Too Many Mob Museums in Las Vegas?

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Jim Talbot of South Deerfield, Mass., emerged from the Mob Attraction in the Tropicana Las Vegas to give it a thumbs-up for its blend of information and entertainment.

A few hours later, Carol Fast of Santa Ana, Calif., stepped out of the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas and praised it for emphasizing history and going light on the hokum. But both said they had seen enough organized crime for one trip.

"I wouldn't want to go to both," Fast said. "There are so many things to do in Las Vegas, you just have to pick and choose."

Talbot, who had not previously heard of the downtown museum, showed no interest in taking a look. "I am only here for five days, so I don't want to go to two attraction of the same type," he said.

With the official opening of the museum on Feb. 14, followed by the full reopening of the rechristened attraction a couple of weeks later, the city now faces a more subtle form of mob warfare than the days of when business rivals could end up taking a long dirt nap in the desert.

Management at both attractions acknowledge that a only small portion of their audiences are so enthralled with all things Mafia that they will visit both, so snagging that single visit will play a crucial role in meeting the 300,000 annual attendance targets that each has announced.

"I just love mob stuff," said Las Vegas resident Sandra Fulton, the only one of about 20 people interviewed after their tours who said they had seen both. But more typical is Mary Dawn Vandebush of Port St. Lucie, Fla., who noted after going through the museum, "It was worth doing, but now I'm all mobbed out."

A local professor says it's a matter of time. "When people come to Las Vegas, it is not only an issue of getting them to spend money but also a matter of spending time," said University of Nevada, Las Vegas marketing professor Jack Schibrowsky.

Compounding the marketing challenge for each: rampant mistaken identity, considering each has similar attractions and the same first name.

Museum executive director Jonathan Ullman said his people regularly receive phone calls for the attraction.

Earlier this month, attraction marketing director Spence Johnston met patrons who were unhappy that the tickets cost more than advertised. After talking with them, he discovered that they had confused his prices with those of the museum. Last year, Johnston recalled, a TV crew showed up at the attraction's foyer looking for a museum news conference. "Of course, a concern of ours is confusion in the marketplace," Ullman said. "Visitors may know they want to come here but may not know which location it is."

Jay Bloom, who created the predecessor of the Mob Experience but was ousted last year because of its financial problems, frequently depicted an us-versus-them showdown. However, attraction and museum officials now shy away from predicting whether there are enough Mafianados to support both.

The experience, which opened one year ago, quickly buckled under the weight of heavy debt and attendance much lower than expected. For a while, everything but the gift shop and the artifact displays were closed as cost- cutting measures. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing came in October. The attraction was brought out of bankruptcy early this year with the help of fresh dollars by a previous investor, concessions by a major contractor and a rewritten lease by Tropicana Las Vegas.

Hollywood's enduring romance with the mob, plus the success of television series such as "The Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire" create what they consider a proven market.

Layered on that is the grip that the real thing, not a nostalgic re-creation, exercised for more than three decades over many of the city's casinos and hotels starting in the 1940s. Even today, longtime residents or visitors speak wistfully about the indulgent service and naughtiness of the Old Vegas under mob control compared with the bottom-line image of today's corporate, Securities and Exchange Commission-registered management. Of course, former Mayor Oscar Goodman, the museum's chief sponsor, made his reputation as a mob lawyer and frequently regales audiences with tales about his clients.

Then there's the tourist base: 40 million visitors to Las Vegas each year.

"Las Vegas is the place that could support both if any place could," said Tom Zaller, president of Imagine Exhibitions Inc., who played a major role in rebuilding the experience into the attraction once it emerged from bankruptcy proceedings.

For example, he noted that audiences have been large enough to support several magic acts and multiple Cirque du Soleil productions on the Strip.

Then again, he recalled there were several competitors to the "Bodies" exhibition on human anatomy that his company helped to create, which helped determine where the show would be booked. "When we saw one of the other versions in a city, we dropped consideration of it right away," he said.

