Word: cleveland
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Some of his pictures of the massacre appeared in Cleveland's Plain Dealer last week, others not so far published appear here (see page 17) and will also be seen in a forth coming issue of LIFE...
...Vegas was a gold mine for the Mafia from 1963 to 1966. In those years, the gangsters, including then Cleveland Mob Boss Frank Milano, "skimmed" some $12 million annually from the gaming rooms at many of the plastic palaces lining the Strip. The money was stolen from the casinos' profits with the aid of crooked owners and divided among leaders of the Cosa Nostra. In 1966, however, the FBI and state officials stepped in, and the skimming racket was dead. Several casinos were sold to new operators, including Billionaire Howard Hughes. The mob left town, but their departure...
Late last summer, mobsters from Cleveland and Los Angeles set in motion an ingenious scheme to slip the hand of organized crime back into the casino tills. The plan was simple: organize the city's 7,000 plus gambling dealers into a mob-run union. Using the threat of a strike that could cripple the gambling hotels, the gangsters could persuade the owners to sign lucrative contracts for food, liquor and vending machines from firms owned by Cosa Nostra An equally distasteful prospect for casino owners would be that the dealers could become free agents, responsible only...
Finley's Friend. Fronting for the takeover were two Cleveland Teamster organizers, Nick Nardi and Nick Francis. They operated under the aegis of Los Angeles Cosa Nostra Chief Nicolo Licata, now serving a jail sentence for contempt, and Frank Milano. Milano's son, Pete, worked behind the scenes to speed along the organizing effort. The two Nicks obtained 15 signatures from interested dealers and then applied for a charter to create Local 711 of the International Office and Professional Employees Union (O.P.E.U...
According to the union's president, Howard Coughlin, O.P.E.U. had been interested in trying to organize the dealers in Las Vegas for several years. Last summer the union's chief counsel, Cleveland Attorney Joseph Finley, was approached by a "highly reputable" friend, Lawyer Robert Duvin. Duvin introduced Nardi and Francis as legitimate labor organizers who could unionize the dealers for O.P.E.U. if they could get a charter. Supported by Duvin's high recommendation, Nardi and Francis were quickly approved and received their charter from O.P.E.U. Although their initial organizing attempts were resisted by some casino operators...