"Don't Go to the Lakers": We Unraveled the Case of the Mob Hit That Saved Vegas

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Don't Go to the Lakers": We Unraveled the Case of the Mob Hit That Saved Vegas

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out
Host: Pablo Torre (with guest correspondent Sean Carrey)
Episode Air Date: April 2, 2026
Special Guests/Contributors: Sean Carrey (film producer), George Tarkanian, Sig Rogich, Dan Moldea, Detective Leroy Orozco
Episode Theme: The unsolved, mob-connected murder of Vic Weiss, how it derailed Jerry Tarkanian’s NBA dreams, and the ripple effect that shaped modern Las Vegas sports.

---

Episode Overview

This “talkumentary” dives deep into the mysterious and brutal 1979 murder of Vic Weiss, agent and confidant to legendary coach Jerry Tarkanian. The episode unravels competing theories – mobsters, sports gambling, and underworld intrigue – to dissect whether Weiss’s death was orchestrated to keep Tarkanian (aka “Tark the Shark”) at UNLV, thus inadvertently preserving Las Vegas’s future as a major sports mecca. Through archival tape, current interviews, detective reports, and mob folklore, Pablo Torre and Sean Carrey reconstruct a “sliding doors” moment in sports history, connecting college basketball, boxing, the NFL, and Vegas's mobbed-up past.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Las Vegas Sports Boom

[01:13 - 02:52]

• Vegas has evolved into a top-tier "sports capital" with pro teams in NHL (Golden Knights), NFL (Raiders), soon in MLB (A’s), and NBA expansion anticipated.
• None of this would be possible without Jerry Tarkanian’s success making UNLV basketball nationally relevant.
• “They were one of the most electric, high flying teams...scoring 110 points per game without a three point line.” (Sean Carrey, 02:52)

2. Tark the Shark and the Vegas Transformation

[02:53 - 04:53]

• Tarkanian's distinctive personality: an outlaw, superstitious with quirks like towel-chewing, and a magnet for celebrities (Frank Sinatra, Tupac).
• Las Vegas boosters saw Tarkanian—and high-profile college basketball—as a way to legitimize and “clean up” the city’s reputation.

3. Near-Jump to the Lakers – A Pivotal 'Sliding Doors' Moment

[07:16 - 08:38]

• In 1979, Tarkanian was offered the LA Lakers head coaching job, an unprecedented deal.
• "It was too good to pass up...They knew Magic Johnson was going to be the number one draft pick...It was too good a situation.” (Sean Carrey, 08:01)
• The move was so close, Tarkanian and his family were house-hunting in LA.
• Pop culture reflects the moment (see: HBO's "Winning Time"), but adds a dramatic mob twist.

4. The Murder of Vic Weiss – Details and Immediate Fallout

[09:09 - 13:43]

• Vic Weiss, Tarkanian’s friend/agent, attends final Lakers negotiations but goes missing, found murdered in the trunk of a Rolls Royce, hog-tied and shot.
• “Professional execution...a void in my life, and I’m really overwhelmed with hurt and grief.” (Pablo quoting Tarkanian, 10:44)
• Initial police theories and cultural narratives: Mob involvement to stop Tark from leaving Vegas.

5. Examining Theories & Mob Ties

[13:43 - 28:00]

• Social context: Las Vegas of the era was “mob adjacent,” famously personified in films like Casino.
  • “The mob in Las Vegas kept a low profile...they got away with so much because they kept a low profile.” (George Tarkanian, 16:22)
• Links to notorious mobster Anthony Spilotro (“enforcer,” basis for Joe Pesci’s character in Casino).
• Rumors: The murder was a warning to keep Tarkanian at UNLV due to the economic benefit “the mob” gleaned from his success.
• Police and journalists recount multiple possible motives: fixing boxing matches, gambling debts, acting as a bagman for NFL owners, and alleged skimming from Vegas gambling profits.

6. Other Sports Ties—Boxing, NFL, and Skimming Operations

[19:38 - 29:36]

• In boxing, Weiss worked with contender Armando Muniz and, according to some, was part of match-fixing schemes.
• His NFL connection as a bagman for LA Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom, who himself died under suspicious circumstances two months before Weiss.
• Organized crime connections run through the Stardust Casino (with Spilotro reportedly running violent enforcement).
• “The allegation was that Weiss was skimming. He was being sent with money from the LA bookmakers to Vegas. The skim in Vegas was being centered at the Stardust Hotel Casino.” (Dan Moldea, 27:09)

7. The Role of Gerald Cutter – Car Dealer and Mob Link

[31:03 - 36:14]

• Weiss’s apparent wealth was, in fact, “all a front.” He was propped up by car dealer Gerald Cutter, who had suspected mob ties.
• “We picked up...every time she turned, he go, or this guy’s in control. Then we learn the house is his, the cars are his. All this pretense of his...wasn’t any of Vic. Everything he had was Cutters.” (Detective Orozco, 34:02)
• Cutter also held life insurance and a mortgage on Weiss, profiting from his death.

8. The Smoking Gun: Taped Mob Conversations

[38:58 - 40:36]

• Police wiretaps caught a mobster telling Spilotro: “Is the Vic thing taken care of?” “It’s done.” (Detective Orozco, 39:16)
• The evidence still didn’t add up to a single clean solution.

