Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor of Las Vegas

by Oscar Goodman

  I appealed the one negative ruling and won a reversal in state court. Then the Ethics Commission, much to my surprise, appealed that decision to the Nevada Supreme Court. I had to hire lawyers to represent me through all of this, and we eventually prevailed.

  Carolyn was right, of course. She usually is.

  There was another situation, however, where I needed no encouragement to legally defend myself. I was just beginning my second term in office when James McManus, a professional poker player, wrote a book that included anecdotal stories about Las Vegas.

  In one chapter, he wrote that local “lore” had it that I was sitting at a table with Benny Binion and Jimmy Chagra in the Horse Shoe Casino when the assassination of Judge Wood was planned. Now, I’m a man of some principle, but I also have a tough skin. I was used to less than flattering things being written about me.

  The mob could afford to hire the best lawyers in the country and they chose me, so I wore the badge “mob lawyer” with honor. But this McManus had crossed the line; what he wrote was not only untrue, but it was libelous. I can’t think of anything more damaging you could say about an individual.

  I don’t know what he or his publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, thought they were doing or how they thought couching this nonsense as “lore” would protect them. There was no truth whatsoever to the allegation.

  I went bonkers when I read it and contacted Tony Glassman, a friend and lawyer. He represented me, and we had the situation rectified in ten days. They put a full-page retraction and apology to me in the Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times. They also agreed that the lines would be eliminated from any further editions of the book, and I received a big check.

  I thought it was absolutely cavalier that someone thought they could just throw that kind of gossip out there and think they could get away with it. My reputation as a mob lawyer was one thing, but my integrity and my good name are another matter.

  These were the kind of things I had to deal with after becoming mayor. Looking back on it now, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. Some people try to call attention to themselves by challenging and criticizing in the public forum. I was an easy target in that respect, and I guess the gadflies also benefited from the fact that I didn’t suffer fools gladly.

  There was a situation at a city council meeting where one of these attention-seekers referred to the showgirls that I traveled around with during promotions as “bimbos.” These women worked hard at what they did, and the city benefited from the attention that their presence generated. They were a symbol of Las Vegas. So when this idiot took a public shot at them, I had to say something.

  “Look, buddy,” I told him. “You can say whatever you want about me, but don’t malign those ladies. Okay? Now sit down. I’ve had it with you.”

  He wouldn’t let it go, and eventually I had him ejected from the council meeting.

  There were a few other ethics issues and occasionally there were whispering campaigns and snide comments about the awarding of city contracts, the allegation being that I had favored someone who I knew or who had done something for me.

  At one point I tried to make my position clear, although I’m not sure any of my political opponents cared about what I said or what the real issue was.

  “I want to do business with people that I know, rather than people that I don’t know,” I said during one news conference, explaining that when everything else was equal in terms of a bid or a contract, I’d favor someone with whom I’d had a relationship. “If you know somebody and they’re honorable and you have done business with them before, they get the best of it.”

  That wasn’t exactly a revolutionary statement. It was, I thought, a frank description of the way government and politics have always worked.

  There was a mayor back in my old hometown of Philadelphia, John Street, who said pretty much the same thing when he was challenged about non-bid contracts and businesses that the city awarded to his friends and political associates.

  I may be paraphrasing here, but in essence, Mayor Street said, “Who would you expect me to favor, my enemies?”

  Street was an aggressive mayor who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The FBI, in fact, planted a bug in his office, but the investigation never went anywhere. I don’t know that much about him or his politics, but in my opinion, he will always be highly rated.

  A few years after I was in office, I got a call one night from my cousin Paul Brazina back in Philadelphia. My mother had been rushed to the hospital and was on a gurney in the hospital hallway waiting for a room. Thank God the medical problem didn’t turn out to be that serious, but at the time we had no way of knowing. I told Paul I’d be on the next plane to Philadelphia. I also called Mayor Street. I had been to a Conference of Mayors meeting and had a list of the home numbers of all the mayors in the country. It was two o’clock in the morning my time, which meant I was calling him at 5 A.M.

  He picked up the phone and couldn’t have been more helpful. I told him of my plight, and he said not to worry. He would take care of it. When I arrived at the Philadelphia airport that rainy day, there was a police escort waiting for me. I was driven to the hospital with the sirens wailing and the lights flashing.

  When I got there, my mother was in a private room and was being treated like the Queen of England. As I said, Mayor Street had quite a few critics during his two terms in office, but with me he’s always going to be aces. When you’re an elected official, you don’t forget your friends. And you don’t forget those who go out of their way to help you. John Street went above and beyond.

  You also don’t forget those who fail to deliver what they’ve promised. In those instances, I found it especially rewarding to succeed in spite of them.

  I was still obsessed with the idea of revitalizing downtown, particularly the area east of the railroad tracks, and even after Wynn, Gaughan, and some other early supporters backed away, I pushed forward. The city’s inner core is separated by railroad tracks. The west side was basically an old railroad yard that had sat fallow for more than a quarter of a century. The east side had Fremont Street and what was left of a financial district. It had no energy and it bred lethargy.

