Charles E. Sebastian

1913

As what the Los Angeles Times called the “the first sally in the greatest campaign that has ever been waged for the elimination of gambling” (April 7, 1913), Los Angeles Chief of Police Charles E. Sebastian offered a $100 reward ($2,500 today) for information that led to the arrest and conviction of anyone operating an illegal casino in the city.

One existing operation in particular was being run in a prominent hotel and another in a well-known office building, both downtown. Officers had had difficulty procuring evidence to convict the proprietors of these enterprises because entry solely was by introduction.

1950

In late 1948, Hollywood movie producer, Frank N. Seltzer — known for the movies, Jungle Patrol and Let’s Live Again, which debuted that same year — began research for his next project, 711 Ocean Drive, starring Edmond O’Brien and Joanne Dru.

He intended for it to expose the “bookie racket,” or “wire service as a new industry for the hoodlums who lost out through repeal” of Prohibition,” he said (Nevada State Journal, June 15, 1950).

He planned to film in a handful of California and Nevada cities. However, Lieutenant William “Bill” Burns, with the Los Angeles Police Department, warned Seltzer he was “walking into a bear trap” in Las Vegas.

In 1949, after the script was ready, someone from the public relations firm that represented the City of Las Vegas told Seltzer they could make available famous hotel-casinos on the Strip for filming. A separate hotel owner directly offered his property for the Sin City sequences. Further, a city councilman and Chamber of Commerce member assured the producer they’d cooperate fully with production.

Obstruction, Harassment Begin

Two months later, however, when production manager, Orville Fouse, went to Las Vegas, the hotel-casino owner who had offered his property for filming asked him to his office, where there were three “bruisers leaning against the wall,” Seltzer described. The hotelier told Fouse the trio believed making the movie would be “harmful to the best interests of the city.” The PR company also reneged. Seltzer’s cameramen were denied a rental car and city airport facility services and told to return to Los Angeles where they belonged.

A false rumor that Seltzer was working on a biopic of the late mobster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, spread around Sin City. The bogus story that Seltzer was filming for a story about mobster Mickey Cohen was perpetrated in Palm Springs.

“We are going to stop you in any way we can,” Las Vegas gamblers made clear to Seltzer.

“Frank didn’t realize what danger was in this flicker until some mobsters from Las Vegas threatened

to run him out of town — loaded with lead — when we went there on location,” O’Brien said (Lubbock Morning Avalanche, Aug. 17, 1950).

At that point, LAPD’s Burns assigned himself and four of his Gangster Squad men to escort Seltzer and the cast throughout filming.

Despite the warnings and obstructionism, Seltzer moved forward with his cinematic project as best he could. He and his production team were prevented from filming in Vegas, at Lake Mead and a well-known Los Angeles restaurant. He was nearly stopped from shooting in Palm Springs.

When attempts were made to block them from shooting scenes near Boulder Dam, Seltzer had his attorneys ask the Secretary of the Interior, Oscar L. Chapman, to intervene, which he did. Consequently, U.S. forest rangers were assigned to the crew, and filming took place but allegedly remained fraught with danger.

For instance, O’Brien, the movie’s leading man, recalled what really happened during the final sequence when his character, Eddie, was supposed to be shot with blanks by 20 riflemen during a chase through Boulder Dam, “After the take, I turned around and there were three bullet holes in a car windshield — about a foot from my head” (Lubbock Morning Avalanche, Aug. 17, 1950). “The cops cleared out all spectators including a few hoods in their midst. We had to do that scene over three more times — and, believe me, I ‘died’ each time.”

The International News Service reported, “As police know, 711 was in constant danger from hoodlums and was protected by a battery of police and plainclothesmen … 711 almost cost the lives of a few persons connected with it, including O’Brien’s.”

Seltzer presumed the gamblers’ main objection to his picture was that it revealed how past posting — faking odds and placing bets after races occurred — could beat the bookies.

Reactions Upon Movie Debut

Upon 711 Ocean Drive’s 1950 release, some critics claimed it fell short of being a hard-hitting, revelatory movie about the gambling industry. Instead, they said, it was a modest melodrama at best, “no more than an average crime picture with some colorful but vague details thrown in,” reported the Los Angeles Times (July 20, 1950).