9. The Legacy and Continuing Mystery

[40:36 - end]

• Detective Orozco and others ultimately settle on the theory: Weiss was killed for skimming from mob gambling operations, not directly to keep Tark at UNLV.
• The “message” to Tarkanian seemed more coincidental but had enormous impact: he stayed at UNLV, and Vegas's sporting ascent continued.
• “What seems clear, though, is that...modern Las Vegas...was built on the body in the trunk of that Rolls Royce.” (Torre, 43:10)
• “Yeah, he took two bullets, you know, for this to happen.” (Sean Carrey, 44:01)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [06:50] “Sig, look, she’s going down on him.” – Jerry Tarkanian (via Sean Carrey), during the infamous Vegas tour with his wife and Vegas marketing guru Sig Rogich.
• [10:44] “A void in my life and I’m really overwhelmed with hurt and grief.” – Jerry Tarkanian, on the death of Vic Weiss.
• [16:22] “...the movie Casino, which I jokingly say was a documentary, not a movie, because so many events they had in there, I remember actually happening.” – George Tarkanian
• [27:09] “The allegation was that Weiss was skimming...sent with money from LA bookmakers to Vegas...the Stardust was being managed by Lefty Rosenthal, De Niro’s character in Casino, and Tony Spilotro was his enforcer.” – Dan Moldea
• [34:02] “We introduced a guy named Jerry Cutter...then we learn the house is his, the cars are his...everything he (Vic) had was Cutter’s.” – Detective Orozco
• [39:16] “They were wired into Spilotro there....Spilotro asked the person he's talking (to): 'Is the Vic thing taken care of?' and he says, 'It's done.'" – Detective Orozco
• [43:10] “Modern Las Vegas...all of that was built on the body in the trunk of that Rolls Royce. And...that dude does deserve some amount of credit for this strange and very mobbed up chapter of sports history in America.” – Pablo Torre

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:42] – The modern sports boom in Vegas
• [07:16] – Nearly becoming Lakers coach / the "what if" moment
• [09:09] – The murder of Vic Weiss: discovery and police response
• [13:43] – Mob culture in 1970s/80s Las Vegas
• [15:28] – Anthony Spilotro: the real-life “Casino” connection
• [19:38] – Boxing and gambling: Vic's alleged other vices
• [24:05] – The NFL, Carroll Rosenbloom, and betting allegations
• [27:09] – The “Stardust skim” theory explained by crime reporter Dan Moldea
• [31:03] – Gerald Cutter’s role and the "front" of Vic’s wealth
• [38:58] – Key mob wiretap: “the Vic thing...it’s done”
• [40:36] – Unsolved: motives, mob violence, and the impact on Vegas sports history

---

Conclusion: The Lasting Impact

The episode ends by emphasizing that though the murder is officially unsolved, its legacy is undeniable: Vic Weiss’s violent death solidified Jerry Tarkanian’s stay at UNLV and became a foundational event that paved the way for Vegas to emerge as a legitimate, robust destination for American pro sports. In Pablo Torre’s wry summary, the body in the trunk is the dark but essential “origin story” of the city’s transformation.

---

For Further Investigation

• Listeners are left with a challenge: the case might not be fully closed. Even after this exhaustive investigation, nearly every voice in the episode—journalist, detective, family—admits pieces are still missing.

---

Tone/Style: Fast-paced, humorous but deeply reported, blending hard-boiled LA noir with making-of-a-mob-movie vibes. Ideal For: True crime buffs, sports history fans, listeners fascinated by the overlap of crime, celebrity, and American culture.

---

End of Summary.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Dan Moldea]

Whenever there was a big murder, especially a brutal murder like this, where a guy is hog tied and is in a shot twice in the back of the head and found in a truck of his car, that sounds like a Tony Spilotro hit.

[Pablo Torre]

And if you listen to our show on Apple Podcasts, you can now watch video there as well. Just update to the latest iOS and head over to our show page to start watching. But for right now, just a quick word from our sponsors. I mean, look, we just don't start many episodes with documents that say, at the top, first homicide investigation progress report. And this is an episode that's going to be fundamentally about a dead body in the trunk of a Rolls Royce, Sean. And thank you for being here, by the way.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, thank you for having me.

[Pablo Torre]

But we're talking at a point at which the city of Las Vegas has never been warmer or cuddlier. We're talking the week after the NBA's board of governors just officially said we are going to explore an expansion team in Las Vegas.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, I mean, it's become a corporate boom town. It's become a place that's one of the fastest growing cities every year to start as casino kind of outpost has exploded, you know, over the last few decades into, you know, this mecca, the sports capital of America.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. 2017, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL team, they're founded. 2020, the Raiders move to Vegas. The NFL team. In 2028, the Oakland A's are relocating, and Las Vegas just won a bid to host the final four.

[Sean Carrey]

NF1.

[Pablo Torre]

It's endless. It's endless. And. And I think the thesis that I want to establish at the top here, Sean, is that none of this, none of these boom times in sports would be possible without a single person by the name of who?

[Sean Carrey]

Tark the Shark.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm here tonight with Jerry Tarkanian, the

[Narrator/Announcer]

head coach of the Running Rebels.

[Pablo Torre]

Don't let him con you, by the way, about talking about inexperience, because the Running Rebels will be loaded this year. We're picking them very high.

[George Tarkanian]

Well, I think they're the type of team that's going to really play.

[Sean Carrey]

I mean, he was the winningest coach of his era.

[George Tarkanian]

But play as hard as you can play so you don't get bad habits. Create good habits. Have good concentration. Get good execution.

[Sean Carrey]

They made it to four final fours. 1977, 87, 1990, 1991. Most notably, this iconic championship Game over Duke. They won by 30. It was the largest margin of victory in a championship game to this day.

[George Tarkanian]

This win is for the kids, but it's mostly for the great people in the state of Nevada. The whole state supports us and I'm just so happy for them.

[Sean Carrey]

They were one of the most electric, high flying teams known for breaking offensive records at one point, you know, scoring 110 points per game without a three point line.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Great play by Larry Johnson. Really stepped out on Dillon.

[Sean Carrey]

And I think what people haven't experienced is how entertaining they were. You know, they, it was this wild pre show. They had fireworks, they had red carpet, they had music videos, hip hop videos.

