Friday, March 15, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Gaming opponents may turn a federal indictment highlighting the Detroit mob's historical ties to Las Vegas into a weapon against the casino industry, top Nevada gaming officials said today.
Meanwhile, authorities say the arrests could produce new clues to the disappearance of former Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.
State Gaming Control Board member Steve DuCharme and Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Bill Curran believe opponents will use Thursday's indictment of top La Cosa Nostra members to discredit casinos.
"Anything with the mob and Las Vegas has a sexy little sizzle to it," DuCharme said. "It's possible they can get a little mileage out of it."
But DuCharme doubted whether the indictment would become an effective weapon against the gaming industry because the references are 20 to 30 years old. Over the protests of gaming officials, Congress is trying to create a national gaming commission to study the effects of casinos on communities.
"Having the story retold yet another time, I suppose, isn't anything that's a positive development for Nevada," Curran said. "But the truth of it is it's the same old story told in another time in another way."
The government indicted 17 top members of Detroit's La Cosa Nostra mob, one of the most active organized crime families, bound tightly through blood and marriage.
The top defendant is 69-year-old alleged mob leader Jack Tocco, who authorities say is one of the most powerful bosses in the country.
The Detroit Free Press reported today that authorities believe the arrests might lead to information that could help solve the July 1975 disappearance of Hoffa.
The authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper they believe the defendants know what happened to the union boss and might talk to avoid long prison sentences.
Tony Giacalone, 77, was among those arrested. He was one of the men Hoffa was supposed to have met the day the labor leader disappeared.
Agents have said in the past that they believe they know what happened to Hoffa, but lack the evidence to press charges.
The indictment spans 30 years of alleged activity that ranges from plotting murders and corrupting officials to extorting businessmen and infiltrating the Frontier and Aladdin hotel-casinos in Las Vegas and the Edgewater hotel-casino in Laughlin.
Although La Cosa Nostra's "street tax" and resulting violence are the cornerstones of this case, the Justice Department said it chose to mention the 1960s and '70s Las Vegas connections to help prove the criminal enterprise.
But the local reference is short and vague, totaling a page and mentioning three men -- James Tamer, Maurice Friedman and William Pompili -- acting as "fronts" for the mob's hidden casino ownership.
The most notorious of the three is Tamer, now 83, once considered to be so threatening to the gaming industry that he was added to the Black Book in 1988 and forever banned from casinos.
Much of Tamer's unsavory reputation was based on two "chance meetings" in 1976 between him and now-indicted Vito Giacalone, an alleged capo in the Detroit mob, wrote two UNLV professors in "The Black Book and the Mob."
"James Tamer is their man ... on the scene in Las Vegas and asks for reports on earnings, personnel and other important items about the management of the hotel whenever he is in Las Vegas," according to an FBI affidavit quoted by Professors Ronald Farrell and Carole Case.
In 1978, the Control Board denied Tamer a gaming license to serve as executive director of the Aladdin's showroom. That same year, a Michigan grand jury indicted Tamer, the Aladdin and others in connection with the mob's hidden casino ownership. He eventually was convicted for his role in the mob's control of the Aladdin.
"Maury" Friedman's connection to the mob is concrete -- he became a government snitch and testified against Detroit underboss Anthony Zerilli in 1972.
Friedman, who owned the land the Silver Slipper sat on and helped finance the Frontier, admitted that he helped the Detroit mob siphon off a portion of the casino's profits.
Several years earlier, Friedman was convicted in the Friars Club card-cheating case that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hollywood stars and business magnates.
Friedman, reported to have died in 1980, was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the rigged gin rummy games. The sentence later was reduced to three years.
William Pompili's connection to the Edgewater is the most unclear.
Ties to the Detroit mob forced the hotel-casino to open in 1981 with some of the stiffest operating restrictions at the time. It was forced to rid itself of its president, treasurer and three Detroit stockholders after the Nevada Gaming Commission discovered ties to the Mafia.
One of the Detroit stockholders was challenged because a brother-in-law "openly" associated with alleged mob boss Tocco, underboss Anthony Zerilli and capo Anthony Giacalone.
SUN REPORTER Jeff German and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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