Bugsy Siegel is the Most Charming Gangster in the History

(Note: be warned, kind of long background info here, but I think it’s needed)
As far as interesting lives, few can beat Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel. Born February 28, 1906 in Brooklyn, New York, Siegel came from a poor Jewish family. Before he was even twenty, he’d established a profitable protection racket and a lengthy rap sheet, including armed robbery, rape, and murder. Siegel had connections—he was childhood friends with Al Capone and familiar with many of the well known New York City mobsters of the day—and he also had a taste for violence. Soon, he’d established a small mob specializing in hits for the numerous bootleg gangs of the time with Meyer Lansky, a fellow mobster. His violence and short temper led some to say he was “crazy as a bedbug,” giving him his famous nickname ‘Bugsy,’ which he even more famously despised.
Siegel was making money, which he was happy to flaunt, but he wanted more. He carried out several hits for Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and eventually formed Murder Inc. with his associates, establishing himself as a skilled hitman for the National Crime Syndicate, an organization of mob families. But Siegel was already making enemies, and several assassination attempts were made on his life, some of which came very close to being successful. So, it was time to move out west.
In California, Siegel helped establish gambling rackets, drug trade routes, and prostitution rings. His star was rising outside of the Underworld too, and in addition to the numerous politicians and police on his payroll, he befriended stars like Cary Grant and Clark Gable. Incredibly, while in Italy with a socialite in 1938, he met Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, whom he immediately disliked and offered to kill. The offer was declined by his lady friend. Yet Siegel was not always looked upon fondly by the upper echelons of Hollywood; he borrowed exorbitantly from celebrities, knowing he would never be asked to pay it back, and began to develop extensive plans to extort movie studios. After several trials and acquittals for failed and successful hits, it was time to leave California.
Siegel’s next stop was Las Vegas where, in 1945, he purchased and developed the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, the first luxury hotel on the Vegas strip. As you might imagine, that was expensive, and over the course of its construction, costs were equivalent to over $61 million in today’s money each year. Siegel’s checks were bouncing, and many of the locals felt threatened by him. Mob bosses were beginning to lose patience with Siegel too, and he was refusing to report on business, claiming he was running the California Syndicate himself. For now, they left him alone—he'd been valuable in the past, after all.
The Flamingo Hotel was a dismal failure, and people—very powerful people—were starting to get tired of waiting for the promised money to materialize. By 1947, it was gradually turning around—with the help of Meyer Lansky, now in Vegas—but for most, it was too little too late.
Death:
On June 20, 1947, Siegel was gunned down in the Beverly Hills home of his sometimes-girlfriend Virginia Hill. He was 41. Somewhat suspiciously, Hill had taken an unscheduled flight to Paris the day (or by some sources, week) before. As Siegel sat reading the newspaper with associate Allen Smiley, an unknown assailant fired with a .30 caliber military M1 carbine through the window, striking Siegel many times (NSFW). Two shots hit his head, with one passing through his right cheek and the other his nose. Though he was not hit directly through the eye (NSFW), a bullet-in-the-eye death became a popular trope in Mafia media, including in the Godfather, where a character based on Siegel is murdered in the same manner.
The death was covered extensively in the media, which portrayed Vegas as a bastion of sin and mafia activity. As early as the day after Siegel’s death (or, as some sources have it, during Siegel’s death), however, more personal things were changing: Lansky walked into the Flamingo and took over operations.
Theories:
The mob is famously tight-lipped, and Siegel’s death was no exception. Despite the extensive speculation, no precise motive has ever been confirmed. There was a massive police investigation, but in a case like this, that doesn’t mean much, nor does the media coverage. The media in particular salivated over the potential for splashy crime stories, and the circumstances of this case have been complicated by contemporary coverage. Several days after Siegel’s death, for example, one newspaper ran the headline “BUGSY'S BLONDE EX-WIFE GIVES CLUES TO HIS KILLERS,” while another read “BUGSY'S EX NO AID IN HUNT.” As far as the most popular theories:
A Mob hit: A mob hit seems like the most obvious cause, and it's a theory that’s been popularized by several novels and the 1991 movie Bugsy. It would certainly make sense; it was the mob’s money Siegel had been spending wildly on his unsuccessful hotel after all, and he’d been growing uncooperative. Of the proposed hitmen, the most often mentioned are Frankie Carbo (Ralph Natale, former Philadelphia boss and Mob squealer, claimed Carbo as the true killer) and Eddie Cannizarro, both Syndicate hitmen. But even here, there are several proposed reasons for the hit. As some have it, mob money from the Flamingo’s funding was going missing and Siegel was skimming off the already meager profits. Skimming could have been forgiven, if the Flamingo was a success. It was not. After a meeting of the Syndicate’s “Board of Directors,” it was allegedly decided that Siegel would die, with Lansky reluctantly agreeing. Others believe that a hit might have been ordered whether Siegel was skimming or not; the Flamingo was simply too expensive. As one historian put it, “Bugsy was a dreamer. And he was dreaming with other people’s money.”
