Author: James Riter

In 1961, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal was subpoenaed to testify before a Senate Rackets Subcommittee after Oregon football player Mickey Bruce told the panel about Rosenthal attempting to bribe him to throw a game the year before. Rosenthal refused to answer any questions. Corbis

Lefty Rosenthal’s alleged sports-fixing past recalled in national sports story

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In the 1970s, Mickey Bruce, a former University of Oregon football player, was called to Nevada to testify against Mob…

Las Vegas casino pioneer a footnote in Southern California slaying

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A high-profile murder in 1950s Southern California at the former home of a Las Vegas casino operator led to the…

After the four-casino blitz of 1955, Life magazine speculated about the sustainability of the boom. The new casinos had to keep up with the big budgets of successful casinos such as the Desert Inn, which paid British musician Noël Coward, pictured here, $40,000 a week. The Mob Museum Collection

Casino boom added four new properties to Las Vegas 70 years ago

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Seventy years ago, in April and May of 1955, Las Vegas welcomed four new hotel-casinos in a six-week period. This…

The Alto Knights, starring Robert De Niro as both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, premiered to lukewarm reviews last month. The Alto Knight is among the first of many Mob movies debuting this year. Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

New Mob movies point to continued demand

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While some question whether Mob movies have run their course, a recent slate of gangster films indicates public interest remains…

Charles Binaggio and Charles Gargotta were found murdered at the First Democratic Club in Kansas City on April 6, 1950. Gargotta’s body is seen here near a portrait of President Harry Truman. The Kansas City Star

Mobbed-up power broker Charles Binaggio gunned down in Kansas City 75 years ago

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Mobbed-up power broker Charles Binaggio gunned down in Kansas City 75 years ago

Alison Martino recalls her father’s Las Vegas

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When singer Al Martino was a showroom headliner performing on the Las Vegas Strip years ago, the mobsters who ran…

Before John Gotti bricked over the façade, the Ravenite Social Club had a much more welcoming exterior. Crime family boss Carlo Gambino and his underboss Aniello Dellacroce made the Ravenite their headquarters. Getty Images

New film ‘The Alto Knights’ named for one of Mob’s many social clubs

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The Alto Knights, the film written by Nicholas Pileggi and directed by Barry Levinson, is named for a once-prominent Manhattan social…

Nick Pileggi adds a new entry to the extensive library of Mob movies in March with The Alto Knights. Pileggi also wrote Goodfellas and Casino, both mainstays of the organized crime film genre. Courtesy of Kate Henry

New movie ‘The Alto Knights’ revives bitter feud between major mobsters

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The newest Mob movie written by journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, The Alto Knights, is his third major script focused…

After the indictments, U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, left, and FBI Director William Webster held a press conference and showed a diagram outlining defendant’s position within the Commission’s hierarchy. Bettmann/Corbis

The bosses of the Mafia Commission were indicted 40 years ago

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New York, like other major cities across the United States, faced waves of crime during the 1970s and ’80s. What…

The top 5 organized crime video games

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In the 1980s, video arcades loaded with coin-operated gaming cabinets were a common shopping mall destination for people with quarters…