Word: costelloism
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Costello once described the deal to a federal grand jury...
...Costello also "laid off" bets with big bookies and kept a finger in real estate. After repeal, with financial backing from William Helis, the "Golden Greek" (who demanded 20,000 cases of choice Scotch for security), Costello and Kastel bought control of Britain's Whiteley Distillery, producers of House of Lords and King's Ransom Scotch. The board of directors agreed to pay Costello ?5,000 ($24,400) a year simply for "frequenting first-class hotels and restaurants and asking to be supplied with the company's brands." But the slot machines were Costello's gold...
...machine a year, brought in an annual profit of $3,000,000. But in 1934. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered the machines seized, personally banged up dozens of them with a sledge hammer while photographers recorded his prowess. He also called fellow Italian and longtime admirer Frank Costello a bum, a tinhorn gambler, and a punk. That was the end of Tru-Mint and of Costello's regard for the Little Flower...
Helpful Huey. It was not the end of the slot-machine king. Costello had cultivated Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, a man he suspected of having liberal views on certain types of financial matters. The friendship paid off. Within a few months, Huey had granted Costello and Kastel a concession to operate their slots in Louisiana, and a new river of nickels began jingling into their coffers...
...himself about 25 to 30 thousand dollars per year to donate toward some fund . . . There was supposed to be a tax to the state and that tax was going to some relief of some kind . . . That was his proposal, but it never happened because he died." How did Costello happen to be singled out for so profitable a deal? "Maybe I was the lucky one," he dryly told the jury...