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Lucky Luciano, byname of Charles Luciano, original name Salvatore Lucania, (born November 11, 1896, Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy—died January 26, 1962, Naples), the most powerful chief of American organized crime in the early 1930s and a major influence even from prison in 1936–45 and after deportation to Italy in 1946. Luciano emigrated with his parents from Sicily to New York City in 1906 and at the age of 10 was already involved in mugging, shoplifting, and extortion; in 1916 he spent six months in jail for selling heroin. Out of jail, he teamed up with Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky
New-yorkUnited-statesStaten-islandLercara-friddiSiciliaItalyRomeLazioConey-islandCubaCapodichinoCampaniaSixty years ago, the grisly killings of the Riviera Hotel’s president and his wife stunned Las Vegas — and would haunt the casino industry for a generationThe ranch-style home at 1115 Monte Vista in the upscale Encanto neighborhood of Phoenix was quiet when the housekeeper arrived just before noon on Wednesday, December 3, 1958. High blood pressure and a bad heart kept Mrs. Pearl Ray from working full-time, but she enjoyed cleaning and cooking for Gustave “Gus” Greenbaum and his wife, Bess. Greenbaum was president of the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, but when he returned frequently to Phoenix, he liked her home cooking. Mrs. Greenbaum was very busy with her charities, but she took time Tuesday evening to give the maid a ride home at the end of a long day. They were awfully nice people, the housekeeper believed, and she’d liked working for their daughter, Mrs. Harold Tenenbom, too.Glancing at the kitchen she had cleaned a day earlier, Ray would recall to an Arizona Republic reporter, “I saw that there were some things out of the freezer, just like when I left the night before, and that seemed strange.” Then she pushed open the door to the den.A few feet from the fireplace, Bess Serinopskie Greenbaum lay facedown on the sofa, a newspaper spread beneath her head with pillows on either side. Still fully clothed from the night before, her hands were bound behind her back with one of her flashy-dressing husband’s neckties. It was immediately obvious the defenseless 63-year-old society matron was dead. A large bruise was visible on her head. The sight set Ray’s ailing heart racing.“God, I just ran out of there and went to a neighbor’s,” the housekeeper recalled to a reporter after being hospitalized for shock. She didn’t set eyes on the body of Gus Greenbaum, and it was just as well. Phoenix police found him in the couple’s bedroom, sprawled across merged twin beds, an electric heating pad meant to soothe his aching back still plugged in nearby. A television glowed a few feet away. He was dressed in beige silk pajamas. Although he kept a chrome-plated .38 revolver handy, it had done him no good. The multiple, crushing, blunt-force traumas he suffered to the back of his head might easily have been fatal. But also, Greenbaum’s throat was cut from ear to ear, so deeply he was nearly decapitated. Although the family’s loyal maid concluded, “The Greenbaums didn’t seem worried about anything” beyond superficial appearances, the Riviera’s reckless boss had gone far off the deep end with the violent men who controlled his life and monitored his increasingly erratic behavior. The ugly truth was, he’d been living on borrowed time for years.Within a day, gruesome details of the double murder, called “vicious, brutal, and thorough” by the chief of detectives at the scene, burned across the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. Little more than a decade after the shooting death of his friend and business partner Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the movie star-handsome psychopath whom he’d replaced at the Flamingo, Chicago native Greenbaum and his Poland-born wife had also experienced the mob’s forced retirement plan.After the murder of his friend and businesss partner Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Gus Greenbaum took over management of the Flamingo. But not for long.Their bodies barely cold, Phoenix police weren’t yet prepared to conclude professional killers had eliminated the Greenbaums, but the signs were clear enough. With the victims unconscious from the blows to the head, the nine-inch knife ensured a silent death that would go undetected by the neighbors after dark on the quiet street. Although a three-carat diamond ring turned up missing, many other valuables were untouched. Not even the cash from their wallets was taken. Police found shoe prints and cigarette ashes pointing to the presence of two men who may have waited for Bess Greenbaum to take the maid home for the evening before entering the house.Then there was the crime itself. Slashed throats sent a clear message that someone couldn’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut, and by several reliable accounts the arrogant casino boss had grown garrulous. The fractured skulls? Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the use of a blunt instrument was a trademark of Greenbaum’s silent partner in the Riviera, Chicago mob boss Anthony “Joe Batters” Accardo.Led by affable Riviera executive Ben Goffstein, the Vegas crowd quickly announced a cash reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers. But they were streetwise enough to know no one was likely to collect a nickel. It was an awful thing that the Greenbaums were gone, but the faster the story faded the better.The bosses quickly chartered a plane to Phoenix to pay their respects at the Greenbaums’ funeral service and burial at Beth Israel Cemetery. As a sign of the deep affection the “boys” had for the so-called “Mayor of Paradise,” the Riviera remained closed from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the day memorial services were held in Phoenix and Las Vegas. As a side benefit, the closure also prevented a robbery or takeover at the casino. Those who understood the truth about Greenbaum’s rise to power in Las Vegas knew such things were not only possible, but to be expected. They would take no chances.With 300 people in attendance at the funeral, and U.S. Senator and future presidential candidate Barry Goldwater of Arizona among the notables, Rabbi Albert L. Plotkin exercised his appreciation of the nuance of language. “The lives of good people need no eulogy,” he said. “They speak for themselves. Gustave Greenbaum was loved and respected as a friend. He had an inner warmth and kindness to his soul. He gave of himself humbly and simply, and without notoriety.”A funeral was no place to convey darker truths.Pallbearers included Las Vegas casino executives Goffstein, Elias Atol, Joe Rosenberg, Sam Pop, J.K. Houssels, and brothel owner Al Abrams. They didn’t sit shiva long. Within hours, the green-felt mourners flew back to Las Vegas and waited for what came next. Now that 60 years have passed, we can reflect on Greenbaum’s life, his pivotal role in the development of Las Vegas, and his unsolved murder, too. Because a strange thing happened on the way to burying the memories of Gus and Bess Greenbaum: Their ghosts refused to remain silent, and haunted the mob and the casino crowd for the better part of a generation. For crime writers and government agents, those awful deaths became a touchstone for the dangerous shadows that still existed just beyond legalized gambling’s bright lights. Their names were dropped whenever the casino business was discussed in-depth, and the failure of the Nevada Tax Commission’s Gaming Control Board to put the murders in focus exposed a tragicomic flaw in the system.The Greenbaum murders created a challenge back in Las Vegas, where the state’s largest newspaper, the Review-Journal, gave scant news coverage to the casino industry, preferring to concentrate on crime stories and business news that often lapsed into boosterism. Gushing show reviews and gossip columns were the order of the day. Readers might be left to wonder whether there was any gambling going on in the new Casablanca.Faced with the Greenbaum murders, the newspaper’s response was simultaneously sensational and understated. While the banner headline declared, “RIVIERA PRESIDENT, WIFE FOUND SLAIN,” the story beneath ran just a dozen paragraphs and was sourced through Goffstein, who “discounted the gangland slaying theory.” Readers were reminded that while “Greenbaum was well known to Las Vegas and eastern gambling circles,” it was important to remember he “was frequently associated with benefit and charitable organizations.”But few nonprofits solved problems with blunt instruments and nine-inch butcher knives. Before the week was up, Goffstein’s $25,000 reward offer was written into an “exclusive,” and Clark County law enforcement leaders appeared almost relieved that the murders had taken place outside their jurisdiction. Clark County Sheriff W.E
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