Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witness (17 page)

Frank couldn’t believe that a simple robbery had turned into a murder. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had to be careful what he said. Neumann was a stone-cold killer and he wasn’t afraid of anyone. If Frank said too much, he could end up dead, too. Frank sold the merchandise to a fence in Las Vegas. By the time he paid all the overhead the split was $25,000 each. It was hardly worth anyone’s life.

Neumann returned to Chicago, but within thirty days he moved to Las Vegas.

There can be little doubt that Larry Neumann was extremely dangerous. He chose a life of crime not out of necessity, but because he enjoyed it. Stealing may have been fun for him, but he seemed to derive the most pleasure from killing people. He murdered when murder wasn’t necessary. For example, the three people he shotgunned in the Chicago tavern were reportedly killed because he thought he’d been short-changed in the amount of two dollars. Also in Frank’s opinion, there had been no reason to kill jeweler Bob Brown. And there were other examples of Neumann’s penchant for homicide.

One time Neumann, Guardino, and Frank were sitting in Frank’s restaurant when Neumann got up to take a phone call. When he came back, he said, “Some guy got in a beef with my exwife in a lounge back in Chicago. The motherfucker grabbed her by the throat.”

“Was she hurt?” Frank asked.

“No, she’s okay.”

“Hey, she’s not hurt and you aren’t even married to her any more. Don’t get so upset,” Frank told him.

Those words fell on deaf ears. Neumann said, “What he did was a sign of disrespect to me. I’ve got to go back and kill the bastard.”

For the next hour and a half, Frank talked to Neumann, trying to convince him not to do anything. When the conversation was finished, Frank believed that he’d succeeded.

About ten days later, Neumann said he had to go to Chicago for a few days. Frank had a caper in the works for which he planned to use a kid named Tommy as an alibi. He figured if Tommy went out of town for a while, there’d be less chance anyone would connect them, so he asked Neumann if he’d take Tommy with him. As a side benefit, having the kid around would probably discourage Neumann from doing anything foolish regarding the supposed assault on his ex-wife.

Neumann and Tommy left for Chicago and the next day Frank received a call from a friend about a double killing in McHenry County, Neumann’s home turf. According to the caller, a guy and his girlfriend were shot in the head while sitting in a lounge. Frank called Tommy to find out if he knew anything about the murders, but the kid didn’t want to say anything on the phone.

As promised, Neumann was back the following week and he met with Frank. “Larry, did you kill those people in the bar?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. He was the son of a bitch that choked my ex-wife.” “You promised me you were going to let that go.”

“I thought about what you said, but I couldn’t control myself. I found out the tavern this guy was in and went there; I left Tommy outside in the car. I asked the guy why he grabbed my ex-wife’s neck. He was feeding me a line of shit and I was getting more and more pissed off. I pulled my gun and shot him in the forehead. And then I shot the broad.”

“But the girl had nothing to do with it. And I hear she had a couple of kids.”

“Then the kids are probably better off without her.”

Neumann’s homicidal tendencies weren’t lost on Tony Spilotro either. Spilotro, considered by some to be the most dangerous man in Las Vegas at the time, once spoke about Neumann to Frank. He said, “Jesus! Whatever you do, don’t ever unleash that bastard on me.”

Shortly after Frank recruited Leo Guardino, the two did three residential burglaries. Using $65,000 of the proceeds from those thefts, they opened up an Italian restaurant called the Upper Crust at 4110 South Maryland Parkway. Adjoining the restaurant was the My Place Lounge. Both businesses became hangouts for Tony Spilotro’s gang and other Las Vegas wiseguys.

When Frank first opened the Upper Crust, he met a man named Nick Rossi (not his real last name). He was a long-time Las Vegan who knew a lot of people and had lots of contacts. A short time later Nick stopped in the restaurant and mentioned to Frank that he had a daughter, Eileen. She was 34 years old and had two children—Kimberly and Kent—from a previous marriage. He said she was an honest and loyal girl who’d make a good employee.

Frank subsequently spoke with Eileen. After a couple of meetings, he was satisfied that she was trustworthy and wouldn’t steal from him. He put her to work in the restaurant; they were married on Jan. 1, 1980. She proved to be a loyal employee, wife, and confidant. His money and his secrets were safe with her. But Eileen was also very jealous, and with good reason. After they were married, she watched Frank like a hawk.

