Slick's Las Vegas Then and Now: 28th in Series

Floating Crap Game, Sand's Pool

Over a year ago I posted a series of episodes from Slick's unpublished manuscript, Slick's Las Vegas Then and Now. Inadvertantly, I left off the last couple of chapters. January 1, 2011 was the last entry, "Las Vegas Then & Now." So today I'm posting:

More Then & Now…

·         Stratosphere is where Vegas World Casino was
·         Mandalay Bay has replaced the Hacienda
·         Bellagio is where the Dunes once stood
·         Venetian property once held the Sands
·         Mirage has replaced the Castaways

Sure, there are a lot of others that have seen the wrecking ball. But this gives you an idea of what's happened through the years. Here's a pretty decent map showing the history of Strip casinos http://home.earthlink.net/~cyberlane/vegasmap.html.

A few older Strip casinos that are still around:
·         The Stratosphere
·         MGM Grand
·         Flamingo
·         Rivera
·         Sahara
·         Mirage
·         Bally’s
·         Harrah’s

For a terrific look at the Strip when the Mob ruled Las Vegas, check this out: http://www.whenthemobranvegas.com/slideshow.html

What Folks are saying about the Mob Museum: A hit or a miss?



The Real Donnie Brasco

Surveillance tools

Check here for recent takes on The Las Vegas Mob Museum: http://themobmuseum.org/media-room/in-the-news/


and here for a New York Times slide show: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/02/14/arts/artsspecial/20120214MOB.html.

Cross Scarface's Tony Montana with a hip-hop hero and you get...

...Supreme Team's Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, "the epitome of gangster cool." McGriff is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison. But make no mistake. Supreme and his 200 + members the Supreme Team forged a crack empire so powerful that it's become a legend in its own time, glorified in some of hip-hops greatest hits.

In an exclusive upcoming interview, Mob Writer talks with author Seth Ferranti regarding the latest in his Street Legends series: The Supreme Team--The Birth of Crack and Hip-hop, Prince's reign of Terror and the Supreme/50 Cent Beef Exposed.

Ferranti, doing a 25-year prison stint for a non-violent crime, reveals how he extracts the raw facts in his prison-side interviews with Supreme Team members and others incarcerated with him. No small feat.

COMING SOON!

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Here's a glimpse of life in the joint according to Seth Ferranti: http://www.november.org/thewall/cases/ferranti-s/ferranti-s.html 

Crime Beat Radio: Controversies & personalities from the darkside

Here's the latest from Crime Beat Radio:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Strategic Media Books

803-366-5440

strategicmediabooks@gmail.com

www.strategicmediabooks.com

Crime Beat Radio Show
www.artistfirst.com
crimebeat123@yahoo.com
 

Noam Chomsky, Frank Matthews, Whitey Bulger, Joren Van Der Sloot, The American Sniper, Mob Humor and Much More...

March, 2012— Crime Beat: Issues, Controversies and Personalities from the darkside on Artist First World Radio Network is pleased to announce its forthcoming schedule for March 15, 2012, through May 24, 2012. Topics covered include Noam Chomsky on international crime, Whitey Bulger, the American Sniper, drug kingpin Frank Matthews, Joren Van der Sloot and Natalie Holloway and more. Here is the lineup:

March 15—Noted crime writer Anthony Bruno will discuss his book, Ice Man, the story of mafia hit man Richard Kuklinsky. The book is being made into a movie.

