Sins of the Father: The Manafort Family and the Gambling Syndicate
“The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” — William Faulkner
This article describes the Manafort family’s interactions with the organized crime-linked Gambling Syndicate, placing these episodes in the wider historical context of corruption in the United States.
Read my 9-part series on Manafort’s corrupt activities in Ukraine here.
Read my 7-part series on Manafort’s activities during the 2016 election here.
This article is a partial excerpt from my book, While We Slept: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of American Democracy, available here.
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Of the thousands of articles written about the lobbyist and convicted felon Paul Manafort following his infamous tenure as Chairman of the 2016 Trump campaign, only two reference an obscure, decades-old scandal involving his father: Paul J. Manafort Sr.
The first was written in 2018 by Franklin Foer in an excellent article for The Atlantic. In what is perhaps the best piece ever written on Manafort, Foer spends several paragraphs describing the elder Manafort’s covering up of local gambling activities while mayor of New Britain, Connecticut, his shady connections to local mobsters, and test-fixing activities.[1]
In a more recent article for Business Insider, Mattathias Schwartz obliquely refers to the episode without providing any detail.
“In its broad strokes,” Schwartz wrote, “the Connecticut investigation resembles Mueller’s Russia inquiry — ambiguous meetings between shady characters, random nobodies with loose ties to major political figures, plenty of money changing hands, and, in the end, disappointment for those who were hoping to see the kingpin led away in handcuffs.”[2]
Speaking to Schwartz for his article, Paul Manafort Jr. both mischaracterized and downplayed the story, drawing spurious parallels between his father’s experience being investigated in the 1970s and 80s with his own later prosecution at the hands of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation.
“They were trying to get my father to give up — I don’t know if it was the governor? Somebody,” Manafort told Schwartz. “And my father was innocent and wouldn’t tell a lie. And they drained him financially. They affected his reputation. But then they dropped the case because there was no case.”
As we shall see, Manafort’s response is miles off from the truth.
Unsurprisingly, Manafort refrains from mentioning the scandal that embroiled his father in his recently published memoir.
During his career as a lobbyist and political consultant for Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, Paul Manafort always seemed just a single degree of separation away from powerful Eurasian organized crime syndicates.
While this may seem novel to most contemporary Americans, an examination of Manafort’s past and family history finds reason to believe that far before he stepped foot in Ukraine, Manafort had experience at the shadowy nexus of organized crime and political corruption.
In the mid-1970s, Manafort accompanied his father and cousin to a meeting with two individuals connected to organized crime. At the time, powerful racketeers connected with the so-called “Gambling Syndicate” were spearheading organized crime’s infiltration of the burgeoning legalized gambling industry in the United States.
The sprawling scandal that followed, which in fact was multiple, interconnected scandals, involved members the inner circle of President Richard Nixon; the most powerful, mobbed-up union in the country; and some of the most infamous names in organized crime.
This story not only provides crucial context for Paul Manafort’s later corrupt activities, but offers a microcosm into the heart of corruption in America.
The ambition of this article is to not only make public, in exhaustive and well-sourced detail, the full and previously unreported story of the Manafort family’s interactions with the organized crime Gambling Syndicate, but to provide the wider historical context of how pervasive political corruption in our past echoes through to this very day.
The Manaforts and the Mob: A Meeting in Bridgeport
In February of 1974, Paul J. Manafort Jr. traveled to a meeting alongside his father and namesake, Paul J. Manafort Sr.
Accompanying them was his cousin, Frank Manafort Jr., who worked in the family business, a local demolition and construction outfit named Manafort Brothers.
The meeting was regarding a new parimutuel gambling project breaking ground in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Manafort’s home state.[3]
To outside observers, the Manaforts embodied respectability. Paul Manafort Sr., the former mayor of New Britain, Connecticut, was serving as the Governor-appointed Commissioner of Public Works.
His son, Manafort Jr., was months away from graduating from Georgetown Law School and was a prominent figure in the College Republicans.
Frank Manafort Jr. was a young and upcoming local businessman with family and political connections.
The men the Manaforts met with that February day in 1974 had a decidedly different background.
First, there was David Friend, the President of Connecticut Sports Enterprises, Inc. (CSE), the company behind the gambling project.
Investigators at the Connecticut state prosecutors office later witnessed Friend socializing with some of the most powerful organized crime figures in the United States.[4]
Another individual present alongside Friend at the meeting with the Manaforts that day was a local organized crime associate named Lidzidio A. Renzulli. Renzulli had an interest in Connecticut Sports Enterprises that had initially been concealed from state gaming regulators.
Over the course of their investigation, the Connecticut state prosecutors office observed Renzulli meet on three separate occasions with a mobster by the name of John “Buster” Ardito. One meeting between the two in Brooklyn lasted over three hours.[5]
According to court documents, Ardito was the leader of the Genovese Crime Family “regime” in Connecticut. Just beneath Ardito in Connecticut’s Genovese regime was Vincent J. Pollina.[6] Renzulli was also spotted meeting with Pollina.
The Genovese Crime Family was not only the most powerful criminal organization operating in Connecticut at the time, it was the most powerful Mafia family in the United States.
Within a year of the February 1974 meeting between the Manaforts, Friend and Renzulli, a bribery and public corruption scandal erupted that ensnared the highest ranking officials in Connecticut, including Paul Manafort Sr.
Nor was it the last scandal to engulf the elder Manafort, who was also implicated in a bribery, office buying, and test-fixing imbroglio involving local police and Connecticut’s thriving illegal gambling syndicate.
These experiences, which unfolded over the late 1970s and early 1980s, were no doubt searing for Paul Manafort Sr. and the son who bears his name. While prominent news at the time, even making the pages of The New York Times, today they have faded from public memory.
This, however, would hardly be Paul Manafort Jr.’s last brush with political corruption or organized crime.
Over four decades later, Paul Manafort Jr. served as Chairman to Donald Trump’s infamous 2016 campaign for the presidency. While the Russian government, Russian Military Intelligence, and Russian online propagandists provided clandestine support to the Trump campaign, Manafort met with, and provided internal Trump polling data to, Konstantin Kilimnik, an alleged Russian intelligence officer.[7]
Immediately prior to his work for Trump, Manafort was the top political advisor to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, leader of the pro-Kremlin Party of Regions.
Ukrainian politics at this time was profoundly influenced by Eurasian Organized Crime. Powerful and wealthy criminal oligarchs, many with connections to Russian intelligence and the corrupt natural gas sector, provided funding to the pro-Kremlin Party of Regions.
Read my description of corruption and organized crime in post-Soviet Ukrainian domestic politics here.
Manafort’s entrée into the cut throat but highly lucrative politics of the former Soviet Union came through his relationship with the most powerful of these oligarchs. In particular, with the aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, who Manafort worked for as a lobbyist in Washington and as political consultant for in countries such as Ukraine and Georgia.
In addition to enjoying a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Deripaska is allegedly closely linked to the Izmailovskya Bratva, a powerful Moscow-based criminal syndicate.[8]
Read my description of Paul Manafort’s introduction and work for Oleg Deripaska here.
Other Ukrainian oligarchs Manafort was either paid by, such as Rinat Akhmetov, or attempted to do business with, such as Dymtro Firtash, are also alleged to have connections to organized crime.[9]
Firtash, notably, has been alleged to serve as a front for Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukrainian Eurasian organized crime lord affiliated with Russian intelligence who has laundered money for the Solntsevskaya Bratva.[10]
By providing a comprehensive explanation of the circumstances and broader context around the Manaforts 1974 meeting with organized crime associates in Bridgeport, this article aims not only shine light into a hitherto little explored period of Paul Manafort Jr.’s biography, thus providing crucial context to his later corrupt activities, but to provide a window into the nature of political corruption in America.
Meet The Manaforts: Politics and Power in New Britain, Conn.
Both sets of Paul Manafort Jr.’s grandparents immigrated from Italy to the United States sometime around the turn-of-the-century. His maternal grandparents arrived from Sicily, while his father’s parents were from Naples.
They settled in the blue collar, industrial town of New Britain, Connecticut, which contained a large community of Italian and Polish immigrants.
In 1919, Manafort’s grandfather founded a demolition and construction company called New Britain House Wrecking. Decades later, when Manafort’s uncles and cousins took control of the company, it was renamed Manafort Brothers.
While he initially owned a stake in Manafort Brothers alongside his family members, Paul Manafort Sr. was not destined to spend his life working in the demolition industry.
Upon returning from serving as a combat engineer in Europe during the Second World War, Manafort Sr. became involved in local politics. He did so, much to the surprise of his family and friends, as a member of the Republican Party.[11]
In the early 1950s, Manafort Sr. became the campaign committee chairman of the local branch of the New Britain Young Republicans.
In 1952, Manafort Sr. and the New Britain Young Republicans served as then Senator Richard Nixon’s official escort as he attended the state Republican Convention.[12] Later that year, Nixon was election Vice President under the Republican ticket headed by Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In the years that followed, Manafort Sr. was elected chairman of the New Britain Young Republicans on multiple occasions. His position and growing prominence allowed him to become involved in local politics, becoming an Alderman for the city among other positions.
In 1961, Paul Manafort Sr. decided to run to become the mayor of New Britain. Though he didn’t succeed in his first attempt, his first run for mayor allowed Manafort to cement a series of relationships with local Republican power brokers who later came to lead the state.
