From a disputed Sicilian identity and a Washington shopping center to the Kansas City Mafia's Las Vegas casino skim
In the small Washington town of Yelm, Joseph Vincent Agosto was a man who could inspire admiration, suspicion, and fear, sometimes in equal measure. He invested heavily in local businesses, opened a restaurant, developed commercial property, and helped establish a shopping center that promised jobs and economic growth for the community. He was articulate, well dressed, and apparently capable of persuading people to trust him.
He was also a convicted federal offender who had spent time in prison, fought deportation for more than a decade, and attracted the attention of investigators examining questionable financial dealings. In August 1972, an unidentified gunman reportedly fired at his automobile near Tacoma. Two years later, his restaurant burned in a fire investigated as suspected arson.
By the beginning of 1983, some Yelm residents still appreciated the investments he had made in their community. Others wished he had never come to town.
There was good reason for the disagreement. Agosto was facing federal criminal proceedings involving financial fraud and the skimming of casino profits for organized-crime figures in Kansas City. The same businessman who had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a Washington shopping center had become a central figure in one of the most notorious casino scandals in Las Vegas history.
And even his name was in dispute.
For more than a decade, federal immigration officials had insisted that Joseph Agosto was not Joseph Agosto at all. They claimed he was Vincenzo Pianetti, an Italian-born man who had entered the United States under someone else's identity.
Agosto insisted otherwise. He maintained that he was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and had every right to remain in America.
The disagreement eventually reached the United States Supreme Court.
It was an extraordinary legal journey for a man whose public occupation in Las Vegas was managing the glamorous Folies Bergère stage production at the Tropicana Hotel.
But the stage was only part of Agosto's business.
Behind the scenes, he was acquiring influence over a financially troubled casino, cultivating the confidence of wealthy investor Mitzi Stauffer Briggs, and helping Kansas City organized-crime figures establish a pipeline for stealing money from the Tropicana.
To understand how that happened, we must begin long before Agosto arrived on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Man Who Might Have Been Vincenzo Pianetti
In July 1927, according to Italian records later introduced by American immigration authorities, an elderly midwife appeared before the registrar of births in Agrigento, Sicily. She reported the birth of a boy whose mother did not wish to be identified.
The infant was placed in a foundling home and subsequently raised by an Italian couple, Pietro and Crocifissa Pianetti. He was known as Vincenzo Pianetti.
Federal investigators believed that this child eventually became the man calling himself Joseph Vincent Agosto.
Agosto had another explanation.
He maintained that he had been born in Cleveland to Arcangelo Agosto and Carmella Todaro, taken to Sicily while still very young, and raised by the Pianetti family. His use of the Pianetti name, he argued, reflected his childhood circumstances rather than an attempt to conceal his nationality.
The distinction was enormously important. If Agosto had been born in Cleveland, he was an American citizen. If the government's account was correct, he was an Italian national who could be subject to deportation.
Investigators alleged that Pianetti had been convicted of fraud in Italy, traveled to Canada in 1950, and subsequently entered the United States using the identity of a deceased American named Joseph Agosto.
Agosto disputed the government's interpretation of his history.
His accounts, as reported in newspapers and legal proceedings, were complicated by differing ages and descriptions of his early life. In September 1977, the Las Vegas Sun described him as 55 years old, while immigration investigators maintained that Vincenzo Pianetti was 49.
Even his age was a matter of disagreement.
The federal government began deportation proceedings in 1967. Agosto fought the effort through repeated administrative hearings and court appeals.
On June 6, 1978, the Supreme Court ruled 7–2 in his favor on an important procedural question. The justices concluded that his claim to American citizenship could be examined anew in federal district court.
The decision did not establish that Agosto had been born in Cleveland. Nor did it determine that the Italian records were false. It meant that he was entitled to a judicial hearing on his citizenship claim.
After eleven years of litigation, Agosto had succeeded in keeping the question alive.
By then, however, his problems extended far beyond immigration law.
Source: Agosto v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 436 U.S. 748 (1978); Jim Mann, Los Angeles Times, 1978.
Alaska, Federal Prison, and a New Beginning in Washington
Before his arrival at the Tropicana, Agosto had already been convicted in federal court.
