Hole in the Wall Gang, page 1
IN MY OWN WORDS
A Memoir By Frank Cullotta
As Told To
Dennis N. Griffin
HOLE IN THE WALL GANG. Copyright © 2013
by Frank Cullotta and Dennis N. Griffin.
All rights are reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Houdini Publishing, 6455 Dean Martin Dr. Suite L, Las Vegas, NV 89118.
ISBN: 978-1-936759-21-7
Cover design and Illustration by K@TARINA HRADILEK at www.theartofkatarina.com
Printing Production Specialist- Barry Hess
Book Design by Blake Whiteside
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K@TARINA HRADILEK & Frank Cullotta
Tony Montana, K@TARINA HRADILEK, Frank Cullotta
Portrait of Frank Cullotta, Henry Hill and Tony Montana
by K@TARINA HRADILEK
CONTENTS
Preface
P R O L O G U E
PART ONE • CHICAGO
ONE The First Hole
TWO Cuba
THREE Busted
FOUR JFK & Marilyn
FIVE Cars & Jewels
SIX An Appealing Situation
SEVEN Some Memorable Scores
EIGHT Framed
NINE Entrepreneur
PART TWO • LAS VEGAS
TEN Getting Started In Vegas
ELEVEN The HITWG
TWELEVE Schemes & Scores
THIRTEEN Murder and Heat in Sin City
FORTEEN 1980
FIFTEEN 1981
SIXTEEN A Matter of Life & Death
PART THREE • AFTERLIFE
SEVENTEEN Witness Protection - Part I
EIGHTEEN Witness Protection - Part II
NINTEEN From Thief to Security Chief
TWENTY Casino
TWENTY ONE On My Own Again
TWENTY TWO Family Secrets
TWENTY THREE Cullotta
TWENTY FOUR Wrapping Up
Epilogue
Authors
Index
PREFACE
In 1979, after several invitations, Frank Cullotta joined his buddy Tony Spilotro in Las Vegas. Frank and Tony were the same age and had become acquainted on the streets of Chicago in the 1950s, when they were teenagers. They were tough kids and had a desire to earn their livings outside the law. They committed a number of burglaries and robberies together, becoming friends as well as criminal allies. The boys had a lot in common, but they differed in one important respect. Tony was determined to become a made member of the Chicago Mob—known as the Outfit—while Frank was content to work with the crime family as an associate, and still maintain his independence.
Tony went on to realize his dream and became a made man. Along the way he developed a reputation as a ruthless enforcer who would do whatever it took to protect the Outfit’s interests. In 1971, his loyalty to the organization earned him an assignment as the Outfit’s man in Las Vegas. He was to serve in the role of troubleshooter in the event the Outfit’s casino cash-skimming activities—including skimming the skim—overseen by Spilotro’s pal from Chicago Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, were threatened. When not so occupied, Spilotro ran lucrative street-crime rackets that included burglary, robbery, loan sharking, arson and fencing stolen property. As the years passed, Spilotro’s brother John and other heavies from the Windy City joined him in Las Vegas.
Tony’s ever-expanding Vegas empire required him to add even more manpower. In particular, he needed a man he could trust to function as his lieutenant. It had to be someone who was a professional criminal and would be willing to commit any crime—including murder—as ordered. That man was Frank Cullotta.
Frank had served time in an Illinois state prison followed by a term in a federal prison, during the time Tony moved to Vegas. Tony had reached out to him several times since then, and Frank had always said “No.” Then, in 1979, under increasing pressure from Chicago law enforcement, Frank was ready for a change of scenery.
In addition to being Tony’s friend, Frank was a self-taught master criminal. As a teenager he took a locksmith course to learn how to open locks without keys; he made friends with an electronics expert and learned how to make a portable police radio long before police scanners became available to the public; he cultivated people who worked for alarm companies and learned how their systems worked and how they could be defeated; he invented a tool to access Ace alarm boxes that also worked to open the money drawers of pay telephones; he had a passion for cars and learned how to modify them to secrete weapons, burglary tools and stolen merchandise; and he learned about explosives and how to start fires and make them appear to be accidental. Yes, when Frank Cullotta finally agreed to move to Las Vegas, Tony added a consummate professional to his crew. And Frank was also a man capable of the ultimate act of violence: murder. Tony had indeed found his man.
When he accepted Tony’s offer, Frank understood that he would be responsible for putting together a gang that would watch Tony’s back and provide muscle for him as necessary. When not doing Tony’s bidding, they could earn extra money by stealing from local businesses or residents, as long as they cut Tony in for a share of any major scores.
To protect Tony and perpetrate the crimes, Frank assembled a crew of expert thieves, arsonists and killers who became known as the Hole in the Wall Gang because of their penchant for breaking into buildings by making a hole in the wall.