Within a year of moving to Las Vegas, Frank Cullotta was settled in. He was married, owned a restaurant, and had a crew of burglars, robbers, arsonists, and killers. Although Tony Spilotro was the overall boss, Frank did his own recruiting and planned the scores. His crew consisted of five guys. Leo Guardino and Ernie Davino specialized in burglaries. Larry Neumann, Wayne Matecki, and Jimmy Patrazzo would do it all, including armed robbery and murder. Except for Davino, Frank knew them all from Chicago. Matecki and Patrazzo were the only two who didn’t live in Las Vegas. Matecki had no criminal record at all and Patrazzo was unknown in Nevada. That meant they were clean faces and didn’t have to worry about being fingered in a photo lineup. Anytime Frank needed them, they’d fly into town to do the score. Afterward they’d drive to an airport in California or Arizona and fly back to Chicago. That way, if the cops had witnesses check the Vegas airport’s security tapes after a job, they wouldn’t be spotted.

Burglaries were their forte and they did three or four house break-ins a week. Many of those homes were alarmed and Frank had to figure out ways to get into the houses. Some alarms weren’t wired into police or central security stations, so he could disable the ringers or bells. Others could be circumvented by making holes in the walls or the roofs of the residences to get inside. That M.O. led to them being dubbed the Hole in the Wall Gang (HITWG). Initially, Frank was afraid of copycats. He was concerned that if other thieves began pulling jobs using the hole-in-the-wall method, his crew would be charged with every burglary in the city if they ever got caught. But his guys didn’t seem to care, so neither did he.

A few alarm systems were harder to beat. He couldn’t just pull the ringers off the wall, or if they had motion detectors, a hole in the roof wouldn’t work. He needed inside information.

Pulling a page out of his Chicago playbook, Frank sought the help of insurance agents. For a percentage of the score, he got all the information he needed to do the job: a list and location of valuables and how the house was alarmed.

Frank didn’t consider the people whose homes were burglarized as victims. His gang never stole from anyone who was really poor. They always made sure their information was accurate and the people they were going to rob were well-to-do. The targets all had good insurance and usually ended up better off after the burglary. He thought that in reality he was doing them a favor.

Not everyone in his crew felt the same, though. Although Frank had put together a gang of professional crooks, one of them had a hang-up that was somewhat comical. During a burglary, Leo Guardino couldn’t stand to see a picture of the people he was stealing from. He didn’t want to know who they were or what they looked like. If he saw a photo in the room, he turned it upside down.

Leo Guardino was a good thief, but he wasn’t prone to violence, as he admitted up front to Frank. However, on one occasion, rather bizarre circumstances drove the mild-mannered burglar to pull the trigger.

A hotel bellman told Frank that he knew two guys and a girl who were big-time dope dealers. They had a safe in their house full of coke and cash. As usual, the robbers took two cars to the job. They used Caddys or Lincolns so they wouldn’t look out of place in the upscale neighborhoods they worked in. As in Chicago, the work cars were registered under fictitious names.

In anticipation of having to haul a safe, Frank drove a big Lincoln to the robbery scene. He stayed outside in the Lincoln while another driver cruised around in a legitimately licensed Caddy. Guardino, Davino, and a third guy did the robbery. Soon, Frank heard what sounded like a gunshot come from the house; minutes later he got a call on his walkie-talkie to make the pick-up. The guys brought out the safe and they took off.

While they were driving, Frank inquired about the gunshotlike noise. “What the fuck was that pop I heard? It sounded like a shot.”

Guardino answered. “When we crashed through the sliding glass doors, the two guys were sitting at a table in the kitchen in their shorts, and the broad was in the bathroom. The two men ran; I chased one of them into the bedroom. He got up on the bed and started jumping up and down. I asked him where the safe was. The son of a bitch pulled out his prick and told me to suck it. Can you imagine? I shot the asshole in the leg. He got off the bed and on the floor. I asked him again about the safe. This time he told me which closet it was in. We tied them all up and grabbed the safe.”

