His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [256]
“Have some respect for the boss,” said one of Frank’s henchmen. “Keep your hands down if you want to live, you know, you do what we tell you to do, you know. You put your hands up again and I’m going to bust every bone in your body. If you want to live, if you want to stay from getting killed, you’ll keep your hands down.”
“Look, you son of a bitch, the name is Frank or Mister Sinatra,” said Frank, who then snapped his fingers to his entourage. “Okay, boys.”
Weinstock said that minutes later, back in the cocktail lounge, he was rushed by several men and left with rib injuries, facial cuts, and bruises all over his body. Terrified, his sister ran up to Frank.
“Mr. Sinatra,” she said. “You must have made a mistake. That’s my brother. Please help him.”
“Don’t talk to me, baby,” said Frank.
With that, he and his party left by the kitchen door. Weinstock summoned police and was taken to the station, where he was told by an officer that this kind of skirmish wasn’t at all unusual for Frank on his home ground of Palm Springs. Weinstock later was told that one policeman wanted to arrest Sinatra that night but was stopped by his superior officers and later fired.
Unable to get the Palm Springs police to file charges, Weinstock decided to sue for $2,500,000 in damages.
Immediately after filing suit, Weinstock said he began getting anonymous phone calls threatening him, his wife, and his child. “I had a lot of those calls. Always from men saying I better back off and drop the charges or I’d be sorry,” he said. “I hung up on them, but it was very frightening.”
“My client only sustained minor injuries,” said Marvin E. Lewis, Sr., the San Francisco attorney handling the case, “but it’s time someone put a stop to Sinatra’s bullying behavior.”
To that end, Lewis planned to parade through the courtroom former victims of Frank’s bodyguards, including Frederick Weisman, who had been badly clubbed in the Beverly Hills Polo Lounge in 1966, as well as Eddie Moran, the parking lot attendant who was beaten up in 1960. He planned to subpoena files from newspaper morgues to prove what he claimed was Frank’s penchant for bullying. But the court ruled that such evidence was inadmissible. Lewis also planned to investigate Sinatra’s finances so he could prove that his client deserved a multimillion-dollar judgment. Knowing Frank’s influence in Palm Springs, Lewis filed suit in federal court in Los Angeles.
“I don’t trust trying a case against Sinatra in Riverside County,” Lewis said.
The trial started shortly after Frank returned from Australia, but he did not appear in the courtroom. Nevertheless, Marvin Lewis addressed the jury as if he were present.
“We’re trying this case because a man has taken the law into his own hands,” he said. “We’re not going after him just because he has money, but the only way to punish a man of his wealth is through his pocketbook. What should we be suing him for? Bananas?”
Frank’s attorney maintained that Weinstock was drunk and had approached Barbara Marx, offering to show her the way to the ladies’ room, on the night in question. Jilly Rizzo admitted that he had hit Weinstock, but only after the businessman had supposedly called him “a guinea bastard.” He denied that he was Frank’s bodyguard.
“Sinatra don’t need no protection,” said Rizzo. “He’s man enough to stand up and defend himself in his own way like any man should.”
The trial lasted two weeks and the jury came back in favor of Frank and his sidekick, Jerry “The Crusher” Arvenitas, but awarded Weinstock $101,000 in damages in a judgment against Jilly. The judge overturned the jury’s verdict and granted Rizzo a new trial. But both sides agreed to settle out of court.
“I felt that justice had not been done,” said Marvin Lewis, “but I was glad that we at least had gotten a [jury] verdict against Jilly. That way they couldn’t walk off and say that they had no responsibility. But I know it would have been a different story if I’d had the opportunity to cross-examine Frank Sinatra and have the jury see him under cross-examination. … I thought they would