Hoffa Helps Open Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace creator Jay Sarno was giving UPI reporter Myram Borders a pre-opening tour in August 1966.

"I recall Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa being introduced to the opening night audience as a man who was instrumental in securing major financing for the hotel development," Borders said in an e-mail. Hoffa even went on stage, took the mic and said a few congratulatory words, she added. The mobbed-up Teamster pension fund money helped finance the hotel development.

Borders, who ran the UPI office here for decades, was in the massive press room on opening night when she spotted some names on a Rolodex. They were private numbers of "the boys," she said, referring to organized crime bosses. As she was leaving the room, a PR honcho from New York saw the list of names she had taken down and "we had a major tug of war over my precious piece of paper."

Thanks to Norm!

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Sinatra Family and Biographer to End Feud Over Mafia Claims?

Frank Sinatra's leading biographer, Anthony Summers, is hoping to end the feud between himself and the crooner's family by meeting with Ol' Blue Eyes' daughter Tina. The Sinatra estate has dismissed claims the singer battled alcoholism and worked as a 'money mule' for the Mafia, which are detailed in SINATRA: THE LIFE, the book written by Oxford University-educated Summers and his wife Robbyn Swan.

The Sinatras vilified the writers as "clowns" for attempting to write about the crooner's life. Sinatra's daughter Nancy went so far to call them "garbage pickers" on her website - before the book was first published in May 2005. The biographers, who are standing by their research - which took four years to gather - insist the family was very keen to keep Sinatra's popular image intact. Swan explains, "We approached Sinatra's children and Barbara Marx-Sinatra, his last wife, Mrs. Nancy Sinatra, his first wife, and Mia Farrow, his third wife, about possible interviews and they all declined; some more politely than others.

"Nancy Sinatra, Frank's daughter, had numerous letters from us and was tracked down on her tour by our researcher, but several weeks before the book came out, she went on her website and disparaged fans from reading our book and vilified us as clowns and garbage pickers and said that she knew our book was garbage because we'd never bothered to approach the family. "You're dealing with people who not only want to have their own personal memories of their father, but they also want to own the public memories of Sinatra; they want to own what is published about him and whitewash his life." But Summers, whose book Honeytrap was used as the basis for hit British film Scandal, is now planning to meet with Sinatra's daughter TINA later this year, in an effort to end the war of words between the family and the biographers.

He adds, "Several people, who were close to Sinatra, have told us we should be proud of the book, and we got it right. "I suspect that Tina Sinatra is more open minded. I'm going to be in Los Angeles again shortly and I think I may touch base with her and see what she has to say."

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Gambino Captain Gets Jail

Friends of ours: Gambino Crime Family, Alphonse Sisca, Arnold Squitieri

A mafia captain who pleaded guilty to helping oversee a racket that engaged in illegal gambling, loansharking and extortion has been sentenced to more than more six years in prison.

Alphonse Sisca, 63, was sentenced Wednesday to six years and three months. The sentence is the latest blow for Sisca. After he was imprisoned last year, his son died of tongue cancer, Sisca's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, his daughter-in-law got thyroid cancer and his mother-in-law passed away.

At his sentencing last week, one-time Gambino chieftain Arnold Squitieri begged US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to have mercy on Sisca. Hellerstein said Wednesday that Sisca's sentence was tempered by the "unbroken grief'' his family has had to endure.

Thanks to 1010WINS

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Junior Gotti Offers to Testify

Friends of ours: "Junior" Gotti, John Gotti

John "Junior" Gotti, according to his attorneys, is willing to do the unthinkable: Take the witness stand and testify about his life in the Mafia.

In a letter filed in federal court on Tuesday, Gotti's lawyers said the reputed scion of the Gambino crime family is anxious to tell a jury about how he abandoned mob life after his last prison stint and has "no allegiance to it."

He has only one condition: He doesn't want prosecutors asking him "immaterial" questions about his affairs, the letter said.

Just what topics does Gotti want off limits?

For starters, according to the letter, he doesn't want to be asked whether he laundered money, ran a loan sharking business, tampered with witnesses, extorted people in the construction industry or conspired to kidnap Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.

"Those questions would serve no purpose other than to confuse the issues and to harass, annoy and humiliate Mr. Gotti," his attorney Sarit Kedia wrote in the letter to U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin.

There also is another concern: While Gotti is prepared to testify about his own actions, Kedia wrote, he is unwilling to testify about "certain facts" that "might implicate other people in crimes."

