Interference (41 page)

In November 1975, the month of his bypass surgery, and still with nothing on Rozelle, Rosenbloom exploded at the commissioner during an owners' meeting, called him “a crook” and actually threatened him. “If I can't get you in this room, I'll get you outside it,” Rosenbloom told Rozelle. “I will not return to any meeting while this man is in the chair.” Rosenbloom then stormed out of the meeting. The only owner to support Rosenbloom in the aftermath of his tirade was Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders. Rosenbloom had once said of Davis, who had been a frequent houseguest of the Rosenbloom family since the early 1960s, “I like Al Davis because he is a mean, conniving s.o.b., just like I am.”

Rosenbloom then began a year-long boycott of the NFL's
owners' meetings. His son Steve attended the meetings in his place.

Rozelle, who appeared to be trying to avoid full-scale war with Rosenbloom, found himself in a dilemma the following month. Bill Bidwill, the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, had discovered that Rosenbloom, knowingly or unknowingly, had been skimming money from the NFL revenue pool when postseason games were played in the Los Angeles Coliseum. The Rams' owner, like all other NFL owners, was required to forward all monies, after expenses, earned from play-off games to NFL headquarters for equal distribution among all NFL teams.

Rosenbloom had withheld 10 percent of the gross, claiming that it was rent for the Coliseum. However, Bidwill suspected and Rozelle's records confirmed that Rosenbloom owed no further rent to the Coliseum management by the end of the regular season. Thus, the 10 percent sum, deducted as rent—approximately $270,000—wound up in Rosenbloom's pocket.

Confronting Rosenbloom in private, Rozelle gave the Rams' owner the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the apparent skim was simply a bookkeeping error. An NFL committee looked into the matter and concluded that Rosenbloom indeed owed the league the money. The most outspoken of those at the meeting was Tex Schramm of the Dallas Cowboys, who was reportedly relentless in his assault on Rosenbloom—who, in turn, was so outraged by the attack that he didn't speak to Schramm for two years.

Furious with the ruling, Rosenbloom completely severed his relationship with Rozelle and those club owners who supported the commissioner. The embattled Rozelle became philosophical—and a little sarcastic. “I'm sorry Carroll is disturbed,” the commissioner said, “but I know he'll grow to love me once again.”

Soon after, Rosenbloom may have struck back again. During the spring of 1976, two IRS investigators showed up at the NFL's New York offices. “They wanted to see Pete Rozelle and the League's treasurer,” writes Harris, “and it was not a casual visit.” The IRS agents read them their Miranda rights and told them that they were under criminal investigation. “The object of the IRS's inquiry was the $300,000 loan at seven percent which the League had given Rozelle in 1974 for the purchase of his new place in Westchester.”
³
The IRS investigation continued for two
years before finally being dropped. Rozelle was never charged with any wrongdoing.

A tentative peace between Rosenbloom and Rozelle was reached in November 1976 after a three-man committee—Edward Bennett Williams of the Washington Redskins, Leon Hess of the New York Jets, and Charles Sullivan of the New England Patriots—met with Rosenbloom in Los Angeles. “They seemed to have the strange feeling that the league would be better off with me there than without me there,” Rosenbloom told reporter Rich Roberts. “Of course, I have strong feelings about how the league should be run. My only dispute with Pete is that I want him to go back to being what he was—the best commissioner in pro sports.”

With Rosenbloom's conciliatory tone, a settlement was reached—although the Rosenbloom-Rozelle relationship remained forever strained.

While Rosenbloom was recovering from bypass surgery, Hugh F. Culverhouse of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers officially joined the ranks of NFL owners in 1976 and quickly became the most powerful force in the league. The foundation for Culver-house's power in the NFL was and is his banking connections, particularly in Florida, and his seemingly unsurpassed knowledge of the U.S. tax laws, which the NFL owners took advantage of whenever necessary.

Originally, Culverhouse had been outbid for the Los Angeles Rams by the Carroll Rosenbloom/Robert Irsay swap deal in 1972. Supposedly a deal had been struck between the NFL and Culverhouse, promising him the edge when the next franchise became available.