• March 22—Journalist David J. Krajicek will discuss his book Gotti and Me: A Crime Reporter’s Close Encounters with the New York Mafia.  Also, there is a command appearance by Deidre Capone grand niece of famous gangster Al Capone and author of the best-selling Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story from Inside his Family. Read more.
• March 29—Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most famous activists, will discuss U.S. foreign policy, human rights and international crime.  By the 1980's Noam Chomsky had become both the most distinguished figure of American linguistics and one of the most influential left-wing critics of American foreign policy.  Chomsky is said to be the most frequently-cited person alive, and one of the eight most frequently-cited authors of all time. Read more.
• April 5—Lisa Pulitzer and Cole Thompson, authors of Portrait of a Monster, will discuss the infamous Joren van der Sloot and the Natalie Holloway mystery. Read more. 
• April 12—Chris Kyle, the subject of the Amazon number one best selling book, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, will discuss his life and military career. Read more.
• April 19—Authors Joe Land and Robert Fitzpatrick will discuss their book, Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down. Read more.
• April 26—Frank Matthews, Part 1—filmmakers Ron Chepesiuk and Al Profit and sources from their documentary, The Frank Matthews Story, will discuss  the life and criminal career of Frank Matthews America’s biggest kingpin. Read more.
• May 3—Frank Matthews, Part 2—filmmakers Ron Chepesiuk and Al Profit and sources from their documentary, The Frank Matthews Story, will discuss the amazing disappearance of Frank Matthews, organized crime’s biggest mystery. Read more.
• May 10 Linda Schiro, who appeared on television’s I Married a Mobster, discusses her life as the daughter of mobster Greg Scarpa. Also author Malcolm Kushner discusses his book, Official Book of Mob Humor.
• May 17—Mark Silverman and Scott Deitche, authors of Rogue Mobster, discuss Silverman’s life in the Boston Mob, and J. Patrick O’Connor, author of Scapegoat discusses California’s Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper. A special guest appearance by former mob wife Lynda Molito.
• May 24 A command appearance by the controversial marijuana legalization activist Robert Edward Forchion (aka The NJWeedman). Read more.

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On the air since January 28, 2011, Crime Beat is a weekly hour-long radio program that airs every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST.  Crime Beat presents fascinating topics that bring listeners closer to the dynamic underbelly of the world of crime. Guests have included ex- mobsters, undercover law enforcement agents, sports officials, informants, prisoners, drug dealers and investigative journalists, who have provided insights and fresh information about the world’s most fascinating subject: crime.

Crime Beat is currently averaging 100,000 listeners plus each week, and the figure is growing. Crime Beat is hosted by award-winning crime writer and documentary producer Ron Chepesiuk (www.ronchepesiuk.com) and broadcast journalist and freelance writer Will Hryb.

Ronald Herd II, the popular Internet radio host and regular listener of Crime Beat, said: "Crime Beat sounds like an organized crime greatest hits collection...I am loving it!" Tom Hart of Atlanta, Georgia, writes: “I am a BIG fan of your show and enjoy the variety of guests you have on your show.. “Keep up the good work.”  

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Crime Beat airs weekly every Thursday at 8 P.M. EST on the Artist First World Radio Network at artistfirst.com/crimebeat

To contact the Crime Beat radio program for interviews, e-mail crimebeat123@yahoo.com or call 803-366-5440.

USA Today Travel – The Las Vegas Mob Museum is a hit, man

The following post appeared Feb 21, 2012 in USA Today:

The Las Vegas Mob Museum is a hit, man LAS VEGAS — Just-opened The Mob Museum here packs a lot of punches — from Tommy guns, film clips, artifacts of real mobsters and a Hawaiian shirt worn by TV mafioso Tony Soprano, to part of the wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, to interactive exhibits that clue you into casino scams and mobster trivia.
Wednesday night, in a surreal grand opening party scene, it packed in some former gangland figures, including a police informant and alleged hitman seen in the film Casino as well as the inspiration for GoodFellas, former protected witness Henry Hill. I chatted with the affable Hill, who told me he used to be “a scumbag” when he was doping and killing, and with Meyer Lansky II, the dapper grandson and namesake of the organized crime boss whose gambling empire included early Vegas casinos. Both say they’re working on TV shows dealing with mobster exploits.
Museum honcho Dennis Barrie was a force behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and The Spy Museum in Washington, so it’s no surprise that the downtown museum — in a renovated courthouse where Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver held 1950 hearings that exposed organized crime — is no penny-ante deal. “The idea is to be as immersive as possible,” Barrie says, and that means “participating” in a police lineup, reading actual files of mobsters, punching in a city and seeing its mob crime history, watching how agents spied on mobsters and listening to actual wiretaps and tapes of gangster schemes. Photos from mob hits are chilling.

BTW...if you happen to visit the Mob Museum, be sure to check out our book THIEF in the museum bookstore. As you may know, the book is all about the mob, prostitution and gambling. What's not to like.