[Pablo Torre]

If you're ever between a bastard and one of us, break out before you

[Narrator/Announcer]

get slammed up and done.

[Sean Carrey]

Walter Payton, you know, Frank Sinatra was one of their biggest boosters. Whoopi Goldberg, Eddie Murphy, Mike Tyson. Tupac was wearing the gear.

[Pablo Torre]

Unbelievable.

[Sean Carrey]

They had the number one merchandise revenue of any program. You know, competing with Notre Dame.

[Archive Footage/Reporter]

Denver, Colorado greeted the Rebels with freezing temperatures and snow.

[Pablo Torre]

Plus a horde of reporters all wanting to know more about the so called

[Archive Footage/Reporter]

bad boys of basketball.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, you know, when we got off this plane, it was all business. Now, you know, there's no more, you know, fun. Came out here to do a job.

[Sean Carrey]

It was like NWA and meets casino.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, look, the branding exercise of you want us to be the bad guy will happily play the role. In contrast to Duke.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

In contrast to Notre Dame and Tark, the Sharks wars with the ncaa.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah. I mean, he was an outlaw. He was an outsider. He connected with misfits. He, you know, he was unapologetically himself. He was, you know, so eccentric. He was, you know, sucking on a towel.

[Pablo Torre]

What was the towel deal about?

[Sean Carrey]

He got so parched during games, he needed something to help with his hydration. And you know, he's very superstitious. He kept, you know, the seat next to him empty. He was so myopic and he was so, you know, focused on basketball. He was just a very unique character.

[Pablo Torre]

How Tark arrived in Vegas, you know, to take that job in particular. There's one story that I, I would like you to tell and it, it's about the recruiting trip that Tar himself went on.

[Sean Carrey]

You know, Tark was killing it at Long Beach State. I mean, they were top five in the country multiple years. He was on the national stage. So they were trying to make, you know, as good of an offer and Sig Rogich, my name is Sig Rogish. He's a marketing guru. Everything Sig has done has been towards the reinvention of the image of Las Vegas and its growth.

[Sig Rogich]

And I think we're doing an interview today on Jerry Tarkanian and his life.

[Sean Carrey]

He saw the potential of what Jerry could bring in a winning sports program in Las Vegas in the byline. And he wanted them to understand this is a community. It's not just gambling, casinos, prostitution, drugs, all the Sin City vices you might expect. And so Sig took Lois Tarkanian and Jerry on a tour of Las Vegas.

[Sig Rogich]

I was driving them around the community and showing Lois the churches and pointing out the cultural side of this town because that was important to her.

[Sean Carrey]

Lois Tarkanian is a very, you know, formidable woman. You know, she was a very successful teacher in her own right. And she was very religious. You know, she always had her rosary beads on her. She was very Catholic. So she had her reservations.

[Sig Rogich]

We were driving and we came to a stoplight and I'm driving the car and I look over and a car pulls over. It's a convertible and there's three people in the car. There's a driver and a guy and this girlfriend, and they're having sex right next to us. I was mortified, you know, after this big buildup. And Jerry pointed it out. He said, sig, you know, and I'm not going to tell you what he said.

[Sean Carrey]

I know what Jerry said to Sig.

[Pablo Torre]

What did he say?

[Sean Carrey]

He said, sig, look, she's going down on him.

[Pablo Torre]

A tactical mastermind at all times, observing the offense as well as the defense. What's crazy about the story we're here to do today is that as incredible as the Tak dynasty would become, it was so close to not happening.

[Sean Carrey]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

At all. Because it's 1979 and his agent is his childhood friend, a guy by the name of Vic Weiss. And there is a job offer that Tark gets.

[Sean Carrey]

It is to be the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. And that would have been the highest paid coaching gig in NBA history at that point. Over a million dollars. Over four years, I've read that it was 350 grand a year, 700 grand guaranteed, you know, over five years, you know, included some luxury cars. One for Jerry, for Lois and their oldest daughter, Pam.

[Pablo Torre]

And it got so close. It sounds like that the Tarkanians had actually picked out the house they wanted to live in.

[Sean Carrey]

It was too good to pass up. You know, they knew Magic Johnson was going to be the number one draft pick. It was the LA Lakers. It was too good of a Financial offer. So, yeah, I mean, it was too good of a situation.

[Pablo Torre]

And the first place that I should say that I saw this codified in popular culture was on hbo. In this series they did called Winning Time, that was about the Lakers of this era. Came out in 2022. And in this scene, you have the new Lakers owner, Jerry Buss, played by John C. Reilly, at this restaurant, secretly closing the deal with Jerry Tarkanian and Vic Weiss. Did we just make a deal? That's what it sounded like to me.

[Sean Carrey]

Couple cars.

[Pablo Torre]

750.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Are we done?

[Pablo Torre]

I would love to trade in this sludge for some bubbly champagne, sir. Jesus, you do get good service here from the gentleman. And yet, Jerry Tarkanian, Tark the Shark does not leave Las Vegas, as history will tell you, because something insane happens.

[Sean Carrey]

Vic, on June 13, 1979, goes to meet Jack, Ken Cook and Jerry Buss at Cook's home in Beverly Hills. And they finalize the terms. They sketch it out on a notepad, and Vic takes it with him. He's supposed to go meet Lois along with his own wife, Rose, and Jerry Tarkani at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport beach to review the terms. But he doesn't show up. He's missing. June 17, he's discovered in the back of a maroon and white Rolls Royce at the Sheridan Universal Hotel in North Hollywood. And they open the trunk and he's wrapped in a blanket. His hands and feet are tied. His face is completely disfigured. He's been shot in the face twice, and the body's completely decomposed.

