FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 18, 1999
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
'I don't care how long it takes, but I will get them'
In an apparent effort to pitch in and make sure Oscar "The Mayor"
Goodman in no way embarrasses his adopted home town, two companies that
helped the former criminal defense attorney win the highest office in Las
Vegas this spring -- Paladin Advertising and the Letizia Ad Team -- have
placed a half-page ad in the latest issue of Campaigns and Elections
magazine, featuring "The Mayor" giving a smiling thumbs-up. The advertising
copy brags: "If we can elect a 'mob mouthpiece,' imagine what we can do for
you."
It might all be taken in good fun, if Mr. Goodman could really claim to have left far behind his personal as well as professional associations with Philip Leonetti, Nicodemo Scarfo, Natale Richichi, Frank Rosenthal, Joey Cusumano, Allen Glick, and Tony Spilotro -- the list of clients whose photos a reporter for New Yorker magazine recently saw displayed on his law office wall (most of the thugs popping champagne corks to celebrate Mr. Goodman keeping them out of jail), next to a drawing of Mr. Goodman bearing the notation "Se Habla Sicilian."
Mr. Goodman has responded to staff writer Connie Bruck's profile in the Aug. 16 edition of The New Yorker (circulation 813,000) with the usual fancy footwork of those embarrassed to find themselves accurately quoted.
Mr. Goodman significantly does not contend that she simply made this stuff up out of thin air. Instead, the barrister carefully (start ital)implies(end ital) Ms. Bruck may have gotten things wrong by remarking she didn't use a tape recorder, and then falls back on those old standbys, "I was quoted out of context," and "The lady couldn't tell when I was joking."
But Ms. Brck is a 19-year veteran and author of two books, winner of national reporting awards for her 1985 profile of Ivan Boesky in the Atlantic Monthly and for her 1996 profile of Newt Gingrich in The New Yorker. Her reputation is her livelihood. She did not make this stuff up.
"I am keeping a list of those who were never for me," the mayor told Ms. Bruck during a lunch with county executives, "who spoke out against me as though I were the Antichrist. It's not a long list, but it's a list. And I don't care how long it takes, but I will get them."
"I remarked that he sounded like one of his former clients," Ms. Bruck writes, mentioning that the hit list includes Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick.
"Well, why let your enemies survive?" Mayor Goodman responded.
Asked whether he regrets saying he would rather his daughter date mob assassin Tony "The Ant" Spilotro than an FBI agent, Mayor Goodman told Ms. Bruck: "When I made that statement about my daughter, I meant it. Tony Spilotro never lied to me. ... Tony was more honorable than the people who were trying to get him."
Ms. Bruck reminds her national readership that Spilotro was linked by federal agents to 22 killings, including one in which an informant testified Spilotro put his victim's head in a vise and squeezed until the eyeballs popped out, before slitting the man's throat.
"You know who's the only person I ever heard of who said 'I love it' as much as I love this job?" our mayor asked Ms. Bruck of The New Yorker.
"He paused, delighting in what was coming, and smiled. 'Nicodemo Scarfo, when he was pouring .22s into someone's head. This guy testified that as Scarfo did it he said "I love it! I (start ital)love(end ital) it!" ' "
Yes, the tactics used by federal agents to craft a prosecution with no identifiable "victim" are sometimes reprehensible. I have documented many such cases. But the clients whose names Mr. Goodman so gleefully drops did not tend to be medical marijuana patients, Fully-Informed Jury activists, bankrupt tax protesters, compassionate doctors writing scrips for "too many" painkillers, or small farmers snared in the regulatory labyrinth of the EPA.
Oscar Goodman is now 60 years old. Perhaps he is finally ready to come to terms with -- and renounce -- this ongoing fantasy that his mob clients were a bunch of mischievous, romantic Robin Hoods. Perhaps it is finally time for him to come forward, on the record, and state that these clients were not fine men, that teirs are not the kind of careers and activities our children should emulate.
Most Americans understand how the people of Sicily developed the code of "omerta," of silence, of not snitching on your friend or neighbor to the authorities. But Sicily was a land many times conquered, where the authorities were likely to be occupying soldiers of some foreign regime, looking to arrest and execute without trial anyone promoting independence or freedom.
Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, and Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti were not freedom fighters, risking their lives in service of some noble cause. They were thieves, sadistic torturers, and cold-blooded killers for profit.
In a civilized country under the rule of law -- the very law whose protections Mr. Goodman worked so hard to extend to his clients -- it is in fact (start ital)not(end ital) better to be a murderer than to be a "rat." Isn't that true, Mayor Goodman? We teach our children it is better to (start ital)report(end ital) a violent crime than to (start ital)commit(end ital) a violent crime. Don't we, Mayor Goodman?
Well then, perhaps it is time for Oscar "The Mayor" Goodman to finally say so.
"Just joking," Mr. mayor? Then perhaps it's time to (start ital)stop(end ital) joking. Tell the public whether these clients of yours were really sociopathic scum, or whether their lives and careers are the kind our youngsters should emulate.
The city would like to know.
Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is author of the new book, "Send in the Waco Killers."
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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