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

The couple’s harrowing experience started at their Las Vegas home.

Two men disguised with faux facial hair and odd outfits nabbed First National Bank of Nevada executive Reno N. Fruzza as he entered his garage at about 9 p.m. on Monday, May 23, 1977. They held him, 56, and his wife Polly, 50, captive there, overnight, at gunpoint.

Reno had worked for the financial institution for 36-plus years. Polly had had a career as a Western comedy star named Polly Possum in the 1950s and ’60s. The two were active in the community, avid fishermen and big art and antiques collectors.

The next morning, the kidnappers injected the Fruzzos with a poison requiring an antidote to stave off death, they told the couple. They instructed Reno to retrieve $1.22 million dollars from his bank’s vault and then follow directions he’d receive in notes left for him in various places. Otherwise, they’d withhold the antidote from Polly, and she’d die.

Elusive Money Swap

Reno obtained the cash and while doing so, told some bank employees what was happening. Per the typewritten note in his 1963 Cadillac’s glove compartment, he then went to the phone booth outside the Knight’s Inn. Meanwhile, his co-workers had notified the police who’d caught up to and started following Reno but allegedly lost him in traffic.

The next note told him to go into room 125 of the Sahara hotel-casino. There, in an ashtray was another instruction, to find and use the 1964 beige Cadillac sedan in the parking lot to follow spray paint marks on the road. Subsequently, various notes and Polaroid photos led Reno through numerous small rural towns, including Goodsprings, Sloan, Jean and Sandy Valley, and finally to the Calvada Inn in Pahrump, about 60 miles from Vegas. He arrived there at about 1 p.m., and was to stay in its Pony Express Bar until further notice.

While he was there, the perpetrators removed the money from the Cadillac’s trunk. They transferred it to a yellow Cessna 172 (which had false identifying numbers on it) and flew from Pahrump to the North Las Vegas Air Terminal, where they got in waiting cars and left. They phoned Reno at about 3 p.m., thanked him for his cooperation and said he was free to go. The freed captive immediately called police, who subsequently found Polly handcuffed to a bed post in Las Vegas’ Showboat hotel-casino.

Neither Polly nor Reno had been hurt, and the supposed poison they’d been injected with had been a hoax, requiring no lifesaving remedy.

Suspects Identified

FBI agents on the case determined the two culprits were Paul Michael Kodelja, a 30-year-old craps dealer at Circus Circus in Las Vegas and previously Harrah’s in Reno, and 50-year-old Craig Otte. Kodelja was a licensed pilot with no criminal background. Otte, however, had a record including burglary, larceny and other petty crimes. Most recently, though, he allegedly had robbed a Los Angeles bank of $40,000 in 1975, charges for which were pending against him in 1977.

For Otte and Kodelja’s criminal scheme, the federal government charged them with conspiracy, stealing bank money, assault with dangerous weapons and kidnapping.

Accountability On Horizon

The younger of the two turned himself in 10 days after the crimes and after his attorney Oscar Goodman negotiated his surrender. Kodelja posted $150,000 in bail and was released from the Clark County Jail. After pleading innocent to the charges, he turned to the Nevada Supreme Court for dismissal of the counts against him on the grounds that the grand jury indictment contained ambiguous language and other technical problems.

Kodelja, however, lost that appeal in November 1977. A trial date was set for January 4, 1978.

As for Otte, he’d disappeared. The stolen $1.22 million had, too.

————————————–

The story concludes in next week’s post, Casino Dealer, Accomplice Execute Elaborate Crime in Las Vegas, Part II.

Sources