  Part of my thought process was preserving the city’s history. Las Vegas hadn’t done much of that; implosion was the first thought when it came to redevelopment. Blow up the old buildings and put up new ones. That’s how we lost classic casino-hotels like the Dunes, the Stardust, the Sands, the Hacienda, the Landmark, and the Desert Inn. When I took office, the old post office and courthouse building, where I had tried my first federal case, were sitting empty down the street from City Hall. It was a great old structure, and I didn’t want to see it go. I figured it could be a cornerstone for the downtown revitalization, and eventually it was.

  But first I had to build my river. Las Vegas is in the middle of the world’s driest desert, so you don’t need to tell people how important water is. But water is also symbolic; it’s nurturing, replenishing, and a source of life and of energy. I decided the way to get life back to the downtown area was to build a river, so I got the city engineers involved.

  There was a vacant piece of city-owned land between Fourth Street and Las Vegas Boulevard near the new federal courthouse and an abandoned former elementary school that had been a police substation. That was where I wanted my river, and the engineers made it happen. Now, “river” may be a bit of an exaggeration. “Man-made rivulet” is probably more accurate. The water is re-circulated, cascading along a culvert that is about three feet wide. But the area along both banks has been cleaned up, and there are plants and trees and benches where people can sit and relax, eat their lunch, read the paper. A plaque on an adjoining wall calls it “Oscar’s River.” I wanted it to be a place that had life. What I had in mind for the old police substation and the area around it was to convert it into an agora. The ancient Greeks used to have open spaces in the middle of the city that would serve as meeting places for citizens. I pictured Pl
ato and Socrates meeting and talking with people, debating, philosophizing.

  They were more than just places; they were a way of life, a way to communicate, to interact. The great European cities have something similar with their piazzas. I think people who live in cities hunger for that kind of connection. You just have to provide them with the opportunity. My river and the agora were steps in that direction.

  The Greeks surrounded their agoras with public buildings, temples and commercial enterprises, shops and stores. Go to Vegas today, and I think you’ll appreciate what I’m talking about. The old courthouse, which I got the federal government to sell to the city for a dollar, is now the Mob Museum. Actually it’s called the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. Talk about taking heat: the pundits came out in full force when I began promoting the idea. “What’s Goodman doing, building a monument to himself?” they asked. “He’s glorifying his old killer clients.”

  Then the Italian-Americans weighed in. They were certain that I was going to vilify them. I faced a lynch-mob-like crowd in a packed room at the Justinian Club and tried to assure them that they had no fear of defamation.

  “The mob I was thinking of being featured in the museum,” I told them, “came from Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Mo Dalitz, Gus Greenbaum, Frank Rosenthal, and Oscar Goodman. It was the Jewish mob, and if this museum turns out the way I think it will, you’ll be begging me to let some Italians in.”

  I was joking, of course, but it didn’t do much to assuage their feelings. I pulled a brilliant move, though, which cooled off all the naysayers. I was able to persuade Ellen Knowlton, who had just retired from the FBI, to become chairperson of the museum board. She went back to the Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., and convinced the folks back there that this was a worthwhile project. As a result, we’re able to display legitimate law enforcement memorabilia along with organized crime artifacts. We’ve got state-of-the-art lie-detector equipment, and we’ve got the barber chair where Albert Anastasia was killed. And we have the wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, bullet holes and all.

  We interviewed several individuals looking for the right person to “program” the museum. One of the candidates was Dennis Barrie, who came highly recommended. He had developed the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland. But for some reason, after interviewing him, I wasn’t impressed. I told Betty Fretwell, the City Manager who was also part of the process, of my concerns.

  A few nights later I was channel surfing on TV. I usually watch television at night, primarily to follow a game or two where I might have a bet on the line. I came across a courtroom scene in a movie. It was called Dirty Pictures, and was based on actual events. James Wood, whom I had met during the filming of Casino, starred as a Cincinnati art museum director who was being criminally tried because he would not remove a controversial exhibition that featured photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Several of the photographs were sexually explicit and depicted nude children or sexual acts, including one of a man ramming his fist up another man’s anus.

  The strain on the museum director, as portrayed by Wood, was overwhelming. You could see and feel what he was going through. He was defending art, and it cost him, among other things, his reputation and his marriage. I thought the movie was awesome. The museum director was the prototypical defender of the First Amendment. When I saw the credits at the conclusion of the film, I read that James Wood was portraying Dennis Barrie.

  I reached for the phone and called him.

  “You know, Mister Barrie, I was tepid about you,” I said. “Now you’re my hero. You are our man.”

  I said the job was his, and he hasn’t disappointed.