In 1966, while living in Anchorage, Alaska, he was convicted of offenses involving false statements in connection with federally financed housing loans. Contemporary reporting described transactions in which homes were sold without the required down payments.
Agosto initially received probation, but he subsequently violated its conditions by traveling to Sicily without permission.
He served approximately eight months at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary in Washington in 1967.
Upon his release, Agosto settled in Yelm, a small community in Thurston County, southeast of Tacoma.
Here, his life took a decidedly entrepreneurial turn.
He developed commercial property, opened a restaurant, and became involved in a shopping center project that would eventually require substantial investment.
Contemporary newspaper accounts describe a lavish club, an office complex reportedly valued at $500,000, and investments in a financial institution called Northwest Guaranty.
One report placed his investment in Northwest Guaranty at approximately $115,000. Another described a $700,000 commitment to the planned shopping center.
These figures suggest that Agosto was handling considerable sums before his involvement in the Tropicana skimming operation.
They also raise a question that the available records do not fully answer: where did his investment capital originate?
It would be tempting to interpret his later criminal activities as an explanation for every earlier financial transaction. But the chronology does not justify that conclusion. Agosto had business interests in several states, and the source of each investment requires separate evidence.
What is clear is that he was no ordinary newcomer to commercial development.
A September 22, 1977, Las Vegas Sun article identified him as president of Golden West Enterprises, Inc., which had developed the Golden West Shopping Center at 900 West Owens Avenue in Las Vegas in 1963.
That places Agosto in connection with Las Vegas commercial real estate more than a decade before he assumed management of the Folies Bergère.
His later appearance at the Tropicana was not necessarily his first encounter with the city or its business community.
Sources: Harold Hyman, Las Vegas Sun, September 22, 1977; Associated Press, January 3, 1983.
Trouble at Northwest Guaranty
Agosto's investment in Northwest Guaranty placed him near another financial controversy.
In 1971, Washington legislators were investigating alleged irregularities involving savings and loan institutions. State officials encountered difficulties obtaining records because of laws protecting financial information.
Agosto, who reportedly held 870 shares in Northwest Guaranty, was expected to testify before the investigating committee.
The institution had failed and entered receivership. Federal proceedings subsequently involved allegations of fraud, embezzlement, counterfeiting, and conspiracy against several individuals associated with its operations, including Kenneth H. Grove.
Agosto also became involved in litigation arising from the institution's collapse.
A Washington appellate decision issued in 1978 describes a disputed financial transaction involving Agosto and a certificate of deposit. The case provides an additional documentary connection between him and the state's troubled financial sector.
These records do not establish that Agosto participated in every alleged wrongdoing at Northwest Guaranty. They do, however, demonstrate that his Washington business career included complicated financial dealings and significant litigation.
In 1972, he also pursued a civil rights lawsuit alleging that federal authorities had improperly investigated and interfered with his affairs.
According to contemporary reporting, Agosto claimed investigators had targeted him because they regarded him as a Sicilian connected to organized crime in Washington State.
The allegations were his. Whether federal agents conducted all the surveillance he described, or held the beliefs he attributed to them, requires examination of the underlying case records.
Nevertheless, the lawsuit reveals something important about Agosto's public position during those years: he believed, or at least argued, that federal authorities were treating him as an organized-crime figure long before the Tropicana case became public.
Sources: Associated Press, August 30, 1971; Giambattista v. National Bank of Commerce, 21 Wash. App. 723 (1978); contemporary Washington newspaper reports.
A Shooting, a Fire, and a Town Divided
Agosto's years in Yelm were hardly peaceful.
In August 1972, according to a later Associated Press account, Agosto was driving an automobile near Tacoma when an unidentified gunman fired at the vehicle.
Bullets struck the car. Agosto reportedly escaped with minor cuts.
The identity of the gunman and the motive were not established in the newspaper account.
In 1974, Agosto's Algier’s restaurant in Yelm burned. Contemporary newspaper coverage examined the circumstances of the fire, including an arson investigation. Ironically, the club had a cocktail lounge called “The Black Hand,” a nod to the practice of extorting subjects with the threat of death.
Whether either incident had any connection to Agosto's business dealings remains unresolved.
There was also the matter of his commercial development.
