A Look Back

In 1970, when Nathan “Nate” S. Jacobson debuted the Kings Castle resort in Incline Village, Lady Godiva, naked and atop a horse, greeted visitors at the property’s arched entrance.

Five years later, Hyatt Hotels Corp. acquired Kings Castle. The new owner removed and auctioned off all of the themed décor and donated the proceeds to charity. Godiva was among the items.

William “Bill” Anderson, who owned the now defunct Ponderosa Ranch, snatched her up. Sadly, he passed away in 2008, and what happened to Godiva, if anything, between that time and when she moved to the capital city, is a mystery.

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Do you know where she was during that period?

In case you missed it, Part I is available here.

1978-1984

Paul Michael Kodelja, who was about to stand trial on January 4, 1978 for his role in the kidnapping of Reno and Polly Fruzza and the theft of $1.22 million in cash from the First National Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas, was in trouble again. This time it was for purchasing a weapon while under indictment.

He bought the gun for his girlfriend, Linda Naomi Bruno, 36, for her to protect herself from her husband, Thomas Joseph Bruno. Linda said that in August 1977, because of her association with Kodelja, Thomas had beaten her to the extent that she was hospitalized, and he’d threatened to kill the two, the Las Vegas Sun reported (Dec. 3, 1977). Linda also noted that Thomas was involved in “syndicate-type work.”

Previously, Thomas had been the bodyguard of Kings Castle hotel-casino owner Nathan “Nate” S. Jacobson for about two years starting in September 1971. During that stint at the Incline Village-based resort, Thomas had been charged, along with Jacobson, of kidnapping, coercion and false imprisonment for allegedly beating up and holding the keno supervisor, suspected of cheating the keno game, against his will, overnight. (This story is covered at length in the book, A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution.)

In Las Vegas, Kodelja again was jailed and his bail set at $100,000. To cover it, Linda used her and Thomas’ two homes as collateral.

When the new year came, Kodelja was gone and so was Linda.

Craig Otte

Craig Otte, Kodelja’s reported accomplice in the Nevada crimes, remained in the wind.

Across The Border

A year later, on January 5, 1979, Toronto Metropolitan Police officers arrested a man for exposing himself to women at a local shopping center. In his possession were IDs for five different males with addresses in Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick. A fingerprint check, however, revealed the suspect’s true identity — Paul Michael Kodelja — and that he was wanted by the FBI.

In Kodelja’s Canadian apartment, the police spotted a map on which five banks were circled. That led them to $244,500 in cash ($872,000 today) and about $60,000 worth ($214,000 today) of diamond, gold, silver and platinum jewelry — 11 rings, seven sets of earrings, seven bracelets, four brooches, four necklaces and three sets of cufflinks — in safety deposit boxes. Officers also found Linda in Toronto and $10,000 ($36,000 today) in cash in her purse.

While in the Great White North, “to hide his identity, [Kodelja] paid cash for everything — $8,660 for a new car, $215 a month for the apartment and $1,001 for season tickets to baseball games,” noted The Lethbridge Herald (Jan. 15, 1979). “His next step was to be plastic surgery in Switzerland, and finally a life of luxury on a South Sea island.”

After a year on the run, Kodelja and Linda were extradited to Nevada. Subsequently, Kodelja pleaded guilty to the robbery and extortion charges and, ultimately, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

As for Linda, whether she was charged and/or convicted of any crime(s), is unknown, but she and Thomas got divorced in November of that year.

Aloha From Hawaii

Kona police arrested Craig Otte at the island’s airport in June 1980 and returned him to The Silver State. He’d evaded capture for three years.

The fugitive accepted a plea deal and received two consecutive sentences, one for the Nevada kidnapping-robbery and the other for the 1975 Los Angeles bank robbery. He appealed, asserting that his sentences should’ve been concurrent based on the recommendation in the plea agreement. However, in 1984, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit disagreed, and thus, his back-to-back prison terms stood.

