Frank Cullota

“I liked Jewelry stores because they had a lot of cash.”  - Frank Cullota

Frank was the Leader of the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a very success crew that pulled scores in Las Vegas when the Chicago Outfit reigned supreme in Sin City.

Frank Cullota

Frank was born June 20, 1938 in Chicago.  He met the man who would become his best friend in his criminal career when he was 13 years old.  That man was Tony Spilatro.  Tony would work his way up from a street thug to the Outfit’s man in Las Vegas.  

I was speaking to Frank on the phone the other day and I asked him a few questions.

First, I wanted to know about Herbie Blitzstein.  I liked Herbie, I always felt he was a good guy who just did what he knew.  A lot of people refer to him as an enforcer but I never got that vibe when I was around him. The FBI was running Operation Button Down and Operation Thin Crust in 1995 in Las Vegas.  The LA Family was once more trying to regroup and Las Vegas was one of the places they were working on.  

Fat Steve Cino lived there along with a host of associates, so LA Capo Jimmy Caci and I would drive out there frequently.  Jimmy was out on an appeal bond for a Telemarketing deal gone bad, so we were trying to get things moving.  Jimmy and his brother Bobby Milano liked Herbie and so did Steve Cino.  

Jimmy would get picked up by LAPD because he was around an FBI informant named Ori Spado in Beverly Hills.  Ori had gone out on a collection in the Valley and Jimmy was in his car.  Ori went into this business and he started running his mouth selling wolf tickets, the guy had enough of Ori’s crap and he decked Ori with a tape dispenser.  Ori was on the ground and the guy had a pistol out when Jimmy came into the office and stopped the guy.  The guy knew Jimmy from the track so he chilled and he explained his situation.  The guy had a business that went bankrupt everything was in bankruptcy so he had nothing.  Jimmy helped Ori to the car where he dressed Ori down for acting so foolish.  Ori never told Jimmy what he was doing there or Jimmy would not have even gone with him.  

A week later I went to dinner with Jimmy and Ori at Frankie’s after dinner Jimmy went to Ori's apartment.  While there, Ori had to get something from his car.  The next thing Jimmy knew there was a knock at Ori's door.  Ori ran to open it, and it was the LAPD OC Squad.  

Ori lived in a secured building.  

Thanks to Ori,  Jimmy was away on January 6, 1996 when some wannabee low class robbers broke into Herbie’s condo and murdered him.

This was not a Mafia crime in anyway shape or form.  The only guys I heard that wanted him dead were the two FBI informants John Bronco and Fat Tony. They both owed Herbie money.  The FBI used it in a RICO case against Steve Cino and Bobby Panera but it was a joke.

Speaking to Frank about Herbie helped me learn some more about Herbie.

Herbie was a bookmaker in Chicago and he made juice loans but he was not a tough guy.  He was in too big to go on scores but he always had money on him.  He would carry 20k in his pockets because the IRS would take anything of value from him.  He owed them for unpaid taxes.  Frank was asked by his boss in Chicago to move out to Las Vegas to help Tony out in the 70's when he got out of prison. It was not an order just a nudge to go out to Las Vegas.  

Tony opened up a jewelry store in Las Vegas called Gold Rush Ltd where they bought and sold Jewelry.  Tony told Frank that he was bringing out the Jew to help, that is what they called Herbie.  Herbie mostly worked in the back room removing jewels from settings and melting down the gold.  He bought hot merchandise.

Frank told me that Herbie was never a hard guy he just looked it.  

I asked Frank who he admired most in his criminal life and he came back with two answers.  One guy he liked was Sam Giancana who was tough and smart.  Sam used to tell him that he was too quick with his fists because Frank was young and angry.  He told him that it would get him in trouble someday.  The other guy is a criminal legend. Tony Accardo, Joe Batters the man who was in the Outfit since Al Capone and never spent a night in jail.  He would see Tony at the Golden Bear Pancake house and after the first time Tony saw him there he would say hello. Nobody got close to Tony but he knew who everyone was everywhere he went. If Tony would have been legit he would be a Billionaire today.

I cannot do justice to Frank’s story on this blog, you can read all about his life in his book Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness. Frank has a lot to say and anyone who wants to gain a better understanding about the Life should attend Mob-Con Sept. 7 and 8 in Las Vegas at the Palace Station.  You can meet Frank and ask him any questions about the life.  Others I have featured on previous blog posts will be there also:

Andrew DiDonato

Andrew Didanato, Frank Calabrese, Tony Montana, Tim Redsull as well as Law enforcement speakers and authors.

Hear from Andrew about life in a crew where one wrong step could mean death and that went for the boss's son John Gotti Jr.

Frank Calabrese

Speak to Frank Calabrese about growing up in a Mafia house hold and then running his father street rackets.  