By the time Agosto left Yelm for Las Vegas in 1974, he had acquired a substantial local reputation. His shopping center project had promised jobs, retail businesses, and new investment for the small town.
His family continued the development after his departure.
In a January 3, 1983, Associated Press article titled “Yelm Wary of Shopping Center Developer,” local officials and residents offered strikingly different assessments of Agosto.
Mayor Lora B. Coates praised the jobs and income associated with the shopping center and described Agosto as a gracious and articulate man.
Other residents were considerably less enthusiastic. Some questioned his influence over the town, particularly in light of his growing legal troubles.
The article reported that Agosto's former wife, Mary, and their sons Charles and Joseph Jr. were continuing to expand the property. The family had acquired additional acreage, opened retail businesses, and invested more than $1 million in the development.
The shopping center was not merely a proposal. It represented years of work and substantial financial commitments.
For a small community, that mattered.
A businessman could be controversial and still provide jobs. He could be distrusted by some residents and appreciated by others. Agosto's criminal history did not erase the commercial development that had taken place, just as the development did not excuse his later criminal conduct.
That tension makes the Yelm chapter of his life particularly revealing.
Agosto may have genuinely enjoyed building businesses and seeing his adopted hometown prosper. He may also have regarded commercial development primarily as a means of accumulating wealth and influence.
The historical record does not tell us which motive mattered most.
Perhaps both did.
Source: “Yelm Wary of Shopping Center Developer,” Associated Press, January 3, 1983; Tacoma newspaper reports, 1972–1974.
A San Francisco Heiress Falls in Love with the Tropicana
While Joe Agosto was establishing himself in Las Vegas, another individual was preparing to make an investment that would change both their lives.
Mitzi Stauffer Briggs came from a family whose fortune had been built in the chemical industry. Her grandfather, John Stauffer, founded the company that became Stauffer Chemical. Her father, Dr. Joseph Sigall, was a noted Polish portrait painter, and her mother, Marie Stauffer Sigall, was an heiress to the family fortune.
Mitzi attended private schools and Stanford University, making her society debut in 1946. She married John C. Briggs, divorced him in 1954, and subsequently married his brother Carlisle, according to contemporary newspaper reporting.
Her personal life had attracted considerable attention before she became involved in Nevada gaming.
In April 1971, family members initiated conservatorship proceedings concerning an estate reportedly valued at $40 million. During those proceedings, Mitzi testified that she was working as a waitress in Menlo Park, California.
It was an unusual chapter in the life of a wealthy heiress, and an indication that her financial affairs had already been the subject of considerable controversy.
An Heiress Makes the Newspapers
On July 26, 1975, the San Mateo Times published an article titled “Atherton Heiress Invests in Casino.” Accompanied by a photograph of Mitzi, the story announced that the Nevada Gaming Commission had approved her investment of $6.4 million in the Tropicana Hotel.
The arrangement described in the article gave her a 40 percent controlling interest, with three existing investors retaining 29 percent and fifteen others holding the remainder.
For readers in California, it was a story about a prominent local heiress entering the glamorous and potentially lucrative world of Las Vegas gambling.
For Mitzi, it was the beginning of a venture that would consume far more of her fortune than she could have imagined.
From Investment to Love Affair
Mitzi's ownership interest subsequently increased, and by January 1976 the Las Vegas Sun described her as holding 51 percent of the Tropicana.
The precise ownership structure changed as the financing arrangements developed, but the important point was unmistakable: Mitzi had committed millions of dollars to rescuing a struggling casino.
She had never operated a hotel and admitted she knew little about gambling.
She wasn't interested in becoming a casino manager. Her advisers believed the Tropicana could produce a substantial return, perhaps 20 percent, and Mitzi was willing to provide the capital.
She brought back Don Speer, who had managed the Tropicana's casino from 1960 to 1972, along with his experienced management team.
In a January 1976 Las Vegas Sun profile titled “Finance And A Love Affair,” Mitzi explained her approach:
“I intend to see management is allowed to manage.”
She also remarked, with considerable self-awareness:
“I am not Miss Business, 1976.”
These were not the words of a woman pretending to understand every detail of casino operations. Mitzi knew she needed professional management, and she expected the people she hired to perform their jobs.
