Ties To The Mob

He admits the connections: It was a part of life. So many bookies, loan sharks, and mobsters came through the doors that the NFL ordered Namath to divest himself from the place. You'll be surprised by some of the celebrities with alleged ties to the mafia, the crime bosses, mafiosos, mobsters, and gangsters. Of course, there are the obvious actors who've played mafiosos, people like Al Pacino and James Caan. They're the kind of actors who may have gotten deep into their characters by hanging out with actual mobsters What has she been doing with mobsters?

Does the mafia really like the film Bedazzled? Was their relationship the inspiration for Mickey Blue Eyes? And, furthermore, what was the mafia doing with Tito Puente? This came at a time when other developers in New York were pleading with the FBI to free them of mob control of the concrete business. What emerges is a pattern of business dealings with mob figures — not only local figures, but even the son of a reputed Russian mob boss whom Trump had at his side at a gala Trump hotel opening, but has since claimed under oath he barely knows.

Mob Ties: The Board Game | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

After graduating in from the University of Pennsylvania, a rich young man from the outer boroughs of New York City sought his fortune on the island of Manhattan. Within a few years Donald J. There was something a little peculiar about the construction of Trump Tower, and subsequent Trump projects in New York.

Some use pre-cast concrete. Trump chose a costlier and in many ways riskier method: Ready-mix has some advantages: But it must be poured quickly or it will harden in the delivery truck drums, ruining them as well as creating costly problems with the building itself. That leaves developers vulnerable to the unions: Salerno, Castellano and other organized crime figures controlled the ready-mix business in New York, and everyone in construction at the time knew it.

So did government investigators trying to break up the mob, urged on by major developers such as the LeFrak and Resnick families.

Salerno and Castellano and other mob families controlled both the concrete business and the unions involved in delivering and pouring it. The risks this created became clear from testimony later by Irving Fischer, the general contractor who built Trump Tower. But with Cohn as his lawyer, Trump apparently had no reason to personally fear Salerno or Castellano — at least, not once he agreed to pay inflated concrete prices. What Trump appeared to receive in return was union peace.

That meant the project would never face costly construction or delivery delays. FBI agents subpoenaed Trump in to ask about his dealing with John Cody, a Teamsters official described by law enforcement as a very close associate of the Gambino crime family.

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The FBI believed that Cody previously had obtained free apartments from other developers. FBI agents suspected that Cody, who controlled the flow of concrete trucks, might get a free Trump Tower apartment. In the summer of Cody, then under indictment, ordered a citywide strike—but the concrete work continued at Trump Tower. Trump then quickly settled, paying the woman a half-million dollars. Trump said at the time and since then that he hardly knew those involved and there was nothing improper his dealings with Cody or the woman.

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In , when Trump hired a demolition contractor to take down the Bonwit Teller department store to make way for Trump Tower, he hired as many as non-union men to work alongside about 15 members of the House Wreckers Union Local At least some of them did not use power tools but sledgehammers, working 12 hours a day or more and often seven days a week.

Many slept on the construction site. Normally the use of nonunion workers at a union job site would have guaranteed a picket line. Not at this site, however. Work proceeded because the Genovese family principally controlled the union; this was demonstrated by extensive testimony, documents and convictions in federal trials, as well as a later report by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. When the Polish workers and a union dissident sued for their pay and benefits, Trump denied any knowledge that illegal workers without hard hats were taking down Bonwit with sledgehammers.

The trial, however, demonstrated otherwise: Testimony showed that Trump panicked when the nonunion Polish men threatened a work stoppage because they had not been paid. I reacted by saying to Donald that 'I think you are nuts,'" Sullivan testified at the time. In , a federal judge, Charles E. The case was later settled by negotiation, and the agreement was sealed.

From the beginning, Trump tried to have it both ways. In April of , when he was considering building a New Jersey casino, he expressed concern about his reputation in a meeting with the FBI, according to an FBI document in my possession and which the site Smoking Gun also posted.

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Part of the licensing process was supposed to be a deep investigation into his background, taking more than a year for would-be casino owners, but Trump managed to cut that short. Trump seemingly paid Degnan back by becoming an ardent foe of gambling anywhere in the East except Atlantic City—a position that obviously protected his newfound business investment as well, of course. Trump was required to disclose any investigations in which he might have been involved in the past, even if they never resulted in charges.

The failure to disclose either that inquiry or the Cody inquiry probably should have disqualified Trump from receiving a license under the standards set by the gaming authorities. Trump denied any misconduct or testified that he could not remember. They took him at his word. That meant his casino license was secure even though others in the gambling industry, including low-level licensees like card dealers, had been thrown out for far less.

This lapse illustrated a fundamental truth about casino regulation at the time: Once the state licensed an owner, the Division of Gaming Enforcement had a powerful incentive not to overturn its initial judgment.

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State officials recited like a mantra their promise that New Jersey casinos were the most highly regulated business in American history, more tightly regulated than nuclear power plants. In Temples of Chance I showed that this reputation often owed less to careful enforcement than to their willingness to look the other way when problems arose.