Joe Friday tackled the Los Angeles crime syndicate
William H. Parker, a hardnosed police chief in midcentury Los Angeles, did not want organized crime in his city. In…
Forty years ago, Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno turned on his Mob family
Some mobsters left their legacy by the gun, some by the knife, but Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratianno is best known…
Seventy years ago today, Bugsy Siegel’s storied Mob life came to an abrupt end
It is important to our Museum and to me as the resident historian that criminals and their criminal acts are…
Fat Herbie’s rise and fall
Second of two parts. Part One looks at Herbie Blitzstein’s murder twenty years ago. Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein was born…
A late Mob hit in Las Vegas
First of two parts. Part Two looks at Blitzstein’s criminal activity in Las Vegas. By the mid-1990s, death had claimed…
Gangster-built Golden Nugget turns 70
By the late summer of 1946, Guy McAfee was the best-known big shot in Las Vegas. McAfee, 58, had spent…
Virginia Hill: ‘Queen of the Mob’ was no one’s pushover
Third in a series of profiles for Women’s History Month. On March 24, 1966, passersby walking on a footpath beside…
Arrest in Beverly Hills murder has ties to Las Vegas Mob history
Arrest in Beverly Hills murder has ties to Las Vegas Mob history Fifteen years ago, a writer named Susan Berman…
TV viewers witnessed verbal sparring between Mickey Cohen and Bobby Kennedy
Mickey Cohen was outrageous, brazen, cunning, and dangerous. He lived his life in the headlines as Hollywood’s darkest celebrity. By…
Mickey Cohen ran high-stakes gambling in L.A.
“In rich and hedonistic Los Angeles, where many of the Golden Age movie moguls participated in high-stakes gambling on a…