The Tropicana's difficulties, however, were far greater than she had anticipated.
Within months of acquiring her interest, the hotel faced a threatened shutdown by Nevada gaming authorities unless its financial condition improved. Mitzi and her advisers worked to satisfy regulators and keep the property operating.
She compared the experience to navigating a boat through dangerous waters. By January 1976, she believed the worst of the financial crises might finally be behind her.
The newspaper profile suggested that what began as an investment had become something approaching a love affair.
Mitzi was not merely hoping to make money from the Tropicana. She had become emotionally attached to the hotel and its future.
That attachment would prove enormously expensive.
Sources: “Atherton Heiress Invests in Casino,” San Mateo Times, July 26, 1975; “Finance And A Love Affair,” Las Vegas Sun, January 1976.
A Financially Troubled Tropicana
The Tropicana Hotel opened on the Las Vegas Strip in April 1957, an expensive and ambitious property that quickly became associated with lavish entertainment.
Its history was also marked by financial difficulties, changing ownership arrangements, and recurring questions about the influence of organized crime.
By the middle of the 1970s, the property was again struggling.
Agosto arrived in Las Vegas in late 1974 and moved his office into the Tropicana in December, assuming management of the Folies Bergère production.
It was a position that seemed comfortably removed from casino gaming. But it was Tropicana owner Diel Gustafson who brought him in, and they were later indicted and convicted in a $4 million Minneapolis bank check floating scheme.
Joe managed dancers, stage performances, and entertainment operations. A show producer might reasonably have dealings with hotel executives, but he would not ordinarily be expected to control the casino cage, gaming personnel, or financial operations.
Agosto was not an ordinary show producer.
His federal conviction made him a problematic candidate for a Nevada gaming license. Yet he began developing influence over the hotel and casino through financial arrangements, personal relationships, and control of a valuable entertainment attraction.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board became increasingly concerned about his activities.
On June 8, 1977, the board recommended that Mitzi Briggs receive a permanent gaming license after operating the Tropicana under a probationary permit.
The following day's Las Vegas Sun carried the headline “Trop Owner License Gets OK,” with a smaller heading praising the Gaming Board's recognition of her persistence.
Board chairman Philip Hannifin credited Mitzi with helping the Tropicana survive its financial difficulties. Without her determination, he suggested, the hotel might not have remained in operation.
Her attorney, Shannon Bybee, told regulators that she had demonstrated business competence and had improved the hotel's contractual arrangements.
It was a remarkable endorsement for a woman who had entered the casino business with little practical experience.
But at the same meeting, regulators delivered a very different message concerning Joe Agosto.
Hannifin complained that Agosto had previously flouted the board's authority by refusing to submit to a background investigation.
The board ordered him to submit his name for licensing after he and the hotel signed an extension of his Folies Bergère lease.
The contrast was striking.
The woman investing millions to save the Tropicana was receiving official praise, while the entertainment director was resisting the state's attempts to examine his background.
By September 1977, the Nevada Gaming Control Board had uncovered additional financial interests that had not previously been disclosed to regulators.
According to Harold Hyman's September 22 report in the Las Vegas Sun, investigators found that Agosto held approximately $500,000 worth of Tropicana stock. A company he controlled had also made previously undisclosed loans to the hotel.
Some of these details emerged through divorce proceedings involving his wife.
The Control Board recommended that Agosto be required to apply for a gaming license because of his influence over the casino's operations.
The situation was increasingly difficult to explain as ordinary entertainment management.
And another group of interested parties had been watching the Tropicana's financial problems with considerable attention.
They were in Kansas City.
Sources: “Trop Owner License Gets OK,” Las Vegas Sun, June 9, 1977; Harold Hyman, “Agosto Hearing Friday,” Las Vegas Sun, September 22, 1977.
The Kansas City Connection
In January 1975, Agosto met with Kansas City organized-crime figures Nick Civella, Carl Civella, and Carl DeLuna.
The meeting became a crucial element of the federal government's later prosecution of the Tropicana skimming conspiracy.
According to testimony and evidence described in the federal appellate decision United States v. DeLuna, Agosto sought assistance in consolidating his influence over the Tropicana and eliminating competing interests.