"In other words, Mr. Gotti is indisposed to becoming a de facto cooperator," she wrote.

In other words, don't hold your breath for Gotti's testimony anytime soon.

Prosecutors didn't immediately respond to the motion, and it would be an extraordinary departure from accepted practice if they agreed to limit what they might ask Gotti on the stand.

Jurors have twice deadlocked on whether Gotti was part of a criminal racket that, among other things, conspired to kidnap Sliwa in retaliation for comments he made on a radio program about his father, John Gotti.

Sliwa was shot when he entered a rigged cab for a ride to work. He recovered from his wounds.

At "Junior" Gotti's first retrial, his lawyers acknowledged that their client was involved in the mob but said he gave up the life after pleading guilty to racketeering in 1999.

He chose not to testify. His third trial is scheduled for this month. He could face 30 years in prison if convicted.

Thanks to David B. Caruso

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Treating Pimps Like Al Capone

You know it's hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin' to get his money for the rent

Lyrics from the Oscar-winning song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp''

And it just might get even harder if the flesh peddlers in America don't file their W-2s or hold on to their receipts.

Congress is considering unleashing the same forces that toppled the likes of infamous 1930s Chicago gangster Al Capone on the brazen street hustlers, brothel and escort service operators and others making a pretty — and mostly untaxed — penny in the multi-billion-dollar prostitution and sex trafficking trade.

No, we're not talking cops or even the clergy here. We're talking about that most feared of government agents: the tax collector.

Proposed legislation approved by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in late June could provide the feds a tried-and-true — but also nontraditional — way of prosecuting those cashing in on the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of young girls and women annually.

The bill, chiefly sponsored by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would set aside $2 million to create a unit within the Internal Revenue Service to deal exclusively with the operators of an underground sex economy that stretches from the seedy streets and motels of red-light districts to the online porn industry.

The proposal pumps more muscle into current federal tax laws. The proposed legislation significantly stiffens the penalties pimps face for failure to file income tax returns for themselves or even W-2 forms for their "employees.''

If criminal activity is substantiated, the proposal would tag pimps with a maximum 10-year federal prison sentence and $50,000 for each W-2 form that is not filed. Ouch.

"The thugs who run these trafficking rings are exploiting society's poorest girls and women for personal gain," Grassley told reporters recently. "The IRS goes after drug traffickers. It can go after sex traffickers."

Of course, this sounds at first glance like a pimp-in-the-sky idea. Even given recent years of great awareness about human trafficking, both domestic and international, law enforcement has traditionally and historically been lax in making busting pimps a top priority. But those in the local trenches of this problem think it's not a bad idea.

"From what I'm reading, it sounds like a good idea and a long time coming,'' said St. Paul police Sgt. John Bandemer, a vice cop and also project manager for a local Justice Department grant to rescue human trafficking victims and help prosecute their exploiters. The Twin Cities area has been designated by the federal agency as one of the 13 "hot spots'' in the nation for sex trafficking.

Bandemer says one of the more difficult aspects of prosecuting pimps of all types is often the unwillingness of exploited victims to testify. Fear of being harmed or bringing harm to their family members often is a key reason.

"The tax laws have been a great thing for us in the past when going after drug dealers,'' he added. "I think it's good to find nontraditional ways to stop these guys and prosecute them for their illegal activities.''

Capone, who posed as a used furniture dealer, reportedly made $105 million by 1929 through prostitution, illegal gambling and alcohol sales during the Prohibition era. He eluded the law through bribes and witness tampering or intimidation. But treasury and IRS agents teamed up in 1931 and dug up receipts from some of his illicit earnings. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion and watched his mob empire crumble during his 11 years in the slammer.

Vednita Carter, who runs Breaking Free, a St. Paul-based nonprofit that provides services to prostituted girls and women in the Twin Cities area, likes the idea but has some concerns.

"It's usually the women that get busted, and my concern is whether they will go after former victims who are forced to recruit others and even run part of the trade,'' she said. Carter, however, also believes the paper chase might serve as another useful route in dismantling prostitution rings.

In testimony before Congress last year, a street outreach specialist for a group based in Washington, D.C., similar to Breaking Free provided an interesting estimate of one local pimp's annual haul.

"A victim sex-trafficked from her early teens was generating an estimated $130,000 in profits for her trafficker each year,'' Tina Frundt told legislators. "We sat down and figured out that the pimp was making about $24,000 a month between her and other women and about $642,000 a year tax-free.''

Go get them, tax man.

Thanks to Ruben Rosario

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