For the next three years Frank, Tony and their men were the most powerful players in the Las Vegas underworld. With the help of informants working in hotels and insurance agencies, they made tens of thousands of dollars stealing from tourists and locals. They also extorted money from illegal bookies and drug dealers by using violence or the threat of violence. Arson for hire was on their menu and if a person had to be roughed up or killed in order to protect their operations, no problem.
However, both the FBI and local cops were determined to take Tony and Frank down and were applying ever-increasing pressure on the gangsters. On July 4, 1981, Frank and five of his crew were arrested while burglarizing an upscale gift and home furnishing store named Bertha’s. Rather than finding the million dollars in cash and jewelry they expected to steal from the store’s vault, they walked into a law-enforcement ambush. This marked the beginning of a rift between the long-time friends.
By 1982 their falling-out was complete and Tony received permission from the Chicago bosses to kill Frank. Facing death at the hands of Tony or another Outfit killer wasn’t Frank’s only problem. He was also looking at the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison as a persistent felon. With no good options available, Frank agreed to flip and become a government witness.
I had the opportunity to meet Frank Cullotta in person in 2006 and agreed to author his biography titled, CULLOTTA — The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, which was published in 2007. In that book I told about Frank’s life of crime from Chicago to Las Vegas. But that book didn’t tell the whole story. There was more.
In Hole in the Wall Gang — In My Own Words, the record is made complete. And this time the story is told directly by Frank himself, in his own words and without narration. Although some of the stories from the first book are mentioned in order for readers to fully understand the magnitude of Frank’s criminal career, here he tells the details of specific crimes that have in the past only been known to the perpetrators and, in some cases, law enforcement. Frank’s language is often colorful and the grammar and spelling are not always perfect, but it’s written the way it was spoken. Any other information that needed to be included for context is entered in brackets.
Denny Griffin
August 21, 2013
PROLOGUE
My name is Frank John Cullotta. I was born in Chicago in 1938, and when I was a teenager I met another kid my age named Tony Spilotro while we were both shinin’ shoes at Grand and Ogden. Tony and me almost got into a fight the first time we met. But later, when we realized our fathers were friends, we became friends as well.
Over the years we did a lot of crimes together, includin’ lots of robberies and burglaries. But Tony always wanted to become a made man in the Outfit and I was content with just bein’ an associate of the Mob. In that capacity, I came to carry a lot of clout with the Outfit while still maintainin’ my independence.
Tony got his wish and became a made man after killin’ a couple of guys that had murdered two Outfit-connected brothers and an innocent waitress. They did it without permission from the bosses and in an area where many of the bosses lived. After that, Tony’s reputation grew as an earner, and an enforcer the Outfit could count on to do whatever needed to be done.
In 1971, while I was servin’ time in Statesville Prison in Illinois, the bosses sent Tony to Las Vegas to keep an eye on their casino interests there. When I was released in 1974, Tony asked me to come to Vegas and work with him, but I turned him down because I wanted to remain in Chicago and even try to open a legitimate business. But I learned that gettin’ out of the criminal life wasn’t as easy as I thought, and it wasn’t long before I returned to crime.
I did okay for a few years, and then I started havin’ trouble with the law and the Outfit. There
were two kinds of cops in Chicago then, the honest ones and the crooks. The honest ones wanted to put me away and the crooked ones wanted a piece of everything I made. The Outfit wanted part of my scores, too. And if you didn’t pay ‘em there was a good chance you’d end up dead. So in 1979, when Tony again invited me to join him in Vegas, I was more than ready to put Chicago behind me and start fresh out there.
I served as Tony’s underboss, and put together a crew to watch his back and provide muscle for him. When we weren’t doin’ things for Tony we could steal to earn money, and we did. Us guys came to be called the Hole in the Wall Gang because of the way we got into the buildings we robbed.
In 1982, Tony and me had a fallin’ out. Facin’ the possibility of spendin’ the rest of my life in prison or gettin’ whacked by Tony or some other Outfit guy, I rolled and became a government witness. I testified against my former associates in court and appeared in front of several crime commissions across the country.
I later left the Witness Protection Program with a new identity and began livin’ life as a legitimate small businessman. And I served as a consultant to the 1995 movie Casino, in which I appeared in several scenes as a hit man.
What you’re gonna read in this book is my story told entirely in my own words. From the streets of Chicago and Vegas to Witness Protection and Casino, I tell it all. When you finish you’ll know the inside story of what it was like to be a career criminal and the real Tony Spilotro. You may not like me very much, but that’s okay. What you do need to know is that everything I’ve told you is the truth, just the way it happened.