Manafort Sr. was defeated in the local Republican primary by an up-and-coming attorney by the name of Thomas J. Meskill. Overcoming the sting of defeat, Manafort enthusiastically supported Meskill’s candidacy.
In April of 1962, Meskill was successfully elected mayor after Manafort played in a leading role in his campaign. To return the favor, Meskill appointed Manafort as New Britain’s Commissioner of Public Works.[13]
It was the beginning of a critically important friendship between Manafort and Meskill. Less than ten years later, Meskill was elected as Governor of Connecticut, and would appoint Manafort as the Commissioner for Public Works responsible for the entire state.
Though Meskill lost the 1964 mayoral race to a Democratic challenger, he pivoted and ran successfully to join the House of Representatives. Paul Manafort Sr. worked on his campaign staff.[14]
Shortly thereafter, Manafort Sr. returned to tending his own political career. In 1965, Manafort successfully ran to become the mayor of New Britain. Manafort, who even managed to gain the support of a local “Democrats for Manafort” group, was elected by wide margins.[15]
Judging by contemporary reports in the local press and his repeated electoral success, Manafort was a popular and effective mayor of New Britain.
Thomas Meskill served briefly as Mayor Manafort’s chief counsel.[16]
In 1968, three Democratic Alderman in New Britain accused Mayor Manafort of having a conflict-of-interest related to his ownership of stock in Manafort Brothers, which had been awarded contracts by the city to work on urban renewal projects.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development had sent the city a letter in which they wrote “we must again advise you to reject the Manaforts bids, since, in our opinion, its participation would constitute a violation of [conflict of interest regulations].”[17]
The scandal also involved then-Republican Congressman Thomas Meskill. His Democratic opponent, Joseph F. Morelli accused Meskill of using the influence of his office to assist his friend Manafort in gaining over $75k in contracts for Manafort Brothers wrecking company.
After HUD issued its letter, Meskill arranged to have the letter held in abeyance and then organized a meeting with HUD officials to allow Mayor Manafort to iron out the issue.
After a lengthy back-and-forth, the issue was settled when Manafort sold his stock in the company to his wife’s nephew, Sebastian Bianca, for an undisclosed sum. Bianca at the time was working at the New Britain police department.[18]
Paul Manafort Sr.’s opaque relationship with Manafort Wrecking would become a serious issue for him in the coming years, and lay at the heart of his dealings with the organized crime-linked Connecticut Sports Enterprises. At the time, however, Manafort Sr.’s political career was still firmly on an upward trajectory.
A key moment for Manafort Sr. occurred with the successful election of Thomas Meskill as the Governor of Connecticut in 1971.
Shortly thereafter, Manafort resigned as the Mayor of New Britain and was appointed by Governor Meskill to serve as the State Commissioner of Public Works.
Another local New Britain Republican who rode Meskill’s coattails was J. Brian Gaffney.
Six years earlier, at the same time Manafort Sr. had been elected Mayor, Gaffney rose to become the chairman of the New Britain Republican Committee. With Meskill’s election as Governor, Gaffney became the chairman State Republican Party.
Another who had risen with Meskill was the young 21-year-old Paul Manafort Jr.
The younger Manafort had worked on Meskill campaigns ever since he was child, and participated in Meskill’s “Kiddie Corps.”[19]
Manafort Jr. had also volunteered on Meskill’s Congressional campaigns. In the Summer of 1970, Manafort Jr. worked in Meskill’s gubernatorial campaign headquarters.[20]
In June of 1970, in the thick of the Connecticut gubernatorial campaign, Manafort Jr. traveled with his father to Washington, DC. While there, the Manaforts attended seminars put on the Republican National Committee where discussions were held about Manafort Sr. running for the Congressional seat Meskill was vacating.[21]
Like his father, Manafort Jr. was also member of the Young Republicans. In the Fall of 1970, Manafort Jr. attended the state convention of the Connecticut Young Republicans. According to The Washington Post, it was at this convention that Manafort met a Connecticut native and young high school student by the name of Roger J. Stone, Jr.[22]
It was a meeting of profound significance in the history of American politics, though no one would have guessed so at the time.
Roger Stone was born in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1952. Though initially a Democrat, after reading Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative” he became a highly motivated member of the Republican Party.
Like Manafort Jr., Stone’s sense of politics was shaped by his early experiences in Connecticut. Stone’s first political job was as an aide with the Republican John Davis Lodge, who served as the 79th Governor of Connecticut from 1951–1955.
Lodge, who Stone describes as his “mentor,” introduced him to Richard Nixon and appointed the 16-year-old Stone to serve as the Connecticut Chairman of Youth for Nixon.
Eleven years later in 1979, as Northwest Director of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, Stone recruited John Lodge to serve as chairman of the Reagan campaign in Connecticut.
The relationship between Lodge and Stone was lasting. Stone describes it in the preface to his co-written book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
John Lodge’s brother, Henry Cabot Lodge, served as an Ambassador to South Vietnam during JFK’s administration.
Stone claims that in 1979 he asked John Lodge whether he had ever inquired with his brother about who had killed JFK. According to Stone, Lodge told him it was a combination of the CIA, the Mafia, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.[23]
Stone’s JFK assassination theories are not endorsed here.
“Hey, kid, how ya’ doin’?” Manafort reportedly said to Stone upon meeting him at the 1970 Connecticut Young Republicans convention. “Why are you supporting Weicker?”
Manafort was referring to Lowell Weicker, a local Republican politician at that time running against Meskill in the primary. While Meskill would later go on to be elected Governor, Weicker successfully ran for the Senate.
“You think I give a [fuck] about Weicker?” Stone replied. “I’m here to elect Meskill.”
From here blossomed a consequential friendship and political partnership. In 1977, Manafort successfully managed Stone’s election as the President of the Young Republicans.
Both Stone and Manafort worked on the 1980 Reagan Campaign. Stone introduced Manafort to the political fixer and mob lawyer Roy Cohn and his client Donald Trump.
Stone and Manafort then founded a groundbreaking and controversial lobbying and political consulting firm Black, Manafort and Stone.
And finally, Stone played a critical role in getting Manafort hired to chair Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
And it all started in Connecticut. One of the most nefarious political partnerships in modern American history began in support of the candidacy of Thomas J. Meskill for the governorship of Connecticut.
Upon his election in 1971, one of Governor Meskill’s first acts was to pursue the legalization a state lottery and parimutuel betting.
Gambling, long the province of organized crime, has a long history in the state of Connecticut.
Organized Crime: A Primer
Before we describe the history of gambling and it’s relationship to organized crime in Connecticut, and the events around the Manafort family’s interactions with the Gambling Syndicate, a basic understanding of organized crime and its history in the United States is required.
First, what is organized crime?
Organized crime in America is an extension of the free market system and a social phenomenon. Just as important as the criminal syndicates themselves is the corruption in politics, business, organized labor, and law enforcement that enables them to exist.
While criminality has existed as long as there has been laws, organized crime as we know it today emerged in the United States in the period following the Civil War.
This era was marked by clashes between the rising class of capitalists known as the Robber Barons and the nascent American labor movement. Both the managers and the unions pitted against them hired groups of violent thugs, also known as “goon squads,” to either break strikes or attack strike breakers.
This link between the capitalist managerial class, organized labor, and organized crime, is critically important. Labor racketeering has for decades formed the backbone of organized crime.
In the United States, the ethnic composition of organized crime parallels the history of immigration into the country. At the turn of the 20th Century, most of the “respectable” positions in society were occupied by the WASP establishment. The first group of large scale immigrants, the Irish, became a dominant presence in the police forces of many American cities.
From 1880 to 1920, the U.S. experienced a vast surge of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, especially immigrants from Italy and Jews leaving the “Pale of Settlement” in the Russian Empire. A minority of individuals from these ethnic groups played an outsized role in the organized crime syndicates that emerged during this period.
In the early 20th Century, the United States prohibited gambling as well as narcotics and alcohol. It was the prohibition of alcohol that first infused vast fortunes into the coffers of the American underworld.
A pivotal figure in the history of American organized crime was Arnold Rothstein. The biggest gambler in the United States at the time, Rothstein gained infamy for fixing the 1919 World Series. He also established highly lucrative international illicit trades in alcohol and narcotics.
Rothstein enjoyed deep and corrupt connections to Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party organization that ran New York City for decades.
After Rothstein was murdered over an outstanding gambling debt, his criminal empire was inherited by his younger protégés, in particular the Sicilian Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and the Russian Jew Meyer Lansky.
Lansky and Luciano were childhood friends, criminal confederates, and pivotal figures in the founding of the so-called National Crime Syndicate.
The National Crime Syndicate consisted of loosely affiliated Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs from across the nation. After the violence that marked the early period of Prohibition, it was decided the bullet should be supplanted by the bribe.
A ruling “Commission” divided territories and arbitrated disputes between a complex and multiethnic network of interlinking but separate crime “families” and syndicates.
New York City was divided into five Mafia families, which are today known as the Genovese, Gambino, Columbo, Lucchese, and Bonnano Crime Families.
The powerful successor to the Capone gang in Chicago came to be known as The Outfit.
Other criminal syndicates operated regionally across the United States in cities such as Buffalo, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, New Orleans, Cleveland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.
Lucky Luciano, an important figure in the heroin trade, operated one of the most powerful organized crime families in New York. It later was named after one of his lieutenants, Vito Genovese, and came to be known as the Genovese Crime Family.