The Mob Attraction and the museum, officially titled the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, have taken divergent paths in trying to create distinct identities and get people in the door.

Museum officials often use the word "quality" to describe their approach, from the historic status of the restored federal courthouse to the attempt to cover a broad range of organized crime history with dozens of descriptive panels that explain a topic in three paragraphs or less. For example, the museum in March touted the Internal Revenue Service's donation of a rare photo of the agents who worked on the tax evasion case that sent legendary Chicago gangster Al Capone to prison.

The museum also has lower ticket prices, particularly for locals, and is pushing individual and corporate memberships -- a standard cash-generating tool for museums -- along with events for several groups they hope will sway visitors. In March, for example, the museum hosted cab drivers, letting them tour the building with refreshments in hand, while handing out mementos such as logoed air fresheners to hang in their cars.

To land customers, Schibrowsky said, "The (hotel) concierges are crucial."

The museum has been far more active on that front, said Doug Ward, the current president of the Southern Nevada Hotel Concierge Association. While receptions for concierges may put the museum in the "forefront" of a concierge's mind, "A lot of factors come into play when we assist our guests," he said.

Johnston said the attraction has focused on other forms of marketing, but plans to work more with concierges in the future. Further, it will start to woo meeting and party planners to book the 5,000-square-foot space that the attraction created when it eliminated some of the prebankruptcy exhibits.

The attraction has also been placing discount coupons in tourist-oriented publications to help bring its admission price closer to that of the museum. And it's selling tickets through Tix4Tonight discount booths.

Inside, the attraction promotes its artifacts as coming directly from descendents of prominent mobsters, such as handwritten letters by Meyer Lansky. But its signature is the front part of the attraction, where visitors pass through sets and play a game with character actors that determines whether or not they get "whacked" at the end.

Perhaps most important, the attraction is in one of the busiest parts of the Strip, albeit in the back of the Tropicana Las Vegas.

"Let's face it, the attraction has a better location," Schibrowsky said. "You really have to look for the Mob Museum," a couple of blocks north of the Fremont Street canopy.

Veteran marketing executive Tom Letizia expects advertising to play a critical role in the struggle for supremacy. "The one that has the best ads, and you will be able to feel it just by seeing it, they will do the best overall," he said.

Without predicting which might best the other, Schibrowsky concluded, "I suspect they are competing, but they don't offer the same experiences. I would say that people would go to the attraction more for entertainment, while people going to the museum are looking more for historic accuracy."

But Sandra Fulton, the rare person to visit both and understand they are separate entities, came away with a different conclusion. "I would say they are both pretty much the same, pretty much equal," she said.

Thanks to Tim O'Reiley

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Catherine Greig's Assets Sought by Feds

Federal prosecutors are trying to freeze the assets of the mobster James (Whitey) Bulger’s girlfriend to cover any fine she may be ordered to pay when she is sentenced for helping him evade the authorities for 16 years. They have asked a judge to order a garnishment of assets belonging to the woman, Catherine Greig, held by Eastern Bank, court documents show. In the filing, the assistant United States attorney Christopher Donato says prosecutors believe Ms. Greig “holds significant assets and/or funds.” She has pleaded guilty to helping Mr. Bulger avoid capture. He has pleaded not guilty to 19 murders.

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Salvatore Vitale Offers List of Mob Commandments and Chain of Command at Thomas Gioeli Trial

It was summer 1999, and a meeting between the leadership of the Bonanno and Colombo crime families was under way in an apartment off Third Avenue, in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn. But something was amiss: the seat that should have been taken by William Cutolo Sr., a Colombo underboss, was empty, a former Bonanno underboss testified on Tuesday.

The absence was noted, and then cryptically explained by another Colombo mobster: “You can’t take in this life what’s not yours,” the witness, Salvatore Vitale, recalled the man as saying.

