Critics cite Black Book bias

Nevada gaming regulators look at former Chicago police officer Fred Pascente and see a reputed mob associate they believe should be banned from the state's casinos.

Pascente attorney John Momot of Las Vegas looks at his 56-year-old client and sees yet another Italian-American he believes has been unfairly targeted by gaming regulators.

Though law-enforcement agencies have said organized crime participants no longer control local casinos, regulators believe individuals affiliated with the mob still pose a threat to the gaming industry. That is why Pascente faces a pending nomination to Nevada's List of Excluded Persons, otherwise known as the Black Book.

But Momot and other critics of the Black Book, which has existed since 1960, hold up Pascente as an example of why they believe the criteria for inclusion are too vague and need to be revamped.

If Pascente's nomination is approved, a decision the Nevada Gaming Commission is expected to make within three months, he would join 32 others in the Black Book. All of the entrants are at least 40, almost all are Caucasian males, and more than half happen to have Italian surnames.

They either have reputed mob ties and related felony records or they've been convicted of gambling crimes or both. They have aliases such as Ali Baba, Lefty, Little Frankie, the Fixer, the Pope, Dicky Boy, the Whale and Moose.

The Black Book is actually a silver-colored booklet of black and white mug shots. Its entrants are banned for life from entering Nevada's 350 casinos.

Regulators say they believe the book has helped maintain the integrity of the state and gaming industry. But critics say the process discriminates against Italian-Americans and unfairly protects the industry at the cost of individual rights.

Nominations to the Black Book are made by the state Gaming Control Board, a three-member panel of full-time gubernatorial appointees who each serve four-year terms. The board's staff prepares the background investigations, sometimes with the assistance of the FBI, Metro and other law-enforcement agencies.

The nominations must be approved by the five-member gaming commission, a separate group of gubernatorial appointees who hold other jobs and serve part time. Before making its decision the commission is required to give the nominee the opportunity to fight inclusion in the book. Commission Chairman and Reno attorney Brian Sandoval said he and fellow members base their decisions on a preponderance of evidence, similar to civil court proceedings.

"The burden is on the Gaming Control Board and the state to show that the person belongs in the Black Book," Sandoval said. "I don't see any need for changes. The Black Book is an important part of gaming and public policy."

The legality of the book has withstood several legal challenges before the Nevada Supreme Court. But critics such as Momot say the hearings conducted by the commission are meaningless because virtually every nominee has ended up in the Black Book.

One exception was Momot client Herbie Blitzstein, a reputed Chicago mob lieutenant who was shot to death at his Las Vegas residence in 1997 before the commission had a chance to approve his nomination. Six other men -- Anthony Giordano, Michael Polizzi, Anthony Zerilli, Carl DeLuna, Joseph Agosto and Samuel Manarite -- also were nominated but never entered the book because all were either serving or about to serve lengthy prison sentences.

The other 49 nominees all landed in the book. Seventeen have since been removed. Fourteen died. The others, Rudy Kolod, Felix Alderisio and Willie Alderman, were all entered in 1965 but removed later that year reportedly because of the influence of their friend, then-Strip casino owner Moe Dalitz.

"When the gamers decide you should be nominated for inclusion in the Black Book they are never wrong," Momot said. "It's a foregone conclusion once you're nominated. The only way to beat the Black Book is to drop dead before the hearing. That's how Herbie beat it."

But Bill Bible, who was chairman of the State Gaming Control Board from 1989 until last year, defended the board's perfect nomination record.

"When you're nominated, you're not Snow White and it's clear you qualify for inclusion," Bible said. "They have extensive criminal records, or they have been in publications because of association with organized crime."

Former UNLV criminal justice professors Ronald Farrell and Carole Case argued in their 1995 book, "The Black Book and the Mob," that Italian-Americans were unfairly singled out by regulators who represented other ethnic groups.

"The regulatory mechanism focuses so much on Italian-Americans that there's a serious problem of discrimination and one based on stereotypes of organized crime," Farrell said. "If a person is free in the community, if they've been charged with a crime and served their time, I could find no circumstance under which they should be banned from casinos."

