Columnist Jeff German: Los Angeles mob showing no signs of resurgence in LV

Tuesday, July 15, 1997 | 9:46 a.m.

FOUR MONTHS AFTER the FBI smashed the Los Angeles mob's bid to muscle in on Las Vegas street rackets, there's no sign the much-criticized crime family is back in business here.

But that hardly surprises current and former lawmen who've earned a living tracking the Mafia.

They say Los Angeles mobsters have kept their distance as talk persists that more federal indictments are forthcoming.

Lying low probably is the smartest thing the bungling Los Angeles bosses have done in years.

"They were always a weak sister," says one ex-lawman. "They never really had the organization and numbers other mob families had back East."

Frank Cullotta, one of the FBI's more celebrated mob witnesses, says the Los Angeles Mafia hasn't been well-regarded in the underworld, either.

"I don't think they're too bright," says Cullotta, a childhood chum and witness against the late Chicago mob kingpin Anthony Spilotro.

Cullotta's testimony was credited with helping authorities break up Spilotro's rackets empire here prior to his 1986 gangland slaying.

Most mob watchers would agree with Cullotta's opinion of the Los Angeles crime family.

Among the 12 defendants indicted on federal racketeering and related charges last April was Louis Caruso, a reputed "capo" in the Los Angeles mob. Caruso allegedly reported directly to suspected mob kingpins Peter and Carmine Milano.

Caruso didn't exactly earn himself high marks in recruiting talent to the organization.

The man Caruso tabbed to engineer the Las Vegas takeover was John Branco, who turned out to be an FBI informant.

But Branco wasn't the FBI's only weapon against L.A. mobsters. It made use of at least two other informants, an undercover agent and extensive court-approved wiretaps.

Nearly every move the Los Angeles family made here -- except for the Jan. 6 slaying of Chicago underworld figure Herbie Blitzstein -- was watched by the FBI.

The investigation has shown that the Milano brothers also may have had a tough time reining in some of their associates.

Defendant Peter Caruso, described as a "one-man crime wave," is one example.

Caruso, not related to Louis, was charged with burglarizing Blitzstein's Las Vegas home and planning his murder.

He reportedly was sought out by Los Angeles bosses to help them take over Blitzstein's loan-sharking and insurance fraud operations. Killing Blitzstein, however, wasn't part of the plan.

That option apparently had been ruled out by everybody but Caruso.

A guy working for a normal crime family could have gotten "whacked" for that kind of free-lancing.

Says one mob watcher: "Los Angeles never seemed to have as much control over its people as the other families."

Though the FBI probe also has shaken up the Buffalo mob here, its impact on the Chicago syndicate is what intrigues Cullotta the most.

Blitzstein, well liked by Chicago hoods, was said to be Spilotro's right-hand man in Las Vegas. Spilotro had been given the assignment of running the Chicago mob's operations here.

Word is one of the defendants in the current racketeering case, 45-year-old Anthony Delulio, has relatives who are well-known members of the Chicago mob.

Cullotta, who lives under a new identity, says Delulio's alleged role in the burglary of Blitzstein's home is embarrassing to the boys in Chicago.

"It might cause a problem to some people back there for a Chicago guy to have participated," he says.

Cullotta suggests that some kind of retaliation could take place, though lawmen downplay that possibility.

The Chicago mob, you'll recall, relinquished control of the streets here after Spilotro's death. And since then, it has shown little interest in making a comeback.

Lawmen are hoping the Los Angeles mob has seen the merits of staying away, too.