Black Book member Masterana dies in the Dominican

Frank Masterana, a gambler and bookmaker known from the Strip to Santo Domingo, died Sunday at age 80 in the Dominican Republican, according to a longtime family friend.
A member of Nevada’s list of excluded persons, better known as the Black Book, Masterana was born in Canton, Ohio Jan. 26, 1929, and moved to Las Vegas to work for “Doc” Stacher in the early 1950s.
An illegal bookmaker much of his adult life, Masterana’s name was placed in the Black Book on Oct. 19, 1988. He became known as an associate – a reluctant one, to hear Masterana tell it – of Anthony Spilotro in the early 1980s.
Following a couple trips to prison, Masterana moved his base of operations to the Dominican Republican, and according to reliable sources at the time of his death he ran more than a dozen sports betting outlets in Santo Domingo.
I met Frank many years ago when he was between government staycations. He was an intriguing character whose life was defined by illegal gambling and his son Frank's quadruplegic condition. In those days, in part to avoid detection, Masterana looked a little like Willie Nelson with a long ponytail and salt-and-pepper facial hair. He was an old-school survivor, an outlaw with a soft spot for his kids. John L. Smith Las Vegas Review Journal

A rare memory of steak-eating Spilotro

John L Smith review journal

Former mobster Anthony Fiato, who grew up with the Boston mob and became a powerhouse member of the Los Angeles La Cosa Nostra before cooperating with the FBI, read with interest my recent post on the nature of greed whether you’re a gangster like Tony Spilotro or a “financier” of the ilk of Bernard Madoff.

It reminded him of one of the times he came to Las Vegas for a meeting with Spilotro, who had considerable street clout from Chicago
to Las Vegas and out to Los Angeles. His Chicago bosses had tough Tony pegged as that city’s representative on the West Coast.

Fiato, the subject of my book “The Animal in Hollywood,” came to Las Vegas with the infamous Mike Rizzitello to meet with Spilotro regarding the completion of a drug deal at a local steakhouse.

“Tony did love good steak, and cash was his favorite dessert,” Fiato writes on his Hollywood goodfella blog (WordPress.com.) “I chopped up a drug score with Tony over a New York steak dinner in the Flame, a steakhouse in Las Vegas.”

Government witness has some choice words for former mob colleagues

Memo from Frank Cullotta to his critics: Get stuffed.

Recent columns on mob-tough-guy-turned-government-witness Frank Cullotta generated no shortage of opinions from his former friends and enemies. A couple of the printable statements were published in last Friday's column. They have motivated Cullotta to respond

I know what you're thinking: Can't these people just shoot it out on the street and get it over with?

No, that would be uncivilized

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