[Pablo Torre]

The police report here, it characterizes vickwies as having been, quote, professionally executed. And, Sean, you actually talked to the detective who co. Wrote, who co authored this very report.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, Detective Leroy Orozco, who's a legend. You know, he's known for a lot of famous LA homicide investigations. The Night Stalker. He was there for the Bobby Kennedy assassination.

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

From the perspective of investigator, you know, when you get the call, that's what it involves. But it's eerie when you get to the parking structure at the Universal Sheridan, you parked and walked around, and you see it all by itself, the Rolls Royce sitting there. As you close, you get. You can smell it.

[Pablo Torre]

Tark was devastated, obviously. I mean, there's this quote from the Las Vegas Review Journal, the paper in. In Vegas, quote, I feel left with a void in my life, and I'm really overwhelmed with hurt and grief. End quote.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah. I mean, Tark gave his eulogy and he said, you know, vic did A lot for him growing up. Did a lot for him as a coach. And he said Vic did more for him than anyone in his life. Thank you, Vic.

[Pablo Torre]

And so the next quote I feel like we should read is from the police report. It's about the rumor now coming out of Vegas about why all of this happened.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, this is from Leroy Rusko's police report. A rumor coming out of Las Vegas was that Vegas people were very upset about the possibility of Tarkanian leaving Vegas. All indications were that Tarkanian was going to accept the Laker position. It was just a matter of weeks, negotiating the proper contract. Some sources believe this was the reason he was killed.

[Pablo Torre]

Who were those guys?

[Sean Carrey]

Come on, what do you think? Bing, bing, bing, bing.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Not the most subtle depiction of Mafia members. I would say, raising glasses there. But just the basic thrust of it, though, was the mob, they wanted Tark to stay in Vegas. They wanted Jerry Tarkanian, the head of this very successful college program that was giving national attention to what was once simply this corrupt desert. And there were economic incentives for this to happen. It was good for Vegas to have Tark still, still at unlv, and therefore, it was good for the mob.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, I mean, the depiction in winning time, you know, they reveal that it's Jerry Bus's business card on Vic we disfigured Face. And it's there to send a message to Jerry Tarkanian. It's a warning, you know, don't go to the Lakers. You know, a mob hit like this is. Is so violent, it's personal. And where the body was discovered, it was definitely to send a message. So this is possibly how, you know, the message was depicted or potentially received.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, that has been the prevailing theory here. But these documents, all of this research indicates that turns out there's a lot more to the story. So it is no exaggeration to say that our correspondent Today film producer Sean Carrey, has spent years examining what is, on one level, a pretty simple story. Because there is no doubt that the murder of Jerry Tarkanian's longtime confidant and agent, Vic Weiss, was a mob hit.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, I mean, I have relatives that grew up in Vegas. It was mob, mob city. You know, everything is mob adjacent.

[Pablo Torre]

But the big lingering question we are here to solve today is a lot more complicated. Why? Why did the mob really stuff Vic Weis body into that trunk, scaring Tark away from the NBA and in a sliding doors moment, saving UNLV and big time team sports in Vegas? Although Tark, who died in 2015, at age 84, didn't exactly love talking about why he turned down the Lakers.

[Sean Carrey]

You ever offered officially the head coaching job of the Los Angeles Lakers?

[George Tarkanian]

Yeah, I was offered that, yes.

[Sean Carrey]

Did you turn it down?

[George Tarkanian]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

What?

[George Tarkanian]

Well, at the time, there was a lot of reasons, but I was very impressed with Jerry Buss. But it was just. The timing was wrong. It was the wrong time.

[Pablo Torre]

But this week, the same week, Vegas also just got named host of the 2029 Super Bowl. It is time. It's finally time to dive into the unsolved mystery at the root of a major American city. Which also meant that we needed to make a lot of calls about the influence of the mob.

[Sean Carrey]

Specifically, I've talked to all the Tarkanian family, and they all have different stories, but we talked to George Tarkanian.

[George Tarkanian]

You know, a lot of people ask me, what's it like growing up in Las Vegas? Or what's it like being a son of a famous basketball coach? And the interesting thing is I have nothing to compare it to, so it seems normal.

[Sean Carrey]

Who kind of shed light on his own experience.

[George Tarkanian]

In high school, there was a person in my class called Anthony Spilotro, who was the nephew of Anthony Spilotro.

[Pablo Torre]

And Anthony Spilotro, to be very clear, for those unfamiliar with Anthony Spilotro, is who.

[Sean Carrey]

I mean, he's probably, you know, the most infamous. I guess you could call him crime boss. You know, in Las Vegas in the 70s and 80s, he was known as the enforcer. Probably the most violent crimes of any mob figure at the time. He was depicted in Casino, the Joe Pesci character.

[Archive Footage/Reporter]

I don't know whether you notice or

[Pablo Torre]

not, but you only have your casino because I made that possible. I'm what counts out here. Wait, wait.

[George Tarkanian]

So.

[Pablo Torre]

So. So Anthony Spilotro, to be very clear, is the real life Joe Pesci in Casino.

[Sean Carrey]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

But for George Tark's son, was it immediately obvious what this was like?

[Sean Carrey]

No, I think like most people, you know, it was a small community. They, you know, knew some of these people that see him at the supermarket. There weren't that many places to go, so. So everyone was kind of familiar with each other. So he didn't realize a lot of this, too, till much later.

[George Tarkanian]

The mob in Las Vegas kept a low profile, and they did that for a reason. They got away with so much because they kept a low profile. Now, I learned this by watching the movie Casino, which I jokingly say was a documentary, not a movie, because so many events they had in there, I remember actually Happening. I'm putting two and two together, watching them.