Frank Cullotta
August 23, 2013
PART ONE
CHICAGO
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CHAPTER ONE
THE FIRST HOLE
You know, I got this label of “Hole in the Wall Gang” leader when I lived in Las Vegas. But in all reality, I should’ve had it in the late fall of 1957. That’s when I made my first hole to do a burglary. And it wasn’t just through a wall—it was through the floor in a bank buildin’ in Indiana. I was filled in on that score by Tony Spilotro and my friend Dicky [Richard] Gorman. There were three other guys involved with us, all from around Grand and Ogden in Chicago. One of ‘em was a guy named Joey. He went on to become a made man and a big guy in the Outfit, but back then he was just an associate. The other two guys were Joey’s friends. I didn’t know ‘em and I didn’t need to know ‘em. All I knew was that we had to work together.
When Tony approached me about the score, I didn’t know what it involved and I didn’t care. Tony told me there was a lot of money to be made and that was enough for me. It wasn’t until later that he told me what it was all about. We were on our way to this hick town in Indiana a couple hours out of Chicago. Me, Tony and Dicky were in one car and the other three guys in another. Tony said, “You know, these old farmers around here don’t trust the banks. They won’t deposit their money in the bank, but they will stash it in there in a safety deposit box.”
So that was it—we were gonna take down a bank. Tony explained that one of the guys in the other car had found out that this particular bank was where a lot of the farmers kept their money in safety deposit boxes. He and the others cased the bank and knew exactly where the safety deposit vault was located. They also found there was a vacant buildin’ adjoinin’ the bank and that both the vacant buildin’ and the bank had basements. We were goin’ there to take another look around and plan the best way to get in and out of the bank without gettin’ pinched.
After we looked it over, everyone agreed that the empty buildin’ with a basement adjoinin’ the bank’s made for a perfect setup. There were no windows in either of the basements so, once we got inside, it would be almost impossible to get detected. The plan we came up with was that we’d break into the vacant buildin’, go down to the basement, dig through the adjoinin’ wall and enter the basement of the bank. From there we’d go up through the bank floor right into where the safety deposit boxes were.
Not long after that scoutin’ trip we headed back to Indiana in two work cars (stolen vehicles that were fictitiously registered). We were carryin’ everything we needed for the job—an acetylene torch and portable tanks, crow bars, a lock-puller that we filed down to better grab the door lock to the vacant buildin’ and pull it out, a couple of sledge hammers, hacksaws, lock punches, screwdrivers, flashlights, walkie-talkies, a small stepladder, six or seven duffle bags to carry the merchandise, and my personal contribution—a homemade police radio.
That radio was somethin’ I was really proud of. The police scanners you see today hadn’t been invented yet. But as an up and comin’ thief I learned early on how important it was to know what the cops were up to while you were on a score. So I contacted a guy named Ronnie who was an expert with electronics and radios. I told him what I wanted and that it had to be small enough to fit in a camera case so it would be easy to conceal. We went over radio book after radio book. When we finished several days later, Ronnie’s face broke into a smile and he said, “We can do it. All we have to do is build circuit boards.”
Because the calls weren’t being scanned, the radio needed only one crystal. But we used three so we could switch channels. All we had to do was find out the frequencies the cops used where we’d be workin’ and get the right crystals. For power we used four regular square batteries. I was concerned that if the cops found out about the radios they’d change their procedures. So we only built a few and sold the extras to guys I considered to be the best thieves—those with the least chance of bein’ caught. Not one of our radios ever fell into police hands.
Anyway, we pulled into that hick town on a Friday afternoon. It got dark early that time of year, so we figured if we got into that first buildin’ around 6:30 or so it would give us up to two full days to complete the job.
Besides our burglary stuff, we brought our own food and drinks. Drinkin’ would be minimal to limit urinatin’ inside the buildin’s. We’d all wear gloves. No one would be allowed to smoke inside the buildin’s and we would clean up all our trash before we left. Nothin’ would be left behind for the cops to use to identify us.
When we arrived at the bank, we pulled the car with all the equipment up next to the vacant buildin’ and the other car parked down the street where the driver could keep an eye on things and listen to the police radio. Usin’ the lock-puller and screwdriver we got the lock out of the door to the first buildin’ in a few seconds. We brought all our equipment inside, put the lock back in the door and left. Usin’ both cars, we drove around town for about a half hour listenin’ to the police radio and lookin’ for anything suspicious. We kept in touch by walkie-talkie. When we were sure nobody had seen the break-in we were ready to get to work.
We parked the car we were goin’ to use to transport the loot in an area where there were other vehicles so it would be less likely to draw attention. We drove back to the bank in the other car and the five of us that were goin’ to do the actual burglary got out and re-entered the vacant buildin’. After puttin’ the door lock back in place we moved all our stuff into the basement. We located a light switch and found the power was still on. Not havin’ to work by flashlight made it a lot easier.
I think the guy in the surveillance car had the toughest job. To me it was hard and tedious work. He had to sit there and listen to the police calls and watch for anything that would indicate they were on to us. He could drive around a little as long as he stayed within range of the walkie-talkies. And when he was parked he had to lie down in the seat to make it look like an unoccupied vehicle. It wasn’t anything I’d want to do.
