The fight over control of SunCruz Casinos produced only losers
In 1994, Greek business tycoon Gus Boulis founded SunCruz Casinos, a floating cash register. The business model was simple: Boulis offered a “cruise to nowhere” that would legally transport passengers just far enough offshore to avoid the reach of federal and state gambling laws. At the time, most casino gambling in Florida was illegal.
SunCruz was more popular than Boulis could have imagined.
Within a few years, SunCruz comprised a fleet of 11 luxury gambling vessels. At its peak, the company employed over 2,000 people and earned tens of millions of dollars in annual profits.
But as SunCruz rapidly gained popularity, the company — and Boulis — drew unwanted attention from the federal government. In 1999, authorities filed a complaint against Boulis, citing an obscure law that requires vessel fleets such as Boulis’ be owned by American citizens.
Although Boulis had become a citizen in 1997, the complaint alleged that he had purchased most of his ships before then.
By February 2000, Boulis settled the case, admitting that he had tried to flout the citizenship law by registering his casino boats under girlfriend Margaret Hren’s name. As part of the sealed settlement, Boulis and his companies were fined a combined $1 million. He agreed to sell SunCruz within three years and permanently leave the floating-casino business.
At the time, nobody could have known that the simple promise would have catastrophic consequences. Events were set in motion in September 2000 when Boulis sold SunCruz for just under $150 million to Washington, D.C., businessmen and political figures Adam Kidan (founder of Dial-A-Mattress) Jack Abramoff and Ben Waldman.
The deal would swiftly curdle. Boulis accused Kidan, who fronted the agreement, of faking wire transfers and cheating him out of his money. Boulis wanted to undo the transaction. The two men feuded frequently, including a clash where Kidan claimed Boulis stabbed him with a pen.
Allegedly fearing that Boulis would do him harm, Kidan secured the services of Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello, a childhood friend and bookkeeper for the Gambino crime family, as an ally. Moscatiello allegedly decided to eliminate the Boulis problem by eliminating Boulis.
After Boulis was boxed in and and shot dead while driving home in Fort Lauderdale, the dominoes began to fall.
Anthony “Little Tony” Ferrari, James “Pudgy” Fiorillo and “Big Tony” were charged with orchestrating the hit. Pudgy copped a plea. Big and Little Tony were convicted of first-degree murder in separate trials.
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Kidan and Abramoff would go to prison — not for murder but for wire and mail fraud.
Ferrari and Moscatiello’s convictions would be overturned, with new trials upcoming.
According to his LinkedIn page, Kidan is now president of staffing company Empire Workforce Solutions.
Abramoff, meanwhile, served three and a half years of a six-year sentence. After his release, he capitalized on his infamy, writing the autobiographical book Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist.
As for the actual triggerman, allegedly one John Gurino, he was shot dead in an argument with a Boca Raton deli operator, who said he was the victim of a shakedown and wrote his own book.
Like its founder, SunCruz is dead. It succumbed in December 2009 to mismanagement, double-dealing and the proliferation of casinos, including the Hard Rock, and various betting emporiums in pari-mutuel tracks and frontons, as the Legislature expanded legal gambling.
Floridians no longer had to get on a boat to place a bet.