[Pablo Torre]

What happened to the tough guy? Told my friend, stick it up his ass. And this is where, by the way, the blending of fiction and nonfiction is a bit of a through line in the story, the cinematic adaptation of real life events that are also insane.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

How central, how close is Vic Weiss to the life of Jerry Tarkanian when it came to negotiations with the NBA, but also in general.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, it depends on who you ask about that. I mean, Vic, he did negotiate Tark's deal with, with Sig to come to Vegas. And if you ask Sig Rogich, the UNLV booster, the founder of the Rebel Club, you know what he had to say about Vic, he'll tell you for himself.

[Sig Rogich]

I really didn't care for him very much. And he knew it. Jerry knew him from Long beach, from the area down there, and they were friends. And I told Jerry one day I didn't want to deal with Vic Weiss anymore about anything, ever, you know. And Jerry was kind of oblivious to it. All he thought about was basketball. I said, I just don't trust him. And I think he's self serving and he's telling the world that he's your agent, you know. And Jerry said, well, I don't have an agent. And I said, well, he thinks he is your agent.

[Sean Carrey]

The truth is, yeah, Jerry didn't, you know, he just, like, you know, anybody who he knew was new business, he trusted. You mean like he didn't.

[Pablo Torre]

He had a guy?

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, he had a guy.

[Pablo Torre]

Jerry had a guy. Mark had a guy.

[Sean Carrey]

I don't think he had an agent after Vic.

[Pablo Torre]

But this is also part of the story, which is that these deeply personal relationships in which he's kind of my agent, he's functioning as it, but he's also my guy.

[Sean Carrey]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

And so when does Tark find out that his guy has been killed?

[Sean Carrey]

He was in LA looking for homes with his family. And, you know, George remembers it.

[George Tarkanian]

Well, I do know he probably would have took in the job because I remember going on a trip with him to Southern California. And we actually traveled around Palos Verdes looking for possible homes. It was that weekend where Vic Weiss disappeared.

[Pablo Torre]

And so we find ourselves once again staring at the disfigured face of this question, which is, why did Vic Weiss, why did Tark's guy get whacked? What did George think about why his dad's childhood friend was killed?

[Sean Carrey]

Well, you know, George, as well as, you know, the rest of the family started to think it might have to do with his interest in another sport.

[George Tarkanian]

After we know how, learned how he died. I remember conversations where I overheard that they speculated it was an organized crime hit. And they think, they were speculating, they think it was with his boxing ties because organized crime was very much tied to boxing and Vic was very much involved in boxing as well.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. And this is where we turn back to our handy police report. And it turns out that one of the, one of the focuses of this investigation involved boxing. Vic Weiss, who was apparently lots of people's guy as well, not just Tark's guy, but these other boxers guy. And the question of gambling debts.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, I mean, Vic got involved in boxing in the early 1970s. It started out with a high profile client, Armando Muniz, who is a 1968 Olympian. He was a title contender, four time welterweight title contender.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Hello again everyone. We're coming to you live shortly. You'll be seeing Sugar Ray Leonard against Armando Muniz, a ten rounder. Of course, there's been a growing.

[Sean Carrey]

There are two detectives working the case, Detective Sergeant John Helvin and our guy we heard earlier, Detective Leroy Orozco. And specifically they looked into a fight between Mondo Muniz and Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978. Sugar Ray was top of his game. One of the greatest fighters of all time. Olympic gold medalist, he's undefeated. Mondo was at the tail end of his career. He was injured and so it was a, you know, it was a high profile fight and I think we can even look at the footage and see how it played out.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He's been a fighting the end of the round. What have they done here? They have apparently stopped the fight. I don't believe this. They called it a TKO Nunez at the end of six rounds. He had appeared to be coming on in the fourth and fifth rounds, held his own in the sixth, until that flurry we just showed you. And then suddenly the fight ruled ended. We've got to keep get to the bottom of this.

[Pablo Torre]

We got to get to the bottom of this. I mean, cosel kind of spells it out.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Should that fight have been stopped? Did you want it stopped? Well, I, I personally didn't. My corner said, why go on with a. I have a bad elbow, I have tendonitis or something like that. Every time I extended it, it's a, it's just unbearable pain. I want to go on, you know. And my corner said, mother, look, one, one more fight. I'm not going to ruin your elbow for the rest of your life. Why don't you just, you know, hang it up.

[Pablo Torre]

Super fishy. You know, it's like, what. What are we doing? You're writing Sugar Ray letters?

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah. I mean, he's never stopped a fight

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

before,

[Pablo Torre]

so I get why. Detective Orozco. Leroy is very interested in this. And it sounds like, yeah, he had follow up questions of his own, as

[Sean Carrey]

did, you know, my colleague, filmmaker Chris Bellman, who. Who sat down with Leroy and interviewed him.

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

We were told that he guaranteed Vegas the 9th, the 5th round or 6th round or something. And he starts. We interviewed Lemondo, the boxer. Yeah. He says. I said I was good. I told him I was okay. He said, no, you're hurting. I don't. I want to save your life and

[Pablo Torre]

do what you do.

[Sean Carrey]

So he threw it.

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

And you see the. When you see the film, you see Vic talking to Mondo on the corner in between rounds, in between two rounds. And they call it, you know, to call the fight because. Yeah, so you can't do that. Somebody made a ton of money. To me, it's a story.

[Pablo Torre]

So just the theory here is that Vic Weiss is engineering the throwing of matches by Mondo against Sugar Ray Leonard in particular, in that case, in order to pay off what seemed to be

[Sean Carrey]

gambling debts, fixing fights would have been what the mob wanted. You know, that would have been. Yeah, that would have been a. You know, that's what they. That's what they do. So he would have been doing that, you know, with their support. And even Lois Tarkanian, she had. I mean, she had heard a rumor. There's so many rumors that maybe, you know, they had mob wanted to buy into a boxer that Vic didn't want to let them in and. And refused. And they interviewed a. A guy named Harry Kabakov. He's an eccentric, you know, fight promoter and trainer in Los Angeles. And he's also close friends and partners with Vic Weiss. I'll read from the police report. According to Kabakov, Weiss made his money betting on some of the fights. He would occasionally bet against his fighter, knowing he was going to lose. But Kabakov feels personally and from his sources that the death is not related to boxing.

