Louisiana Voice

I don’t make it to movie theaters much anymore, though I admit I really miss the smell of that delicious popcorn that goes with theater presentations. I now resign most of my movie-watching to Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., and nibble on vastly inferior microwave popcorn.

I watched a very good movie over the weekend that, while it was actually released last March, has just been offered on my streaming services, namely Amazon Prime in this particular case.

The movie was called The Alto Knights and featured one my favorite actors, Robert DeNiro, playing dual roles as Mafia bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese.

Genovese, fearing prosecution for a 1934 murder, fled to Italy in 1937 where he supported Benito Mussolini. But when the Allies invaded Italy, he switched sides and offered his services to the U.S. Army, an act that help facilitate his return to the U.S.

Upon fleeing to Italy, he named childhood friend Frank Costello boss of bosses. But when he expected to reclaim his position upon returning to the U.S., Costello resisted, prompting an attempted hit on Costello. Costello was only wounded, but the attempt on his life convinced him to retire. Along the way, there was the barber shop assassination of Albert Anastasia and the infamous Apalachin meeting that ultimately forced J. Edgar Hoover to finally face the fact that an organized crime syndicate did indeed exist – a contention he’d denied up to that point, preferring instead to focus the FBI’s efforts on rooting out communists.

Written by Nicholas Pileggi who also wrote Goodfellas, the two-hour Alto Knights movie is riveting and certainly entertaining – especially to those familiar with the names of America’s old crime bosses like Lucky Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, Joe Valachi and Bugsy Siegel.

While the story is mostly told from Costello’s vantage point, it does leave out what I consider to be an important occurrence that tied Costello’s name to New Orleans and Louisiana – AS RELATED IN A POST by LouisianaVoice in September 2021, more than four years ago.

In 1934, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia confiscated thousands of illegal slot machines being operated in the Big Apple by Costello. La Guardia had the machines dumped into the East River, crushing a major source of Costello’s cash flow.

Undeterred, Costello looked southward to Louisiana where he cut a deal with then-Sen. Huey Long, giving Long 10 percent of the gambling revenue should Costello choose to move his slot machine operations to New Orleans. Thus, was born Bayou Novelty Co. as a front to spearhead what would eventually be a statewide gambling operation, stretching from New Orleans to Bossier City – until the campaign of State Police Superintendent Francis Grevemberg to eradicate illegal gambling in the state in the 1950s and ‘60s..

When the manager of Bayou Novelty died in 1937, Costello’s brother-in-law Dudley Geigerman, Sr. (his sister was marred to Costello; her part was played in the movie by Debra Messing) took over the operation which by 1939 generated revenues of $800,000. In October of that year, however, a federal indictment charged six men of evading more than half-a-million dollars in income taxes. That’s more than $10 million in today’s dollars. Named in that indictment were Costello, Dudley Geigerman, brother Harold Geigerman, James Brocato (alias Jimmie Moran), Phillip Kastel and Jacob Altman. Costello and Kastel were only two of the six not from New Orleans. Moran had once served as a bodyguard for Long.

By 1954, Costello was also on trial for evading $73,437 in income taxes on income from his 22½ percent ownership of Louisiana Mint Co., a slot machine rental firm in New Orleans. It was further learned that the Beverly Country Club in Jefferson Parish was a partnership divided between Kastel (35 percent), Costello and Lansky (20 percent each), Kastel associate Alfred “Freddie” Rickerfor (17½ percent), Dudley Geigerman, Sr. (2½ percent) and Carlow Marcello (15 percent).

Also omitted from the movie was the fact that when Costello died in February 1973, his wife of 59 years moved to New Orleans to live with her brother, Dudley Geigerman, Sr. Geigerman Sr. died in August 1985.

Dudley Geigerman, III at various times has partnered with Marcello associate and convicted organized crime figure Anthony Tusa and former Louisiana State Police Commission member Jared Caruso-Riecke of St. Tammany Parish.

Business enterprises in which Dudley Geigerman III was involved – and his partner(s) – included:

• Crown Entertainment, Metairie (Anthony Tusa, partner);
• Decatur Entertainment, Slidell (Tusa);
• Southeastern Louisiana Entertainment, Houma (Tusa);
• Video Village, Slidell (Tusa);
• Mr. Binky’s Video Store, Kenner (Tusa);
• Paradise Video, Kenner (Tusa);
• GDH International. Covington (Jared Caruso-Riecke).

The first six businesses were video stores that specialized in pornographic videos and literature as well as various sex toys while GDH was a real estate investment company. Other officers in GDH besides CEO Riecke and Director of Housing Geigerman were Director Daniel E. Buras, Jr., Chief Operating Officer Richard Sharp and Chief Financial Officer Bruce Cucchiara.

Cucchiara was murdered in an apartment complex parking lot in New Orleans East on April 24, 2012, while looking for investment property. His killer has never been found.