I am adding a new method of supporting the podcast. If you have the venmo app, how about donating an average of fifty cents an episode or just hit me up for a buck every time you think of it. In this second installment, I will talk about the activities of the Hole in the Wall gang as they stole, drank, gambled and ate pizza in Las Vegas. Remember during this time the Chicago outfit and 3 other Midwestern families had manipulated the Teamsters Union pension fund to loan money to a man named Allen Glick. He purchased the Stardust, the Hacienda, the Fremont and the Marina. The Stardust would be the flagship. Frank Balistrieri, boss of the Milwaukee family, had ordered Glick to promote a current stardust employee named Frank Rosenthal to a position of authority in his corporation. In 1971, Chicago Outfit boss Joseph “Joey Doves” Aiuppa ordered Tony Spilotro to move to Las Vegas in support of their interests. Aiuppa is replacing an aging Chicago Outfit member named Marshal Caifano who has been Chicago’s man in Vegas. Spilotro opens a gift shop in Circus Circus under his often-used alias, Anthony Stuart. The Circus Circus owner, Jay Sarno, had received a 43-million-dollar Teamster’s loan and could not question this new gift shop operator. Tony Spilotro will eventually be found out by the Nevada Gaming Control board and placed in the Black Book of banned persons. As a item of interest, Spilotro invested $70,000.00 in this Gift shop and will sell it for over $700,000.00 dollars. Law enforcement is starting to watch Spilotro and he must use other people to pass messages back and forth between himself and Lefty Rosenthal. They need to avoid any overt contact because the FBI has forged a working relationship with Las Vegas Metro Police Intelligence and Nevada Gaming Control and they are all watching closely by the later 1970s. Frank Cullotta was not known to Vegas authorities and Spilotro brings him out to Las Vegas to assist.
During this time, Spilotro needs to make money and he knows how to do big time scores, like jewelry stores, banks, fur stores and robbing drug dealers. He opens a jewelry store called The Gold Rush limited to use as his headquarters and a front to fence stolen good. This store was just off the strip at 228 West Sahara and is a vacant lot now. By this time in his life Tony Spilotro is the only real boss of organized crime in Las Vegas. As the boss, tony does not go on scores. Aiuppa has assigned Joey the Clown or Joseph Lombardo to be Spilotor’s Chicago contact. Spilotro has recruited Frank Cullotta who will recruit other Chicago burglars to join his crew. Between Spilotro and Cullotta, they put together guys who law enforcement will name The Hole in the Wall Gang.
One of the men Frank Cullotta recruited was a career criminal named Ernie Davino. Unlike the others, Ernie Davino was not from Chicago, he was a New Jersey mobster who had migrated to Las Vegas on his own. He was the son of Ernest “Tubby” Davino, a leg breaker and enforcer for New York mobster Albert Anastasia in the 1950s. Ernie Davino would later claim that he and a man named Leo Guardino started the Hole in the Wall Gang and eventually fell in with Frank Cullotta and Tony Spilotro. I think Ernie Davino and Frank Cullotta both wanted to be the alpha male of the gang but Frank’s connection to Tony Spilotro gave him the upper hand. No matter who started this gang, it is undisputed that by the end, this was Frank Cullotta and Tony Spilotro’s gang.
Another burglar Frank recruited was Wayne Matecki. He was a good candidate because he never moved out to Las Vegas and was unknown to local cops plus he didn’t have a criminal record. Anytime Frank lined up a score, Mateki would fly into town and leave immediately after from an airport in California or Arizona. Frank tested Mateki early on by having him hide inside a Las Vegas store after closing. Frank directed him to hide inside when the store closed.

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