Las Vegas mayor plans mob museum

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says he wants to convert the city's old federal courthouse, a National Historic Landmark, into a mob museum.

Goodman, a former defense lawyer who represented many alleged mobsters, said the landmark would pay tribute to the city's founders, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

"The mob founded us, and I never apologized for them because I represented them, and they made me a rich man," he said.

However, some wonder whether the attraction, which would open in 2008, would be little more than a tribute to Goodman's own legal career. The mayor's former client list includes such notorious names as Chicago's Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro.

"Oscar's client list would fill any mob museum," said Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John Smith, who wrote a book about Goodman. "You know, he has represented members of various organized crime families literally from coast to coast. He's most known locally and in Chicago, of course, for his representation of Tony Spilotro."