For more information check out the convention’s website:

http://mob-con.net/

Gangland Los Angeles, Part Two: 1940's

The War for the Sunset Strip

The war for control of the lucrative Bookmaking juice in Los Angeles began in 1947.  The war came down to one thing: basic greed.  Mickey Cohen had moved his bookmaking business from a paint shop in Beverly Hills to a building at 8800 Sunset Blvd.  The building was two stories.  Mickey based his wire room on the first floor which was below street level.  Upstairs Cohen housed a high end clothing store named Michael's Exclusive Haberdashery, which he filled with fancy suits that fit only him.  The reason for the move? This new location was in an incorporated area of Los Angeles and it fell under the LA Sheriff’s jurisdiction.  

Mickey had the inside track to pay off the Sheriff.  Mickey collected $250.00 for each phone line that a bookmaker had in his office.  This was a lot of money coming in every week.

Jack Dragna, the boss of the LA Family, had become fast friends with the Under Sheriff of LA County. He learned from the Under Sheriff that the take from the bookies paying the juice for the phone lines was just over $80,000 a week.   That is what sealed Mickey's fate.  When it comes to dirty money, you can bet the Cosa Nostra will get their cut.  The other reason was that Jack disliked Mickey because he was loud and obnoxious.  He was the John Gotti of the time period.  He liked to talk to the press and to dress flashy. That did not sit well with anybody living in the underworld, much like John Gotti in later years.

Jack knew that if Mickey was out of the way, the LA Family could take over the juice.

The LA Family took its first shot at Mickey in the summer of 1948.  The place chosen for the hit was the clothing store on Sunset.  Frank DeSimone walked the sidewalk across the street on Hollaway dressed in the clothes of a worker man.  He was the look out and back up shooter.  Hooky Rothman, one Mickey's men, came out and stood in front of the store. Suddenly a car pulls to a stop in front of the store.  Frank Bompensiro jumps out first with double barreled sawed off shotgun and a white hat pulled down low. Frank jabs the gun into Hooky's face and muttered "Don't you make a move.  Now back your way inside." Sam Bruno and another man push by Hooky with their pistols drawn.  They start blasting away the second they are inside the store.  Hooky makes a move, and Frank blows his head off.  Sam and the other guy come running out.  They had shot two of Mickeys guys, but Mickey was not there.  What they did not know was that Mickey was locked in the bathroom washing his hands. Mickey was obsessive compulsive about germs at this time. So Mickey walked away without a scratch as one of his men lay dead in the doorway.  The other two suffered only minor wounds despite the barrage fired by the hitters.

The LA Family then decided to make a bomb and blow Mickey up. In the movie Gangster Squad, the writers portray Mickey attempting to bomb Jack's home, when in reality, it was the other way around.  One of Jack's men who had learned how to make a bomb using dynamite during World War Two constructed the device. The LA Family had an inside man in Mickey's gang, so when they knew he was out of the house they planted the bomb in a crawl space under the master bedroom.  Once Mickey was asleep, an LA Family guy stealthily lit the fuse.   Nothing happened.  The bomb failed to detonate and it was later discovered by one of Mikeys men walking around outside his home.

The next chapter in the Cosa Nostra Vs Mickey Cohen came when Mickey and seven of his men were arrested for beating a repair man within an inch of his life.  The repairman had conned a widow out of her life long home.  Mickey dispatched his men to send him a message and the thugs were caught in the act.  Mickey bailed out his men using his property as collateral for the bonds.  This would turn out to be much more than a simple arrest, in fact it would turn deadly for some of the men.

Jack Dragna was not happy about the two failed hits. Some of the men thought Mickey was unnaturally lucky. So they came up with a spectacular hit on the Sunset Strip, right in front of a popular restaurant by the name of Sherry's.  Once again, in the movie Gangster Squad, a similar hit was portrayed, and the writers had it backwards.  It was not Mickey’s men shooting at Jack Dragna getting in his car outside the restaurant, as portrayed in the scene in which the shoe shine boy was hit.  It was a similar scene, but it was Jack’s men shooting at Mickey.  The plan was to have two shooters hide on a cement stairway at 9032 Sunset with shotguns until Mickey came out of the restaurant.  It was right next door to Bing Crosby's building, a three story white office building that was closed at the time of the planned hit.

The two shooters Jack would assign were Jimmy Regace and Arthur DiMara.  Years later, Jimmy Regace would be known as Dominic Brooklier and he would become the boss of the LA Family.

The night of the hit, Mickey and his group of nine others got to Sherry's two hours before closing.  The two shooters were already in place. The crowds had began to die along the strip as the hour grew late.  Finally, just after closing, Mickey and his party, now joined by a Los Angeles Police Sargent, stood in front Sherry's, waiting for their cars to be brought around front.