Others lauded it for being the first to portray “the inside story of the infamous syndicate and its hoodlum empire, with its terror and violence,” and “forcefully reveal[ing] the many facets of the bookmaking business which takes millions of dollars daily from thousands of small bettors: housewives, mechanics, office workers, students,” according to Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune (July 31, 1950).

Sources

In 1971, various people began complaining to the local police department they’d gotten fleeced at an informal casino setup in California’s San Fernando Valley (yes, the location of, like, “valley girl” fame, a culture that developed a decade later).

The Dirty Details

Consequently, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Strike Force investigated the grievances. They discovered an illegal gambling ring, one that floated, or moved to avoid detection by law enforcement. In this case, it had been held at a different, rented home each time and the venture had been run for four months.

Peter J. Milano, Los Angeles Mobster

The men behind it employed prostitutes to lure their johns into playing various dice and card games of chance, including blackjack and craps. These were/are illegal in California. Then they cheated the players out of as much money as possible during the gambling by secretly using loaded dice, marked cards and a crooked wheel, all of which they’d acquired in Las Vegas.

They netted as much as $250,000 a month (about $1.5 million today)!

In December 1972, the LAPD raided the operation, and a grand jury ruling followed in November 1973. It indicted seven men on these charges: 1) conspiring to violate gambling laws, 2) traveling between states to promote an illegal gambling business and 3) conducting an unlawful enterprise.

The alleged co-conspirators were:

• Peter John Milano, 47, a Northridge resident, a made* member of La Cosa Nostra’s Los Angeles Nick Licata Family and a bail bondsman. As the suspected kingpin of the gambling scheme, he’d provided police protection and had offered to put up bond if any of them had gotten arrested.

• Martin C. Calaway, 47, a Beverly Hills attorney who allegedly had bankrolled the scheme with $25,000, for which he was to receive 20 percent of the profits.

• Luigi Gelfuso, 48, operator of a Fresno trash collection company, who supposedly had provided protection and debt collections.

• John Joseph Vaccaro Jr., 33, an unemployed Las Vegas construction worker believed to have run the games.

• Tony Endreola, 49, and Santo Albert Manfre, 39, were said to have overseen the games to ensure Milano had gotten his fair share of the profits. What the involvement of Harry P. Coloduros, 35, had been isn’t known.

Verdict Insurance

Six days before the trial was to start, a masked person executed John L. Dubcek, 31, and his wife Francis Ann, 27 in Las Vegas at close range just before midnight as the two entered the dark hallway leading to their apartment. He first shot John in the back then hit Francis Ann in the face as she turned around.

The two had worked at the Westward Ho casino. He’d been a shift manager, which was ironic as he was an expert slot machine cheater and had gotten into trouble for illegal gambling previously. He also had been charged in 1972 with running a crooked gambling operation in Van Nuys with Vaccaro, but the case had been dropped.

John Dubcek had been scheduled to testify as a prosecution witness in the trial of the septet just as he’d done before the grand jury in the same matter. Although his and his wife’s murders never were solved, the FBI and other agencies believed that Milano, Calaway, Gelfuso and Vacarro had had him killed to silence him. In fact, the prosecutor averred he had proof the four had plotted the hit on the courthouse steps the day they’d been arraigned. Despite knowing that two contracts had been out on his life, Dubcek had refused police protection repeatedly.

“It was definitely a rubout job” by a professional hitman, a police investigator said (Press-Telegram, March 21, 1974).

Due to the murders, the judge postponed the trial for four and a half months.

Judgment Day

When it finally took place, in mid-August, one of the men involved, Coloduros, testified for the government and implicated the others in the illegal gambling ring, yet Milano and Calaway professed their innocence.

The six-man, six-woman jury, after deliberating for three days, returned a guilty verdict for the three major players — Milano, Calaway and Gelfuso. A month later, U.S. District Court Judge Jesse. W. Curtis sentenced them each to four-year terms in federal prison.

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* “Made” denotes one’s status as a fully initiated member of the Mafia, one that requires, for one, carrying out a contract killing on the organization’s behalf.

Sources