His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [243]
“Senator Tunney didn’t want us to embarrass Mr. Sinatra when he was here to sing for the Vice-President,” said Claude Pepper (D-Fla), chairman of the House Select Committee on Crime. “He wanted us to accommodate him as much as possible and let Mr. Sinatra testify in closed executive session. I told him we wouldn’t treat a celebrity any differently from any other witness.”
Mickey Rudin flew to Washington to talk to the committee about keeping Frank from an open congressional hearing that would be covered by the press.
“He is psychotic about testifying before committees under oath,” said the lawyer, who seemed unconcerned about his client’s Mafia friendships. “Frank knows twenty of these guys.”
“What do you mean ‘these guys’?” asked Chris Nolde, a committee staffer. “Do you mean organized crime figures?”
“Yeah,” said Rudin, who talked openly about Frank’s friendship with Gaetano Lucchese, Sam Giancana, and Joe Fischetti.
Nevertheless, the committee agreed to extend an “invitation” to Frank rather than a subpoena, and scheduled his appearance for June 4, 1972. But Sinatra flew to England that day and refused to return to testify. Incensed by the rebuff, the committee issued a second subpoena and ordered federal marshals to stand at every port of entry in the country awaiting Frank’s return. This brought calls from the Vice-President’s staff, several congressional friends, and Harold Gibbons of the Teamsters Union. As a result, Congressman Pepper withdrew the second subpoena and issued Frank another “invitation” to appear on July 18 while promising to limit the questions to his holdings in the mob-infiltrated racetrack.
“The day before he was to testify,” said Peter Malatesta, “Frank scheduled a meeting with Mickey Rudin, Vic Gold, and myself at the Madison Hotel in Washington to discuss the approach he should take before the committee. We talked for three hours and counseled him to be firm but docile and very, very low-keyed. He even made notes. Later, when he had dinner with Agnew, he was steaming over the press and kept saying, ‘Why can’t they ever tell the good side? They’re just after me because my name ends in a vowel.’ The next day, he went up to the hill and gave the committee hell, promptly forgetting everything we had told him to do.”
As soon as he was sworn in, Frank started berating the congressmen for not immediately refuting the testimony of Joseph “The Baron” Barboza, a self-described syndicate enforcer who had said that Frank was a business front for Raymond S. Patriarca, head of the New England Mafia family. Waving a newspaper clipping at the committee, he read the headline: WITNESS LINKS SINATRA WITH REPUTED MAFIA FIGURE.
“That’s charming, isn’t it? That’s charming,” he said sarcastically. “That’s all hearsay evidence, isn’t it?”
The committee counsel, Joseph Phillips, acknowledged that it was.
“This bum went running off at the mouth, and I resent it,” said Frank. “I won’t have it. I am not a second-class citizen. Let’s get that straightened out.”
Asked to rebut the allegation that he had knowingly bought into a Mafia-controlled venture when he invested $55,000 in Berkshire Downs, Frank snapped at the counsel. “I don’t have to refute it because there’s no truth to it.”
“Tell us about the first contact you had with anyone in relation to Berkshire Downs?”
“The first and only contact I had was with a man named Sal Rizzo.”
“How did you know Mr. Rizzo?”
“I met him.”
“How?”
“I can’t remember where or how, but I met him and we got to talking about it and I liked his idea about the investment.”
“What did he tell you about the investment that you liked?”
“I just liked the idea for five percent of the racetrack I might do well with it,” said Frank.
“Well, could you tell us whether you were