That safe had $30,000 worth of coke and $15,000 in cash in it. The bellman got his ten percent and Tony got a cut equal to the rest of the gang. As for the guy who got wise with Guardino, he would have been better off had he kept his pecker in his shorts.

In Las Vegas, other mainstays from his Chicago days sometimes proved not so successful—Sears, for one. Wayne Matecki hid inside the Vegas store until after closing. Then he rounded up all the furs and jewelry, put everything into the store’s own clothing bags, brought them to a window, and crashed out. It was a bad score, though. Most of the merchandise was junk and brought in little money. It probably didn’t do much more than pay for Matecki’s week in Vegas.

Quickly, however, Frank adjusted to the southern Nevada lifestyle and as always, he opened the door for whatever opportunities knocked. Janet, a hooker he knew, called to say she was with a man in a casino. “We’ve been gambling all night and this guy has an attaché case loaded with money. Do you think we should rob him?”

“Damn right. Take the guy to a room somewhere. After he goes to sleep, give me a call and I’ll come over.”

Janet and her customer wound up in a high-rise not far from the Marie Antoinette. She called Frank with the address and room number. She let him in the room and showed him the case. As she was getting dressed the guy woke up and saw Frank standing by the bed holding his attaché case. He started to say something and Frank whacked him in the head three or four times with his own money, then he and Janet ran out. There was $20,000 in the case and they split it down the middle.

When Frank arrived in Vegas, only a few casinos had sports books. Most of the wagering on sporting events was done through illegal bookies and a large number of them were operating in the city. In some cases they were freelancers, not affiliated with any particular crime family. As independents, they cut into the business of mob-controlled book joints and didn’t pay tribute to the Midwest crime bosses. These individuals were a source of irritation to the Outfit and their man on the scene, Tony Spilotro. Tony didn’t allow such affronts to continue unchallenged. He assigned Frank to straighten out the offenders.

Tony called Frank and said, “There’s a bookmaker named Sarge I want you to grab. This cocksucker’s a renegade and we’ve got to bring him in line. Tell the prick that if he wants to continue bookmaking, he better start kicking in some money. If he gives you any static, tell him he’d better pay by tomorrow. Bring somebody with you that will scare him. Bring Lurch.” Lurch was a nickname for Larry Neumann. The killer was over six feet tall and muscular. In Frank’s opinion, Neumann could scare a hungry bulldog off a meat truck.

Neumann, Davino, and Frank went to see Sarge. Lurch did the talking and scared the bookie to the point of panic.

The next day Tony expressed his pleasure. “You guys put the fear of God into him and he came to me asking for protection. Now I own him. I can gamble into that cocksucker for free now. Got it?”

A few days after that, Tony told Frank about another bookie he wanted the boys to see. Dominic was from Boston and lived in one of the country clubs. Neumann grabbed the bookmaker by the lapels, pulled him close, and said, “Listen, you little grease-ball cocksucker. I know what you’re doing out here. I know you’re bookmaking. We want a piece of your action. Do you understand?”

Obviously scared, Dominic started rattling off the names of people he knew in Boston.

Lurch cut him short. “I don’t give a fuck who you’re with. You’re gonna do what we tell you or you’re dead. We’ll be back tomorrow for our first payment of fifteen thousand. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Dominic did a little moaning, but he said okay.

Frank contacted Tony and told him what happened. The Ant loved that kind of stuff. He said, “I already got a call from this guy’s boss in Boston. He asked me to do him a favor and look out for his man. I told him no problem. He’s going to send Dominic money for me, to show his appreciation.”

Dominic caused no further problems and he paid protection money to Tony on a regular basis. Everybody was happy.

It turned out that Nick Rossi, Eileen’s father, was able to provide Frank with more than a mate. He also proved to be a good tipster. One of his leads involved a black man named Tony. Tony ran an escort service and had a lot of white women working for him. He’d also operated a jewelry store that had recently gone out of business. Nick found out that the entire remaining inventory from the jewelry store was being kept in Tony’s house. Frank and his crew sat on the place and waited for Tony to leave. When they were sure the house was empty, Davino, Guardino, and a burglar named Pete went inside while Frank stayed with the work car. They found a floor safe in the house and boxes and boxes of jewelry in the garage.