Mob dealings in Vegas focus of Bliztstein case

In a second day of testimony, U.S. District Court jurors heard more tales about the dark, complicated business dealings of La Cosa Nostra, the nation's network of organized crime families.

When the trial of alleged Mafia figures Robert Panaro and Stephen Cino reconvened today, jurors learned more about the mob bosses who run the families and the underbosses or seconds in command.

Both men face conspiracy and racketeering charges in connection with the Jan. 6, 1997, murder of Chicago mob associate Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein.

Jurors heard testimony from Joseph DeLuca, a business associate of the Buffalo and Chicago crime families who owned a Las Vegas auto repair business and shared office space and profits with Blitzstein.

DeLuca told jurors how Blitzstein turned their auto repair business into a front for selling stolen cars and loan sharking.

They started the business, Any Auto Repair, in a space rented from Panaro, whose business, Any Auto Brokers, was in the same building. The three of them bought and sold stolen cars and split the profits, DeLuca said.

The relationship between Blitzstein and DeLuca soured around November 1996 when DeLuca suspected that Blitzstein was making money on the side and not sharing it as per their agreements.

That's when DeLuca, Panaro and others began plotting how they were going to take over Blitzstein's loan-sharking business, DeLuca said.

DeLuca wanted to get Blitzstein out of the way and sought permission to have him slain from Panaro, whom prosecutors painted as a higher-ranking member of the Buffalo group. DeLuca helped the killers gain access to Blitzstein's home, they said.

The jury heard about the captains or "capos" who oversee each crime family's street rackets, and learned of the "soldiers" or "wiseguys" who run the scams.

Now it's up to assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Johnson and Cynthia Shepherd to link Panaro and Cino with the mob families of Buffalo and Los Angeles and with the Jan. 6, 1997, execution of former Chicago mob associate Blitzstein.

Panaro and Cino face a list of charges that includes participating in a racketeering enterprise, conspiracy to commit murder, murder for hire, extortion, counterfeiting, money laundering and mail fraud.

Defense attorneys John Fadgen and Louis Palazzo, said there is no hard evidence connecting their clients to the organized crime families or the murder.

The criminal enterprise that prosecutors plan to expose is at best "a loosely organized group of men who have associated for the past two years," Palazzo told jurors Tuesday. Evidence will show Cino and Panaro's names are conspicuously absent from most of the group's dealings, the defense attorneys said.

Blitzstein, described as a business associate and close friend of the late Chicago mobster Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, was shot to death in his living room by two men hired by the Buffalo family, authorities have said.

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