Yet many have also argued against this theory. According to one of Siegel’s emissaries in Vegas, for example, no one would have dared to order a hit on Siegel. He and Lansky were close until the end of their lives, and Lansky would never have agreed to it. And if Lansky would not agree, then Charles “Lucky” Luciano, who was “the head of everything,” would never have agreed either. And as others have argued, the method of execution (NSFW) didn’t match with typical mob methods; firing a weapon from outside a house increased the risk of missing as well as the risk of being seen. The preferred method was a clean shot to the back of the head. According to some, the oft-referenced money problems of the Flamingo also wasn’t an issue. At the time, Lansky was paying back any investor who wanted out, and the gradual uptick in its profits was quickening by the day. Personally, I don’t think the financial uptick invalidates the theory. If the hotel was starting to make more money, then that might be all the more reason to get rid of the difficult-to-manage Siegel and take over.
Wire Business: At the time of his death, Siegel was embroiled in a dispute with Jack Dragna, dubbed the Capone of Los Angeles. Siegel and Dragna had had an uneasy partnership in previous years, but Dragna, far less powerful than Siegel and the New York gangs, resented the income and respect Siegel commanded. This came to a head when a racing wire service (a way of cheating on bets) between the two of them soured. Siegel wanted control for himself, and ordered Dragna to turn it over or be killed, to which Dragna agreed. After Siegel’s death, control was returned to Dragna. He had a motive, but his story would only have been one among many for a man as ruthless as Siegel, which, in a way, complicates things further—there’s a real possibility that the culprit in Siegel’s murder was someone never even considered. His list of enemies was long, varied, and probably mostly unknown. Yet another man who had reason to want Siegel dead, for example, was his bodyguard and muscle Mickey Cohen. A Cleveland gangster, Cohen was given control of the Syndicate’s West Coast gambling operations. If Siegel still lived, he would never have gotten it. Interestingly, he, like Al Capone before him, was eventually felled by tax evasion.
Virginia and/or brother: The same emissary of Siegel who shot down the mob hit theory believed that Virginia Hill’s brother had carried out the murder. The brother, a marine stationed at Camp Pendleton named Bob or Bill, had seen Siegel and Virginia fighting outside the Flamingo as well as the bruises Siegel had left on her and threatened to kill him. Another of Virginia’s brothers, Chuck, was also at the Beverly Hills house when Siegel was murdered.
Virginia herself has also been the subject of suspicion. Nicknamed the “Queen of the Mob,” Hill worked, among other powerful jobs, as a cash courier, laundering money and stolen goods as well as blackmailing high-ranking men through sexual liaisons. Her relationship with Siegel was tempestuous at best, and she may have been embezzling from the Flamingo. She’s also been accused of two-timing with rival mob operations, though this is unconfirmed. Eventually fleeing to Europe permanently, Hill died of an overdose in 1966, though some have alleged that she was actually murdered after she, completely broke, attempted to leverage her intimate knowledge of the Mob.
Rival Mobs: Unfortunately, I can’t find much concrete information about this theory (note: story of my life researching these posts haha), but some believe that rival mob operatives wanted Siegel gone. He was a powerful—and very public—figure, which made him something of an obvious target in the cut-throat world of Mafia politics.
Moe Sedway: This is a relatively new theory, emerging after Robbie Sedway was interviewed for LA Magazine after his mother’s death. Here, he alleged that Siegel’s murder was ordered by his mother Bee, the wife of powerful mobster—and childhood friend of Siegel’s—Moe Sedway. According to Bee, who wrote and scrapped a book proposal called Bugsy's Little Lunatic (Siegel’s nickname for her), Siegel had threatened her husband, who was the Flamingo’s numbers man, and therefore watching Siegel—who, remember, had been accused of skimming—closely. So Bee contacted Mathew “Moose” Pandza, a truck driver whom Bee married after Moe’s death. Moose, the perfect killer, since he had no connection to the Mob, then shot Siegel to death. The problem with this theory, however, is that Bee is the only source; as she herself said, anyone who could contradict her was dead. She also squandered most of the fortune left to her by Moe over the course of her life, and died almost penniless.
All of the above: Some believe that almost all the suspects were involved. Usually, it goes something like this: “Virginia supplied the location and received some reward. Cohen knew Bugsy's schedule for the evening, but happened to not be watching him that night…Dragna ordered the hit, with the approval of Lansky and Luciano.” It’s unlikely, but it certainly has its believers, if only for the convenience of it.
Final Thoughts & Questions:
This case is interesting to me because of the sheer number of suspects. In the end, a mob hit seems the simplest and most likely explanation. But there were so many people with means, motive, and opportunity. So:

• Why was Siegel killed and who killed him? The Syndicate, rival mobs, Virginia Hall, her brother, Mickey Cohen, Jack Dragna, Mathew Pandza (as ordered by Moe and/or Bee Sedway), several of the suspects, or someone else entirely?

