Herbie Blitzstein
Herbie Blitzstein, who helped Anthony Spilotro oversee Chicago mob interests for more than a decade in Las Vegas, met a violent end, much like his crony.
That notoriety dated back to the days when Herbert 'Fat Herbie' Blitzstein was best known as an associate of mob enforcer Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro. Jump to: General, Art, Business, Computing, Medicine, Miscellaneous, Religion, Science, Slang, Sports, Tech, Phrases We found one dictionary with English definitions that includes the word herbie blitzstein: Click on the first link on a line below to go directly to a page where 'herbie blitzstein' is defined. In the end, mobster Fat Herbie Blitzstein wasn’t even that fat. Two heart bypass operations during eight years in the joint had wasted away the extra flesh. His descent, from mob enforcer’s. The Herbie Blitzstein Murder Trial By Allan May When Chicago mobster Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro was sent to Las Vegas to oversee the Chicago Outfit’s interests, he brought along some people from Chicago to provide muscle for him. One of them was Herbert Blitzstein. A mountain of a man at six foot, 300 pounds, he was known as “Fat. The blitzstein heist. Herbert ‘Fat Herbie’ Blitzstein is a notorious businessman who is the head of the Blitzstein Imperium. Not a lot is known about Fat Herbie since he avoids public appearances and runs his business from his office. He is supposed to be outrageously rich.
A business associate who went to Blitzstein's townhouse Tuesday morning found him shot to death inside. Blitzstein had been shot once by an unknown assailant, police said.
The 61-year-old Blitzstein, known as 'Fat Herbie,' recently had worked at a used car lot. He died much the same as did Spilotro, who was found beaten to death along with his brother, Michael, in an Illinois cornfield in 1986.
'They were always together,' said lawyer Oscar Goodman, who occasionally represented Spilotro and Blitzstein. 'They were good friends and good fellas together. It's a terrible shame they both had to meet such tragic endings.'
Herbie Blitzstein Murder
Blitzstein had lived quietly since his release from prison in 1991 until a few months ago, when state gaming officials began an effort to ban him from casinos. Blitzstein had served five years in prison on fraud charges
Blitzstein was Spilotro's closest associate during the 1970s and early 1980s, when Spilotro ran operations for the Chicago mob in Las Vegas.
He was indicted on racketeering charges along with Spilotro in 1985, but they were dropped when a witness declined to testify against him.
After Spilotro was killed in 1986 while awaiting retrial on the racketeering charges, organized crime influence waned in Las Vegas.
Metro homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said Blitzstein was shot in the upper body, but he declined to say where. He said the body was found in the living room of the townhouse, which Blitzstein rented. Petersen said Blitzstein was last heard from about 7 p.m. the night before.
'I can't understand why anyone would want to take the time to kill Herbie,' Goodman said.
Back in the old days, Fat Herbie Blitzstein was a somebody, a man to step aside from, under Tony Spilotro, back in the 1980's when Spilotro and his crew ruled Vegas. Nicky the Ant Spilotro was Chicago representative in Vegas and since Fat Herbie was Tony the Hat's top loan shark, Fat Herbie could do what he wanted to do, say what he wanted to say, and take whatever he wanted to take.
Then the bosses back home ordered that Tony the Ant be turned into trunk music, by his own crew. They whacked him in an Indiana cornfield and left him buried half alive. After that, Fat Herbie was just another Vegas hustler looking for a buck. The boys back in Chicago didn't want to have anything to do with him, hell, they didn't want anything to do with Vegas anymore.
Then in January of 1997, the outfit killed Fat Herbie. A hitman put two in his skull as he sat in a black leather easy chair in his Vegas home. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
The problem was that Fat Herbie stayed obnoxious and greedy up till the day he died because he still figured he was under Chicago protection.
But nobody else saw it that way, including the Los Angeles mob, called the Micky Mouse Mafia, and its new partner in Vegas, the Buffalo New York family. Together they decided to move in on Vegas in a big way and would start with Fat Herbie Blitzstein's rackets.
A meeting was held in L.A., Johnny Branco, an ex-con out of Los Angeles who was also wearing a wire for the FBI, was there, so was Carmine Milano, underboss of the Los Angeles mob and two of his boys, Steve Cino and Steve Caruso.
Bobby Panaro, out of Buffalo was there, the FBI figures he represented New York's interest in the deal.
It was agreed at the meeting that after they took over Fat Herbie's operations, that he would be allowed to retire out of the game, and he wouldn't be killed. The Buffalo people wanted it that way.
What they didn't know was that the L.A. hoods had already decided to whack Herbie, if for no other reason than to show the world that Los Angeles was no longer taking orders from Chicago or anybody else.
It's always somebody you know. In Herbie's case, the guy who sold him out was Joe DeLuca, who had fronted for Fat Herbie's Iona car repair shop. A few days before the hit, DeLuca met with Panaro, Cino, Branco and Caruso at a Denny's restaurant outside Vegas and divided up Fat Herbie's belongings.
Wayne Matecki Mob
DeLuca told the hoods how much they could expect to make off of Fat Herbie's various scams and then told them that Herbie kept most of his loot inside his house. He even told them where it was and how much of it there was.
DeLuca sold his friend out for a larger share in the car repair business and agreed to let the hoods, either Buffalo or L.A., continue to run insurance scams out of the shop.
Herbie Occupation
Adding insult to injury, Mauriello told the FBI that he managed to hire two hitmen, Richard Friedman, and Antone Davi, 29, to take Fat Herbie out...for $3,500.
Peter Caruso burglarized Blitzstein's home a few hours before the hit took place, he got about $50,000 worth of loot and on his way out left the door open for the hit men he had hired through Wise guy Alfred Mauriello.
John Bronco Mob
It was late when Fat Herbie got home. He sat down in an oversized black leather chair in his office off the living room and closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them, the hitmen, Friedman and Davi, were standing over him, guns drawn.
'Why me?' Fat Herbie asked. 'What did I do?'
They answered him by pouring six shots into his oversized chest.
Mr. Tuohy can be reached at MobStudy@aol.com.