The Kansas City figures agreed to help.
One part of the arrangement concerned a proposed Teamsters pension fund loan associated with Tropicana interests. The mob figures indicated that they could interfere with the financing, thereby weakening Agosto's competitors and improving his position.
The arrangement was not a conventional business partnership.
Agosto could not obtain a gaming license because of his criminal history. The Kansas City mob figures were likewise barred from legitimate participation in Nevada casino operations.
Instead, they intended to exercise influence indirectly.
Agosto would serve as their man inside the Tropicana.
The casino's financial troubles created the opportunity. His entertainment operation gave him access. And the Kansas City organization provided the backing needed to strengthen his position.
The ultimate objective was to remove money from the casino without reporting it to the owners or Nevada gaming authorities.
That was the skim.
Mitzi Briggs and the Man She Learned to Trust
The most tragic part of the Tropicana story may be the relationship between Agosto and Mitzi Stauffer Briggs.
Mitzi was a wealthy investor who had committed millions of dollars to a property she believed could be restored to profitability.
She was entering a business with which she had limited practical experience, surrounded by individuals whose financial interests did not necessarily coincide with her own.
Agosto was already maneuvering for influence.
Initially, Briggs distrusted him.
The federal appellate record specifically notes that her arrival as an owner in 1975 temporarily interrupted Agosto's efforts to gain control.
For a time, his position was less secure.
But Agosto was persistent, persuasive, and evidently skilled at winning confidence.
By 1977, he had gained Briggs's trust. By 1978, according to the federal court's account, he was effectively running the Tropicana's hotel and casino operations.
The transformation was extraordinary.
A man who had served time in federal prison, whose American citizenship was being challenged, and whose influence over the property had attracted gaming regulators was now exercising substantial authority over a major Las Vegas casino.
And the woman whose money was at risk trusted him.
Briggs was not identified by the federal court as a participant in the skimming conspiracy. On the contrary, the appellate opinion specifically stated that she did not know the theft was occurring.
That distinction is essential.
Agosto and his associates were not simply stealing from an anonymous gambling establishment. They were stealing from a business controlled by a woman who had invested heavily in its survival.
Her confidence in Agosto helped give him the access he needed.
And he betrayed that confidence.
Source: United States v. DeLuna, 763 F.2d 897 (8th Cir. 1985).
How the Tropicana Skim Worked
The Tropicana skimming operation was carefully organized.
Carl Thomas, a Kansas City associate, helped oversee the mechanics. Agosto brought in casino personnel who could carry out the thefts while maintaining the appearance of legitimate gaming transactions.
The principal method involved fraudulent casino fill slips and the manipulation of chips and cashier records. As former cashier at the Tropicana Jay Gould told it at trial (he had immunity from prosecution), he helped is boss, Casino Manager Donald Shepard, skim $342,000 during 1978 and ’79.
He explained that Shepard forged signatures on table game fill slips (to restock tables with chips) that were later dropped into the cash boxes of tables signifying they had received the chips. That left unaccounted for cash in the cashier’s cage, which Gould removed and moved to Shepard.
Gould also testified that he and Carl Thomas had regularly skimmed cash at the Circus Circus casino in 1970.
Started in April 1978, the conspirators removed substantial sums, according to the evidence summarized in the federal appellate proceedings.
Agosto received the money and passed it to courier Carl Caruso, who transported it to Kansas City.
Caruso made numerous trips carrying money from Las Vegas. He reportedly received $1,000 for each delivery.
The funds were distributed among organized-crime figures in Kansas City and Chicago.
Among the Chicago recipients identified in the proceedings were Joseph Aiuppa and John Cerone.
It was a remarkably efficient arrangement. A casino owner supplied the capital and bore the financial risk. A trusted executive exercised control. Casino employees manipulated the accounting records. Couriers transported the stolen proceeds. And organized-crime figures hundreds of miles away received their shares.
The scheme was not without internal difficulties.
By late 1978, Agosto and his Kansas City associates suspected that some participants might be stealing additional money without sharing it with the organization.
The mob figures temporarily suspended the operation while investigating whether their own thieves were cheating them.
It was an extraordinary example of criminal bookkeeping: men stealing from a casino became concerned that other men were stealing from the thieves.