[Pablo Torre]

And this is where the story begins to escalate. We've gone through college basketball, the NBA and boxing, but it turns out that there is yet another sport, another professional sport of note that may have gotten Vic Weiss into trouble because he was also someone else's guy in a different context.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, the NFL.

[Pablo Torre]

So I just gotta jump in here to establish that, no, Detective Leroy was not moved by the Fixing fights, theory of Vic Weiss murder. The question of why organized crime would kill the guy who was allegedly fixing fights for them to pay off his debts. It never totally added up in his view. But this NFL angle seemed different.

[Sean Carrey]

Vick had an athletic career. He had a stint with the Green Bay packers in the early 50s and then was, you know, a semi pro football player in Southern California for 10 years, kind of part time.

[Pablo Torre]

And something to know about pro football in the 60s and 70s is that as messy and mobbed up as gambling in sports seems now, as we've covered on this show previously, in the legalized era, especially of the NBA, in the NFL of the 60s, Commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended future hall of Famers Paul Horning and Alex Karras for a whole season for betting on NFL games and associating with gamblers. Rozelle also forced jets quarterback Joe Namath to divest his ownership stake in a New York bar called Bachelor's 3 because it was frequented by bookies and gamblers. Yet the craziest character in all of this arguably wasn't even a player. It was an owner. An owner who became the subject of an FBI investigation. As PBS Frontline in a piece called An Unauthorized history of the NFL reported

[Archive Footage/Reporter]

back in 1983, no owner had more dubious associations than the late Carol Rosenbloom. He used to bet against his own team, the Baltimore Colts, and was even accused of fixing by leading key players at home. In 1972, Rosenblum sold the Colts and bought the LA Rams. But he continued to play with fire, placing huge bets with Mafia linked bookies.

[Pablo Torre]

And you'll hear, in fact, a familiar name emerging again.

[Archive Footage/Reporter]

Rosenblum used a bagman to courier his illegal bets in and out of Las Vegas. Identical briefcases would be exchanged in front of a newsstand. Victor Weiss was the man who carried Rosenboom's cash and placed his bets. But one day in this.

[Pablo Torre]

Who was Vic Weiss supposedly working with in Vegas when it came to this sort of a scheme?

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, I mean, all this, all the bookmaking was running out of the hotels, you know, like the Stardust. And remember earlier when George Tarkanian mentioned being school with the nephew of Anthony Spilotro? Spilotro, you know, he was, he was intertwined with the Stardust. I spoke to a journalist named Dan Moldea who, who wrote about all this. He's an old school crime reporter. He's got a substack mobologist. He's an expert on the Mafia. Jimmy Hoffa, the Bobby Kennedy assassination. He wrote a book called Interference about the NFL and his mob connections where he covered the Vic Wiese murder.

[Dan Moldea]

The allegation was that Weiss was skimming. He was being sent with money from the layoff bookmakers in Los Angeles to Vegas. And the skim in Vegas was being centered at the Stardust Hotel Casino on the Strip. And ostensibly, the manager of the Stardust was Lefty Rosenthal, the Robert De Niro character in Casino. And Tony Spilaccio was his enforcer, of

[Pablo Torre]

course, played by Joe Pesci. Yeah, what happened to the tough guy? Told my friend, stick it up his ass. So, just to recap here, mldea, the mobologist, believes that Tony Spilotro, Joe Pesci and Casino put a hit on Vic Weiss because Vic Weis was skimming money.

[Sean Carrey]

Yes, he was skimming. He got caught. He got whacked.

[Dan Moldea]

To me, whenever there was a big murder, especially a brutal murder like this, where a guy is hog tied and is in a shot twice in the back of the head and found in the truck of his car at the Sheridan Universal. That sounds like a Tony Spilotro.

[Pablo Torre]

Which also brings up this other thing that happened that was insane to Carol Rosenbloom, the owner of the Rams, which was that Carol Rosenbloom, just two months before Vic Weiss died in that brutal fashion, died suspiciously in a drowning. That was amid his FBI investigation into these allegations of fixed games during the 78 RAM season.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, he dies two months before Vic. It's very suspicious. Our. Our friend Howard Cosell was very close with Carol Rosenbloom. He thought it was suspicious. And yeah, there was an FBI investigation into the point fixing. And before they got a chance to talk to Carol Rosenbloom or Vic, they were both gone.

[Pablo Torre]

So the other timeline, that is again, not accounted for in. In winning time, and it's not part of the NBA college basketball narrative, is that, yeah, the Lakers job, cool. That's over here. But meanwhile, there's an FBI investigation in which Vic Weis would be a central possible witness for the government. And both Carol Rosenblum and Vic, we both mysteriously, suspiciously get killed within two months of each other. And so Detective Leroy Orozco, is this the theory that he finally lands on? Like this explains why Vic Weiss wound up in the trunk of that car?

[Sean Carrey]

No, I mean, there's still yet another

[Pablo Torre]

theory to this, because of course, there's. At this point in the story, as we are retracing the steps of Detective Leroy Orozco's investigation into Vic Weiss murder, it is worth remembering that looks can be deceiving. Leroy doesn't think that Vic Weiss was killed by the mob because of gambling debts and fixed fights, despite all appearances. And Leroy also doesn't think that it was simply because Vick had been skimming money as a bagman for mysteriously deceased and mob connected rams owner Carol Rosenblum. In fact, Leroy had other questions here about how flashy Vic Weiss was able to hobnob with all these teams and celebrities from Muhammad Ali to Red Fox, and even drive that maroon and white Rolls Royce where his corpse would ultimately be found. Which takes us to yet another classic Vegas sort of establishment from the 1970s. A car dealership. A car dealership whose owner was a memorable Las Vegas character in his own right.

