Friday, Oct. 10, 2003 | 5:41 a.m.
Excerpts from "Of Rats and Men," followed by comments by Jon Ralston:
"I wasn't interested in making money or working at a prestigious firm. I was interested in helping people. It was only a matter of luck that I made a lot of money helping people."
-- Young post-law school grad Goodman explains to Smith how he felt at that time. I suppose it couldn't have been that he chose the kind of people to help who had a lot of money. What luck.
"I had never run into that kind of deception before. I didn't know the ways of evil men and politics and power. These were all eye-openers to me."
-- Young lawyer Goodman, telling the author how he felt after defending a black man in Las Vegas, referring to the district attorney's office. It was an early sign of Goodman's strange sense of good and evil. Once he got to know the ways of the good men of the Mafia, he didn't seem so outraged as he accepted their cash and gifts.
"Nobody will ever believe this, but I never had any idea that Chicago and Kansas City and Milwaukee were running the Stardust, Fremont, Marina and Hacienda. I didn't know that. I knew that (Allen) Glick was there and I thought that he was the boss. And I knew that (Lefty) Rosenthal exercised some influence, but I never knew to what degree. I knew that Rosenthal had known Spilotro, but I never really thought that Rosenthal was part of Chicago ... I was a square guy who was doing everything as though I thought it was all legit."
-- Goodman tells the author that unlike everyone else at the time, when he represented Rosenthal and Spilotro, he had no idea what was going on. Why would nobody believe that? Notice the interesting phraseology, too -- "as though I thought ..." Yes, as though.
"When they decided, in their zeal to put away Jimmy Chagra, to stoop so low as to use this vicious, evil, conniving human being, this subhuman being, they handed me a mallet to hit them with."
-- Chagra lawyer Goodman, informing the author how he felt about the government using a witness named Jerry Ray James, a career criminal, to make their case against another one of his fine, upstanding clients, this one suspected of shooting a federal judge, who could never be described with such adjectival animus.
"He afforded me the opportunity of fulfilling my own prophecy of defending the Constitution."
-- Spilotro lawyer Goodman, explaining to the author partly why Tony the Ant was so good to him. His own prophecy? Oscar the Prophet?
"You want to go to a show or a restaurant in any city?.....You call up one of these fellas. I don't have to give the maitre d' three hundred bucks when I sit down. I don't have to give him anything. I do, because I like to be generous, but everything's taken care of for you. I don't know how they do it."
-- A seemingly confounded Goodman, telling his biographer that he just can't figure out how mobsters like Nick Civella, who once got him baseball tickets behind home plate, can get such neat stuff for themselves. How do they do it? It's a mystery.
"If there's one thing I'm not, it's a moralist. I mean, when people come into my office and sit down, I really don't care if they did what they're charged with. I'm there to make sure their rights are protected."
-- The Goodman philosophy of life, neatly laid out to the author in the context of the Harry Claiborne affair. If he doesn't ask them about their guilt, I wonder if Goodman asks prospective clients how many zeroes are in their bank accounts.
"Nicky may have been a lot of things, but he was also a family man. Nicky had two sons, Nicky Junior and Mark ... Nicky was sensitive about Mark. Because of the publicity he was getting, the kid was teased constantly at school. Eventually, the kid hanged himself ... Nicky blamed the government and the media."
-- Goodman telling Smith about family man Nicky Scarfo, who also was accused of being a murderer and drug trafficker as the head of a crime family. Yes, it must have been the prosecutors and the Fourth Estate that caused his son to kill himself, not dad's chosen way of life.
"They were caught, but they wanted to have their dignity."
-- Goodman again encapsulates for Smith his philosophy of life, talking not of the homeless languishing on Fremont Street but of his aging underworld clients who wanted better food.
Yes, I am serious. And so was Goodman.
"That's the kind of guys they are."
-- Goodman tells Smith what stand-up guys his mob clients were during the mayor's race, staying away from him so people wouldn't get the wrong impression. I wonder what impression that would be.
"I made a mistake. I didn't read the script first to see how Tony would be depicted. I enjoyed being a part of the movie and I found the stars and Scorsese to be interesting people, but I wish I'd never done it. I thought it would be a more balanced portrait of everyone, but I should have known better."
-- Goodman tells Smith that he was shocked -- shocked -- to find out that the movie "Casino" would portray Tony Spilotro as a vicious killer. So he never read the script before he agreed to do the movie? Or during the making of the film? That's how large his ego is, how much he craves the spotlight, that he would sell out his client just for a few minutes for himself on the silver screen? I, for one, don't believe it.
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