You know, you’ve gotta start feeling a little sorry for Las Vegas crime boss Leon Benzer right about now. Gosh, dang! Another four of his co-conspirators have now pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering and conspiring to steal massive amounts of money from Las Vegas homeowners. But Bobo Benzer hasn’t been able to keep his organized crime mob together. Gone are the days when a spaghetti-eating garlic-spitter could fire a .32 shell into the face of an adversary to shut him up. These days, you just can’t get good help.
Benzer is now just one of a tiny handful of crooks still accused of decimating Homeowners Associations in the Valley by putting ‘straw men’ into office as HOA board members and voting to divert millions of dollars in insurance mitigation work to his minions of willing wonks. (Actually, I was going to say ‘Wops’ but thought better of it. Besides, his name is Benzer, not Benzini). Sure, the first handful of people fingered in the HOA investigation ‘committed suicide.’ But in the old days a suicide really meant something, didn’t it? Suicide was a rite of passage, an honor befitting a snitch’s snitch. One couldn’t be an effective Capo without a few suicides scattered here and there around the landscape.
But, dang! Every time a ‘suicide’ happened in the feds’ Las Vegas HOA investigation, more rats started squealing. This wasn’t just a few rodents trying to find a wooden plank, this was swarms of rats diving off the decks of the Titanic.
Yep, it must be a lonesome time for Leon Benzer. Poor Babee!
I actually wonder if this guy is actually one of the better HOA gang leaders. It is amazing but he could very well be much better than most Other than banking I do not think one industry has gotten so completely controlled by people who only look to personal gains. I wonder if anyone believes the HOA is actually in business of making life better for the members. I would rank HOA leaders as people like Congressmen.
Oh, Tom, I would rank them far, far lower than Congressmen. Congressmen, after all, are theoretically bound by the restraints of the Constitution. HOA boards are not. The FBI aggressively investigates wrongdoing by Congressmen (remember Abscam anyone?) but they do not investigate board members or management companies. The HOA industry is like the mythological Hydra. Cut off one head and it grows right back.