Sources:
https://www.lamag.com/longform/mobster-murder-moll-secret/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/lasvegas-bugsy/
https://themobmuseum.org/blog/killed-benjamin-bugsy-siegel/
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Bugsy_Siegel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugsy_Siegel
https://themobmuseum.org/blog/virginia-hill-queen-of-the-mob-was-no-ones-pushove
To many, Siegel’s legacy exceeds his mob connections, and in some ways, even his death; without him, many believe, there would be no Vegas. So if you take anything away from this write-up, let it be this: The Blue Man group’s Vegas residency is Bugsy Siegel’s fault.

(Cuban response at the bottom)
The Havana Conference convened on December 20, 1946. Delegates were present representing New York City, New Jersey, Buffalo, Chicago, New Orleans and Florida, with the largest delegation of bosses from the New York-New Jersey area. Several major bosses from the Jewish Syndicate were at the conference to discuss joint La Cosa Nostra-Jewish Syndicate business. According to conference rules, the Jewish delegates could not vote on Cosa Nostra rules or policies; however, the Jewish crime bosses were allowed input on any joint business ventures, such as the Flamingo Hotel.

The Beginning

Luciano opened the Havana Conference by discussing a topic that would greatly affect his authority within the American Mafia; the position of "capo di tutti capi" or "boss of all bosses". The last official boss of all bosses had been Salvatore Maranzano, who was murdered in September 1931. By the end of 1931, Luciano had eliminated this top position and re-organized the Italian mafia into "La Cosa Nostra", or "This Thing of Ours". A board of directors, commonly called the "Commission", had been formed to oversee criminal activities, control rules, and set policies. La Cosa Nostra thus became the top criminal organization within the National Crime Syndicate.
Now Luciano could easily have declared himself as Maranzano's heir in 1932; instead, Luciano decided to exercise control behind the scenes. This arrangement had worked until Vito Genovese's return from Italy. Officially, Genovese was now just a caporegime; however, he had made it clear that he intended to take control of the Luciano crime family. Since Luciano's deportation in 1946, Luciano ally Frank Costello had been the acting boss of the Luciano family. As a result, tensions between the Costello and Genovese factions had started to fester. Luciano had no intention of stepping down as family boss; he had to do something about Genovese. Luciano also realized that Genovese threatened his overall authority and influence within the American mafia, probably with support from other crime bosses. Therefore, Luciano decided to resurrect the boss of all bosses position and claim it for himself. He hoped the other bosses would support him, either by officially affirming the title or at least by acknowledging that he was still "First Amongst Equals".
At the conference, Luciano allegedly presented the motion to retain his position as the top boss in La Cosa Nostra. Then Luciano ally, Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia seconded the motion. Anastasia voted with Luciano because he felt threatened by Genovese's attempts to muscle in on his waterfront rackets. Checkmated by the Luciano-Costello-Anastasia alliance, Genovese was forced to swallow his ambitions and plan for the future. To further embarrass Genovese, Luciano encouraged Anastasia and Genovese to settle their differences and shake hands in front of the other bosses. This symbolic gesture was meant to prevent another bloody gang war such as the Castellammarese War of 1930–1931. With Luciano solidifying his personal position and squashing Genovese's ambition for now, Luciano brought up discussion of the mob's narcotics operations in the United States.

Narcotics

One of the key topics at the Havana Convention was the global narcotics trade and the mob's operations in the United States. A longstanding myth has been the supposed refusal of Luciano and the Cosa Nostra to deal in narcotics. In reality, only a few bosses such as Frank Costello and the other bosses who controlled lucrative gambling empires opposed narcotics. The anti-drug faction believed that the Cosa Nostra did not need narcotics profits, that narcotics brought unwanted law enforcement and media attention, and that the general public considered it to be a very harmful activity (unlike gambling). The pro-drug faction said that narcotics were far more profitable than any other illegal activity. Furthermore, if the Cosa Nostra ignored the drug trade, other criminal organizations would jump in and eventually diminish the Cosa Nostra's power and influence.
Luciano himself had a long involvement in the drug trade, starting as a smalltime street dealer in the late 1910s. In 1928, after the murder of Arnold "The Big Bankroll" Rothstein, Luciano and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter took over Rothstein's large drug importation operation. Since the 1920s, La Cosa Nostra had been involved in drug importation (heroin, cocaine, and marijuana) into North America. In the 1930s, the organization started transporting narcotics from the East Asia Golden Triangle and South America to Cuba and into Florida. The American mob's longtime association with the government of Cuba concerning gambling interests such as casinos along with their legitimate business investments on the Caribbean island put them in a position to use their political and underworld connections to make Cuba one of their narcotics importation layovers or smuggling points where the drugs could be stored and then placed on sea vessels before they continued on to Canada and United States via Montreal and Florida among the ports used by Luciano's associate

