Interference (79 page)

Also, during the dispute between Georgia Frontiere and Guiver, she had been routinely tape-recording conversations with everyone from Guiver and Steve Rosenbloom to Pete Rozelle, according to a sworn statement by Mel Irwin, an employee of Frontiere. Reportedly, Frontiere had elaborate taping systems hooked up to her telephones and meeting rooms, as well as one in her purse. She claimed under oath, “I didn't tape phone conversations unless it was something I had to remember.”

9
.  The morale of the team remained low after its 31-9 loss to the Pitts burgh Steelers in Super Bowl XIV in 1980. The Rams came back the following season with an 11-5 season but lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 34-13, in the wild card game. However, in 1981, the Rams slipped to a dismal 6-10 and 2-7 in the strike-shortened 1982 season. The Rams did bounce back in 1983 with a 9-7 record, led by their new head coach, John Robinson, who had won 81 percent of his games and a national championship while being the longtime head coach at the University of Southern California.

CHAPTER 40

1
.  In 1978, Nevada gaming officials had fined the Union Plaza Sports Book $80,000 for accepting thirty-seven illegal bets from outside Nevada during a one-month period in the fall of 1977.

2
.  Simultaneously, the Aladdin, Dunes, Riviera, and Tropicana hotel/ casinos in Las Vegas came under siege by the Justice Department's Strike Force Against Organized Crime, which also charged in federal corruption cases that these companies were concealing skimming operations and hidden ownerships by major organized-crime figures.

3
. 
A federal court later ruled against the SEC and in favor of Argent.

4
.  Glide's cooperation was secured after the FBI conducted a search of mob boss Frank Balistrieri's safe in his Milwaukee office. One of the documents recovered was an agreement for an interest in the Argent Corporation. “The agreement, this option,” said federal prosecutor Sheryle Jeans, “was between Glick, on the one hand, and defendants John and Joseph Balistrieri on the other hand … The option provided that for the payment of $25,000 they could purchase half interest in the Argent Corporation.” The FBI also found $200,000 in cash and Frank Balistrieri's address book.

5
.  Rosenthal is known for having his own unique ways of doing things. He wasn't even predictable in the manner in which he started his car. Sometimes he would stand outside the open door and start the car from that position. At other times, he would leave the door open and keep his left foot on the ground as he started it.

6
.  In April 1984, an affidavit filed in federal court by FBI agent Michael DeMarco alleged that Milwaukee crime boss Frank Balistrieri was involved in the Rosenthal bombing. The affidavit stated that Balistrieri had been picked up in a telephone conversation with his two sons angrily charging that Rosenthal “fingered us and he fingered the Argent Corporation.” The Milwaukee mobster pledged to “get full satisfaction.” The FBI also accused Balistrieri of ordering the murder of a local rival and then placing bombs in the cars of two others. One of the targets was killed in the explosion. The other man discovered the bomb—which had failed to detonate; he later became a government witness.

7
.  A 2 percent federal tax on wagers made on sporting events and other forms of nonstate gambling operations had long been imposed on those booking the bets, who also were required to pay an occupational tax of $500 a year. Prior to December 1974, the excise tax was 10 percent, with the occupational tax at $50. The federal government estimated that, ideally, its income from these post-1974 taxes were close to $100 million annually.

The Treasury Department's position on the repeal of the taxes came in the midst of hearings on a bill proposal by Nevada Senator Howard Cannon to exempt legal gambling from taxes.

8
.  For details that the Reagan administration's war on organized crime and drugs was nothing more than a charade and a public-relations campaign, see my book
Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob
(New York: Viking Press, 1986).

CHAPTER 41

1
.  At the time of the hearing, Alioto was having his own problems fighting off allegations of mob ties. In 1969,
Look
magazine charged that he had associations with six major underworld figures. Earlier, Alioto had been seriously considered as Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey's running mate in 1968. Alioto filed a libel suit against
Look
and eventually was awarded $350,000 in damages. The charges were rekindled in 1981 with the release of Southern California mob boss James Fratianno's book, written by Ovid Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
(New York: Times Books, 1981). Fratianno contradicted Alioto's claims that the former mayor had no ties to the underworld.

