Oddly, Fertitta and Thomas continued to work for the other casinos, despite now owning one themselves. As a mafia strawman, Glick was pushed to one side by the mob and they put their own guys in to run the casinos. Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, made millions for the mob by skimming the slot machine takings at the casinos. Rosenthal, who was played by the actor Robert de Niro in the movie ‘Casino’ (Tony “The Ant” Spilotro was played by Joe Pesci), was officially known as Glick’s entertainment director and he allegedly reported to the mafia bosses in Kansas and Chicago, who between them had financed Glick with $62 million in loans from the Teamsters Union.

[image:473]

The real Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal

The FBI had long suspected an elaborate skimming operation was taking place at some of the four Glick owned casinos and launched ‘Operation Strawman’, which was a massive surveillance operation that included telephone wiretaps. It is in one of these wiretaps that Frank Fertitta jr becomes implicated in the skimming operation. In this particular scam, the management rigged the scales to make them read only a third of the actual weight of the coins. The extra money was skimmed and set aside, later being converted into paper bills. The skimming was taking place at The Tropicana and at the Fremont, where Frank Ferttita jr was the President.

[image:476]

The Fremont Hotel, where the mob made a killing during Frank Fertitta jr’s reign.

[image:475]

The Tropicana Hotel, another victim of the mob’s skimming.

Below is the transcript of the FBI wiretap involving Frank Fertitta jr, Tropicana Manager Don Shepard and Kansas City mobster Carl Thomas.

FBI Wiretap of the Bingo Palace Casino, Las Vegas, Nev. Feb 7, 1979.
9.00pm outgoing call:

Frank Fertitta Jr, Carl Thomas voices heard, inaudible conversation takes place between them as the number 9739-2222 is dialled from The Bingo Palace.

FEMALE OPERATOR: Tropicana
FERTITTA: Don Shepard, please (casino manager)
FERTITTA: Hello Shep.
SHEPARD: Yeah.
FERTITTA: Frank.
SHEPARD: What are you doing?
FERTITTA: I’m sitting here having a glass of wine with Mr. Thomas.
SHEPARD: Oh, good.
FERTITTA: He’s telling me how smart he is and, im sitting here listening to him like an idiot.
SHEPARD: Yeah.
FERTITTA: Yeah.
SHEPARD: If you need anybody to tell you how dumb you are come on over, im pretty good at that.
FERTITTA: (Laugh)
SHEPARD: Ah, this, listen this conversation isn’t being recorded is it?
FERTITTA: I, I really couldn’t tell ya.
SHEPARD: Yeah. Ask, ask, a ask Carl if anybody’s going to go boogie-ing tonight. I’m ready to boogie, do a little YMCA number.
FERTITTA: You’re ready?
SHEPARD: Oh, yeah, shit, yeah.
FERTITTA: Jesus Christ, I don’t believe this.
SHEPARD: I’m just sitting here, my legs are twitching. I can hardly wait to dance.
FERTITTA: We, were just talking about going out of town or something.
SHEPARD: Oh, yeah, well actually I should go out of town to dance.
INTERUPTION OF RECORDING
SHEPARD: Did you see me?
FERTITTA: I didn’t see you.
SHEPARD: Oh?
FERTITTA: No.
SHEPARD: A quarter of it whatever.
FERTITTA: Right, so if these coins cost us say $20,000, we got $150,000 on, you know, we’re going to have like $130,000 in excess cash.
SHEPARD: Yeah.
FERTITTA: You know.
SHEPARD: Yeah. We don’t have that problem over here.
FERTITTA: Well, yea, you…well I don’t mean excess cash, but I mean more cash than they have so, I don’t think its funny here.
SHEPARD: We’ve got…I’ve got about like $80,000 stock piled.
FERTITTA: Yeah.
SHEPARD: You know or something, we, we haven’t felt any crunch or anything I was just curious if you’re, you know.
FERTITTA: Well we had $50,000 see, but I didn’t want to make the change over here until we got them all cause $50,000 wouldn’t, you know, we couldn’t make the change with 50, so, ah, we need like 150.
SHEPARD: When are you going to switch your tokens?
FERTITTA: As soon as I get them all.
SHEPARD: Yeah.
FERTITTA: I’ll switch in fact I think we’re supposed to have them all. Oh, Jimmy gave me a date today, but I’ve forgot what it was. Ah, now maybe next week or something, then I’ll probably just go ahead and switch over.
SHEPARD: Okay, well listen I’ll talk to you.
FERTITTA: OK