The dirty, rotten
scoundrel who “served” in the United States Senate for 30 years had his lawsuit
against the makers of an exercise band flatly rejected.
Four years ago, Harry
Reid blamed blindness in one eye, fractured ribs, a concussion and bruises on
an “accident” in his bathroom on New Year’s Day.
Following eight days of
testimony, an eight-member civil trial jury deliberated for about an hour
before proclaiming Reid never proved
the device he used was a TheraBand® made by Ohio-based Hygienic Corporation.
Why would I intimate
Reid’s incident with an effing rubber band wasn’t just an unfortunate encounter
between a scrawny little worm and exercise equipment?
Dirty Harry served as Nevada
gaming commissioner in the 1970s affording him the opportunity to rub elbows
with organized crime members. He entered
public service in 1987, but Reid got rich while serving in the U.S. Senate. His considerable fortune came, in large part,
from sweetheart land deals he acquired through at least one person associated
with the mob.
Not possible you
say. The mob’s been gone from Sin City
for decades, right? Nope. Vegas still celebrates Mob
Month every January. There’s even a Mob Museum whose mission it is to “advance
the public understanding of organized crime’s history and impact on American
society.”
From a published report
from Circa,
we are told a massive FBI organized crime investigation back in the 80s developed
information that Reid may have received money from a mob figure that was routed
through a friend, and subsequently took action as Nevada’s top gaming regulator
that allowed a mob-controlled casino to keep operating, according to internal Bureau
memos and wiretap tapes that escaped public notice for most of Reid’s Senate
career.
The evidence included
an interview with Joseph Agosto, a now-deceased La Cosa Nostra crime family
figure who told FBI agents he provided through an intermediary “$25,000 or
$30,000 to be used to furnish Reid’s new office” in 1977 right after Reid was
named chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.
That interview was part
of the FBI’s extensive Mafia history files that were released in 2013-14 under
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Wiretap intercepts
reviewed by Circa also captured major mob figures discussing in 1978 —a year
after the alleged gift—that Reid had helped them resolve a case that threatened
to revoke the license of a large mob-controlled casino. According to FBI
documents, the mobsters in the tapes referred to Reid by the codename they had
given him, “Clean Face” or “Clean.”
Reid’s commission opted
to fine the Stardust casino $100,000 in 1978 rather than revoke its gambling
license as Gaming Control Board regulators had recommended, the records show.
“I’m happy that Clean,
you know, was able to deliver,” the late Agosto was captured on a wiretap tape
saying as he described the reaction of a mob associate shortly after Reid
persuaded the regulatory commission to approve the fine and keep the casino
open.
Agosto, the Kansas City
mob’s top lieutenant in Las Vegas, told the FBI in a subsequent jailhouse
interview in 1983 that Reid’s action in the Stardust matter was “so
favorable," confirming the FBI’s suspicions that the regulatory decision
allowed organized crime to keep skimming funds from the casino.
One of the main
characters of the Obama sewer who would have stayed in “public service” until
they carried him out by the handles was “exercise-banded” into early
retirement.
UPDATE: Welcome readers of iOTWReport. We are grateful to the inimitable MJA for
linking to this post.