Alioto is the son-in-law of Billy Sullivan, the owner of the New England Patriots. Alioto had previously defended the NFL against an antitrust suit that challenged the NFL players' basic contract filed by Joe Kapp of the Minnesota Vikings. Kapp won his case in April 1976 but received no damages. The ruling was upheld by the court of appeals two years later.

2
.  On May 11, 1981, the jury in Davis's antitrust suit against the NFL was hopelessly deadlocked. A mistrial was declared. Finally, a year later, on May 7, the federal court ruled in favor of Davis, finding that the NFL had violated U.S. antitrust laws. Davis then moved his Raiders to Los Angeles. In March 1989, just before Rozelle's resignation, Davis settled with the NFL for $18 million.

3
.  In July 1981, college basketball was rocked by another point-shaving scheme as former Boston College star Richard Kuhn was indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn. He was promised $2,500 a game, as well as “drugs, women, and cars … just to see to it that the games would never go beyond the point spread.” Also indicted as his coconspirators were four others, including a major organized-crime figure. All five had cooperated in a conspiracy to fix the final point spreads of several BC games. Kuhn, who had solicited the cooperation of other players, had begun his involvement with the gamblers by providing them with inside information.

Kuhn and three others were convicted and sentenced to prison. Kuhn, sentenced to ten years, was released after serving twenty-eight months.

The prosecutor in the case, Edward McDonald of the Brooklyn Strike Force, said in 1985, “We have found in two of the four sports corruption cases that we have had in my office that cocaine was offered as an inducement to the [athletes]. We are not talking about a situation where there was an addiction, but simply that cocaine was offered as an inducement to the sports participants to get them to go along with the fix. I think that in … the last few years … cocaine use has become much more widespread throughout the country and especially among athletes, both on a professional and amateur college level. So I think that the likelihood of the offer of narcotics, primarily cocaine, is much greater now than it was in 1978 when Mr. Kuhn was approached.”

4
.  When he retired from football in 1984, Stabler had played in 184 games, attempted 3,793 passes, completing 2,270 for a 59.85 percentage and 194 touchdowns. When he joined the Oilers, Stabler was the most accurate passer in the history of the NFL. He was a three-time selection to the Pro Bowl and, in 1974, was picked for the NFL's all-pro team. He also led the Raiders to the team's first Super Bowl win in 1977. Oakland defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 32-14. In the game, Stabler completed 12 of 19 passes for 180 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions.

5
.  On September 7, 1981,
The New York Times
published another story about Stabler's business relationship with Anthony James Romano, a member of the Stefano Magaddino crime family in Buffalo, New York. Reporters Crewdson and Rawls charged that the NFL had approved of the partnership between the two men—without a thorough background check on Romano, who had been convicted of wire fraud and criminal tax fraud and had served two years at Lewisburg Penitentiary.

6
.  After
The New York Times
story,
NBC Nightly News
alleged that Stabler had left Shea Stadium with Dudich after a November 23, 1980, game with
the New York Jets. The six-point-favorite Oilers lost the game, 31-28, in overtime. During the game, Stabler had thrown four interceptions.

At halftime, the Jets were leading the Oilers 21-0. But Stabler and the Houston team, in front of the partisan New York crowd, battled back in the second half—despite the fact that the Oilers' top runner, Earl Campbell, had been injured in the third quarter. With the score 28-21 late in the fourth quarter, Stabler threw his fourth touchdown pass to tie the score and send the game into overtime. However, the Jets ended the game in overtime with a field goal, winning, 31-28.

Bookmakers around the country say that no unnatural money was detected on the game. The Oilers opened as six-point favorites; the line did not change at all during the week before the game.