Meyer Lansky, who is often referred to as the “financial wizard of organized crime,” was the most important and powerful figure in what came to be known as the Gambling Syndicate. Lansky and his criminal confederates established casinos in South Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Havana, Cuba; and elsewhere.
In Vegas and Havana, Lansky was trusted by his partners to handle the cash and distribute the illicit casino “skim” through complex hidden ownership structures that existed behind the legitimate fronts.
Lansky also pioneered complex money laundering schemes, using casinos and banks across the world in places like the Bahamas and Switzerland.
It is important to recognize the interconnected nature of the three core pillars of American organized crime: the sale of narcotics, illicit gambling, and labor racketeering.
“Labor racketeering,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor, “is the infiltration and/or control of a union or employee benefit plan for personal benefit through illegal, violent, or fraudulent means.”[24]
The two labor unions most associated with organized crime are the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters (IBT) and the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA). The longtime leader of the Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa, was deeply connected to the highest levels of organized crime in America.
Hoffa and the Teamsters were famously the target of Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s war on organized crime.
Organized criminals held positions of power and authority within the Teamsters. For example, Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, a caporegime in the Genovese Crime Family, was the President of the Teamsters Local 560 in Union City, New Jersey.
Through control of the Teamsters, organized crime interests were able to use its enormous pension funds to invest in Las Vegas casinos and large land developments across the West, particularly in Southern California.
Organized Crime and Political Corruption in the Nutmeg State
When one thinks of Connecticut, the first things that come to mind are not gambling, organized crime, and political corruption. The Nutmeg State, however, has a long history of crime and corruption.
Located between New York City and Boston, Connecticut has long been an open territory with criminal groups from both cities vying for influence. In the 1930s, the New Jersey wing of the Genovese Crime Family became the dominant criminal organization operating in the state.[25]
An important member of the Genovese Crime Family who operated in Connecticut was Charles “The Blade” Tourine.
Tourine was a member of a group of New Jersey racketeers led by Ruggiero Boiardo. He was also a business partner with Meyer Lansky in multiple gambling ventures across the world.
Tourine operated casinos in Havana, Cuba, including the Havana Casino De Capri, which was reputed to include hidden partners Ruggiero Boiardo and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, underboss of the Genovese Crime Family.[26]
According to Roger Stone, Roy Cohn introduced him to Fat Tony Salerno at his Manhattan townhouse in 1979 while Stone was working on the Reagan campaign.
In the 1940s, Tourine was doing time in Wethersfield State Prison when he met a local gangster named Salvatore “Midge Renault” Annunziato.
Tourine took Annunziato under his wing and he later became a made member of the Genovese Crime Family. After getting out of prison and eliminating one of his rivals, Annunziato became the most powerful and politically connected gangster in Connecticut.
Tourine had Annunziato installed as a business agent in the Local 478 of the International Brotherhood of Operating Engineers Union.
We will return to this union later in our story.
Congressional investigators working for the McLellan Committee, which included a young Robert Kennedy, determined that the Operating Engineers Union had been deeply penetrated by organized crime.[27]
By the 1950s, Connecticut’s state political power structure was deeply entwined with organized crime. In 1953, New Haven, Conn. elected a Democratic Mayor Richard C. Lee. The Democratic Town Committee Chairman was Arthur Barbieri.
Barbieri worked at Golden Crest Ice Cream, which employed an infamous mobster and gambler named Ralph Mele. Later investigators concluded that Golden Crest was a front for Mele’s illicit gambling operation.
According to an FBI informant, after Lee’s election Barbieri stated that “wide open gambling” would be tolerated in New Haven.[28]
Organized crime continued to thrive in Connecticut into the 1960s, spreading its tendrils from illegal gambling and labor racketeering into loan sharking and trash hauling.
Paul Manafort Sr. and the Gambling Syndicate in New Britain
Police sanctioned, wide-open illegal gambling was also a fact of life in New Britain, Connecticut, where the future governor Thomas Meskill served as mayor from 1962 to 1964 and where Paul Manafort Sr. served as mayor from 1965 to 1971.
The biggest gambler and main organized crime figure in New Britain was Joseph “Pippi” Guerriero.
Guerriero, a member of the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante Crime Family, operated the numbers racket in New Britain, as well as illegal dice games. He had a history of gambling arrests dating back to the 1940s.[29]
By the early sixties, local authorities believed that Guerriero had up to thirteen criminal associates working for him in New Britain.[30]
From 1958 to 1975, a local gangster later turned FBI informant named Richard Toce served as a numbers writer for Guerriero.[31]
Toce also was the key source for the book Squeal by Les Coleman, an account of organized crime in Connecticut. In the book, Coleman refers to Toce simply as “Richie” to hide his identity.
Toce told Coleman that he had made a trip to New York City with Guerriero where he murdered someone on behalf of the mob and then ate a spaghetti dinner shortly afterward completely unfazed.[32]
From 1971 to 1975, Toce served as a middleman between Guerriero and the New Britain police captain and head of the local vice squad Edward J. Kilduff. Every Monday, Toce delivered an envelope full of cash to Walter Tacionis, the owner of Walt’s Restaurant in New Britain, who would then pass it to Kilduff.
Other informants told State authorities that Guerriero himself personally handed Kilduff envelopes full of “protection money.”
In return, Kilduff turned a blind eye to operations.
“In fact,” Thomas J. McDonnell, a former New Britain police captain later testified, “he allowed open gambling during his term as commander of the vice squad.”
“One of the biggest craps games and high stakes dice games in the state,” McDonnell continued, “took place in New Britain right under his nose.”[33]
Kilduff provided warnings to Guerriero and his fellow gamblers so they could avoid arrest.
In the late 1970s, Guerriero was arrested and an investigation into his activities quickly morphed into a sweeping corruption investigation that implicated dozens of city officials and law enforcement officers, including former mayor Paul J. Manafort, Sr.
After Guerriero was arrested, the Connecticut State Prosecutors Office discovered that a pinball machine owned by Guerriero and adjusted to operate as a slot machine had been tampered with while in the custody of the New Britain police department. In the corruption investigation that followed, over 27 were arrested leading to 15 convictions.
One of the people arrested a the former head of New Britain’s Personnel Office Alfred S. Pettinelli.
Pettinelli turned state’s witness and implicated former Mayor Paul Manafort Sr. in a test fixing scandal involving New Britain’s police department.
Pettinelli joined New Britain’s Personnel Office in 1969, while Manafort Sr. was mayor of the city. Upon arrival, he was told to “just play it cool, stand fast.”
Several civil service commissioners, all appointed by Manafort, were in the process of trying to force out the then head of the Personnel Office, Thomas Acousti.
“We’re making some moves to get rid of him,” Pettinelli was told.[34]
According to Pettinelli, Mayor Manafort had found Acousti too “firm.” Manafort, Pettinelli testified, was “looking for someone he could work with.” He wanted someone “flexible” who would operate the Personnel Department “not 100 percent by the rules.”[35]
The reasons why Manafort Sr. was interested in hiring a pliant Personnel Director became clear soon enough.
In May of 1971, Pettinelli fixed two police department tests “as a favor to Paul Manafort.”[36]
Pettinelli first fixed a detective sergeants exam for a police officer named Salvatore Marino. Pettinelli claimed that he “brought test material to Paul Manafort’s home, and I relayed the correct answers to him that Sal Marino had to get correct on the examination. And as I recall, I left some test material with Mr. Manafort to really hand down to Sal Marino.”[37]
Shortly thereafter, Pettinelli fixed yet another police examination at Manafort’s request. This time, it was for Sal Marino’s brother Louis Marino.
According to Pettinelli, he did so “[b]asically the same manner as Salvatore Marino. To the best of my recollection, I went up to Mr. Manafort’s home, and I delivered a copy of the examination test, or the answers that had to be placed on the examination.”
“If we took all the police officers in New Britain who could pass a test,” Pettinelli testified, “we would have three officers. Most of them couldn’t pass a red light. That’s how incompetence ran rampant in New Britain.”[38]
By the time Manafort’s illegal test-fixing activities as Mayor of New Britain came to the attention of the authorities in the late 1970s, the statute of limitations had already passed so he could not be prosecuted. None-the-less, Manafort Sr. was arrested on perjury charges in 1981.[39]
In 1983, the charges against Manafort were dropped after a deal was reached between prosecutors and the defense. By that time, the corruption probe into New Britain had lasted for six years and led to 29 arrests.[40]
Despite the dismissal of the perjury charges, the Hartford attorney commissioned to look into the test fixing and job selling allegations, Palmer S. McGee, was withering in his criticism of Manafort Sr.
“The facts cause us to conclude,” Pettinelli wrote in an official report, “that the person most at fault was the person who arranged for Pettinelli to obtain the position at personnel director, Mayor Paul Manafort.”
Before Manafort’s test fixing scandal became public, the former New Britain mayor was involved in yet another scandal involving the Gambling Syndicate, this one potentially involving some of the most senior figures in American organized crime.
The Manafort Family, the Gambling Syndicate, and the Bridgeport Jai Alai Scandal
According to crime reporter and Lansky biographer Hank Messick, by 1969 Meyer Lansky was clandestinely supporting a drive to legalize various forms of gambling across multiple states.