But Culverhouse was outbid again in his quest for the new Tampa Bay franchise on October 30, 1974, by developer Thomas D. McCloskey, the son of Philadelphia Democratic power broker Matt McCloskey. However, after the deal appeared secure, McCloskey, who had been outbid by Leonard Tose in an effort to buy the Philadelphia Eagles in 1969, shocked everyone two weeks after his bid for the Buccaneers had been accepted by indicating that he could not raise the $16 million franchise price. Culverhouse then stepped up and slapped down $4 million as his first installment. He was immediately awarded the team.
⁴

The delay between Culverhouse's purchase of the Buccaneers
in 1974 and its first NFL game in 1976 resulted from the renovation of Tampa Stadium, which increased its seating capacity from 46,500 to 72,000.

According to a member of the Buccaneers, Tampa mob boss Santos Trafficante may have played a key role in the negotiations over the stadium, with or without Culverhouse's knowledge. The player quoted a top member of the Buccaneers' front office as saying, “You can't do anything in this town without Trafficante's approval. In fact, if it wasn't for Trafficante, we wouldn't even have this team.”

Trafficante was among the most powerful Mafia figures in America. He controlled Florida's narcotics network and gambling operations, particularly the “bolita lottery,” a Cuban numbers game. A protégé of Meyer Lansky, Trafficante was Lansky's principal enforcer in the crime syndicate's Cuban gambling establishments in pre-Castro Cuba. After Castro overthrew the Cuban government and closed the casinos, Trafficante was arrested and held in custody. Soon after his release and return to the United States, he was recruited by the CIA for his participation in the CIA/Mafia plots to assassinate Castro.
⁵
He was also a close friend and business partner with Carlos Marcello of New Orleans.

Although there is no further evidence of a connection between Trafficante and the Tampa Bay team, there is a strong connection between Trafficante's mentor, Meyer Lansky, and Culverhouse.

Culverhouse, an ex-Golden Gloves boxer, did his undergraduate work at and received his law degree from the University of Alabama. He also served in the Army Air Force during World War II as the head of logistics in the Air Transport Command and retired as a full colonel in the Air Force Reserves. After spending two years as an assistant attorney general in Alabama, he became a top attorney in the Florida office of the Internal Revenue Service. His principal responsibility while with the IRS was investigating tax liabilities of suspected organized-crime figures in the wake of the Kefauver Committee.

Culverhouse, who was appointed by President Kennedy to his White House tax advisory committee, had founded his own law firm—Culverhouse, Tomlinson, Mills, DeCarion and Anderson—based in Jacksonville and Miami in 1956. He represented Bebe Rebozo during the Watergate Hearings. His son, attorney
Hugh Culverhouse, Jr., was on the legal team headed by William Hundley that defended former Attorney General John Mitchell during his prosecution for Watergate-related crimes.

Also a real estate developer in Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, Culverhouse became a director of Major Realty, a Florida-based real estate company. Another director was George Smathers of Florida—who was a member of the U.S. Senate while serving on the board.
⁶
Major Realty had been a frequent target of federal investigations during the 1960s and 1970s because so many of its investors, attorneys, lenders, and clients had ties to Florida mobsters, especially Meyer Lansky and Santos Trafficante.

A confidential 1978 report prepared by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) emphasized that “Major Realty has had a past history of organized-crime associations.” Max Orovitz, who founded Major Realty in 1961, was one of Lansky's closest friends and business associates. He had been a partner of Carroll Rosenbloom and Lou Chesler and had replaced Chesler as the president of the General Development Corporation in 1965. Three years later, Orovitz was convicted in New York for violations of federal stock-registration laws.

Another key player in Major Realty was financier Benjamin Sigelbaum, who was responsible for providing loans to the real estate company and keeping it afloat in 1966. He was also identified in a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report as the “financial investor for Meyer Lansky”; in other words, a bagman. Implicated in the Bobby Baker scandal, Sigelbaum had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 1936. Twenty-two years later, President Eisenhower gave him a full pardon. However, the state of Israel subsequently rejected Sigelbaum's application for citizenship—because of his close association with Lansky.

