Tony Spilotro Associate Joey Cusumano, Last Survivor of Vegas’ ‘Casino’ Mob Era, Dies at 90

Joey Cusumano, believed to be the last surviving associate of mobster Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro, died on Tuesday (Oct. 20) at the age of 90.

There was no character in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated 1995 movie Casino based specifically on Cusumano, but he was in the thick of the heat in real life.

As a trusted lieutenant in Spilotro’s crew, Cusumano operated squarely within the underground command structure in Las Vegas, engaging in criminal enterprises, labor racketeering, and high-stakes extortion. He was also a member of Spilotro’s notorious Hole in the Wall burglary gang.

The Joey C. Ledger

Originally a New Yorker, Cusumano resettled in Las Vegas in 1968. He found quick employment with Caesars Palace while the casino was under organized‑crime influence, delivering skimmed casino profits to Genovese crime bosses Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo in New York.

In 1970, he left casino work to open Joey’s New Yorker, an Italian restaurant just south of the Sands that became a busy Strip hangout. During the early 1970s, he also formed a working relationship with Spilotro, with whom he participated in several street‑level rackets.

Beyond Las Vegas operations, Cusumano and Spilotro inserted themselves into the background of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 film The Cotton Club, helping the movie secure financing and manage unruly on-set personalities. Cusumano received a line-producer credit on the film.

Post-Tony Life

After the 1986 slayings of Tony and his brother, Michael Spilotro, Cusumano was reportedly offered the chance to become Spilotro’s successor in the Chicago outfit’s Las Vegas rackets, but he declined. Nevertheless, he was convicted of labor racketeering a year later for diverting funds from the Culinary Union’s life‑insurance program.

Following his release from prison in June 1990, he was listed in Nevada’s Black Book of persons forbidden from ever entering a casino in the state.

In October of that same year, Cusumano survived an assassination attempt, when a masked gunman ambushed him as he opened the garage door of his townhouse at the Las Vegas Country Club, shooting him multiple times in the shoulder.

Cusumano remained in Las Vegas for the next 36 years, keeping a low profile. He enjoyed tennis at the country club and meals there with family and friends. Those friends included Oscar Goodman, the former mayor of Las Vegas and his former defense attorney.

Cusumano formulated the menu in the downtown Las Vegas restaurant named in Goodman’s honor. Yet he could never eat at Oscar’s Steakhouse because it was housed inside a casino (the Plaza).

In 2012, Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith described Cusumano as “the luckiest man in Las Vegas,” reasoning that he had outlived all threats to his life and freedom, and survived long enough to remake his image from mob associate to quasi-celebrity.

“I lived what I lived, and it’s over,” Cusumano told Smith. “The best thing about the way I’m living now is the peace. I miss Tony, but the truth is that if he was still around, we wouldn’t be here. We would have had a lot of problems.”

In recent years, Cusumano faced several ongoing medical problems that got worse with time.

A visitation will be held at Palm Mortuary-Cheyenne from 3 to 7 p.m. on Nov. 13. The funeral will take place at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church from 11 a.m. to noon on Nov. 14. A committal will follow at Bunker’s Memory Gardens from 2 to 3 p.m.