brad lewis

Brad Lewis Speaks About Hollywood Wiretap - Is The Pellicano Case New?:
In February 2006, the United States District Court Grand Jury filed a one-hundred-twelve-count sixty-page federal racketeering indictment against sleuth-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano. The indictment sounded to me like a carbon copy of Mickey Cohen’s extortion and wiretapping operations that dated back to the 1940s. The suit alleged that Pellicano used confidential police and law enforcement records, including the National Crime Information Center, to access information on actors Sylvester Stallone, Garry Shandling, Kevin Nealon, and Keith Carradine, journalists Anita Busch and Bernard Weintraub, powerhouse agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane, and former professional tennis player Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, who was married to three-times-her-age billionaire entertainment mogul Kirk Kerkorian. bugging engineer. The comparison illustrates how behind-the-scenes operations in Hollywood rely on historic paradigms, something strange yet fascinating.

Brad Lewis Speaks About Did Bugsy Siegel Really Invent Las Vegas?:
Folklore would have us believe incorrectly that Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was the brain behind the “invention” of Las Vegas. Much has been written about the neon city, and some of it filled with misconceptions about Bugsy's role. The development of Las Vegas was a lengthy process rather than a sudden surge and involved the best of the Chicago crime syndicate. The success of the transplanted idea for an entertainment hotel with gambling was dependent upon corrupt Chicago politics and its influence as far away as Nevada. In addition to arranging for legalized gambling, the Chicago syndicate needed to build the Hoover Dam; hotels without a significant water and power supply were of little use. None of this could have taken place without the guidance of people like Chicago's Curly Humphreys and attorney Sidney Korshak, both connected to Al Capone. Even with the dam and gambling goals accomplished, the boys needed the race wire – the cornerstone of gambling around the nation – and that was a long way off.