Wednesday, May 6, 1998 | 9:42 a.m.
A federal court jury could begin deliberations today in a trial that recalls an era two decades ago when the mob wielded hidden influence on the Las Vegas Strip.
But one of the four defendants already is out of the case, having had charges against him tossed out by Senior U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush of Seattle because of a lack of evidence.
The trial stemmed from allegations the defendants conspired or participated in diverting millions to mob figures from a $34 million judgment over the sale of the Tropicana hotel-casino.
Former Tropicana landlords Fred and Ed Doumani, who won the $34 million in 1989, a decade after they sold the resort, are still in the case as is their one-time tax attorney John Jagiela.
But Quackenbush last week dismissed charges of conspiracy, bankruptcy fraud and making false statements against Nicholas Tanno, a Las Vegas businessman alleged by federal authorities to have mob ties.
Tanno's attorney Frank Cremen had filed a motion at the end of the prosecution's case challenging whether there was enough evidence to lead a reasonable jury to a guilty verdict.
Quackenbush ruled there was not.
Cremen said the allegedly false statement at an earlier court hearing was that he only received a certain amount of money from Hotel Conquistador Inc., which owned the Tropicana.
Prosecutors alleged that Tanno had not revealed additional monies he received from one-time Tropicana landlord Deil Gustafson. But Cremen said Tanno had never been asked at the earlier hearing about other monies and, therefore, hadn't lied.
The government contends that most of the money from the breach-of-contract judgment won by the Doumanis was supposed to go to their bankrupt company, Hotel Conquistador. But millions allegedly wound up in the hands of Midwest mobsters and their associates.
The case is one of the remaining links at the federal courthouse to an era of mob influence within the casino industry.
Before the Doumanis sold the Tropicana, the resort was the target of a massive Justice Department investigation into alleged casino skimming by the Kansas City mob. Several Mafia bosses were convicted and sent to jail in the probe. The Doumanis, however, never were charged until the current case.
Before the trial, Quackenbush also dismissed charges against Harold Gewerter, the former Doumani lawyer who obtained a $5.1 million fee for winning the court judgment.
Gewerter contended the government had reneged on a deal to give him immunity from prosecution in return for his cooperation in the probe and Quackenbush agreed.
Gewerter's attorney Richard Wright had argued that federal agents backed out of the deal when Gustafson agreed to become a witness for the prosecution.
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