7
.  The Alameda County district attorney, Lowell Jensen, believed that there was no evidence to support the charges against Anderson or Stabler. Jensen was later appointed by President Reagan as the head of the criminal division in the U.S. Justice Department and later to a federal judgeship.

8
.  When informed of the results of Tropiano's lie detector test, Rozelle said, “A lie detector test, for one thing, does not stand up in court.” And Warren Welsh cautioned, “I think it's important to note that a polygraph is really a detector of emotions,” and placed little faith in the test. Significantly, during previous discussions about polygraph tests of NFL personnel who reportedly passed them—such as those of NFL owners, as well as players Rick Casares, Len Dawson, Johnny Robinson, and Babe Parilli, among others—the NFL viewed those tests as being definitive.

9
. 
The Gold Sheet
, September 1981.

10
.  Ken Stabler and Berry Stainback,
Snake
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1986), pp. 210-11.

11
.  Unitas had retired from the NFL after the 1973 season, playing from 1955 to 1972 in Baltimore and finishing his career with San Diego. Named by the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee as the all-time greatest quarterback to ever play the game, Unitas, at the time of his retirement, held NFL career records for most passing attempts, most completions, most yardage, most three-hundred-yard games, and most touchdown passes. He also threw at least one touchdown pass in forty-seven consecutive games, another NFL record. Unitas was also known for his clean-cut image and his tremendous poise under incredible pressure on the football field. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1979.

12
.  The NFL has yet to establish guidelines regarding with whom a bet may be made or how much that bet may be in order for it to be considered a “friendly bet.”

13
.  Stabler filed a libel suit against
The New York Times
and
NBC News
for their stories linking him to Dudich. The specific reason for the NBC suit resulted from the network's distribution “to its affiliated stations a videotape which suggested Stabler threw or deliberately lost football games or shaved points in football games so that gamblers might prevail or win bets …” In his autobiography,
Snake
, Stabler writes, “some viewers may well have been led to believe that I had thrown the game. NBC settled with us out of court. All I cared about was clearing my name completely” (p. 243).

Stabler later dropped his suit against the
Times
. In reporting Stabler's decision, the
Times
wrote, “[L]aw enforcement officials said such associations [with gamblers] were not in themselves illegal, but could be considered in violation of the N.F.L. constitution which provides penalties for a player who knowingly associates with gamblers.”

CHAPTER 42

1
.  In 1984, Henderson was sentenced to fifty-six months in prison after he pleaded no contest to charges of forcible oral copulation, sexual assault and battery. According to testimony at a preliminary court hearing, Henderson had attacked two teenage girls in his apartment and forced them, at gunpoint, to perform oral sex. One of the girls was a paraplegic who was confined to a wheelchair. Henderson later reportedly offered them $10,000 not to testify against him.

2
.  In 1975, Csonka was also one of nineteen investors in a Connecticut corporation that was investigated by the U.S. Strike Force for its alleged role in a jai-alai-financing scandal. Csonka was not charged with any wrongdoing.

3
.  The Csonka-Kiick story, first reported by WVUE-TV in New Orleans, was advanced by M. Anthony Lednovich and Dan Christensen of
The Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel
.

4
.  On February 26, 1981, just prior to the eruption of the Broncos drug scandal, team owners Allan and Gerry Phipps sold their interests in the team for $35 million to Edgar F. Kaiser, Jr., the chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Resources, Ltd., an international coal, oil, and gas company headquartered in Denver. A Harvard M.B.A. and a former AID employee stationed in Vietnam, Kaiser kept the team for only three years, selling out to forty-year-old real estate executive Patrick Dennis Bowlen. Denver industrialist John Adams became a minority owner.

5
.  At the same time of the Broncos investigation, NBA star David Thompson of the Denver Nuggets was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics after having admitted to the local police about his personal drug problems. Three members of the professional basketball team were also targets of the same investigation as the Broncos were.

6
.  Reese also credited Saints owner John Mecom with doing everything he could to get his player cleaned up by paying him enough money to clear up his debts after his drug habit became known and providing him with invaluable moral support.