Mr. Vitale, then the underboss of the Bonanno crime family, said he immediately knew what that meant. “I realized then that Wild Bill was dead,” said Mr. Vitale, invoking the nickname of Mr. Cutolo, one of six people whose killings are at the heart of the prosecution of Thomas Gioeli, who prosecutors believe is a former acting boss of the Colombo crime family, and Dino Saracino, who they allege was one of his hit men. The trial of the two men, charged with murder and racketeering, began on Monday.

Mr. Vitale, once known as Good Looking Sal, is admittedly no innocent bystander, nor is he a stranger to the witness stand. Following his arrest in 2003, he quickly began working with the authorities, and his testimony on Tuesday was the seventh time he had taken the stand in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on behalf of the government.

Currently under witness protection, Mr. Vitale has been credited by prosecutors with identifying more than 500 organized crime members and associates. Dozens of them, including Joseph C. Massino, a former Bonanno boss and Mr. Vitale’s brother-in-law, have been imprisoned as a result.

Most of Mr. Vitale’s testimony, under questioning by Christina M. Posa, an assistant United States attorney, amounted to a colorful primer on mob life, as he spoke casually of his nearly 30-year association with the Bonanno family.

At one point, Mr. Vitale was invited off the witness stand to outline the organizational structure of a typical crime family, presented on a large poster board as if it were a boardroom breakdown of a white-collar company. But Mr. Vitale spoke of a criminal hierarchy: the robberies, the loan-sharking, the “hijacking” of trucks carrying “tuna fish, lobster, clothes,” and the homicides.

He offered what amounted to a list of commandments for anyone hoping to succeed and survive in organized crime. “The dos are, ‘Do what you’re told, and you’ll be fine,’ ” he said, underscoring the vital importance of the chain of command in the Bonanno and other crime families.

The chain of command, he emphasized, was essential, especially when murder was involved. “We’re all supposed to be tough guys, we’re all supposed to be shooters,” he said. “But you have to get permission to do something like that.”

Mr. Cutolo disappeared on May 26, 1999; Alphonse Persico, then the boss of the Colombo family, and John DeRoss have been convicted in the killing.

In Mr. Vitale’s four hours on the stand, which included a cross-examination by Carl J. Herman, a lawyer for Mr. Gioeli, he only began to establish Mr. Gioeli’s connection to organized crime.

Mr. Vitale told the court that he had first met Mr. Gioeli, also known as Tommy Shots, when Joel Cacace Sr. — whom prosecutors have called a consigliere, or top mob adviser in the Colombo family — said he wanted Mr. Gioeli to act as a go-between.

“Joe Waverly,” Mr. Vitale said, using a nickname for Mr. Cacace, “had a lot of heat on him — the F.B.I. was all over him,” so he wanted Mr. Gioeli to, in a sense, be his public face.

Several meetings between Mr. Vitale and Mr. Gioeli followed. At some of those meetings, in the mid-1990s, Mr. Vitale said, Mr. Gioeli requested the Bonanno family’s approval, as was customary, of new members the Colombo family was considering. But at the time, the Colombo family’s internal struggle had been raging, and a commission of the top leadership from New York’s main crime families had to halt the Colombo family’s growth.

“When it’s all over the news, all over the newspapers,” Mr. Vitale said of the Colombo power struggle, “it’s bad for business.”

Thanks to Noah Rosenberg

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Thomas Gioeli, Reputed Former Acting Boss of the Columbos, on Trial for Alledged Role in Killing of Police Officer and 5 Others

The off-duty police officer was ambushed by gunmen, and left to die in the street outside his home in Brooklyn.

For two other men, the end came farther from home: they were killed separately in the basement of a man they had trusted, prosecutors say. One was a mob associate who wanted out of the life; he was shot once in the back of the head, never to be seen again. The other was an underboss who apparently had accumulated too much clout for comfort; his body was not found for nearly a decade.