Newly elected Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, an attorney who gained notoriety representing numerous Black Book clients with reputed mob ties, was among those who argued that regulators discriminated against Italian-Americans.

"There has to be a rational connection between gaming and inclusion in the Black Book," Goodman said. "I thought that there were times when that connection was too tenuous."

But as mayor, Goodman said he must approach gaming regulation from a different perspective to protect the public. He said the state is regulating the gaming industry "very well."

"My role was to keep people out of the Black Book," he said. "As a public servant I'll protect individuals' constitutional rights. At the same time I'll make sure the public is protected. My role as a lawyer was adversarial. As mayor it's conciliatory."

Attorney David Chesnoff, Goodman's law partner, called the book a "public relations effort" by regulators to placate the public while denying equal protection rights to the accused. Chesnoff added that banning individuals from casinos also prevents them from many nongaming activities, such as dining and shopping.

"How about going after casino executives who have been involved in sexual or racial discrimination complaints or right-wing zealots who are permitted to operate in the gaming business?" Chesnoff said. "The Black Book is unequally applied. It has unfairly targeted Italian-Americans."

Gaming Control Board member Bobby Siller, former head of the FBI's Las Vegas office, countered that there's a good reason why Italian-Americans make up a large percentage of the Black Book. He said that's because of the stranglehold the Mafia organization known as La Cosa Nostra was thought to have on Las Vegas casinos through the 1980s.

Law-enforcement officials believe the network in the United States includes organized crime families with Italian surnames in cities such as Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Kansas City, Mo., and Buffalo, N.Y.

"This book does not target Italian-Americans," Siller said. "It would be very foolish for anyone to draw the conclusion that La Cosa Nostra represents Italian-Americans."

While law enforcement officials have concluded that the mob no longer controls Las Vegas casinos, Siller and Gaming Control Board Chairman Steve DuCharme said they cannot afford to ignore organized crime activity in Las Vegas. Two recent incidents show why.

Blitzstein's 1997 murder was thought to be tied to efforts by Los Angeles and Buffalo mobsters to move in on his loan-sharking and insurance fraud operations. The following year the FBI uncovered a plot by the New York City mob to kill three escort-service operators in Las Vegas.

"To say the mob is dead in Las Vegas would probably be an inaccurate statement," DuCharme said.

DuCharme, a former Metro Police lieutenant, said the reason older reputed mobsters continue to land in the Black Book is that Las Vegas is a place where they come to "retire" or escape the scrutiny of law enforcement in their home state. Some continue to associate with the mob and are viewed by regulators as threats to gaming because they may be involved in activities such as illegal bookmaking, DuCharme and Siller said.

"Just like old, retired baseball players always talk baseball, old retired crooks always talk the same game," DuCharme said.

Even though regulators have acted against other perceived threats such as slot cheats, the last five entrants in the book have all been tied to the mob. The Gaming Control Board wants to make it six in a row with the pending nomination of Pascente, a Vietnam veteran who, in addition to his alleged mob ties, was imprisoned for mail fraud.

Momot plans to argue that the Chicago Crime Commission report that listed his client as a mob associate is based on hearsay.

A Black Book entrant who is caught entering a Nevada casino can be charged with a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in county jail and a $2,000 fine. In recent years only convicted slot cheat Douglas William Barr Sr. has been prosecuted under that law, and he currently has outstanding warrants for his arrest for two alleged violations.

Casinos can also lose their gaming licenses for knowingly catering to a Black Book entrant. No casino has ever lost its license over such an infraction, but the former Dunes hotel-casino was fined $10,000 in the 1970s for admitting Black Book entrant Nicholas Civella under an assumed name. Entertainer Frank Sinatra also surrendered his gaming license in 1963 after he allowed Black Book entrant Sam Giancana to stay at the Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe.

DuCharme said one way to put more teeth in the law would be to charge Black Book entrants with a felony if they are caught more than once in a casino.

