Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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IT'S 3 AM IN LAS VEGAS. WHATEVER THE DAY OF THE WEEK, IT'S A SURE BET THAT SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, IS GETTING INTO TROUBLE. Maybe it's drugs or assault or drunk driving. It could be an altercation in a casino or a misunderstanding with a prostitute inside a fancy hotel suite. If it's the right person in the wrong spot, then you can wager your last dollar on one thing: David Chesnoff will receive a phone call and rouse himself from a deep sleep. He'll get dressed, slip behind the wheel of his Dodge pickup truck, and race to the scene. That might be preceded by phone calls, to a casino's attorney or a prosecutor or maybe an investigator who should start taking statements before anyone else does. As everyone from Bruno Mars to former HBO chairman Chris Albrecht can tell you, if you must get into trouble in Las Vegas, be sure to have Chesnoff on speed dial. For more than 30 years, he has been a go-to lawyer for all manner of wiseguys, outlaws, rule breakers, drug dealers, rock stars, and marquee celebrities who like to push the limits. Now Chesnoff, a partner in the firm Chesnoff & Schonfeld, has decided to open up on a long, colorful, storied career. A bear of a man, with pushed-back hair, Coke-bottle glasses, and a forthright demeanor, he is dressed down in jeans and a long-sleeved Harley T-shirt on the afternoon when we meet in his large, memorabilia-filled office—with signed photos of satisfied clients and friends as varied as Hells Angel Sonny Barger and Britney Spears. Approaching 60, living comfortably on a multiacre horse property with his wife, Diane, and moving easily through the highest levels of Vegas society, Chesnoff nonetheless still has sharp elbows. His ability to assess a situation remains second to none. He first hit town in 1980, a recent graduate of Suffolk University Law School in Boston, standing six feet tall and weighing 145 pounds. He had already served a brief stint with a large firm in Texas, and he arrived just at the right moment—the tail end of the days before everything went corporate. Many major organized-crime cases went down in Vegas during the early '80s, and Chesnoff experienced his share of them. Starting out under attorney Dominic Gentile, Chesnoff quickly found himself placed on cases with attorney (and future mayor) Oscar Goodman. "It was a 24/7 city," says Chesnoff. "There was lots of action, guys from back East mixing with Western cowboys, and I got comped everywhere I went. I was eating at Dome of the Sea, the Sultan's Table, Villa d'Este. That's when I started not being 145 pounds." Thriving on the vibrancy of Vegas, Chesnoff found his place among the schemers and dreamers and geniuses the city has always attracted. "Nobody treated me like a grown-up yet. I was the kid who everybody called Chessie. I was like a rookie who played for the Yankees. Early on, I got introduced to Morris Shenker. He had been Jimmy Hoffa's lawyer and part owner of the Dunes"—purchased with money from the Teamsters union's pension fund. "He was in trouble with the feds, on a major bankruptcy fraud case, and I eventually became his lawyer. When Mr. Shenker died, he was still under indictment, and I called the prosecutors to get the case dismissed. They wanted proof of his death before they would dismiss. That tells you how intensely they were after him." Shenker directed a lot of business to Chesnoff, and before he knew it he was representing some of the most notorious people in America. There was Wayne Matecki, a reputed enforcer and alleged member of the Hole in the Wall Gang (they got their name because they robbed jewelry stores and the like by entering through walls and ceilings), and he worked on cases involving Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the inspiration for Joe Pesci's wildly violent character in Casino. Stories have circulated about Spilotro terrorizing businesspeople with shakedowns and organizing cheating rings against poker players. It leaves me wondering if Chesnoff was intimidated by The Ant. "I knew him, and he was not scary at all, not to me," says PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIC ITA CHESNOFF FOUND HIS PLACE AMONG THE SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS AND GENIUSES. Chesnoff, who recalls celebrating Thanksgivings and a birthday at Villa d'Este, where Spilotro was a frequent presence. "He was very intelligent and a gentleman. I knew him personally and professionally, and he accepted me even though I was young and new to Vegas." There was no trouble collecting from criminal clients? "I got paid up front. And if somebody stiffed me, I chalked it up." When Jimmy Chagra, reputed to be one of the world's leading marijuana kingpins, found himself in trouble, he turned to Oscar Goodman, and Chesnoff worked with parties involved in the case. At the time, Chagra was notorious for his sky-high gambling. He would walk onto the Las Vegas Country Club golf course carrying shopping bags full of cash and compete in matches in which putts could be worth half a million dollars. Rumor had it that Chagra was intentionally, and publicly, burning through his money, trying to establish himself as a high-stakes gambler in order to lay tracks for a money-laundering gambit. But Chesnoff doesn't believe that was the case. "He was a huge gambler who had access to large sums of money," he says, "I am confident that he wanted to win his bets." Although Chesnoff worked hard for seemingly dodgy characters, he managed to have some fun with them as well: "I once went to a party at Caesars Palace. I want to say it was in the Rain Man suite, but it was definitely in a suite like it. It was a wild party, with women and partying and people carrying on. I like to describe it as a cross between Scarface and The Hangover." Chesnoff is quick to mention, though, that he didn't spend much time socializing with his clients: "Guys would have their VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 084-089_V_FEAT_Chesnoff_Winter14.indd 87 87 1/10/14 11:00 AM