Joey Cusumano, a close associate of Tony Spilotro and survivor of a hit attempt, dies at age 90

Joseph “Joey” Cusumano, a close associate of Chicago Outfit enforcer Tony Spilotro who was convicted of labor racketeering and banned from entering Nevada’s casinos, has died in Las Vegas. He was 90.

Cusumano battled a number of medical challenges for several years before his passing Tuesday afternoon.

Although law enforcement saw Cusumano as a hardened mobster, his charm and generosity earned him many friends from all walks of life, including in Hollywood, where he served as a line producer for the Francis Ford Coppola movie The Cotton Club.

Oscar Goodman, the defense attorney turned Las Vegas mayor who represented Cusumano, tells a story reflecting this duality.

“We were invited to the grand opening of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts,” Goodman said. “I was sitting in what I thought was the best seat in the house, and right behind me was Joey. Everybody came up to him, all saying, ‘Hi, Joey,’ as if he were part of their crowd as well. Here’s a guy who can go into probably one of the most exclusive places in Las Vegas, yet he’s not allowed to urinate at the Horseshoe. He was able to move in every crowd.”

Goodman said he typically met with Cusumano once a month for lunch at the Las Vegas Country Club. “We’d talk about the old days,” he said.

A frequent topic would be Cusumano’s inclusion in Nevada’s Black Book in 1990, which Goodman described as “poppycock.” After the Nevada Gaming Commission’s eight-hour hearing and unanimous vote to place Cusumano on the List of Excluded Persons, Goodman vowed to keep fighting.

“The hearing was a sham, a shame, and a fraud,” he told reporters. “They came out looking like a kangaroo court.”

In recent years, Goodman frequently asked Cusumano if he wanted to go back to court to seek removal from the Black Book. Goodman particularly wished that Cusumano could have spent an evening at Oscar’s Steakhouse at the Plaza hotel-casino.

“I was ready for the past several years to take them on again because of the exemplary way Joey had conducted himself in the community,” Goodman said. “But we didn’t do it. Joey didn’t see the point of dragging the situation through the mud again.”

Originally from New York, Cusumano moved to Las Vegas in 1968. He was connected with Caesars Palace through Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, high-ranking members of the Genovese crime family. At the time, the Mob had Caesars Palace in its clutches. Cusumano played a role in delivering skimmed proceeds to New York.

But Cusumano didn’t want to work in the casino business. Instead, he opened a restaurant, Joey’s New Yorker, which became a popular Strip night spot in the early 1970s. Cusumano also connected with Spilotro in the early ’70s, becoming a friend and partner in various street rackets.

Following the murders of Tony and Michael Spilotro in 1986, Cusumano was considered next in line to take over Chicago’s Las Vegas street rackets, but he turned it down.

The following year, Cusumano was convicted of labor racketeering for skimming from the Culinary Union’s life insurance plan.

After Cusumano’s release from federal prison in the summer of 1990, Nevada gaming regulators placed him in the Black Book. Just a few months later, Cusumano survived an assassination attempt at his Las Vegas home that left two bullet fragments in his shoulder. A masked gunman fired five shots at Cusumano as he opened the garage door of his townhouse. Cusumano, hit by three of the shots, escaped in his Mercedes-Benz convertible and took himself to Sunrise Hospital.

Cusumano lived another 36 years in Las Vegas, during which time he played tennis and entertained friends and family. In more recent years, he endured a number of ailments that required extensive medical care. “Every time he went in to have something fixed, they found something else wrong,” Goodman said.

Goodman said he has dedicated a chapter of his upcoming memoir to his business and personal relationship with Cusumano. “We used to kid each other about who’s going to be the last man standing,” Goodman said. “We would laugh about it, because all of our friends were dropping like flies.”

Visitation will be at Palm Mortuary-Cheyenne, 7400 West Cheyenne Avenue, on November 13, from 3-7 p.m. A funeral service will take place at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, 1811 Pueblo Vista Drive, on November 14, at 11 a.m. A committal service will follow at Bunker’s Memory Gardens, 7251 West Lone Mountain Road, on November 14 from 2-3 p.m.