One flaw in the process that regulators concede is that Black Book members are still permitted to enter establishments such as bars, supermarkets and convenience stores and transportation hubs such as airports and bus terminals where there are slot machines. The irony is that while regulators have placed increased emphasis on slot cheats in recent years, there is nothing they can do to prevent such individuals from playing at those locations.

"You tread on constitutional issues," DuCharme said. "These people have a right to normal commerce. To prevent them from going into a grocery store would be a little extreme."

Another problem for regulators has to do with the spread of gaming nationwide. Because the Black Book bars its members only from casinos in this state, there is nothing Nevada regulators can do to prevent those individuals from gambling elsewhere. The reverse is true of individuals who have been blacklisted in other states. Unless they are also on Nevada's list they can enter casinos in this state.

Regulators in Nevada and in the other nine states with non-Indian casinos say they would consider placing an individual on their blacklist if they have been barred in another state. But a check of the lists kept by those states shows virtually no duplication of names from state to state.

There are 251 individuals banned from casinos in eight other states that aren't on Nevada's list. DuCharme said any of those individuals who are deemed a threat to Nevada's casinos would be considered for nomination to the Black Book.

But because some states have broader requirements for blacklisting, many of those names would never end up in Nevada's book. An example is a man on South Dakota's list who was caught stealing $20 from another player, a petty theft.

Missouri resident William Cammisano Jr. is a reputed mobster who was placed on his home state's casino blacklist in 1994. Over the next two years Cammisano reportedly gambled and received thousands of dollars worth of "comps" such as free rooms and meals from the Mirage, Maxim and Horseshoe hotel-casinos in Las Vegas. It wasn't until 1997 that he was placed in Nevada's Black Book. Fellow reputed Kansas City mobster Anthony Civella, who was banned from Missouri casinos in 1996, also made Nevada's list in 1997.

Only four other members of the Black Book -- Jerry Criner, Ronald Harris, Brent Morris and John Vaccaro -- are on another state's list. That state happens to be New Jersey, whose 171-member exclusion list is more than five times as large as Nevada's even though the Garden State has a much smaller gaming industry and didn't begin its book until 1978. New Jersey's list is thought to be larger because of its close proximity to a number of organized crime families.

DuCharme and Siller both expressed reservations about expanding the Black Book to the point where the number of entrants make it hard for regulators and casinos to police.

But Siller said he would like the Gaming Control Board to act as a clearinghouse for the various states' exclusion lists by including them along with Nevada's Black Book on the board's Internet website.

"This website would be a first step in bringing us closer together," he said. "We're still in the growing stages where other regulatory agencies turn to Nevada for guidance, leadership and training. Other states are coming up to speed but we haven't reached the point of having joint conferences where we share and coordinate information."

DuCharme, Siller and Bible agreed that numerous alleged gambling cheats who work in syndicates, such as members of Asian gangs who rig baccarat and pai gow poker games, are likely to be nominated to the book in the future. One individual they believe has a strong chance of being nominated one day is Dennis McAndrew, formerly known as Dennis Nikrasch. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in March for leading a slot machine cheating operation that netted $6 million.

DuCharme said the board's current six-agent team, which investigates potential Black Book nominees part time, is adequate to do the job. But he agrees with Bible that more staff and resources could translate to more investigations and nominations into the book.

Bible said that when the gaming industry was much smaller it was easier to keep tabs on alleged gambling cheaters and throw them out of casinos without having to place them in the Black Book. But the industry's growth has made it harder for casinos to police cheaters, he said.

"One of my frustrations is that there are a number of other people, particularly cheaters, who belong in the book," Bible said.

But Momot said the criteria for nomination are too broad and ought to be reviewed by a panel that includes regulators, law enforcement agencies and defense attorneys.

"There are numerous ex-felons working in gaming in this city," Momot said. "Who makes that subjective determination that they are not a threat to the gaming industry? We do not have any articulated standards or criteria to guide us in this system."

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