“Using the economic recession as justification,” Messick wrote in his biography Lansky, “he launched the final phase of his master plan. Miami Beach became one of several battlefields as a concerted drive to legalize all forms of gambling began in late 1969.”[41]
Beginning in the early 1970s, States around the U.S. began exploring the legalization of various forms of gambling as a means of raising much needed revenues.
In February of 1970, Lansky attended a summit of business and organized crime figures at Acapulco Towers in Mexico.
“Information gathered by American agents,” reported journalist and author Michael Dorman, “suggests that the purpose of the get together [was] to map plans for Mob infiltration of legalized gambling operations throughout the world.”[42]
Lansky’s plans got off to rocky start. He was briefly arrested upon his return to the United States from Mexico for possession of medication without a prescription. After being released, Lansky traveled to Israel though he was ultimately forced to return to the United States.
In 1970, a referendum to legalize casino gambling in Miami Beach, where underground casinos had long operated with impunity, went down in defeat.[43]
The drive the legalize gambling, however, saw success elsewhere. In 1971, New York State legalized off track betting. And it was about to see further success in the Northeast.
Thomas J. Meskill was inaugurated as the Governor of Connecticut on Janaury 6th, 1971.
Less than two weeks later, he held a press conference about increased action against organized crime. On this occasion, he came out in favor of creating a state lottery and legalizing gambling on horse racing. Governor Meskill’s proposal received wide, bipartisan support.[44]
In April of 1971, Paul Manafort Sr. resigned as mayor of New Britain and was appointed by Governor Meskill to head the Commission on Public Works. It was during this timeframe that Manafort worked with Alfred Pettinelli to fix the tests for the New Britain police department.
In July of 1971, Connecticut established a gaming commission to explore the legalization of gambling in the state.[45] It consisted of 9-members, five of whom were personally appointed by Meskill, while the other four were appointed by Democrats.
With Meskill’s blessing, the commission quickly approved several forms of gambling, including a state lottery, offtrack betting, and horse racing.
A year later, in 1972, Connecticut voted to legalize betting on Grey Hound racing and on a Basque sport called Jai Alai (pronounced “Hi-Lie.”)
Originating from the Basque region of Spain, Jai Alai is a sport that combines elements of handball and squash. For many years, it was popular in Florida and Latin America as a sport to lay down bets and gamble on. The stadiums that feature Jai Alai are called frontons.
Around the same time Connecticut legalized Jai Alai, similar conversations were occurring among lawmakers in New Jersey, which was in the midst of its own push to legalize gambling. During this time, the FBI was operating a controversial sting operation in the state known as ABSCAM.
During ABSCAM, the FBI recorded politicians expressing a willingness to support the legalization of Jai Alai in return for payoffs. A name that surfaced repeatedly during these discussions was Meyer Lansky.[46]
Almost immediately after gambling on Jai Alai was legalized, allegations emerged that mob-connected, South Florida businessmen were attempting to expedite the state licensing process through cash payments. The resulting investigations would ensnare Paul Manafort Sr.
One of those South Florida businessmen with links to organized crime was a man named David Friend.
Friend lived in Hollywood, Florida. He had a record, in 1963 Friend was charged with illegally operating 64 “amusement machines” and a drink stand in Hollywood without a license.[47]
Amusement machines such a pin ball and juke boxes are mechanically closely related to slot machines and organized crime, including Lansky, invested heavily in them.
Other residents of Hollywood at the time included Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, Lansky’s closest associate in the Italian Mafia. Meyer’s brother, Jake Lansky, also lived in Hollywood.
Lansky himself lived at times in nearby Hallandale and Miami Beach.[48]
In the Spring of 1973, Friend set out to get the necessary political backing to enable his company Connecticut Sports Enterprises, Inc. (CSE) a license to operate a Jai Alai fronton in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
At that time, one of the most powerful political figures in the state was a Democratic attorney named John M. Bailey.
Bailey was a legend in the state of Connecticut. He had served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1961 to 1968. Bailey had also been an important figure in the elections of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
David Friend paid a former school mate of Bailey’s $14,000 to arrange a meeting between them. During the meeting, Bailey informed Friend that his services would cost $100,000.
While looking for a suitable location, Friend was put in touch with Elwood Metz, a business manager for the Operating Engineers Union.
As you will recall, Genovese Crime Family member Salvatore Annunziato had also served as a business agent in Operating Engineers Union.
As far back as the McClellan Committee, the Operating Engineers has long been plagued by accusations of links to organized crime.[49]
Metz introduced Friend to Lidzidio “Dietz” Renzulli, a local figure whom state investigators later discovered had held at least three meetings with senior figures in the Connecticut branch of the Genovese Crime Family.
Renzulli, who became a hidden shareholder in Connecticut Sports Enterprises, ultimately identified the site in Bridgeport for the Fronton.
In August of 1973, Friend announced his plans to build a Jai Alai fronton in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The site selected for the fronton was a rundown, old auto racing track called the New London-Waterford Speed Bowl. Before construction could begin, however, the Bowl needed to be demolished.
The company selected for the demolition job was Manafort Brothers.
By the Fall of 1973, CSE had officially applied for a Jai Alai gambling license from the State Gaming Commission.
In January of 1974, a problem arose when a local referendum in Bridgeport threatened the opening of the fronton. By this point, Manafort Brothers had developed a major financial attachment to the project.
Friend returned to Metz of the Operating Engineering Union for assistance. Metz introduced Friend to another business agent with the Operators Engineering Union named Quentin Hinton and instructed Hinton to help friend get out the Union vote for the referendum.
Friend also wanted Hinton to help set up another meeting with Bailey and one with J. Brian Gaffney, the head of the Connecticut State Republican Committee who had risen up alongside Thomas Meskill and Paul Manafort Sr. in New Britain.
It was Quentin Hinton that arranged the February 1974 meeting between Friend, Renzulli and Paul Manafort Sr., who was then the acting Connecticut Commissioner of Public Works.
The meeting was also attended by Paul Manafort Jr. and his cousin Frank Manafort, Jr., then a senior figure at Manafort Brothers wrecking, which had been contracted by CSE to demolish the site of the future fronton.
Despite the fact that Manafort Sr. had ostensibly sold his stake in Manafort Brothers wrecking to his wife’s nephew following the his 1968 conflict-of-interest scandal, the Manafort family still had a vested financial interest in the success of the fronton construction project.
The meeting was held to get Paul Manafort Sr.’s advice on the upcoming referendum. Manafort Sr. advised Friend and Renzulli to get a good municipal lawyer, suggesting a New Britain based attorney named George Coyle. Friend took Manafort’s advice and hired Coyle, who later was able to solve the issues raised by the referendum through court action.
As a representative of Manafort Brothers, it makes sense why Frank Manafort Jr. was present at the meeting. It isn’t clear why Paul Manafort Jr. was in attendance.
Though only 24 years old, Manafort Jr. was already politically connected in Connecticut. He had worked on Thomas Meskill’s gubernatorial campaign and attended the state convention where he first met Roger Stone.
In August of 1972, Manafort Jr. had attended the Republican National Convention with his father, Meskill, and J. Brian Gaffney. Meskill, a friend and influential supporter of President Richard Nixon, was co-chairman of the National Platform Committee and Chairman of the Governors for Nixon Committee. Paul Manafort Jr. served as chairman of the national Young Republicans platform committee.[50]
In 1973, Manafort Jr. and Roger Stone battled (unsuccessfully) with a young Karl Rove for the presidency of the Young Republicans.[51]
After the meeting with the Manaforts, David Friend continued to seek friends in high places.
Hinton arranged for Friend and Renzulli to meet with two other political power brokers in the state, including Democrat John J. Sullivan and head of the state Republican Committee J. Brian Gaffney.
Friend shelled out $1000 to a charity of Sullivan’s choice and purchased $1200 tickets to a Republican fundraising dinner only to return the tickets to Gaffney for his own personal distribution.
Around this period of time, Friend also went to an even higher political authority. One of the shareholders in Connecticut Sports Enterprises was Charles Emmet Lucey, a Washington, DC-based lawyer who sat on the Democratic National Finance Committee.
Lucey introduced Friend to a key figure in President Richard Nixon’s entourage, Murray Chotiner.[52]
Chotiner was a hugely influential political advisor to Nixon who had been with him since his first campaign for Congress. He was a pioneer of the “dirty tricks” that the Nixon campaign later became famous for.
According to historians and biographers, Chotiner served as Nixon’s go-between with organized crime and the underworld.
Chotiner was a California-based attorney who practiced law with his brother throughout the 1940s. Between the two, they represented hundreds of cases involving organized crime figures and other so-called “hoodlums.”
In 1945, upon his return from service during the Second World War, the young attorney Richard Nixon decided to run for Congress in California’s 12th District. It was in a territory that Mickey Cohen, a gangster closely associated with the Lansky Syndicate, considered his own.[53]
Cohen, originally from Cleveland and having come up under the tutelage of the Cleveland Syndicate which included Moe Dalitz, had been sent to keep an eye on the brilliant but mercurial Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.
Siegel established the famous Flamingo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas before being assassinated in Beverly Hills in 1947.
Chotiner arranged for a meeting to take place in 1945 between Nixon and Cohen at Goodfellow’s Grotto, “a little fish house where the politicians met and where they pull the screens across the booths for these kinds of talks,” according to Cohen.
A year later, when Nixon was running for Congress, Chotiner solicited and received a $5000 donation from Cohen on behalf of Nixon.[54]
In 1950, Chotiner again solicited Cohen’s help, this time for Nixon’s Senate Campaign.
