LAS VEGAS — Monday, Oct. 4, 1982 |
After dining with associates, Marty Kane, Ruby Goldstein, and Stanley Green at Tony Roma’s, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal left the restaurant and got into his 1981 Cadillac Eldorado.
He turned the ignition and both were blown to shreds.
Lefty survived. The Eldorado did not.
Special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency said, “If I had seen the car and not known what had happened I would figure for sure anyone in the car would not have made it.”
At the scene, Rosenthal refused to sign a crime report or discuss the matter with investigators.
Two nights after the assassination attempt, a bruised, burned, and bandaged Rosenthal invited three reporters, including George Knapp, to his home for an orchestrated press-conference.
Knapp asked Rosenthal who was behind the bombing and Lefty replied, “Well it certainly wasn’t the Boy Scouts of America.”
Asked if he thought his lifelong friend, Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, might be behind it, Rosenthal’s response, according to Knapp, was something like “I hope not.”
Lefty was asked if the FBI had contacted him, he said yes but emphasized he had no intention of cooperating with the government.
The reporters believe they were invited to Lefty’s home because he wanted to use the media “to assure his associates that he wasn’t going to rat them out.”