Frank Lucas's Ex-Wife Arrested for Cocaine

The Ex-wife of Frank Lucas tried to comfort her ailing husband but instead a judge slapped her with a mandatory five-year prison term for scheming to sell cocaine to a government informant.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/drug_wife_case_american_gangster_di0MPamhjwzWvfsLXhjeQJ#ixzz1noxOocdB

JUST IN...

The following select items appeared in Strategic Media Books winter newsletter:

Book on California Death Penalty Case Chronicles Injustice

In 1985, Kevin Cooper was convicted of the brutal murders of a Chino Hills, California family and a young house guest in 1985. Now, in his explosive investigation, SCAPEGOAT, journalist J. Patrick O’Connor provides a rare direct examination of the broken justice system in the United States where homicide detectives and district attorneys all too often become blinded by their goal of winning convictions rather than searching for justice for both the victims and the wrongly accused.

J. Patrick O’Connor has been the editor and publisher of Crime Magazine since 1998.  He was a reporter and bureau manager for United Press International, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, and an associate editor for TV Guide.  He was editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times, an alternative newspaper.  He is the author of The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, which was published by Lawrence Hill Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, in May of 2008. 

Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper is available on StrategicMediaBooks.com, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores near you.          

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Queenpins Published

"Queenpins: The Lives and Times of Notorious Women Gangsters" is out and available for purchase. Written by Ron Chepesiuk, the book provides an engrossing and fresh look at life in the highest echelons of the criminal world. Some of the profiled queenpins have become well-known, thanks to Hollywood and the ubiquitous media. Others are not so well known. Many rose and fell in the world of drug trafficking. Others achieved notoriety as madams, bank robbers, bootleggers, and gamblers. Several operated in the U.S., but the stories of queenpins from China, Colombia, Mexico, Australia, Italy and even India are chronicled. Go to strategicmediabooks.com for more information. To read excerpts from the book, go to Crime Magazine and Gangsters Inc.

Queenpins: The Lives and Times of Notorious Women Gangsters is available on StrategicMediabooks.com, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores near you.

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SMB Authors Speak at Law School

On January 25 at 5 p.m. Ron Chepesiuk and Ike Atkinson, along with distinguished Federal judge Sterling Johnson, appeared on a program at the North Carolina Central University Law School in Durham, North Carolina, Titled "The American Gangster: The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth," the program was open to the public and five historical black colleges in North Carolina participated by teleconference. The authors signed copies of "Sergeant Smack" and the DVD, "Ike Atkinson, Kingpin: In his Own Words".

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Frank Matthews Documentary in Production

In 1974 Drug Kingpin Frank Matthews jumped bail with $15 million and beautiful woman and has never been seen again. Now, filmmakers Ron Chepesiuk and Al Profit are putting finishing touches on a documentary that investigates Matthews fascinating career and disappearance. It is scheduled for release in late February. Click here to view the trailer. To visit the website, go to frankmatthewsmovie.com.

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SMB Author to Participate in Starz Television Production

This spring Starz premiers its new original series, Magic City, which is set in 1950s Miami.  Leading up to the premiere, Starz is producing several interstitials featuring interviews with celebrities, trendsetters and experts on 1950s Miami. Through the blending of present and past, of the modern with the archival, the Magic City project will present a unique combination of information about the era and its relevance today. SMB writer Ron Chepesiuk, the author of Gangsters of Miami, will be interviewed for the project. Click the link for more information about Magic City.

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Crime Beat Radio Show, One Year Later

It’s hard to believe but the SMB sponsored radio show Crime Beat has been on the air for one year. Four million listeners turned into the first 50 broadcasts of the show. Crime Beat guests have included Henry Hill, John Gotti’s Adopted Son, Tim Donaghy, Louis Ferrante and others. To celebrate, Crime Beat invited its first guest, Jack Garcia, back for its anniversary show. For a promo of the show click this link.

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Book of Prison Writings to be published this Coming April

Seth Ferranti has been in prison for two decades during which time he has established a leading reputation as a true crime writer and the creator of the Gorilla Convict web site and a popular blog that chronicles prison life and the history of the urban gangster. SMB will publish a collection of Seth Ferranti’s best blog writings. SMB writer Ron Chepesiuk will edit the collection.