Those killings and three others, all from the 1990s, were described on Monday in the opening statement of Cristina M. Posa, a federal prosecutor. They are at the heart of the prosecution of Thomas Gioeli, whom officials called the former acting boss of the Colombo crime family, and Dino Saracino, who the authorities say was one of his hit men, on murder and racketeering charges in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

Ms. Posa said the murder crew was methodical in its preparations, trailing potential victims for days to determine their habits, luring them to the places where they would be killed, disposing of evidence and disposing of bodies. “As professional killers, that was their specialty — committing murder and getting away with it — until today,” Ms. Posa told the jurors, many of whom said during jury selection that they had known little of the ways of the mob.

The prosecution plans to call cooperating witnesses who will describe how the killings were carried out.

Of the six killings, the one shrouded in the most mystery was that of the police officer, Ralph C. Dols, 28, in 1997.

Officer Dols had married a woman, Kim T. Kennaugh, who had been previously married to three men associated with the Colombo crime family. One of them, Enrico Carrini, was killed in 1987; the most recent former husband was Joel Cacace, also known as Joe Waverly, described by officials as a consigliere, or top mob adviser. Mr. Cacace is awaiting trial on murder and other charges.

Federal prosecutors have accused Mr. Cacace of ordering Mr. Saracino and others to kill Officer Dols because it was embarrassing that Ms. Kennaugh would leave a powerful mobster for someone in law enforcement. Mr. Saracino, known as Little Dino, and Mr. Gioeli, known as Tommy Shots, were among those charged with the murder of the underboss, William (Wild Bill) Cutolo Sr., who was a union official. His body was found on Long Island in 2008 after the authorities were tipped off by an informer.

Mr. Gioeli’s lawyer, Carl J. Herman, said in his opening remarks on Monday that the prosecution had built its case based on the work of a desperate federal agent who relied on cooperating witnesses who had reason to lie.

“The F.B.I. since the mid-’90s has been attempting to gather evidence on Gioeli by surveillance,” Mr. Herman said. “Sometimes they get a little desperate, your government, and that’s what happened in this case.”

Samuel M. Braverman, a lawyer for Mr. Saracino, said there was no physical evidence that the homicides even happened. He said the prosecution could only present the testimony of sociopaths who could not be trusted.

“I’m not here to tell you Dino is a choirboy,” Mr. Braverman said of Mr. Saracino. “He isn’t. I’m not here to tell you he didn’t commit the murders because he’s a nice guy. I’m telling you he didn’t commit the murders because he didn’t commit the murders.”

This list of people who were killed for crossing the Colombo family is long. In 1991, Frank Marasa, known as Chestnut, was killed to avenge the death of a Colombo family member, prosecutors said. A year later, John Minerva took the wrong side in a war that split the Colombo family. He was killed in his car with another man, Michael Imbergamo, prosecutors said.

In 1995, Richard Greaves wanted to leave the Colombo mob, so he had to be eliminated, prosecutors said. In 1997, Officer Dols was killed. Mr. Cutolo’s killing was in 1999.

Katherine Kelley, an F.B.I. agent, said she was present at the wooded lot where Mr. Cutolo’s body was finally discovered; the toes of his shoes protruded above ground. She led a team of excavators, who, with small tools, removed the body, which she said was covered with bits of lime, its blackened and skeletal limbs hogtied behind its back.

Judge Brian M. Cogan ordered a short break during Ms. Kelley’s testimony. Mr. Gioeli, looking avuncular in a navy shirt, a tan sweater vest and a tie, smiled and waved to friends and family in the audience. He blew them kisses.

Mr. Saracino, wearing a crisp blue shirt and tie, his head shaved, offered no expression. He and Mr. Gioeli face life in prison if convicted.

Thanks to Mosi Secret

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Chicagoland Antique Advertising, Slot Machine & Jukebox Show

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