  When we had the grand opening of the Mob Museum, I got a call from Vinny Ferrara, my former client from Boston. He was in town with his soon-to-be bride, attending a boxing match. It had been a long time since I’d seen him, and I was genuinely happy he had been released from prison. We exchanged pleasantries, and he asked if he could attend the museum opening. I said sure. During opening ceremonies, Carolyn and I and Ellen were seated near the ribbon, which had been placed in front of the door. I looked out and there was Vinny in the crowd. Once the ribbon was cut and the festivities started, I lost sight of him. About an hour went by. There were interviews and photographs and lots of media. Then I saw Vinny come out of the building.

  “How did you like it, Vin?” I asked.

  “Oscah,” he said in that thick North End Boston accent. “It was great. But I’m pissed at you, Oscah.”

  “Why?” I asked, since it’s not good having Vinny unhappy.

  “Because my picture isn’t in it.”

  Be assured, Vinny, your picture is now prominently displayed.

  The museum has made a big difference to the city’s revitalization, but so have many of the other downtown developments. One of the first new buildings to go up was a modern bank building. The bank had been proposed, but then there was talk that it was going to be scuttled. I convinced the developer to stay in town and to build as originally planned.

  We made the agora a cultural center, and it’s now a place where we have poetry readings, plays, and intimate concerts. It’s an intellectual marketplace where they give music lessons to youngsters. I walk by and I hear music wafting out onto the street. People sit by the urban river or in the park nearby, and they see children walking by with violin cases. I joke about that, comparing it to the old Las Vegas. Anytime I’m having a discussion about what’s happened, I’ll say, “This is not the first time violin cases have been seen on the streets, but this time the cases contain violins.”

  I’m really proud of what we have down there, what we’ve been able to accomplish, and what might still be to come. But it took some doing, and at first I didn’t think it was going to be possible.

  The river was a small step and it brought unexpected controversy. We got that little park together. I saw it as an oasis in the middle of a lot of rubble. But before you knew it, it was overrun by homeless people. This was part of the problem with the downtown area.

  “What’s this homeless crap?” I asked publicly. “They’re ruining everything.”

  I understand the homeless problem, and I think government has an obligation to address it. Many homeless people have chronic mental problems. Ronald Reagan didn’t do anyone any good when he cut back on funding that resulted in the closing of centers that were set up to address the issue. People poured out onto the streets, and many of them don’t want to be anywhere else.

  All cities have the problem. In Las Vegas, it’s a little different than, say, New York or Philadelphia or Chicago, because it’s always warm here. When people sleep on benches or in parks overnight, they’re not going to get frostbite. Nobody’s going to freeze to death. So we have to deal with it. If a homeless person has a mental problem, if a homeless person is someone who’s come back from overseas where he or she has served their country and now can’t take care of themselves, then the government has a moral obligation and should step in.

  But there’s another segment of homeless who are able-bodied and of sound mind, but who just don’t want to conform to any kind of societal norms. They won’t use the social service centers available to them, like Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, or the Mission, because when they use those facilities they have to leave their drugs and booze behind. I have no use for those people, and I said as much. They don’t want to work and take care of themselves. They’d rather stand on the corner all day with their hands out, almost daring people driving by in cars to hit them. I have no tolerance for them. “I’d like to run them out of town and all the way to the Pacific Ocean,” I said during one press conference.

  The media went nuts. It attracted national attention, and after that I got voted the “meanest mayor in America” by some homeless advocacy groups. I didn’t care. I thought I was right, and I was going to speak my mind. I wasn’t elected to get re-elected; I was elected to lead the
city. This situation with the homeless was a problem, and we were going to fix it.

  Look, if you see somebody standing on a corner in an Army fatigue jacket and scarf in 115-degree desert heat, you know that person has a problem. We have to do something. I’m just saying not all homeless people are the same. And as a government, we have to recognize the differences. That’s part of dealing with the problem.

  I had another idea that added to the firestorm. There was an abandoned prison not too far outside of town on the way to the California border. I suggested that it be converted into a large shelter for the homeless. Take down the bars to the cells, and it’s not a prison; it’s just a building. You’d have a heated, airconditioned commissary and a medical facility there. The idea lasted two seconds. The headline in the local paper, front page, above the fold:

  MAYOR GOODMAN WANTS TO SEND HOMELESS TO PRISON

  Those were the kinds of things I had to deal with. Part of the problem with the media is that they jump for the headline without presenting the issue. Sometimes the press would rather have people shouting at one another instead of discussing and debating in a civilized manner and coming up with a solution or a compromise in order to get something done for the common good. I saw it during my twelve years as mayor, and I think we all see it on a broader scale in the national discourse. Or should I say, lack of discourse.

  I had a chance to let the local newspaper know how I felt about its policies after I had been in office about a year. The Review Journal, the paper who ran the editorial “Anyone but Oscar for Mayor,” had an annual contest where their readers voted for “the best” and “the worst” in Las Vegas. The voting covered all kinds of topics, the best and worst places to eat, to drink, and so on. And they held a banquet where the results were announced.

  I got a call inviting me to the event. I had a policy never to decline an invitation to a public event unless I had a scheduling conflict. So I said I’d attend, even though I believed I would be recognized as the “worst elected official.”