When I was looking for people to interview for Gangland Wire, I was directed by my friend Denny Griffin to Frank Culotta. Frank was a former Mob enforcer and part of Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro’s “Hole In The Wall” gang.
I was directed to a retired F.B.I. agent, Dennis Arnoldy, who had turned Frank to testify against Spilotro and others. Dennis had Culotta call me to discuss an interview. I offered him $500.00 to sit for an interview. He was still in hiding at that time and he said it would cost him more than $500.00 to come to Vegas for the interview. I politely declined further negotiations because my short talk with him demonstrated that he had not been involved directly with the skimming and knew nothing of the Kansas City La Cosa Nostra family. He was a real deal mob associate just not a “made” guy in the know about the higher echelon mobsters in Kansas City and Chicago. He said the only thing he knew about the skim was that Tony told him it was none of his business.
Mr. Culotta, after the release of his biography, Culotta, written with true crime author, Dennis Griffin, had received a lot of publicity from his association with the Las Vegas Mob. Since that time, Frank has created a career based on his former mob activities and associations.
One interesting story is the story of a murder in McHenry County, Illinois. Frank revealed a story about a “hit” that an associate had done in a suburb of Chicago. The son of that victim, Paul Sharff, learned of Culotta’s story from his babysitter who had read Frank’s book. Paul started investigating why the McHenry Illinois County Sheriff had never pursued this lead. He was to write a book titled Murder in McHenry about this murder and botched investigation.
Frank Culotta has joined forces with his co-author, Denny Griffin and a man named Robert Allen to start Mob-Con (convention) and Vegas Mob Tour which is a tour of Las Vegas sites made famous in the film Casino.