The Siegel Situation

The next item on the agenda at the Havana Conference was what Lansky called the "Siegel Situation". In the mid-1930s, the New York and Chicago crime families had been sent out west to set up and oversee a race wire service, gambling activities in Los Angeles and Nevada, and supervise narcotics shipments from Mexico. In a short while, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel had become a very popular and visible figure in Hollywood's most glamorous circles.
The Flamingo Hotel was the creation of Billy Wilkerson, a Hollywood nightclub owner and one of the founders of The Hollywood Reporter. By the mid-1940s, it was an unfinished dream deferred. This Flamingo Hotel project became Siegel's obsession. Siegel persuaded his longtime friend and business associate Meyer Lansky to help him sell New York and Chicago crime bosses on investing in this project. Siegel promised the bosses that the hotel and casino would be a smart and profitable investment.
At the end of the Havana Conference, the tension between Luciano and Genovese allegedly reached a boiling point, according to "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano", by Martin Gosch and Richard Hammer.

Government Response

The Cuban Government, knowing the watchful eyes of the FBI was on them, simply monitored these meetings. El Presidente actually even went as far to send escorts to some of the mobsters, to ensure they got to and from their destinations without other gangs assaulting them.
The United States is also fully aware of most of the content that was going on, bugging the meeting sites in 1945.

Hey everyone!
In addition to our ongoing local recommendation threads, we wanted to start featuring a region and the accompanying regional subreddit every week or two.
This thread is for all things beer in Nevada. That includes breweries, brewpubs, cool bars that serve beer, cool food places that do beer, homebrewing, beer people, cool beer stores and shops, and anything I'm forgetting. If you have recommendations of places to go in Nevada, post them here. If you have recommendations for Nevada-brewed beer, let us know. If you have a cool story or any cool written or filmed content, feel free to post it.
Most Yankees are familiar with Las Vegas as the popular tourist spot to hit up when you are 21 for gambling and other debauchery. But the origins of "Sin City" go back to 1906 when saloons on Block 16 (located between First Street between Ogden and Stewart Avenue) began serving liquor without licensing restrictions and offered patrons the warming comfort of prostitutes. The first casino was opened in 1931, and the first casino on The Strip was opened ten years later. Vegas is inextricably tied to mafia crime, with notorious mafioso, Bugsy Siegel, running the Flamingo casino from 1945 to 1947. Vegas' colorful history and relative calm over the past few years was unfortunately recently disrupted by the now deadliest modern-day mass shooting in the United States. As we move towards healing and recovery, hopefully Vegas can find ways to mourn the loss while retaining its free spirit.
Nevada is not just Vegas, but also home to Area 51, the Hoover Dam, and part of the Sierra Nevadas. Nevada is the seventh-largest state in size, and about 85% of its land is owned by the federal government. And finally, Nevada is the only state with an entire museum devoted to the life and time of entertainer Liberace.
Anyway...I've been looking forward to this one, and this one has been requested more than once. So knock'em out (no pun intended).
Once we close this thread out, it will be archived in a master recommendations thread that will be included in /beer's sidebar for future reference.
Previous threads:

• Alabama
  
• Alaska
  
• Arizona
  
• Australia
  
• Atlanta, Georgia
  
• Austin, Texas
  
• Canada
  
• North & South Carolina
  
• Ohio and all things Ohio beer
  

1. The Biggest Hotels in America

Seventeen of the twenty biggest hotels in the U.S. are in Las Vegas. Fifteen of which are the largest in the world

1. To make sure gamers lose complete and utter sense of time and reality, there are absolutely no clocks or windows in the gaming casinos of Las Vegas.
   
2. The Flamingo and Bugsy Siegel
   

American gangster, Bugsy Siegel, the leading force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip, named his casino the Flamingo after his showgirl girlfriend Virginia Hill. He nicknamed her Flamingo because of her long and skinny legs.

1. The Little White Wedding Chapel is one of the most iconic wedding chapels in Las Vegas, famous for its Drive-Thru Tunnel of Vowels and for marrying many celebrities, including the infamous 55 hour marriage of Britney Spears.
   
2. Lion’s Share, a slot machine in Las Vegas’ MGM grand has not hit the jackpot in nearly twenty years and, as of today, holds a winning of $2.3 million dollars!
   
3. The layout of a Las Vegas casino resembles that of a department store. Designed like a maze to swallow you up and make it difficult for you to find your way out.
   

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