You’d better cool it or they’ll be up our ass every fuckin’ minute.”

Frank resented the implication that the bugging incidents were the fault of him and his crew. Here was Tony, the guy running the whole show, acting like he had nothing to do with anything. But it was obvious to Frank that Tony was getting nervous and when Tony got nervous, he got mean. “Look, Tony, we’re keeping as low a profile as we can and still take care of business. We’re not spending lots of money or buying lots of stuff. They think we’re doing all these scores, but they can’t prove anything. That’s why they’re on us; they’re trying to find out what we’ve got going.”

Frank contacted John Momot. He and Davino met the attorney at a service station. The Caddy was put up on a hoist and Momot took a picture of the transmitter. Then Frank pulled the device off the car and gave it to the lawyer. Momot said it could come in handy later on to make a case for police harassment.

Metro detectives were also very curious about what took place at the Upper Crust. Officers assigned to the Spilotro investigation regularly conducted surveillance of the eatery. Two of those detectives were David Groover and Sergeant Gene Smith. On the evening of June 9, 1980, the pair was in their unmarked police vehicle parked nearby when a car with Illinois license plates pulled in.

Tony Spilotro and Frank Cullotta were sitting at a table outside the restaurant. The operator of the vehicle went inside, apparently to order a pizza to go, then came back out and joined Frank and Tony at their 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 he was acquainted with Tony and Frank. Smith and Groover decided to follow the Lincoln to see what information they could gather about who the driver was and what he was up to.

As soon as the car pulled out onto Flamingo Road, the driver started speeding, doing 80 or better, and driving recklessly. With Groover behind the wheel, the detectives kept pace with the Lincoln, but made no effort to stop it at that time. Eventually, they figured there was enough probable cause on the traffic violations to pull the car over and check out the operator.

At that time, Groover and Smith didn’t know that the driver of the Lincoln was 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, his father, Steve Bluestein, was an official in the local Culinary Union and had been subject to a 1978 search warrant as part of the FBI’s investigation of Tony Spilotro.

The officers pulled over the Lincoln and Groover approached the vehicle. The driver lowered his window. Suddenly Smith hollered, “Watch out, Dave! He’s got a gun!”