Is Sin City Mayoral Candidate Goodman More Than a 'Mouthpiece?'

By Cathy Scott

Word on the street is that the campaign headquarters of Carolyn Goodman at last Tuesday's election night in Sin City was peppered with mobsters. Old-time mobsters.

"At least 10 were there," the source said.

It's not surprising, considering Carolyn's husband is Oscar Goodman, the self-proclaimed "Mouthpiece for the Mob" who, as a criminal defense attorney, represented the likes of Chicago mobster Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, once suspected of more than 20 killings, and Philadelphia mob underboss Philip Leonetti. Oscar, currently the mayor of Las Vegas whose three-term sting is expiring, has been vocal about his hopes for his wife succeeding him as mayor.

Back in June of 1999, Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of this gambling mecca. At the time, he said he was proud of his past: "I'm not ashamed of anything." During Goodman's tenure as mayor, he changed his popular "mouthpiece" moniker to "America's Happiest Mayor."

On Tuesday, his wife won 37 percent of the vote, with Chris Giunchigliani coming in second, inching closer to her husband's aspirations for her.

Whisperings, however, at the Goodmans' election-night party, according to the source, were that Carolyn might have been able to pull off an early first in the primary based on name recognition, but when it comes to winning in the run off, it might not be as simple.

That's because Giunchigliani, currently a Clark County commissioner, is known as a politician for the people who runs grassroots campaigns. The personable Carolyn Goodman, on the other hand, is new to politics other than as first lady of Las Vegas for the last 12 years. Mrs. Goodman is more recognized as the founder of a private school, known as a top college prep academy where people with money send their kids

"I am running against a name, let’s put it that way," Giunchigliani recently told The Washington Post. "But I think the public recognizes that the time for that type of leadership style has passed."

Now it's up to the voters. Chris, 57, and Carolyn, 72, will face each other again on June 7 in a run-off election. 

Photos courtesy of the candidates' campaign websites and philly.com.

Read More

System Failures: Part II

by Robin Sax

Yesterday I told you about the case of Baby Vanessa, who is about to be torn away from the only mother she's ever known and shipped halfway across the nation to be raised by a biological family she's never met, one that includes a violent bio-dad with a record. Today, I'd like to recount my second infuriating July 2010 case, that of an admitted hit-man. Just thinking about this case makes my blood pressure climb. Amazingly, self-confessed former mafia hit-man James “Jimmy” Hughes walked out of the Riverside Superior Court in Indio, CA, a free man last Thursday, after the case against him was dismissed at the prosecutors' request.

To explain what happened, let's back up. Hughes was arrested in September 2009 for the 1981 triple homicide known as the “Octopus Murders,” the shooting deaths of former Cabazon Band of Mission Indians tribal leader Fred Alvarez; his girlfriend, Patricia Castro; and friend Ralph Boger. All three were found dead on July 1, 1981 in Rancho Mirage; each had been shot execution style in the back of the head. The case got its unusual name because some believe the killings are connected to tribal dealings and government agencies.

Now let's talk about 1984, three years after the murders. That's when James “Jimmy” Hughes told authorities and reporters that he was the bag-man who delivered the money for the hit, and that Cabazon Indian tribe administrator John Phillip Nichols contracted the hit. After confessing, Hughes left the United States before he could testify and built a new life in Latin America where he lived for 28 years. In California, the triple homicide case lingered until Detective John Powers of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department took control of the cold case file on November 27, 2007.

Who kept the case alive all those years? One of the victims, Ralph Boger, has a daughter who was instrumental in pushing the case. Frustrated by a lack of action, Begley investigated her father's death, so well that investigators have credited her with uncovering important evidence. Thirteen at the time of her father's murder, Begley says she wants justice for the victims and that she has come too far to give up. “How many people must die or suffer at the hands of James Hughes before he is brought to justice?” Begley asked in a statement delivered in court. “He is literally getting away with murder.”

Deputy Attorney General Mike Murphy - the prosecutor - notified Rachel Begley on June 24th that he planned to drop charges against Hughes on July 1 (the 29th anniversary of the triple homicide). Interestingly, she was informed weeks, possibly months after the defendant and his whole family were told.

So the case is being closed again - despite the fact that Jimmy Hughes has been in custody with special circumstances for nine months and the self-confessed hit-man publicly admitted he was the perpetrator.