[Sean Carrey]

It was Gerald Cutter.

[Pablo Torre]

Who is Gerald Cutter?

[Sean Carrey]

Gerald Cutter portrayed himself as a pillar of the community. He was the president of the chamber of commerce in North Hollywood. He backed a boys club at the North Hollywood YMCA. He had come to Southern California in the late 60s and he set up all these dealerships from Hermosa to Van Nuys across the valley, and then in Vegas, Prestige Motors. And these were Rolls Royce dealerships, Fiat agency, Ford. And, you know, he kind of discovered Vic Weiss and brought him in and he took him under his wing. He recognized, you know, Vic was very charming. He was very charismatic. So he kind of recognized that this guy, you know, can hang with athletes, high rollers, celebrities, and he was involved in promotions. And he even brought him in to, you know, present him as a general manager and give him a cut of all these dealerships.

[Pablo Torre]

The spin off show about Vic Weiss is itself this insane text. I'm imagining these scenes in which he apparently is bringing by Cutter Ford, Muhammad Ali. Yeah, Reggie Jackson. Like, again, this. He's everyone's guy. And it turns out that Jerry Cutter, to the surprise of perhaps nobody listening at this point in the story, had ties to another institution.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, this is from Leroy's police report. It is rumored that Cutter is connected with organized crime and allegedly was while in St. Louis. He has present employees who are listed as consultants that allegedly have organized crime connections. Cutter maintained throughout the investigation he had no knowledge of the murder and no organized crime ties.

[Pablo Torre]

The murder, of course, again, the murder of Vic Weiss. And so does this pass the smell test?

[Sean Carrey]

You know, Leroy told me a story about interviewing one of these guys who worked at Cutterford in the valley. And, you know, he came in and, you know, he's suspicious. He was a consultant, but he didn't know anything about cars. And, you know, he said he was a really nice guy, but he looked straight at the Godfather, you know, he was smoking cigars. And it was just a really interesting reaction. And then they started, you know, following organized crime figures in Vegas and in Southern California. They go to kind of the hotspots. Monty's Steakhouse in Encino and across, you know, la, and the Tower of Pizza in Vegas. And in the parking lot of all these hangouts were, you know, Cutter Ford tags Cutter Ford, you know, Rolls Royce and other cars, you know, fill the parking lots.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, this is a pretty good reason to be suspicious of Jerry Cutter. It seems as a central character in why that body wound up in that Rolls Royce.

[George Tarkanian]

Yeah.

[Sean Carrey]

And. And they went on to interview Rose about it. Vic's wife.

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

One of the first things we did was go to the vic's house to talk to his wife. There's about 10 guys in there. Some suited up when. Not that we introduced a guy named Jerry Cutter. He owns the Rolls Royce of the dealerships, you know, so we don't. That's all we know. Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

He was already in the house.

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

He's there. So we know. We took her aside to do, like, the dining room. First thing you know, is I'm like talking to you. I ask you a question, and you turn around and look at Cutter. So we picked up my partners on this side, and he sees every time she turned, he. He go, or this guy's in control. Then we learn the house is his, the cars are his. This is. Wasn't any of Vic. All this pretense of his getting the friendship with the Lakers, the Rams, all front, he had. He didn't have anything. Everything he had was Cutters.

[Pablo Torre]

So wait, so just to clarify. So the performance of Vic Weiss as the guy behind these very high profile guys. What Leroy is saying, Detective, is saying is that that's all our performance. Because the truth of it is that he's a front for this other guy.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah. I mean, even in the papers, Vic calls himself a millionaire. You know, he always wanted to, you know, present himself as, you know, incredibly successful. Always had a lot of cash, jewelry, Rolex, Rolls Royce. But yeah, it was all. It was all a front. And people discovered, including his family, after. After he died.

[Pablo Torre]

And just to describe the body language and the power dynamic that Leroy is remembering from when they interview Vic's wife, Jerry Cutter is there.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And she. Vic's wife is basically asking with her body what she should be saying to the police.

[Sean Carrey]

Yes, he believes that Cutter might have been involved in setting up Vic. And it's because another witness came forward, Susan Brow, who was an Ex girlfriend of Jerry Cutter. And her witness testimony was that day, June 13, the day Vic went missing.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, wow.

[Sean Carrey]

That he showed up in the Rolls Royce in the driveway. And she saw him pull in, in a Cadillac, pull in behind it. And two guys, one a large, six, seven blonde haired guy, talked to Vic and convince him to get back in the driver's seat. And that was the last time anyone saw him.

[Pablo Torre]

And now it's my turn to read from the police report because this is what Detective Orozco says. Quote, according to her, sometime before darkness, she saw the concerned roles pull up and park behind her residence. Just as the car parked, a late model white Cadillac pulled up behind the Rolls. Two Caucasian men emerged from the Cadillac wearing three piece suits and dark sunglasses. A short conversation appeared to follow. We then got back into the roles as the driver, the large man in the right front passenger seat, the other man in the rear of the Rolls. The Rolls then followed the Cadillac from the location, end quote. But I'm still left wondering, okay, but why? Why did allegedly Jerry Cutter set up Vic Weiss?

[Sean Carrey]

Well, you remember those alleged ties to the St. Louis outfit?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Sean Carrey]

According to our mobologist, Dan Moldea, you know, Cutter has, you know, family relations that tie back to St. Louis and bookmaking. His cousin served time for illegal gambling and his uncle was a one time manager of the Stardust.