“I was again asked by Murray Chotiner to raise funds,” Cohen later claimed. “[W]e had to… See, Chotiner had a brother, Jack, that was a lawyer, one of the guys with the programs with the bookmakers, that RT got also defended some of my guys.”
“I reserved that Banquet Room in the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel for a dinner meeting to which I invited approximately two hundred and fifty persons who were working with me in the gambling fraternity,” Cohen continued.
“Everybody from around here that was on the pad naturally had to go to the dinner. It was all gamblers from Vegas, all gambling money; there wasn’t a legitimate person in the room.”
Nixon’s additional connections to organized crime, particarly to the Lansky Syndicate, are too numerous and complex to go into here.
As mentioned, David Friend was connected to Murray Chotiner through Charles Emmett Lucey. Lucey, a Washington attorney who served on the Democratic National Finance Committee, was also a shareholder in Connecticut Sports Enterprises.
For Friend, the purpose of the meeting was to get Chotiner to use his connections with the Teamsters to arrange for its pension fund to invest in the Bridgeport fronton.
Chotiner was the right person to ask.
As Nixon’s go-between with organized crime and the Teamsters, Chotiner had played a critical role in pushing Nixon to grant Jimmy Hoffa, then in jail on a raft of convictions ranging from jury tampering to fraud related to the Teamsters pension fund, an executive pardon.
Nixon’s shadowy alliance with Hoffa and the Teamsters went back as far as the 1960 election. Both Nixon and Hoffa were fierce political opponents of the JFK, his brother Bobby, and the entire Kennedy political dynasty.
Hoffa had born the brunt of Bobby Kennedy’s crusade against organized crime while serving as the chief counsel of the McLellan Committee’s investigations into labor racketeering.
According to the former Hoffa aid Jim Partin, who turned government informant, in September of 1960 the powerful New Orleans-based Mafia leader Carlos Marcello provided $500,000 to the Nixon campaign by filtering it through Hoffa and the Teamsters.
Early in Nixon’s first term, it was widely expected by both Hoffa’s friends and enemies that a Nixon pardon was imminent. In 1969, Chotiner told his associate Irving Davidson that Hoffa would be out of prison by Thanksgiving.
“It’s all set for the Nixon Administration to spring Jimmy Hoffa,” stated the RFK-era Justice Department prosecutor and Hoffa biographer Walter Sheridan. “I’m told Murray Chotiner is handling it with the Las Vegas mob. [Attorney General] John Mitchell and John Erlichman [Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs] have something to do with it, and I’m told that it has been cleared with Nixon.”[55]
Nixon commuted Hoffa’s sentence on December 23rd, 1971. He did so, however, with the proviso that Hoffa was barred from engaging in union activities until 1980. Nixon did not wish to jeopardize his political alliance with Hoffa’s successor at the Teamsters, Frank Fitzsimmons, who didn’t wish to see Hoffa return to power.
Hoffa wasn’t the only figure linked to the Teamsters to receive relief from the Nixon White House.
Nixon’s Special Counsel Charles Colson interceded in a Justice Department investigation of a Teamsters Union associate named Daniel Gagliardi and his friend, the aforementioned John “Buster” Ardito.
It was Ardito, a senior member of the Genovese Crime Family, that Connecticut investigators later witnessed the Connecticut Sports Enterprises-linked Lidzidio A. Renzulli meeting with on at least three separate occasions.
According to Dan Moldea, Ardito was “one of the more violent members of the Vito Genovese crime family. The Ardito-Gagliardi relationship was believed to be central to various Teamster-organized crime activities in the New York area.”[56]
Gagliardi, along with a Teamster official named named Samuel Tritto, was under threat of indictment. On the margins of a memo Charles Colson received from his deputy George Bell regarding the indictment, he wrote “Watch for this. Do all possible.”
Despite the fact that the indictment against Gagliardi was expected “next month,” after Colson’s was informed the Nixon Justice Department dropped the matter entirely and no charges were brought.
After Murray Chotiner had successfully lobbied Nixon to commute Hoffa’s jail term, with the added proviso that Hoffa couldn’t be involved with the union until 1980 which was much appreciated by the current Teamsters head Frank Fitzsimmons, he was rewarded by the union.
Interestingly, around this time Paul Manafort Jr.’s good friend Roger Stone was working for the Nixon White House and interacted with Chotiner.
“The best part of my job was hand delivering a copy of [the daily news summary] to the small, dark, secret office of Murray Chotiner,” Stone later recalled in his book Nixon’s Secrets.
“Located catty-corner from the White House in a different building from [the Committee to Re-Elect the President]. Murray was not on the directory, and his door didn’t even have a number. Chotiner, a portly Jewish attorney originally from Pittsburgh, had moved West with his brother. They prospered as criminal defense attorneys mostly for mob guys. Murray and his brother had represented over 221 hoodlums in one year.”
“More importantly, he was the first ‘political consultant.’ Murray Chotiner understood how to communicate systems, and the need to push simple and understandable, mostly negative, messages to voters. Chotiner would be present for the duration of Nixon’s political career; although at many points hidden in the shadows, he was always only a phone call away.”
According to Stone, he used his experience in Connecticut politics to connect with the original political dirty trickster.
“Chotiner’s secretary didn’t get in until 8 a.m., and I knew if I delivered the new summary at 7:45 a.m., Murray himself would answer the door. After making my third delivery to him in person, Chotiner asked me my name, where I was from, and how the hell I got my job. I told him I was a proud protege of Connecticut Governmor John Lodge and the I loved Richard Nixon. He smiled, and our relationship bloomed.”[57]
Whether Stone spoke with Paul Manafort Jr. about Chotiner is not a matter of public record, but it seems almost inconceivable that the two friends and aspiring Young Republican political consultants didn’t.
After meeting with David Friend, Chotiner helped Connecticut Sports Enterprises receive an $11 million loan from the Teamsters pension fund to build the Bridgeport Jai Alai fronton. Friend reportedly paid Chotiner $200,000 to arrange the deal.[58]
The Teamsters Pension Fund agreed to cover 89% of the construction project, on the condition that Connecticut Sports Enterprises cover the remaining 11%.
Frank Manafort Jr. and Manafort Brothers wrecking played a critical role in illicitly facilitating the Teamsters loan. At Friend’s request, Frank Manafort submitted false contracts and bills which inflated the amount of the money Connecticut Sports Enterprises allegedly put into the project.[59]
Frank Manafort submitted a false receipt to Friend showing that M.I.B. Construction, a company closely related to Manafort Brothers, had been paid $500,000. In fact, no actual money had been exchanged.
Frank Manafort submitted yet another fake receipt, this time indicating that $550,000 dollars had been paid to Manafort Brothers, when in fact the company had only received $242,000.
Nor were these the only illicit activities Frank Manafort did on behalf of Friend and Connecticut Sports Enterprises. Despite securing the Teamsters loan, there were still several hurdles that had to be passed before the fronton could start operations.
On March 28th, 1974, Frank Manafort attended a meeting at the Hilton Holtel in Hartford between David Friend and the powerful Connecticut Democrat and political fixer John L. Sullivan.
Others in attendance included the Engineers Union business agent Quentin Hinton, who had previously arranged the meeting with Paul Manafort Sr.
Also there were Lidzidio Renzulli and Connecticut Sports Enterprises’ chief counsel Thomas J. Thomas.
A day earlier, the Bridgeport fronton project hit a surprise snag when it appeared that it may lack the votes in the gaming commission to receive a Jai Alai license. The license was being disputed William Strada, a Connecticut state representative with interests in a competing fronton proposal to be built in Milford, Connecticut.
After furious lobbying by Sullivan, who spoke with the other major Democratic political fixer involved in the process, John Bailey, the license was eventually granted.
The question of whether Bailey was more than simply lobbied, but rather the recipient of a bribe, remains unanswered to this day but later exploded into a scandal that would tar much of Connecticut’s political establishment, including Paul Manafort Sr.
On April 4th, 1974, roughly a week after Connecticut Sports Enterprises received its Jai Alai license, David Friend held a meeting in Florida in which he arranged to collect an additional $200,000 in cash from the company’s shareholders.
Four days later, Connecticut Sports Enterprises counsel Thomas Thomas visited American Bank of Hollywood in Florida where, in the presence of bank president David Cory, he was provided with a suitcase filled with $200,000 in cash.
From there, Thomas took the suitcase to Hollywood Airport where he transferred to to David Friend’s wife. Thomas later testified that he saw David Friend at the airport waiting at a departure gate.
From there, Friend flew to Bradley Field in Connecticut where he was met by Frank Manafort Jr. and his sister Angela Manafort. According to a Grand Jury Report, Friend gave Frank Manafort the suitcase and told him to be careful as it contained cash.
Frank and Angela Manafort then drove David Friend to a Sonesta Hotel in Hartford. Frank Manafort reportedly carried the briefcase into the hotel.
Later that evening, Frank Manafort visited Friend’s room and saw mounds arranged in packets of $100, $50, and $20 bills sprawled over the bed. He believed that total amount of cash added up to nearly $250,000.
Frank Manafort Jr. later claimed that the sight of so much money “scared” him. After leaving the room, he informed Quentin Hinton of the Operating Engineers Union of the money. Hinton visited Friend’s room to see the money for himself and then met again with Frank Manafort, reportedly telling him that “they didn’t belong there.”