Jimmy and Arthur leveled their pump shotguns. Each of the shotguns was loaded with double aught buckshot and slugs. They took their shots: Boom, Boom, Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, eight times in all. They hit parked cars, the building that housed Sherry's,  a cop from the Attorney General’s office in Sacramento was hit and down.  The hoodlum Needie Herbert was mortally wounded.  Two women were hit  and Mickey took a slug to the shoulder.  Needie Herbert would be the only death that night.  The shooting had just stopped when the crash car zoomed off down the street. The Police Sargent jumped into his car to give chase, only to lose it.  The two shooters walked down the block and into a getaway car. The Los Angeles police arrested a number of suspects, including the Two Tony's.  None of those arrested were LA Family guys.

The battle for the Sunset strip was in full swing and the Hollywood created “tough guy” Mickey Cohen had not fired a shot at anyone in the Los Angeles Cosa Nostra.

If you want more information from a guy who knew a lot of these guys in their prime go to:

Anthony Fiato

@LAmobslugger

kickass blogger - hollywood goodfella

Hollywood · http://af11.wordpress.com/

The Real Dirt on "The Gangster Squad"

I saw The Gangster Squad last night and it was not even close to what really happened.  It goes to show you that "Based On A True Story" is not really real.  It is Hollywood real.  Which is some person writing these stories that has no idea about what he writes.  Okay they read books, speak to a few old coppers and then put their own spin on events and it is now real! The problem is that these people have no idea how real people act.  What motivates a Gangster?

The movie is full of guys holding Tommy guns with drums blazing away one handed.  Pick up a Thompson Sub Machine empty. It was made out of steel and wood.  When you add the fifty round drum it is almost fifteen pounds.  They have a forward grip because when fired it begins to climb.

Hollywood loves Mickey Cohen!  He was the only Gangster in Los Angeles.  Wrong!
Micky was a Gangster with ties to Chicago and New York.  He had no rank because he was Jewish.  He never muscled anyone from Chicago.  La Cosa Nostra was the strongest during these years. The Chicago Outfit was an organization with so much power that Micky Cohen could not even look at them wrong. The Outfit was extorting movie studio's during the 1930's. 

There were two much more powerful groups in Los Angeles at this time.  Hollywood chooses to ignore the facts. Los Angeles La Cosa Nostra Family then under the Boss Jack Dragna. Jack Dragna was tough and he was a cousin of Tommy Lucchese one of the heads of the Five Families in New York.  So powerful was Tommy Lucchese that the family still bears his name today.  Jack Dragna had over sixty made men at that time and many more associates.  The LA Family decided they wanted what Micky Cohen had in terms of rackets.  They killed his men who were out on bail and made some disappear so Micky was on the hook for the bond.  They blew up his house.  They shot him, they even shot a policeman that was protecting him.  Some of the best accounts can be found in Jimmy Frattiano's book  "The Last Mafioso"  Jimmy Frattiano along with Charles "Charley Bats" Battaglia are the one's that really killed the Two Tonys aka Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino. Micky Cohen had nothing to do with it.  Jack Dragna died of a heart attack long after Micky Cohen was locked up, Cohen never took shots at him or killed him as the movie portrayed. Micky Cohen never made him bark like a dog and never spoke bad to him. The way they had Sean Penn snarling and cussing was a joke.  Lets use logic.  Micky Cohen was a Gangster surrounded by guys who were muscle for hire.  they have no blood bond, no oath, they were just paid.  How could a man slap, talk down to or even kill these outlaws?  Come on!  Louis Tom Dragna the former boss of the Los Angeles Family is alive today at 92.

The other group that Hollywood ignores was the Sica Brothers.  They lived in the valley and they controlled vast amounts of rackets in California.  Joe Sica was their leader and he would never take any nonsense from Micky Cohen.  They were tough and smart.  They flew under the radar.

Micky Cohen was like John Gotti, all media!  He was like a reality star today.

There were two race wires for book makers in the 1940's.  One was run by Chicago and the other by New York.

Jack "The Enforcer" Whalen was a tough Irish Hood who was liked by the Gangster Squad because he was Irish and he took no shit from the Italians. Jack met his end not being shot by Micky Cohen in his apartment building.  Jack went to Rondelli’s restaurant in the Valley to confront Micky Cohen over a debt. Jack was unarmed and he was killed by someone hired by Micky.  Micky was there but did not kill him.  In the movie, the grand ending is Micky being arrested for killing Jack, and the star witness is what sent him to Alcatraz.  This is far from the truth, as he didn't kill Jack, and he was sent to jail for tax evasion ten years after the movie portrayed his arrest.

Jack Whalen beat up Los Angeles Capo Mike Rizzi.

Anyone who wants to know what these people were really like should read my friend Anthony Fiato's book and his Blog.    Anthony knew all these men and he can tell you what it was really like.

All truth aside, the movie was an enjoyable one.  Acting was great (minus Sean Penn's overacting), time period portrayal was awesome, costumes and scenery all done well. 

Anthony Fiato

@LAmobslugger

kickass blogger - hollywood goodfella

Hollywood · http://af11.wordpress.com/ 

There are a few guys left from that time.  So find out the truth now!

KENJI OC