Sources

First, I’d like to thank you all for your readership and support. It means a lot.

On another note, the gambling history book, A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution, is finally here! I offer you the first chapter below.

The nonfiction book now is available for purchase as a paperback ($14.95) and an e-book ($7.99) in both EPUB and Kindle formats. To buy, click here.

Here’s a glimpse again at the story:

Their new, nature-inspired hotel stood amid a Northern Nevada township of more trees than people. The raw beauty of that lakeside spot on the cusp of development portended enormous getaway potential. The owners, legitimate businessmen, strove to add a casino, but no one would finance it.

Then Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters pension fund wormed its way in. The locals objected to a gambling house in their neighborhood. Shady characters usurped the enterprise. Lives were threatened. State agents witnessed an employed stickman using misspot dice. Felonious crimes occurred on the property, allegedly. Lawsuits by and against one owner crept into the double digits. And those events were just a handful of a mounting pile of troubles.

This is the story of a gambling business’ journey from concept to stability during the 1960s and ’70s, a time when the industry was Mob infiltrated, often volatile, theft and cheating prone, and unpredictably policed.

That once fledgling inn now is the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino.

I wish you all a fantastic winter holiday season and new year.

Take care,

Doresa

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CHAPTER 1: 

DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD

1964

With Jimmy Hoffa and the fund’s co-trustees waiting inside their headquarters to meet him and seal the deal, California businessman Bill Swigert told the broker his company now was refusing the proffered loan.

“You are finished with the Teamsters, and you better get out of Chicago,” Norman Tyrone said while dragging a thumb across his own throat.[i]

“We got the hell out of there,” said Swigert, referring to himself and his attorney.[ii]

Desperation for financing is what had spurred William “Bill” G. Swigert, Jr. to the Windy City that autumn. He and his two partners — collectively Pacific Bridge Company & Associates (PBC&A) — recently had built and opened The Sierra Tahoe, the premier hotel in a new, sparsely inhabited, developing community on the north shore of Lake Tahoe[1] in Nevada, U.S.A. Four months later, they still needed money to cover the construction and other incurred expenses and to fund the project’s next phase, adding a casino and more guestrooms.

A few months before, Swigert had received a telephone call from Norman B. Tyrone, who’d introduced himself as a financier and had asserted he could arrange a Teamsters Pension Fund (TPF) loan for PBC&A for The Sierra Tahoe.

By that time, the TPF had underwritten more than $20 million in loans ($163 million)[2] in Nevada, for hotel-casinos, including the Riverside in Reno, and the Dunes and the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, as well as other facilities.

The TPF — formally the Central States, Southeast, Southwest Areas Pension Fund of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters — collected and managed employer contributions for retirement, disability and death benefits for its unionized truck drivers and warehouse workers in about 20 states.

One of the fund’s eight trustees was James “Jimmy” R. Hoffa, who, as the Teamsters union president, allegedly had ordered bombings, arsons, beatings and murders and had aligned himself with Mobsters nationwide.

Tyrone had arranged for PBC&A to receive $2.6 million ($21.2 million) in financing from the TPF. The loan was PBC&A’s last resort, as Swigert had exhausted all other potential options over the prior 2.5 years. Swigert and his counsel, Frank E. Farella, had flown to Chicago to finalize the transaction.

On Friday, September 25, the two men convened with Tyrone in the new riverfront, 36-story, downtown Executive House hotel, about seven blocks from the TPF’s building. Tall but portly, the man wore expensive apparel.

“Tyrone just looked dishonest,” Swigert said. “He looked like a big, tall gangster, like Al Capone[3] on steroids.”

In Tyrone’s suite, piles of papers lay strewn across the furniture. The loan liaison darted around and made and answered several calls supposedly to and from Elliott Roosevelt, who was said to be waiting in the TPF’s boardroom to meet Tyrone and his loan applicants from the West Coast. Tyrone had indicated this son of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, former United States president and first lady, was his business partner.