In the days that followed, both Manafort and Hinton traveled with Friend, cash in tow, around Hartford. During this time, Friend visited the Connecticut Bank and Trust and John M. Bailey’s Office.
Friend later claimed the he gave the cash to Bailey. Bailey’s allies, as he had died before the scandal broke, accused Friend of embezzling the money. The truth is likely lost to time, as the “investigation” that followed was fatally compromised from the beginning.
Less than a month later, in May of 1974, Connecticut Sports Enterprises shareholder Lidzidio Renzulli was seen meeting with John “Buster” Ardito and Joseph Pollina, both important figures in the Genovese Crime Family. Renzulli met with Ardito at least twice that month.[60]
The Bridgeport fronton hit another snag when, in the late Summer or early Fall of 1974, its construction seemed to run afoul of recently passed Connecticut state environmental regulations related to air pollution. Once again, Paul J. Manafort Sr., then serving as the statewide Commissioner of Public Works, was available to help.
To bypass the pollution issue, Quentin Hinton of the Engineers Union again set up a meeting between Paul Manafort Sr. and David Friend. Others in attendance included Frank Manafort Jr., Lidzidio Renzulli, as well as the Deputy Commissioner of Connecticut’s Environmental Protection Agency Eckhard Beck and its Director of Air Pollution Control Henry Beal.
At the time of the meeting, Manafort Brothers was owed a significant amount of money by Connecticut Sports Enterprises. Friend told Manafort Sr. that if the pollution regulations prevented to project from going forward, he would be unable to pay the wrecking company for its services. While Manafort himself and ostensibly sold his shares in the company to his nephew, there was still a great deal of money at stake for his family.
There were at least three meetings with all involved to discuss the issue. Beck and Beal eventually agreed to exempt Connecticut Sports Enterprises from the regulations if they could provide proof that the they had received permission from the city for the construction project.
Lidzidio Renzulli obtained such “proof” by getting the building inspector of the city of Bridgeport, John Greggas, an elderly man with only an 8th grade education, to sign a backdated document. Greggas later testified to the Grand Jury that he had been fooled into signing the document.
In the meantime, Frank Manafort Jr. continued assisting Friend and Connecticut Sports Enterprises in a number of ways. Manafort Wrecking provided a member of the Connecticut Gaming Commission with free bricks for a construction project. He also submitted additional fake receipts to help friend receive a bank loan from Lafayette Bank and Trust.
Beginning in May of 1974, the same month CSE’s Renzulli met twice with John “Buster” Ardito, Connecticut state police began an investigation into the Bridgeport fronton.[61]
In September, detectives with Connecticut’s Statewide Organized Crime Investigative Task Force (SOCITF) M.A. “Marty” Ohradan and Albert Kruzshak travelled down to Hollywood, Florida to make inquiries into David Friend’s background.
Local Hollywood, Florida law enforcement officials told Ohradan and Kruzshak that Friend operated an unofficial headquarters out of a local organized crime haunt called Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast Restaurant.
They further learned that Sonken had at one time testified before a Florida legislative committee that Meyer Lansky was “a good customer” of his.[62]
When asked about his relationship with Lansky, Sonken responded “He orders spaghetti.”
In his biography of Lansky, historian Robert Lacey presents evidence that, in fact, Sonken was significantly closer to the Lansky family than merely being an owner of a restaurant they liked. According to Lacey, when Lansky’s eldest son, Buddy Lansky, needed a loan to cover gambling losses, he went to Sonken, who arranged for the young Lansky to receive a $12,000 loan from a local loan shark.[63]
Originally from Chicago, it was alleged that Sonken was tightly linked to city’s legendary underworld, including to Al Capone himself and later his successor gang known as The Outfit.
Sonken reportedly fled to South Florida in his 30s to avoid a crackdown on mob-linked establishments in Chicago.[64]
Sonken opened Gold Coast in 1953, an Italian restaurant that hewed closely to his Chicago roots, featuring memorabilia from the Windy city displayed prominently on its walls.
In 1957, the nationally syndicated columnist Jack Anderson described the Gold Coast Lounge as “the underworld message center of South Florida” which was “run by blimp-bellied Joe Sonken who, police say, was formerly a partner in the Chicago call-girl racket with Peter Arnstein, alias Petey Arnold.”[65]
Gold Coast was regularly under surveillance by law enforcement. In one year along, the FBI took 2,592 photographs of the establishment.
In the early 1960s, Tampa Bay mafia kingpin Santos Trafficante Jr. and David Ferrie, a figure later associated with various JFK assassination theories, met with anti-Communist Cubans at Gold Coast to discuss weapons smuggling and a variety of other schemes linked to CIA-backed plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.
According to the Miami New Times, Gold Coast was also where Genovese Crime Family capo and Teamsters official Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano sat down with another mob-linked union figure, “Tony Jack” Giacalone, to discuss the murder of Jimmy Hoffa.[66]
Hoffa disappeared, presumed murdered, on July 30th, 1975, just as the Connecticut investigation into the corruption in the burgeoning jai alai industry was gaining steam. The Hoffa case would become one of the most enduring mysteries in American history.
When Connecticut detectives Ohradan and Kruzshak arrived at Gold Coast during their visit to South Florida, they found the object of their investigation, David Friend, with his arms around Joe Sonken.
Friend was particularly loquacious that evening, volunteering to Ohradan and Kruzshak that, in order to get the jai alai license he had paid Murray Chotiner “a great deal of money in cash.”
Friend, who offered to pay for the visiting detectives’ dinner, which they prudently declined, also mentioned providing favors to the head of the state Republican party, J. Brian Gaffney, who was close to both Governor Thomas Meskill and Paul Manafort Sr.
And, in a final bombshell, Friend told Ohradan and Kruzshak, “Why, John Bailey alone cost me $250,000.”[67]
Friend’s claim regarding Bailey later spawned a sprawling investigation and was fiercely disputed.
Nor were Detectives Ohradan and Kruzshak the only Connecticut authorities to visit Gold Coast in connection the their investigation of David Friend.
In testimony before Congress in 2002, Austin McGuigan, a former lawyer with the Connecticut Chief State’s Attorney office, described how after learning that the Bridgeport fronton had received funds from the Teamsters pension fund, he approached law enforcement authorities in New York who produced surveillance reports linking Friend and Connecticut Sports Enterprises to the Genovese capos John “Buster” Ardito and Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano.[68]
Provenzano was, and remains, a top suspect believed to have been involved in the disappearance and murder of Hoffa.
McGuigan’s investigation of Friend also took him down to Hollywood in South Florida, where he ended up back at Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast restaurant where he saw David Friend holding court.
“I actually went to a place called the Gold Coast,” McGuigan testified before Congress in 2002, “which was Meyer Lansky’s hang-out, because I heard from a Florida detective that he was associated with him. I met him there with two organized crime figures, I believe it was [Anthony “Tuna Boy” Accardo] out of Chicago and Johnny Roselli. He was having dinner with them and was somewhat surprised to see me drop in for dinner.”
Anthony Accardo was one of the top leaders of the Outfit, the successor to the Capone gang in Chicago.
Johnny Roselli was another senior organized crime figure from Chicago who later engaged in labor racketeering in Hollywood and was closely associated with the gambling syndicate in Las Vegas.
Roselli was also a central figure in the various CIA-backed plots to use organized crime assets to attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.
David Friend’s connections to the highest levels of American organized crime, and his claims to have made cash payments to top Connecticut political power brokers, led to a scandal that made national news.
In September of 1975, Connecticut police convinced the Gaming Commission to delay the opening the Bridgeport fronton while their investigation continued. It was the beginning of the end for the project, and soon the Manaforts began to feel the heat of investigation.
Justice John Cotter of the Connecticut State Supreme Court appointed Superior Court Judge Harold Mulvey to conduct a private, one man Grand Jury inquirty into the jai alai affair.
Writing contemporaneously for Connecticut Magazine, reporter Michael Dorman described the proceedings as a “farce” and a “coverup.”
Still, the negative attention couldn’t have come at a worse time for Paul Manafort Sr, who was running again to become the mayor of New Britain.
“It’s all over the country that if you’re of Italian descent you’re in the Mafia,” an exasperated Manafort Sr. told a local newspaper after news that he was being investigated broke.[69]
When news of the alleged payoff to Democrat John Bailey broke, many local Connecticut politicians loudly defended the giant in state politics. Bailey had also recently died, so he wasn’t able to defend himself.
Shortly thereafter, The New York Times reported that the Bridgeport fronton was being investigated by the Federal Organized Crime Task Force.
“The strike force is particularly interested in the roles reputed members and associates of the Vito Genovese crime family may have played in the alleged bilking of the Teamsters union pension fund — which is financing the $14 million Jai Alai fronton in downtown Bridgeport — out of millions of dollars,” the Times reported.[70]
The Associated Press further reported that Federal authorities were investigating whether Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano had been paid $150,000 by Connecticut Sports Enterprises to facilitate the loan from the Teamster pension fund.[71]
Multiple members of the Manafort family were called the testify in the inquiry that followed, including Paul Manafort Sr., Frank Manafort Jr., and Angela Manafort.
There appears to be good reason to believe that Judge Harold Mulvey’s Grand Jury investigation was designed less to get to the bottom of the widespread corruption in Connecticut and the jai alai industry, and more to defend the status quo.
