Monday, April 6, 1998 | 10:17 a.m.
A trial that's expected to recall a time when the mob wielded hidden influence on the Strip two decades ago gets under way in federal court today.
Jury selection for a half-dozen defendants charged with diverting millions to mob figures from a $34 million judgment over the sale of the Tropicana hotel-casino was to begin today.
Former Tropicana landlords Fred and Ed Doumani, who won the $34 million in 1989, a decade after they sold the resort, are among those standing trial in the courtroom of visiting Senior U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush of Seattle.
Lawyers from the Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section in Washington have been brought in to try the case.
The government contends that most of the money from the breach-of-contract judgment won by the Doumanis was supposed to go to their bankrupt company, Hotel Conquistador. But millions allegedly wound up in the hands of Midwest mobsters and their associates.
The case is one of the remaining links at the federal courthouse to an era of mob influence within the casino industry.
Before the Doumanis sold the Tropicana, the resort was the target of a massive Justice Department investigation into alleged casino skimming by the Kansas City mob. Several Mafia bosses were convicted and sent to jail in the probe. The Doumanis, however, never were charged.
Recently, Quackenbush dismissed charges against Harold Gewerter, the former Doumani lawyer who obtained a $5.1 million fee for winning the court judgment.
Gewerter contended the government had reneged on a deal to give him immunity from prosecution in return for his cooperation in the probe.
Gewerter is not expected to be called to testify during the trial, which is expected to last 3-4 weeks.
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