“God, it was almost like a show,” Swigert said about Tyrone’s behavior.[iii]

Swigert and Farella reviewed the loan papers. As a condition of the financing, PBC&A previously had agreed to pay 1 point, or 1 percent of the loan amount, which equaled $26,000 ($212,000), to the TPF for appraisals, estimates and other costs. It also had agreed to pay 2 points, which was $52,000 ($424,000), to Tyrone as commission for brokering the deal.

However, among the documents, Swigert spotted a letter that committed PBC&A to giving an additional $208,000 ($1.7 million), or 8 points, as a subsidiary loan to the International Mortgage and Statistical Corporation, supposedly Tyrone and Roosevelt’s company in the Bahamas.

“What’s this? What’s it all about?” Farella asked.

“To Swigert and Farella … the Bahamas loan had an imme-diate and unmistakable stench,” reported the Oakland Tribune.

The additional $208,000 meant PBC&A would pay 11 versus 3 points on the loan. Tyrone defended it as “a hell of a good deal”[iv] and said all TPF financings were transacted at a 10 point-minimum.[4]

Frank Sheeran, who once had been Hoffa’s right-hand man, explained to author Charles Brandt how the TPF loans worked: “Jimmy’s cut was to get a finder’s fee off the books. He took points under the table for approving the loans. Mob bosses would bring customers. The bosses would charge the customers 10 percent of the loan and split that percentage with Jimmy.”[v]

If this were to have been the case with the loan to PBC&A, then $104,000 of that $208,000 would have gone to Hoffa, the rest to Tyrone. (Tyrone wasn’t a Mob boss, but like one, he connected loan candidates and the TPF.)

When Swigert asked him what his corporation did, Tyrone explained that it was somewhat of a startup, aiming to computerize global information about potential loan sources. Farella requested the business’ latest financial reports, but Tyrone said they weren’t and wouldn’t be available. He admitted that no paper trail documenting the $208,000 disbursement would exist.

“We said that if this was a legitimate loan [to Tyrone’s firm], then there was a legitimate business reason for doing it,” Swigert recalled. “Otherwise, this clearly would be immoral and illegal.”[vi]

About then, it was time for Swigert and Farella to rendezvous with the TPF’s trustees at their 29 E. Madison Street offices. Swigert told Tyrone he and Farella would catch up with him there with a final decision on the loan. First, Swigert had to discuss with his partners the surprise term just thrust upon PBC&A, by phone. He did so.

“It didn’t take us long to decide we wanted no part of any deal like that,” Swigert said.[vii]

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[1] Often called the “Jewel of the Sierra” or “Big Blue,” Lake Tahoe straddles the California-Nevada border. With a surface area of 191 square miles, it’s North America’s largest alpine lake.

[2] With most of the dated dollar figures throughout this book, a corresponding current value is provided in parentheses immediately after. These amounts are based on 2019 United States government consumer price index data and adjusted for inflation.

[3] Alphonse “Scarface” Capone was the American Mobster who allegedly murdered his way to becoming Chicago’s organized crime boss during the U.S.’ Prohibition Era.

[4] That was true, but it was a high rate, as traditional lenders typically charged borrowers 1 to 4 origination points.

CHAPTER 1: DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD

[i] Nevada State Journal, “Teamster Fund Trial Starts on Tahoe Loan,” Jan. 26, 1971.

[ii] Interview of William G. Swigert, Jr., June 24, 2010.

[iii] Oakland Tribune, “$200,000 Fee on Loan for Teamsters,” June 5, 1970.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Brandt, Charles. I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, Hanover, N.H.: Steerforth Press, 2005. Ebook.

[vi] Interview of William G. Swigert, Jr., June 24, 2010.

[vii] Oakland Tribune, “$200,000 Fee on Loan for Teamsters,” June 5, 1970.

Hostess (princess)

1970-1975

The doorman was a knight in armor; the maître d’, a prince; the dining room hostess, a princess … Each and every one of the 900 or so employees at Kings Castle, even the phone operators, wore a costume while at work.