After years of selling Florida land at a loss, Major Realty finally announced a profit in 1968 based on the sale of 175 acres of land for $3,500,000. The news caused its stock to jump from $0.11 a share to $14 a share during a twenty-month period. The SEC moved in to probe the transaction. At the close of its investigation, the agency called the land sale “a mere fiction designed to create the illusion of profits or value as a basis for sale of securities.”

Culverhouse was not personally accused of any wrongdoing.

33 On the Principal Subjects List

THE ANNOUNCED BUYER OF Major Realty's land in 1968 was Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr., a major builder of shopping malls around the United States, who was alleged by a variety of law-enforcement agencies to have business ties with top organized-crime figures, including Meyer Lansky, Carlos Marcello, and Santos Trafficante.

In 1970, DeBartolo's name had appeared on the U.S. Justice Department's Organized Crime Principal Subjects List, a catalogue of people who are suspected of having links to organized crime. Later, DeBartolo challenged the listing of his name on the register through his attorney, Charles F. C. Ruff. At the time of this action, DeBartolo was attempting to obtain a license to operate a racetrack in Oklahoma and didn't want the list to prejudice the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission, which issues the licenses.

In response to this challenge, David Margolis, the chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, responded to Ruff. Margolis wrote, “The so-called Principal Subjects List was created in the late 1960s and distributed to a number of government agencies in 1971. Individuals whose names appeared in investigative reports were placed on the list, although they were not necessarily the subjects of criminal investigations. Over the years the list became outdated, and persons remained on it even though they were no longer of interest to the Department of Justice, were not the subjects of any investigation or were de-
ceased.” Margolis added that the list had not been in use since August 1975—after an order had been issued by Margolis's predecessor that “the list should be destroyed.”

DeBartolo was born in the Smoky Hollow section of Youngs-town, Ohio, in 1909.
¹
He received his degree in civil engineering from Notre Dame and made his fortune in the construction business, primarily as a builder of shopping centers. Between 1952 and 1954, DeBartolo and members of his company were subjected to six bombings of their offices and shopping centers. No one was killed, and the bombing spree was never solved. In 1960, he purchased the Thistledown racetrack near Cleveland, and the following year he bought the nearby Randall Park racetrack. The concessions for these tracks were handled by the Emprise Corporation, a Buffalo-based sports-services conglomerate, which was indicted and convicted in 1972 for racketeering and fronting for several organized-crime figures. In 1973, DeBartolo bought another racetrack, Balmoral, just south of Chicago.

Also during the 1960s, DeBartolo had engaged in a joint development in Florida with Lou Chesler and his General Development Corporation. According to their contract, Chesler and General Development were responsible for building houses in Port Malabar, Port Charlotte, Port St. Lucie, and other locations on both Florida coasts, while DeBartolo handled all commercial construction, such as shopping centers.

By 1965, DeBartolo had begun building shopping malls, beginning with the Summit Mall in Fairlawn, Ohio, near Akron. A 1978 classified report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement described him as “a very wealthy, powerful, influential person with organized-crime connections in Ohio. Subject deals in land purchases, construction, and development of large shopping centers throughout the United States.”

DeBartolo is also an admitted gambler and has had a $100,000 line of credit at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Also the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League and the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, DeBartolo had made several unsuccessful attempts to purchase major-league baseball teams during the late 1970s. Among those teams he tried to purchase were the Chicago White Sox (twice), Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, and Seattle Mariners; he also tried to bring a major-league baseball team to New Orleans.

In the end, DeBartolo either withdrew his bid when it became
clear that he would be facing stiff opposition, or he was flat out rejected because of his ties to racetracks and gamblers.
²
“My father has too much class for baseball,” Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., told
The New York Times
.

In March 1977, the elder DeBartolo purchased 90 percent of the stock of the San Francisco 49ers for $17.6 million and made it a subsidiary of his corporation. The team was then given to his thirty-year-old son. “Eddie Jr. bought it from me,” DeBartolo told
The Pittsburgh Press
. “Everyone thinks I gave it to him, but Eddie financed it and paid for it.” However, the senior DeBartolo personally secured his son's purchase.