“Witnesses are herded through the door, questioned perfunctorily, then escorted out,” Michael Dorman reported. “The unusual nature of the one-man grand jury proceeding prevents the public from realizing that the investigation is a farce.”
“Newspapers, radio, and television stations keep reporting as if a bona fide investigation is in progress. Actually, they — and, in turn, the public — are being deluded. Mulvey’s grand jury hearing is so haphazard, in fact, that some witnesses report they were barely in the room before being ushered out.”
Frank Manafort Jr. initially pled the fifth amendment to avoid testifying, but was granted immunity. He then admitted to padding bills on behalf of CSE and preparing fake receipts for the Teamsters pension fund.
Frank’s sister, 24-year old Angela Manafort, who had accompanied him during some of his dealings with David Friend, also initially pled the fifth. The court overruled her and then held her in contempt when she continued to refuse to testify. Despite this, Angela was eventually dismissed from court without testifying.[72]
On November 4th, 1975, while the probe was ongoing, Paul Manafort Sr. lost the New Britain’s mayors race in a landslide.
When the Grand Jury report was released in 1976, Paul Manafort Sr. was excoriated but left uncharged.
“It is crystal clear to this Grand Jury that Paul Manafort exercised a great deal of political muscle and interfered shamefully with the operations of a department not his own, the Department of Environmental Protection,” the report concluded.
“His claim of only being helpful has a hollow ring when measured against the fact that the solvency of his own family corporation was at stake. However, there does not appear to be criminal involvement. In any event, it is apparent that the electors of the city of New Britain have already passed judgment of Mr. Manafort’s conduct on November 4, 1975.”
Investigators for the Statewide Organized Crime Investigative Task Force later stated that in the jai alai scandal “all roads lead to New Britain,” highlighting that top New Britain political leaders including Governor Thomas Meskill, Paul Manafort Sr., J. Brian Gaffney, and union rep Quentin Hinton all played key roles helping the corrupt, mob-linked Connecticut Sports Enterprises.
And what of Thomas Meskill, the Governor of Connecticut who more than anyone used his political power to promote the legalization of gambling?
On August 8th, 1974, in one of his last acts as President of the United States, Richard Nixon nominated Meskill to serve in a much coveted Federal judgeship.
Some months earlier, in either late 1973 or early 1974, as his presidency slowly succumbed beneath the weight of the unfolding Watergate scandal, Meskill visited Nixon at the La Costa Country Club in Southern California, where Nixon was spending more and more time.
La Costa had been built with money from the Teamsters pension fund. One of its owners was Moe Dalitz, an original member of the Cleveland Syndicate, a friend and partner of Meyer Lansky.[73]
Working closely with Dalitz on La Costa was a fraudster named Allard Roen, who was also an investor in various Meyer Lansky enterprises. Roen, who worked at the Desert Inn casino, also invested with Dalitz in Sunrise Hospital. Investing alongside them was Donald Trump’s future attorney and Roger Stone’s mentor, Roy Cohn.[74]
According to the reporting of Michael Dorman, Meskill made a courtesy call with Nixon. Meskill also met with Chotiner, though the content of these meetings remain mysterious.
On January 30th, 1975, Murray Chotiner died in an automobile accident, thus preventing him from testifying in any subsequent jai alai scandal inquries.
It was reported in September of 1974, Chotiner met with Meskill in his executive office in Hartford. Meskill downplayed the significance of the meeting.[75]
While at La Costa, Meskill also held a meeting involving another organized crime-linked jai alai project. The Governor of Connecticut met with Benjamin A. Trustman and James A. Juliana.
Trustman and Juliana were close to Murray Chotiner.
Trustman, a close friend and Florida neighbor of Nixon’s, was the owner of Lennel, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of World Jai Alai, Inc., which had been operating a jai alai fronton in Miami since 1935.
At the time of the meeting, Lennel was attempting to open a jai alai fronton in Hartford, Connecticut on behalf of World Jai Alai.
Juliana was a former FBI agent who worked as an investigator for Senator McCarthy’s red-baiting House of Un-American Activities Committee under Roy Cohn and later did work for Robert Kennedy.
Juliana also worked with David Friendly to promote the legalization of casino gambling in Atlantic City, an effort spearheaded by Resorts International, which funded the pro-legalization side prior to a statewide referendum.[76]
Much like the Manafort-linked Bridgeport fronton, the Hartford fronton project was later exposed as having corrupt connections to senior figures in American organized crime.
First National Bank of Boston, the chief financier of World Jai Alai, later pled guilty to laundering $1.2 billion in mob money, much of it belonging to Raymond Patriarca, the most powerful mafia figure in New England organized crime.[77]
In March of 1976, Connecticut police opened an investigation into the President of World Jai Alai, John B. Callahan.[78]
Connecticut authorities later caught Callahan socializing with members of Boston’s infamous Winter Hill gang, then led by James “Whitey” Bulger and Steven “the Rifleman” Flemmi, at the Playboy Club in Boston.
Somehow, Callahan became aware of the fact that he was being surveilled and resigned from World Jai Alai.
Six years later Callahan was murdered, one of three killed in what authorities believed to be related to the crime of skimming money from the Hartford jai alai fronton.
A figure within World Jai Alai named H. Paul Rico became involved in the effort to sell the company. Rico was a former FBI agent who left the Bureau to become World Jai Alai’s Vice President and Head of Security.
Rico’s involvement in World Jai Alai is paralleled by the pro-legalization of gambling efforts by the former FBI agent James A. Juliana and the dozens of former Federal employees employed the Resorts International subsidiary Intertel, which spearheaded Resorts’ pro-legalization activities.
The first person Rico attempted to sell World Jai Alai too was Jack B. Cooper, however the deal fell through when it was revealed that Cooper was a business partner of Meyer Lansky’s who was attempting to buy up much of the jai alai industry.
In 1978, World Jai Alai and the Hartford fronton was purchased by an Oklahoma-based millionaire named Roger Wheeler Jr. Almost immediately, Wheeler began telling colleagues, friends and family members that his company had been infiltrated by organized crime.
Edward Bennet Halloran, a hitman turned Federal informant, later told investigators that, at a meeting attended by Winter Hill gang leaders Whitey Bulger and Steven Flemmi, he was instructed to murder Wheeler.
In May of 1981, Wheeler was murdered, shot between the eyes, after playing a round of golf at his Tulsa, Oklahoma golf course. Federal authorities believed he was killed because of his suspicions that employees were skimming money from the Hartford fronton.
Connecticut state investigators, including the aforementioned Austin McGuigan, came to suspect that sources in the FBI, who were using Bulger and the Winter Hill gang as informants, were sabotaging State investigations into the gang and, in certain cases, passing information to the gangsters.
McGuigan believed Federal disinterest extended to his investigation of the Manafort-linked Bridgeport fronton as well.
“Federal agents, while they were denying State and local requests for information, were providing information to former FBI agents who were employed by the very businesses that were under investigation,” McGuigan testified before Congress in 2002.
“This is more incredible when one realizes that despite official requests by State and local officials, the same information provided to those agencies was denied to the agencies mandated by law to prosecute.”
“I am going to give you examples of this,” he continued.
“The Connecticut Statewide Organized Crime Task Force, and I was the chief prosecutor from 1975 to 1978 and the assistant from 1973 to 1974, began in the fall of 1975 an investigation into the opening of a Bridgeport Jai Alai gambling facility or fronton.’’
“We uncovered in our investigation meetings between major New York and New Jersey LCN figures and the President of Bridgeport Jai Alai [David Friend].”
“We determined that a loan from the Central State Teamsters Fund had funded the entire operation.”
“We did not have the jurisdiction to investigate this case to the fullest. The meetings were occurring in New Jersey and New York; the loans were coming out of Chicago.”
“We initiated a grand jury and then we conducted a license revocation hearing. Bridgeport was supposed to open in a couple weeks. We revoked their license for connections to organized crime figures.”
“We attempted to turn over that information to the Federal Government because frankly we thought the individuals involved were LCN, one of whom supposedly had been implicated in the Hoffa murder, Tony Provenzano, we turned over that information and frankly we seemed to get no interest from the Federal Government whatsoever.”[79]
Thus, through the microcosm of this long lost story involving the Manafort family, we see the full spectrum of corruption in the United States, involving the infiltration of organized crime into “legitimate” business, corruption in local and state government, and corruption in law enforcement at all levels, including the FBI.
Seen in this light, the lifetime of corruption, graft and interactions with global kleptocrats and organized criminals that lay before Paul Manafort Jr. seems not surprising, but almost inevitable.
Citations
Note: Much of the research for this article was done through Newspapers.com, a remarkable resource provided by Ancestry. Clicking through to actually see the articles requires a subscription, which is well worth it.