How and why does a case with so much potentially incriminating evidence get dropped? I find this baffling! This is the stuff of TV and movie dramas – not the American justice system, an institution our soldiers are dying overseas to protect. Is the mafia still involved with Hughes? Are the prosecutors being threatened? What's happening here?

These are all widely speculative questions, but it appears obvious that something isn't right. Why wouldn’t we have a trial? If Hughes is innocent, the case would be examined and properly closed. But to let him loose with no trial is a disgusting outcome. I commend Rachel for her bravery and tenacity, taking on this task of trying to prosecute her father’s murderer. But our system should be doing what Rachel is doing: seeking justice.

Sometimes justice is swift and executed fairly and our system makes me proud. At other times, in those cases like this one and the Baby Vanessa case, I see egregious miscarriages of justice.

We all have a right to be angry about these cases, and we have an obligation to make are voices heard. These two cases, a child being taken away from the only mother she has known to possibly go to an abusive man, and a daughter having to sit by and wonder if the man who murdered her father is walking free, shouldn't be happening in America.

Click here to see the motion that let Hughes walk. For more details on his case, visit: A Hit Man with a New Mission, From CIA operative and mafia hit-man to evangelical pastor, Murderer of five thousand dollars.

Read More

Smoke and Mirrors: The Truth About Las Vegas

by Cathy Scott

Watching Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman’s indignation over recent advice by President Barack Obama to a New Hampshire audience to not waste cash in Las Vegas was reminiscent of a similarly indignant Goodman a decade earlier. 


Goodman, a former criminal defense attorney and self-described “mouthpiece for the mob,” spent 35 years defending the nation’s most notorious underworld figures. His clients included mobsters Meyer Lansky, Anthony "Tony The Ant" Spilotro and Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, the latter two portrayed in the film Casino by actors Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro. Goodman, also in the film, played himself–a lawyer for the mob. 


So it came as a surprise in 1999 when Goodman tried to deny the mob’s existence in Las Vegas. It was during Goodman’s mayoral run, when he issued a statement in the midst of a colorful Las Vegas trial of two reputed Mafiosi charged in connection with the 1997 execution-style murder of another gangster, Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein. The trial spotlighted the very kind of mob activity that officials, other than Goodman, had insisted, year after year, no longer existed in Las Vegas.

It started in the early 1990s, when the Nevada Gaming Commission released the first of several statements assuring the public that the FBI had forced the last of the mob out of Las Vegas in the 1980s. That was not true, of course. Goodman himself had represented Spilotro in a mob trial in the mid-1980s, shortly before Spilotro was buried alive and left for dead in an Indiana cornfield. Blitzstein was a co-defendant with Spilotro in that trial. After Spilotro’s murder, Blitzstein pleaded guilty and went to prison. He was released in the early 1990s and returned to Las Vegas, picking up where he had left off.


The 62-year-old Blitzstein ran a downtown auto-repair shop that fronted for his rackets. Authorities said he ran loan-shark and insurance-fraud racketeering operations out of the shop. 


In January 1997, Blitzstein was gunned down in his town house. Federal prosecutors later contended that mob families in Los Angeles and Buffalo, N.Y., had ordered Blitzstein’s hit so they could take control of his business. 


Then, in May 1999, Goodman, as a mayoral candidate, issued a press release declaring the streets of the city free of traditional organized crime.


"For the last 15 years," Goodman said, "there hasn't been a mob presence here." 


Coincidentally or not, Goodman issued that statement from his law office, which was around the corner from the U.S. District courthouse where the Blitzstein murder-related trial was well underway. Testimony in that case, which was heavily covered by the media, related to the life-and-death saga of Herbert Blitzstein–who had been Spilotro's right-hand man–provided new details about Las Vegas street rackets. For example, the 12-count racketeering indictment handed down in the case named 10 defendants charged with offenses ranging from Mafia-related murder-for-hire to racketeering. 


The trial surrounding Blitzstein’s murder, which ended with most of the defendants pleading out to lesser crimes, was the last Mafia-related trial in Las Vegas. 


Blitzstein’s murder also marked the last mob hit in Sin City. But don't tell Oscar Goodman. We'll just keep it between us.

Read More