The skim resumed in January 1979.
In February, federal agents seized approximately $80,000 associated with the operation.
Investigators also recovered records and notes maintained by Carl DeLuna.
The evidence would become central to the prosecution of the conspiracy.
The Tropicana operation was beginning to unravel.
Sources: United States v. DeLuna, 763 F.2d 897 (8th Cir. 1985); United States v. Thomas, 759 F.2d 659 (8th Cir. 1985).
Mitzi's Dream Becomes a Financial Disaster
Even as Agosto and his associates were stealing from the Tropicana, Mitzi Briggs was investing in its future.
She had entered the business believing that the financially troubled hotel could be restored to profitability. Instead of abandoning the property, she continued putting money into improvements and expansion.
The Tropicana undertook a major construction project that included a new hotel tower, the Tiffany Tower, which opened in 1979 with approximately 600 additional rooms. The property also underwent casino expansion and renovation.
It was an ambitious effort to modernize a hotel that had opened more than twenty years earlier and was competing with newer resorts along the Strip.
Mitzi was not simply preserving an aging property. She was trying to build a stronger one.
But the Tropicana's financial troubles continued, and the discovery of the skimming operation created additional pressure.
The hotel ultimately passed into Ramada's hands in 1979.
Mitzi's financial commitment had grown far beyond her original investment. Later accounts described her having invested more than $11 million for a controlling interest of approximately 51.2 percent. Journalist John L. Smith, who interviewed her over many years, reported that her eventual losses were estimated at $44 million.
That figure represents the broader financial devastation associated with her Tropicana involvement, rather than a documented amount personally stolen by Agosto.
The distinction matters. The skimming conspiracy was one part of a larger collapse involving debt, ownership disputes, management problems, and costly expansion.
Nevertheless, the betrayal was unmistakable.
The woman who had trusted Agosto to help operate her casino discovered that he had been working with organized-crime figures who were stealing from it.
And the consequences continued long after she lost control of the property.
In later litigation, a federal appellate decision discussed a $34 million judgment against Ramada arising from the Tropicana transaction. The financial benefits ultimately flowed to other parties rather than restoring Mitzi's fortune.
She had entered Las Vegas hoping to earn a substantial return on her investment.
Instead, she lost control of the hotel she had worked so hard to save.
Sources: Tropicana expansion histories; John L. Smith, “The Ballad of Mitzi Stauffer Briggs, Heiress Who Lost It All in Vegas,” The Daily Beast, 2013; subsequent federal appellate litigation concerning Ramada and Tropicana interests.
The Government's Witness
By the early 1980s, Agosto faced serious criminal proceedings on several fronts.
Federal prosecutors pursued allegations involving complicated financial transactions. Separately, he was implicated in the Tropicana skimming conspiracy.
In January 1983, the Associated Press described the uneasy reaction in Yelm as Agosto prepared for trial in Minneapolis.
The businessman who had once developed local property was now being portrayed in federal court documents as an important participant in organized crime.
Agosto ultimately pleaded guilty in connection with the Tropicana conspiracy and became a cooperating government witness.
His testimony and information were particularly valuable because he had personally participated in the meetings and arrangements that allowed the Kansas City organization to establish its position inside the Tropicana.
He could explain the conspiracy from the inside.
He knew who had attended the meetings, who had exercised authority, and how money had moved from Las Vegas to Kansas City.
For prosecutors, he was an unusually important witness.
For his former associates, he was a dangerous one. When Johnny Roselli was set to testify before Congress in the 1970s, he disappeared and was later found dead in a 55-gallon drum in a Miami bay. Chicago Mob Boss Sam Giancana was set to testify before Congress when he was shot in his home. And as Agosto’s lawyer stated, Joseph said he didn’t want to become another statistic like Allen Dorfman, the Mob’s connection with Teamster loans, who had been convicted and might provide testimony to hurt the Outfit. He had recently been killed on January 20th.
Agosto died in August 1983, before the full legal aftermath of the Tropicana investigation had concluded. Although some agents and overseers said his death was a blow to coming trials, they all went off fine without him – as Lefty Rosenthal and the Chicago Outfit’s skim came to an end.
