LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Mayor Carolyn Goodman is in her third, and final, term in office. Come election season 2024, she will be termed out, ushering in a new era for the city. Las Vegas will have a mayor that is not a Goodman spouse for the first time in a quarter century.
Channel 13's exclusive interview and televised special, The Goodman Years, aired Tuesday, March 25.
One of the many stories the current mayor and her husband, former Mayor Oscar Goodman, shared were about his days in the courtroom.
Before he was mayor, Oscar Goodman was a very successful attorney. The National Law Journal once called him one of the "15 Best Trial Lawyers in America." Today, you can see some of the highlights from his career on display at The Mob Museum.
"Oscar was the necessary champion of the cause," says The Mob Museum president and CEO, Jonathan Ullman.
WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE
Thanks to Oscar Goodman, this national museum first opened its doors in 2012. More than a decade later, it attracts hundreds of thousands of annual visitors to downtown Las Vegas to see the history of law enforcement's fight against organized crime.
"Those of us that are local know that Oscar has a particular wealth of experience in the subject matter," Ullman said.
He credits Goodman with turning this former post office and federal courthouse into the attraction it is today.
"It was under Oscar's leadership that the building was transferred from the federal government to the city," Ullman said.
Before serving three terms as mayor, Goodman was a defense attorney for a long list of reputed mobsters. He actually tried his very first federal case in the Mob Museum building back in 1967.
"The defendants were being charged with stealing a car and transporting across state lines. I believe the defendants had taken a car from Boston and drove it down to Las Vegas. There were two of them, one was named Kaplan and the other was Horowitz," Ullman said.
GOODMAN WINS
Goodman won that case. But he's modest about earning the victory.
"I think the jury really felt sorry for me because I didn't know what I was doing. Matter of fact, I was so nervous the day there was going to be jury selection," Goodman said. "I went down — and I'm still waiting for the Mob museum to do this — on the third step on the right-hand side, when you're entering the mob museum, that's where I threw up."
He went on to defend a number of accused organized crime figures and admits sometimes their hiring practices were rather unusual.
"I got a phone call and the fellow on the other end of the line had a gruff voice and he said, come to such and such an address. 'We have something for you. We're going to hire you on a case.' I said — because I'm very brave — I said, 'Sweetheart you need to take a ride with me,'" Goodman said.
He says he and Carolyn drove to a home where he knocked on the door and was handed an envelope and told he'd better win the case.
"So I came outside. I said, 'Sweetheart, can you drive around the corner?' And we stopped the car and I opened up the envelope and it had thirty $100 bills in it. And I said, 'I've never seen so much money at one time, and I better win the case,'" Goodman said.
FAMOUS FIGURES
Some of his best-known cases involve infamous figures like Meyer Lansky and "Little Nicky" Scarfo. Plus, former Stardust Casino boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, and "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, portrayed in the 1995 movie "Casino," where Goodman made a cameo playing himself.
The Mob Museum also includes an exhibit for the Jimmy Chagra case. Ullman describes it as the case that put Goodman on the map.
"Getting Chagra off, I mean, by some accounts, it was a case of the century," Ullman said. "The FBI spent more money on building that case against Jimmy Chagra than they had spent on any former case, going back to the JFK assassination."
Goodman's cases are just a small part of what's on display at the museum. Ullman says the public has an insatiable appetite when it comes to the mob and organized crime — and Goodman is a big reason this museum is here today.
"It's really difficult to imagine there being a mob museum without Oscar Goodman. We regard Oscar as our chief visionary," Ullman said.
Find more exclusive interviews and insight into how the Goodmans have shaped Las Vegas at ktnv.com/goodmanyears.