Kings Castle, the brainchild of Nathan “Nate” S. Jacobson, debuted in Incline Village on Lake Tahoe in Nevada in 1970. The work uniforms were just another extension of the English royalty motif that permeated the resort.

Eye-Catching Fashion

The costumes boasted vibrant colors — deep orange, Gainsborough blue, gold and silver — and , according to their famous designer Michel Fresnay, a “mod-medieval” style  (Reno Evening Gazette, July 7, 1970).

Fabrics primarily were crêpes and an imported French silk cotton used on both its shiny and matte sides. Embellishments included pearls, brass, horsehair, gold braided headdresses for the men, tiaras for the women, faux chain mail and leather.

Maître d’ (prince)

Tommy Papagna recalled wearing a court jester costume, a long-sleeved lavender top with a large collar and cuffs shaped like crowns, both yellow. He was a roulette, 21 and baccarat dealer in Kings Castle’s casino during 1973 and 1974.

“I liked wearing the costumes because they were comfortable,” he said (March 2018).

Not Just Any Designer

Jacobson chose and commissioned Fresnay to create the costume series. Fresnay, age 39 at the time and a graduate of the Beaux Arts Academy in Paris, France, had become renowned after designing Marlene Dietrich’s gowns for her appearance at the Olympia Theatre in 1962. 

Sources

1970-1975

More than nine centuries after her purposeful and likely shocking stunt* in Coventry, England, Lady Godiva provoked controversy at a hotel-casino on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore.

When Kings Castle debuted in Incline Village in 1970, a nude Lady Godiva astride a horse and flanked by two medieval, sword-wielding sentinels (all replicas, of course) welcomed guests at the resort entrance. Situated in the archway of a tall, stone wall, the long-haired beauty appeared to be about to pass through a gate and cross a drawbridge.

In Poor Taste

A contingent of Northern Nevadans considered the Lady Godiva statue offensive, presumably because the subject was naked. That sentiment extended to other elements of Kings Castle, too, including the nude revue FLESH featuring topless showgirls performed there and the “Thy Kingdom Come” sign outside the hotel.

The Nevada resort, inside and out, bore the look and feel of England’s royal architecture during its Tudor period, about 1485 to 1603, however, the real Lada Godiva had predated that by hundreds of years, having made her splash in 1040. As such, she wasn’t emblematic of the Tudor era, so why she was at Kings Castle in the first place isn’t clear. Perhaps the fact that both she and the Tudor dynasty were English was enough for then proprietor Nathan “Nate” S. Jacobson to connect the two.

Minimizing Her Effect

When Kings Castle came under new ownership, that of Jud D. McIntosh, in 1973, he sought to change the resort’s image to a family-friendly one and, thus, had Lady Godiva clothed.

Even clad in apparel, the English noblewoman only remained there two more years.

Doesn’t Fit In

After The Hyatt Corp. acquired Kings Castle in 1975 and renamed it Hyatt Lake Tahoe, it eradicated all signs of the royalty motif, transforming the facilities back to one that blended with the natural surroundings; their first iteration The Sierra Tahoe (1964 to 1966) had been designed with that very intent.

Only 1.5 months after assuming control of the hotel-casino, Hyatt auctioned off all of the medieval décor, including Lady Godiva, and donated the proceeds to the North Lake Tahoe Historical Society. As a result, Lady Godiva’s new home became Bill Anderson’s Ponderosa Ranch, a nearby theme park based on the television show Bonanza (it closed in 2004).

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* In 1040, Lady Godiva implored her husband Leofric, the Lord of Coventry, to reduce or eliminate the taxes he’d levied recently, as she found them oppressive. Knowing she was modest, he agreed to lift them if she rode her horse naked through the town’s streets. To his surprise, she did just that, after getting the local citizens to agree to not watch her carry out the challenge.

Sources