- Gus Greenbaum
Gus Greenbaum (1894–
December 3 ,1958 ) was a member of theChicago Outfit and syndicate accountant for Las Vegas casino operations.An associate of
Meyer Lansky , Greenbaum joined his organization onNew York 'sLower East Side sometime during the mid to late 1910s. During Prohibition, Greenbaum began working with the Chicago Outfit managing the southwest division of theTrans-America race wire service in 1928. Sent to Las Vegas shortly after WWII, Greenbaum gained control over syndicate gambling operations, withMorris Rosen andMoe Sedway . With Sedway, Greenbaum ran theEl Cortez in 1945 until he was asked by William R. Wilkerson to manage casino operations for theFlamingo Hotel . In 1946,Bugsy Siegel took over construction and creative control of the Flamingo up until it was shut down in January 1947 due to mounting casino losses.After Siegel's death, Greenbaum brought the struggling casino out of debt within several months, eventually controlling several other syndicate casinos and bookmaking operations in Arizona within several years. As a leading syndicate leader in Las Vegas, Greenbaum would later order the deaths of
Tony Brancato andTony Tombino for robbing a syndicate hotel. Shortly after becoming manager of the Riviera Hotel, Greenbaum's excessive gambling, womanizing, and drug habits eventually caused him to begin skimming from casino operations. However, his embezzlement was soon discovered by the Chicago syndicate, and onDecember 3 ,1958 , both he and his wife were found in their Phoenix home with their throats slashed.Further reading
*Fried, Albert. "The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America". New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. ISBN 0-231-09683-6
References
*Kelly, Robert J. "Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States". Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
*Sifakis, Carl. "The Mafia Encyclopedia". New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
*Sifakis, Carl. "The Encyclopedia of American Crime". New York: Facts on File Inc., 2001. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0External links
* [http://americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_164.html The Greenbaum Murder] by John William Tuohy
* [http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/reststory/azproject.html HiddenMysteries Conspiracy Archive - The Rest of the Story: THE ARIZONA PROJECT]
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