As a side note, Agosto was never stripped of his own assets. And he was in protective custody before he was taken to a local hospital where he died. But as a government witness, was he whisked away and allowed to live overseas? His ex-wife Mary continued to run the shopping center they owned in Washington. They remained friends while he worked in Las Vegas.
After his death was reported, she took an extended vacation overseas. She came back happy, and helped multiple family members purchase homes. Very nice. And nothing else is known.
The subsequent prosecutions and appeals preserved much of his account in the federal court record.
In 1985, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued decisions discussing the conspiracy and the evidence presented against its participants.
Those opinions remain among the most valuable sources for reconstructing what happened at the Tropicana.
Sources: Associated Press, January 3, 1983; United States v. DeLuna, 763 F.2d 897 (8th Cir. 1985); United States v. Thomas, 759 F.2d 659 (8th Cir. 1985).
The Heiress Who Lost Her Fortune
Mitzi Briggs lived for another thirty years after Agosto's death.
Her life took a direction that would have seemed almost unimaginable when she acquired the Tropicana.
The woman who had once controlled a major Las Vegas hotel and casino eventually worked as a restaurant hostess. Later, she found employment in the gift shop and administrative office of Guardian Angel Cathedral, near the Strip. She also served as the cathedral's sacristan.
The distance between those jobs and her former position as a wealthy casino investor was enormous, even if the physical distance was only a few blocks.
Journalist John L. Smith, who knew and interviewed Mitzi over many years, described her financial decline and the faith that helped sustain her.
She died on September 22, 2013, at the age of 84.
The Tropicana she had helped expand continued operating for decades after she lost her investment.
The Tiffany Tower remained part of the property, a physical reminder of an ambitious expansion undertaken during her ownership.
Mitzi's story is sometimes reduced to that of a wealthy heiress who was taken advantage of by mobsters.
But the contemporary newspaper accounts suggest something more complicated.
She was an investor who recognized her lack of experience and hired professional managers. She endured financial crises, worked with gaming regulators, and committed additional capital to a hotel she believed could succeed.
The Gaming Control Board publicly praised her persistence.
And she was betrayed by a man who had managed to earn her confidence.
That does not mean every dollar she lost can be attributed to Agosto or the skimming conspiracy. The Tropicana's financial problems were far broader than the criminal operation.
But the skim was a particularly cruel element of her experience.
While she was investing money to keep the hotel alive, others were secretly taking money out.
Source: John L. Smith, “The Ballad of Mitzi Stauffer Briggs, Heiress Who Lost It All in Vegas,” The Daily Beast, 2013.
The Other Joseph Agosto
What, then, are we to make of Joseph Vincent Agosto?
He was a convicted offender who repeatedly found himself involved in questionable financial activities. He helped organized-crime figures steal from a Las Vegas casino and betrayed the confidence of Mitzi Briggs.
Those facts cannot be dismissed.
But neither should we ignore the years he spent in Washington, where he invested in commercial property, helped create businesses, and left behind a shopping center that his family continued developing.
A January 1983 newspaper account captured the contradiction. Some residents remembered the jobs and improvements associated with his investments. Others remembered the investigations, the controversy, and the shadow of organized crime.
Perhaps Agosto was capable of generosity. Perhaps he enjoyed the respect that came with being an important businessman in a small town. Perhaps the investments were simply another means of gaining money and influence.
We cannot know his private motivations with certainty.
What we can say is that the same man who helped finance commercial development in Yelm also participated in a criminal operation that siphoned money from the Tropicana.
And there is a particularly bitter irony in his relationship with Mitzi Briggs.
Agosto had spent years fighting the federal government over his identity, insisting that officials had misunderstood who he really was.
At the Tropicana, he persuaded an investor to trust him as someone capable of protecting her interests.
But when federal investigators unraveled the skimming operation, they found that the entertainment director had been helping Kansas City mobsters steal from the very casino he was supposed to help manage.
His origins remained disputed. His business career crossed Alaska, Washington, California, and Nevada. His name appeared in financial investigations, immigration proceedings, criminal cases, and eventually a Supreme Court decision.
For a man who made his living in show business, Joseph Agosto left behind a remarkably complicated performance.
