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The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department wasn’t alone in making Tony Spilotro a priority target in the late 1970s. The FBI was also beefing up its forces in Vegas, bringing in additional personnel from other offices. Among the new arrivals were Emmett Michaels, Charlie Parsons, Dennis Arnoldy, Lynn Ferrin, Gary Magnesen, and Joseph Yablonsky. All six played key roles in the eventual downfall of the Spilotro gang in Las Vegas, and other mobsters across the country in conjunction with the casino skimming investigations.
Emmett Michaels was assigned to the Las Vegas field office in 1977. He was appointed as supervisor of the Surveillance Squad, a part of the Special Operations Group. He held this position until his retirement in 1985. His unit was responsible for conducting surveillance activities, including the installation and monitoring of authorized wiretaps and electronic eavesdropping equipment.
Charlie Parsons got to Vegas in 1979. He was assigned as supervisor of the Organized Crime Squad, a job he kept until he was transferred to the Los Angeles field office in 1984. He later became the special agent in charge (SAC) of that office and retired from that post in 1996 after a 27-year career.
Dennis Arnoldy was assigned to Las Vegas from Little Rock, Arkansas, in August 1980. Upon his arrival he was made co-case agent with special agent Joe Gersky on the Spilotro investigations. When agent Gersky became a polygraph examiner, Arnoldy became the case agent. As part of his duties, he handled the debriefing and interrogation of a Spilotro lieutenant who turned government witness.
Lynn Ferrin was assigned to Las Vegas in September 1980. He became the case agent for the Strawman and Strawman-Trans Sterling investigations that broke the mob’s casino skimming operations. He was transferred to Reno in 1995 and retired in 2001 with nearly 29 years of service.
Joseph Yablonsky was transferred to Las Vegas from Cincinnati in 1980 as the new SAC. He remained the FBI’s top man in the Vegas office until his retirement in December 1983, with 32 years of service. Yablonsky had a proven track record of developing cases against organized-crime figures and was handpicked for the Sin City assignment by FBI Director William Webster. During his term, Yablonsky oversaw an operation consisting of 140 employees, 82 of whom were special agents and five were supervisors, and a $5 million annual budget.
Strike Force
In addition, the Organized Crime Strike Force of the Department of Justice ? a program established by Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s for the sole purpose of fighting organized crime ? provided resident Special Attorneys to coordinate investigative efforts between federal agencies, obtain necessary warrants, evaluate evidence and prosecute cases in the courts. The unit had a maximum of three attorneys assigned to Las Vegas at any one time.
Stanley Hunterton was one of those lawyers. Hunterton grew up in New York. After completing law school in 1975, he joined the Strike Force. He was initially assigned to the Detroit office; in 1978 he was sent to Las Vegas.
Things hadn’t been going very well for the law in the time preceding Hunterton’s arrival. Metro was reeling from the Joe Blasko scandal, the FBI was recovering from allegations of agent misconduct, and Tony Spilotro was somehow beating back every attempt to put him out of business.
“A lack of confidence in Metro kept us from having an institutional association with them at the time. But we [Department of Justice lawyers] and the FBI were later able to develop several relationships with Metro personnel on a personal level,” Hunterton recalls.
As Emmett Michaels, Stanley Hunterton, Charlie Parsons, Dennis Arnoldy, Lynn Ferrin, Joe Yablonsky, and their colleagues arrived in Las Vegas they became united in their mission: rid Las Vegas of the influence of organized crime, including hidden mob ownership of the casinos, and the related financial crimes. Like their local law-enforcement brethren, the federal forces launched a vigorous campaign against the gangsters controlling and looting Sin City.
Next: Frank Cullotta
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