[1] Foer, Franklin. “Paul Manafort, American Hustler,” The Atlantic. March 2018 Issue
[2] Schwartz, Mattathias. “Paul Manafort isn’t sorry,” Business Insider. August 7th, 2022
[3] “Text of the Grand Jury Report on Jai Alai Hearing,” The Hartford Courant, January 13th, 1976, Pages 6–8
[4] INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGATIONS OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MISCONDUCT IN NEW ENGLAND — VOLUME 2, HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION, FEBRUARY 13, 14, AND 27, 2002
[5] Coleman, Les. Squeal, Spoonwood Press, New England. 1982. Pg. 58
[6] HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIRST CONGRESS, JUNE 20, 1989, Pg. 196
[7] REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE ON RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION VOLUME 5: COUNTER INTELLIGENCE THREATS AND VULNERABILITIES. 116th Congress, 1st Session. Pg. vi
[8] Belton, Catherine. “Rusal: A Lingering Heat,” The Financial Times. January 25th, 2010
[9] Moskowitz, Eli. “Ukraine’s Richest Oligarch Received $21 Million In US Business Loans,” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), August 26th, 2020
[10] Kyiv Embassy. “UKRAINE: FIRTASH MAKES HIS CASE TO THE USG.” Wikileaks Cable: 08KYIV2414_a. Dated September 10th, 2008
[11] Manafort, Paul. Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but not Silenced. Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY. 2022. Pg. 15
[12] “Young GOP To Escort Nixon To Convention,” The Hartford Courant. August 29th, 1952. Pg. 3
[13] “Mayer Meskill Starts Naming Official Family,” The Hartford Courant. April 24th, 1962
[14] “Breakfast For Meskill Is Scheduled By GOP,” The Hartford Courant. November 1st, 1964
[15] “Democrats Offer Aid To Manafort,” The Hartford Courant. October 20th, 1965
[16] Berkowitz, Milt. “Mayor Paul Manafort — A Profile,” The Hartford Courant. February 13th, 1966
[17] “Candidate Says Meskill Helped Manafort Get Job,” The Hartford Courant. June 3rd, 1968
[18] “Mayor Sells Company Stock To Clear Way For Contract,” The Hartford Courant. September 5th, 1968
[19] Foer, Franklin. “Paul Manafort, American Hustler,” The Atlantic. March 2018 Issue
[20] Stewart, Patricia. “Young Interns Work For Central Committee,” The Hartford Courant. August 21st, 1971
[21] “Manafort To Discuss HUD Plans,” The Hartford Courant. June 9th, 1970
[22] Roig-Franzia, Manuel. “The Swamp Builders,” The Washington Post. November 29th, 2018
[23] Stone, Roger. The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ. Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY. 2013. Pg. 1–3
[24] “The Evolution of Organized Crime and Labor Racketeering Corruption,” Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor. November 2004
[25] Hoffman, Chris. “The History of Organized Crime in Connecticut,” CT Insider. May 31st, 2013
[26] Block, Alan. Masters of Paradise: Organized Crime and the Internal Revenue Service in The Bahamas. Routledge. New York, NY. 1991
[27] Report to the President and the Attorney General — The Edge: Organized Crime, Business, and Labor Unions. President’s Commission on Organized Crime. September 29th, 1986
[28] Hoffman, Chris. “The History of Organized Crime in Connecticut,” CT Insider. May 31st, 2013
[29] Hyland, John. “Gambler Faces Bribery Trial After Lawyers Fail To Agree,” The Hartford Courant. December 25th, 1982. Pg. 22
[30]“Man Pleads Not Guilty To Policy Charge,” The Hartford Courant. July 21st, 1962. Pg. 37
[31] Hyland, John. “Unsealed Affadavit Shows System For Payoffs to New Britain Captain,” The Hartford Courant. January 28th, 1983. Pg. 12
[32] Coleman, Les. Squeal, Spoonwood Press, New England. 1982. Pg. 16
[33] Levick, Diane. “State Links Kilduff To Gambler in Probe of Municipal Corruption,” The Hartford Courant. August 13th, 1981
[34] Baggot, Craig W. “Pettinelli Says Graft Preceded Him,” The Hartford Courant. May 30th, 1981
[35] Barnes, Tom. “Pettinelli Says Tomasso, Manafort Fixed Job Tests,” The Hartford Courant. September 17th, 1980
[36] Barnes, Tom; Baggot, Craig. “Manafort Says Aid Requested For Study, Not Rigging Tests,” The Hartford Courant. June 17th, 1980
[37] Baggot, Craig. “Manafort May Lose Local Post In Scandal,” The Hartford Courant. September 18th, 1980. Pg. 1
[38] Baggot, Craig. “Kilduff Called Leaders’ Choice,” The Hartford Courant. May 27th, 1981
[39] Driscoll, Theodore A.; Barnes, Tom. “Paul Manafort Tied To Perjury: Former New Britain Mayor Arrested in Job-Fix Testimony,” The Hartford Courant. July 12th, 1981. Pg. 1
[40] Hyland, John; Cohen, Joseph M. “Six-Year New Britain Probe Closes,” The Hartford Courant. September 30th, 1983. Pg. 1
[41] Messick, Hank. Lansky. GP Putnam’s Sons. New York, NY. 1971. Pg. 251
[42] Dorman, Michael. “Malaise In High Places (Part 1),” Connecticut Magazine. March 1976
[43] “Gambling Defeat In Polls Is Hailed,” The New York Times. April 26th, 1970
[44] “Legislative Leaders Favor Meskill’s Gambling Plans,” The Morning Record. Janaury 15th, 1971. Pg. 8
[45] Burnham, Alexander. “Connecticut’s Gambling Law Has Come Up Snake Eyes,” The New York Times. November 16th, 1975
[46] Mahoney, Edmund; Bixby, Lyn. “Did The FBI Hinder The Investigations Into the 1980s Jai Alai Killings?” The Hartford Courant. November 9th, 1997
[47] “Trial Date Set,” Fort Lauderdale News. December 6th, 1963. Pg. 7
[48] Sweeney, Dan. “Hoodlums in the ’hood: Where mobsters lived in South Florida,” South Florida Sun Sentinel. March 4th, 2020
[49] Report to the President and the Attorney General — The Edge: Organized Crime, Business, and Labor Unions. President’s Commission on Organized Crime. September 29th, 1986
[50] Berkowitz, Milt. “City Natives To Lend Flavor To Convention,” The Hartford Courant. August 9th, 1972. Pg. 12
[51] Horowitz, Jason. “College Republicans, Once ‘the Best Party on Campus,’ Endure Taunts Over Trump,” The New York Times. September 23rd, 2016
[52] Dorman, Michael. “Malaise In High Places (Part 1),” Connecticut Magazine. March 1976
[53] Summers, Anthony. The Arrogance Of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon. Penguin Books. 2001
[54] Moldea, Dan. The Hoffa Wars. Paddington Press. New York, NY. 1978
[55] Moldea, Dan. The Hoffa Wars. Paddington Press. New York, NY. 1978
[56] Moldea, Dan. The Hoffa Wars. Paddington Press. New York, NY. 1978
[57] Stone, Roger. Nixon’s Secrets: The Rise, Fall, and Untold Truth About the President, Watergate, and the Pardon. Skyhorse Publishing. New York, NY. 2014
[58] Dorman, Michael. “Malaise In High Places (Part 1),” Connecticut Magazine. March 1976
[59] “Text of the Grand Jury Report on Jai Alai Hearing,” The Hartford Courant, January 13th, 1976, Pages 6–8
[60] “It’s Not Me — Manafort,” The Journal, October 10th, 1975
[61] “Gaming panel to conduct jai alai fronton hearing,” The Morning Record. September 25th, 1975. Pg. 5
[62] Dorman, Michael. “Malaise In High Places (Part 1),” Connecticut Magazine. March 1976
[63] Lacey, Robert. Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life. Little, Brown and Company. Boston, Toronto, London. 1991. Pg. 266
[64] Pearl, Matthew. “How One Famed Hollywood Restaurant Became the National Center for the Mob,” The New Times. January 30th, 2018
[65] Messick, Hank. Syndicate In The Sun. Commonwealth Book Company. St. Martin, OH. 1968. Pg. 89
[66] Pearl, Matthew. “How One Famed Hollywood Restaurant Became the National Center for the Mob,” The New Times. January 30th, 2018
[67] Dorman, Michael. “Malaise In High Places (Part 1),” Connecticut Magazine. March 1976
[68] INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGATIONS OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MISCONDUCT IN NEW ENGLAND — VOLUME 2; HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION; FEBRUARY 13, 14, AND 27, 2002
[69] “It’s Not Me — Manafort,” The Journal, October 10th, 1975
[70] Knight, Michael. “U.S. Crime Force Enters Connecticut Jai Alai Case,” The New York Times. October 17th, 1975
[71] “Builder Saw Payoff Money,” Biddeford-Saco Journal (Associated Press), November 14th, 1974
[72] Millican, Michael W. “Probe Continues,” Kennebec Journal. November 4th, 1975
[73] “Ex-Convict Links Mafia To A Resort,” The New York Times. February 18th, 1982
[74] “PARTNER AFFIRMS COHN ACCUSATION; Testifies U.S. Witness Told of Drive to ‘Get’ Defendant,” The New York Times. April 10th, 1964
[75] “Jai Alai Promoter Free on Bail,” The Burlington Free Press. December 18th, 1975
[76] Dorman, Michael. “Atlantic City — open door for the mob?” The Hononlulu Star-Bulletin (reprint from New York Magazine). March 12th, 1978
[77] Mahony, Edmund; Bixby, Lyn. “Did The FBI Hinder The Investigation Into The 1980s Jai Alai Killings?” The Hartford Courant. November 9th, 1997
[78] Bixby, Lyn. “A quarter-century of gambling, hidden costs,” The Hartford Courant. February 24th, 1997
[79] INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGATIONS OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MISCONDUCT IN NEW ENGLAND — VOLUME 2; HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION; FEBRUARY 13, 14, AND 27, 2002