The curtain fell in 1983.
Mitzi Briggs lived another thirty years, long enough to see the casino she had tried to save continue without her, and to experience a life far removed from the fortune she had brought to Las Vegas.
Agosto's story is one of deception, ambition, and criminal opportunity.
Mitzi's is one of determination, misplaced trust, and devastating financial loss.
Together, they reveal how the glamour of a Las Vegas casino could conceal an operation that enriched organized crime while the people financing the property struggled to keep it alive.
And in Yelm, Washington, the shopping center Agosto helped develop remained a reminder that even a man deeply involved in criminal enterprise could leave behind something tangible for the community he once called home.
Sources and Further Reading
Main Photo Joe Agosto
Photo credit: Fred Blocher / Kansas City Star Photo Archive (Image No. 13274).
Federal court records
Agosto v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 436 U.S. 748 (1978). U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning Agosto's disputed citizenship and right to a judicial hearing.https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-436/pdf/USREPORTS-436-748.pdf
United States v. DeLuna, 763 F.2d 897 (8th Cir. 1985). Federal appellate decision documenting the Tropicana skimming conspiracy, Agosto's meetings with Kansas City organized-crime figures, the operation's mechanics, and Mitzi Briggs's lack of knowledge.
United States v. Thomas, 759 F.2d 659 (8th Cir. 1985). Federal appellate opinion discussing the Tropicana and related organized-crime conspiracies.
Giambattista v. National Bank of Commerce, 21 Wash. App. 723 (1978). Washington appellate decision involving financial transactions connected to Agosto and Northwest Guaranty.https://law.justia.com/cases/washington/court-of-appeals/1978/21-wash-app-723.html
Contemporary newspaper reporting
“Atherton Heiress Invests in Casino.” San Mateo Times, July 26, 1975. Contemporary reporting on Mitzi Briggs's initial Tropicana investment, ownership arrangements, family background, and conservatorship proceedings. Includes her portrait.
“Finance And A Love Affair.” Las Vegas Sun, January 1976. Profile of Mitzi Briggs discussing her investment expectations, management philosophy, family history, and efforts to stabilize the Tropicana.
“Trop Owner License Gets OK.” Las Vegas Sun, June 9, 1977. Reporting on the Gaming Control Board's recommendation for Mitzi Briggs's permanent license and its order requiring Joe Agosto to submit to licensing scrutiny.
Harold Hyman, “Agosto Hearing Friday.” Las Vegas Sun, September 22, 1977, p. 11. Reporting on Agosto's Tropicana financial interests, gaming-license investigation, Alaska conviction, and Washington businesses.
Jim Mann, “Las Vegas Ex-Con Staves Off Deportation.” Los Angeles Times, 1978. Reporting on Agosto's citizenship dispute and Supreme Court victory.
Joe Cordero, “Las Vegas Figure Testifies in LA Conrad Probe.” Register, April 29, 1977. Reporting on Agosto's grand jury testimony and California financial dealings.
“Yelm Wary of Shopping Center Developer.” Associated Press, January 3, 1983. Contemporary account of Agosto's Washington businesses, the 1972 shooting, 1974 restaurant fire, family investments, and local reaction.
“Savings, Loan Probe Runs Into An Impasse.” Associated Press, August 30, 1971. Reporting on Washington's legislative investigation into savings and loan activities.
San Francisco Examiner, June 19, 1979, reporting on organized-crime allegations and the Tropicana skim.
Retrospective reporting
John L. Smith, “The Ballad of Mitzi Stauffer Briggs, Heiress Who Lost It All in Vegas.” The Daily Beast, 2013. Retrospective account of Mitzi's Tropicana investment, financial losses, later employment, and life after the casino.https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ballad-of-mitzi-stauffer-briggs-heiress-who-lost-it-all-in-vegas/
Historical note: The conflicting accounts of Agosto's birthplace and identity are presented as claims made by Agosto and federal immigration authorities, respectively. The Supreme Court's 1978 decision did not resolve the underlying citizenship dispute. Figures describing Mitzi Briggs's investments and losses reflect different transactions and reporting periods and should not be treated as interchangeable. Allegations concerning Agosto's death or the later movement of concealed funds have not been independently substantiated.