[Pablo Torre]

And of course, if that is true, then Gerald Cutter, through his family to the Stardust, ends up being connected to Tony Spilotro.

[Sean Carrey]

Exactly.

[Archive Footage/Reporter]

I don't know whether you notice or

[Pablo Torre]

not, but you only have your casino because I made that possible.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And. And that FBI investigation which we talked about before with the NFL and the gambling scheme and Carol Rosenblum, it is worth pointing out that this also connects to this part of the story and to Tony Spilotro, because Gerald Cutter apparently also emerges in connection to that.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, this is from Dan MD's book. Like Whis, Cutter had also been mentioned in the 1979 FBI internal report. One car dealer in Las Vegas, Nevada, last name possibly Cutter, is also allegedly involved in this scheme. Cutter had a life insurance policy on Whis's life and also held the mortgage on his house. The FBI report stated, which feels like

[Pablo Torre]

a relevant detail, that in fact, Jerry Cutter, car dealership magnate and guy who was backing vickwees's performance of being a guy who matters, he also stood to profit, literally from his death.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, I mean, and I think it also shows he answered to somebody else.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. This gets us to. I think, and there are lots of contenders for this But I think this is the most damning piece of evidence in this entire investigation that we've been doing here, because this involves an audio tape and a device that turns out to be quite consequential.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, Le. I mean, Leroy, they talked about being stonewalled by the FBI and. And law enforcement across Southern California and Vegas, but they got connected to a cop investigating mob activity out of a. The Tower of Pizza hangout. And so they got a wire from the guys talking at the restaurant.

[Detective Leroy Orozco]

They were wired into Spilotro there. And one of the conversations they had was Spilotro asked the person he's talking, is the Vic thing taken care of? And he says, the guy says, it's done.

[Pablo Torre]

I guess I just have to borrow the quote that we just heard at the end there, which is, it seems like the Vic thing has finally been taken care of. We have a guy saying on a wire to Tony Spilotro, to Joe Pesi, it's done. So finally, here it is. We. It. It's done.

[Sean Carrey]

No, not even close.

[Pablo Torre]

So I am trying to. To be done here. And I just got to say that Detective Orozco, Leroy is on my side on this because he has now said, thanks to this wire that was being worn, that he now has been persuaded that Vic apparently was skimming. And Tony Spilotro, the famous Tony Spilotro, is the guy who ordered the hit. Right. That's what Detective Orozco has concluded.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah. And it was that that's the most personal thing you can do is to skim. And so that's why they had to send a message. A violent murder. And. And George Tarkanian thinks the same thing.

[George Tarkanian]

I knew the mob, probably, or someone from organized crime killed him, by the way. He was killed. He was shot execution style. He was thrown in the back of his Rolls Royce. We didn't know why, but no one sent a message to my dad that had nothing to do with it. Winning time will make you think, like, oh, my God, Jerry Tarkane got the message. I'm staying here. I'm not messing with. That had nothing to do with it.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, it is funny to remember. Oh, yeah, we started this conversation with the Lakers.

[Sean Carrey]

I've talked to a lot of players, people involved who came in after the fact. And, yeah, a lot of people believe that Vic was warned. They didn't want Jerry to leave.

[Pablo Torre]

And the Lakers obviously, are their own sliding door scenario here, as they were trying to replace their head coach, Jerry west, with Jerry Tarkanian. But now we're getting to the part of our story here, where Detective Leroy Orozco even identifies the contract killer. The contract killer, he believes, carried out the hit that maybe only incidentally kept park away from the Lakers job and the NBA. And the suspect in question was that aforementioned 6 foot 7 blonde guy, whose name, it turns out, is Glenn Donald Stewart. But Leroy was never able to bring a case forward in the justice system about this, which eats away at him still today, even though he was pushing and pushing for it up until his own retirement back in 92. And if you are wondering why that effort finally stalled out, it is because one day Leroy Orozco found out that Glenn Donald Stewart, not unlike Vic Weiss, suddenly could not be located anymore and was later found dead. No one disputes that the mob killed Vic Weiss. At this point, we've established that. But the intent is what's not done. That's the thing that everybody can forever cling to, Right? Like their own pet theory that maybe serves their own personal interests.

[Sean Carrey]

Yes. I mean, I think some people know. I mean, Vic had a lot of friends and nobody seems to know what happened. And I think, you know, I think the answer is out there.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I mean, I dare say the answer has already been presented. But what seems clear, though, is that, like, the reason you have been spending so much of your life looking into this is because what is not in dispute is that modern Las Vegas, as it stands today, the new home of an NBA franchise, as well as an NFL franchise and an NHL franchise and a major league baseball franchise, and the college basketball tournament March of Madness in a couple years, all of that was built on the body in the trunk of that Rolls Royce. And this is obviously horrific for Vic Wiese's own family to contemplate, but that dude does deserve some amount of credit for this strange and very mobbed up chapter of sports history in America.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah, he took two bullets, you know, for this to happen.

[Pablo Torre]

God.

[Sean Carrey]

Yeah. I mean, this is the turning point, you know, this is the legitimization of Vegas after this. You know, Tark staying there and, you know, the running Rebels, you know, rising in national prominence.

[Pablo Torre]

What's interesting, as I realize now at the very end here, is that I've been obsessed myself with investigating gambling scandals and organized crime and corruption. And meanwhile, the place American sports is turning to next, Las Vegas, I cannot think about without thinking of Tony Spilotro now and Joe Pesci and the trunk of that Rolls Royce and. And I have you, Sean, to thank for it. Which is to say that that story not done. But this episode, finally, it is done.

[Sean Carrey]

It is done. Thank you.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media Production and I'll talk to you next time, Sam.