MCA Music & the Mafia:
Did the Justice Department cut Reagan's Hollywood pals a break?

It’s actually unlikely to find a simple three scroll slot 30 win line machine like the old days anymore. Now online slots offer three scroll games, five scroll games, and variations that take some games up to 100 win lines. One of the most common variations you’ll encounter is free slot machines with Wild symbols. Game 2000 features two slot games combined into one. Here you can win money from both sets of reels by forming winning combos in both sets. Regarding payouts and entertainment, the slot is a good one to try. That is why you will get pleasure when you play free Jackpot 2000 slot machine game online. Characterized with 3 reels and 5 paylines, this fun casino slot game has classic sound and symbols that gives you a real-world-casino feel. The icons adorning the reels are mostly images of fruits, but slight variation is noticeable with stars and joker. The game Jackpot 2000 has 3 reels and 5 paylines. With this slot, you will be able to get back in time. To play this wheel of fortune that is developed and works on the basis of the Betsoft software is a real joy. Classic sound and symbols that we are used to see in the fruit machines of such type are what we will enjoy while playing this slot. Slot machine gratis anni 2000 full.

Morris Levy
Buddy Knox
Strange Crew: Tommy James And The Mob - The Daily Record
Ghent, New York

A number of mafia figures were regular visitors to the Roulette building, including Gaetano “Corky” Vastola, a New Jersey gangster and one of the owners of the label. Tommy James also frequented the company’s office, observing enough to learn why Levy had a reputation for using strong-arm tactics.

Regardie's published this story in its June 1988 edition.

Among those seized in a dawn sweep were Morris Levy, president of New York City-based Roulette Records; Howard Fisher, Roulette’s controller, and Dominick Canterino, reputedly a leader in New.
In his 2010 biography 'Me, the Mob, and the Music,' singer Tommy James wrote that Morris Levy, the Mafia-connected head of Roulette Records, had arranged the attack. All of Rodgers' most successful singles had been released by Roulette.
Roulette Records was an American record company and label founded in 1957 by George Goldner, Joe Kolsky, Morris Levy and Phil Kahl, with creative control given to producers and songwriters Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore. Levy was appointed director. The label had known ties to New York City mobsters. Levy ran the label with an iron fist.

In March 1984 the executives of the nation's record companies gathered at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida for the annual convention of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers. Buyers and sellers in the $ 4.5 billion recording business had come together to unveil their new catalogs, to socialize, and to make deals.

One of those who had come to do a little business was a mobster named Salvatore James Pisello, who had connections to major organized crime operations in the New York City area. Pisello wasn't the only mobster at the convention. A series of record and tape counterfeiting operations had led federal investigators to suspect that organized crime figures were worming their way into the lucrative music business, and the presence of several hoods at the convention confirmed their suspicions.

None of the mobsters in attendance had Pisello's cachet, however. He was there not as a greasy hood trying to strong-arm a small-time distributor but as a representative of MCA Records, a subsidiary of MCA Incorporated, the most powerful force in the entertainment industry. Pisello had come to make a relatively small deal on MCA's behalf -- to sell a little more than $ 1 million worth of out-of-date records -- but his appearance was significant. One of the industry's giants was being represented by a mobster. How deeply had the industry been infiltrated? Four years after the convention there's still no answer to that question. But there's a new question: Why has the Justice Department dropped its investigation of the ties between Pisello and MCA?

Last December, according to sources in the Justice Department, the Los Angeles prosecutor who had started the investigation was called to Washington and told by top officials of the Strike Force Against Organized Crime to eliminate MCA from the probe. David Margolis, the strike force's chief, and Michael DeFeo, his deputy, told Marvin Rudnick, the prosecutor, that he could pursue a tax case against Pisello, who had earned about $ 600,000 in income from his dealings with MCA, but that he couldn't call several of MCA's executives as witnesses nor could he try to determine the exact nature of Pisello's relationship with MCA.

The action raises a host of troubling questions and has prompted a preliminary investigation by a House subcommittee. While spokesmen for the Justice Department and MCA refuse to comment on the case, the House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee has interviewed witnesses in an attempt to determine if hearings are warranted and whether Justice Department officials acted properly in killing the investigation.

The case is certainly worth examining. Why, for instance, when the entire record industry is under the scrutiny of grand juries in at least five cities, would one major record company be exempted from investigation? Why would a supposedly reputable business get involved in a series of apparently unprofitable deals with a man of dubious background?

One element of the case makes the whole matter even more curious: the names of some of MCA's high-placed friends. These include Robert Strauss, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and an MCA board member; Howard Baker, a former U.S. senator and a former MCA board member; and Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States and once one of MCA's most important clients.

Interviews with industry sources and law enforcement officials, court documents, and MCA's own records indicate that there's an unusual relationship between the Mafia figure and the Fortune 500 company -- a relationship that seems to be just the sort of thing that the Justice Department is supposed to investigate.

At the end of 1987, when Justice Department officials ended the probe of MCA, they knew the following:

* Pisello is an active participant in the world of organized crime. His name appears on numerous federal reports, where he is identified as a high-ranking soldier of the Carlo Gambino crime family in New York (which is currently headed by mobster John Gotti) and as an alleged narcotics trafficker with links to drug dealers in Mexico, Italy, and Panama.

* Pisello had close business ties with several hoods more powerful than he; some of them had recently been indicted for trying to infiltrate the record industry.

* MCA started to work with Pisello in 1983, although he had no previous experience in the record business.

* MCA lost money on every deal it made through Pisello. The company appears to have lost as much as $ 3 million on these deals, while Pisello made at least $ 600,000.

* MCA executives may have made false and misleading statements to federal officials who were investigating the Pisello case.

* At least six executives of MCA Records were subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Five of them refused to cooperate unless they were granted immunity from prosecution.

* An argument erupted over the relationship between MCA Records and Pisello at an MCA board meeting in 1985. Howard Baker, who was then a board member, demanded that the executives who were involved with Pisello either cooperate with federal officials or be fired. Several of these officials subsequently received raises and promotions.

* MCA continued to deal with Pisello after his underworld ties were made public and he was convicted of tax evasion in 1985.

On April 8, 1988 Pisello was again convicted of tax evasion for failing to report most of the money he had made in his dealings with MCA.

For 22 of the years that Ronald Reagan pursued a career in show business, MCA was his talent agency. Lew Wasserman, the company's chairman, represented Reagan during the actor's e

Roulette Records Mafia