The Coast Mafia, also known as the Dubose Syndicate, is the main antagonistic faction of the legal thriller novel The Whistler and its prequel, Witness to a Trial.
It is a criminal syndicate led by Vonn Dubose that controls the Treasure Key casino in Florida, and uses the millions of dollars skimmed from the casino's profits to enrich itself.
Organisation and activities[]
The Coast Mafia is run by five men known as the Cousins, although whether they are actually related is unclear. The overall leader of the outfit is Vonn Dubose, real name Jack Henderson, who makes all the big business decisions. The money he and his associates skim from the Treasure Key casino anchors the group's entire operation. His second-in-command is Hank Skoley, rumoured to be his nephew, who oversees the hotels and restaurants used for laundering their dirty money. Hank also arranges many of the Coast Mafia’s criminal activities. The Maton brothers, Floyd and Vance, are responsible for the gang’s real estate developments; they are the only two Cousins who are definitely related to one another. The final Cousin, another supposed nephew of Vonn’s named Ron Skinner, runs most of the “legitimate” businesses that act as fronts for the Coast Mafia.
Just below the Cousins are the “managers”, of whom there are eleven. These are the men who run the syndicate’s legitimate businesses overseen by Hank and Ron. Their loyalty is bought by the Cousins paying them well above average and gradually giving them more and more businesses to run, before eventually tasking them with helping to launder the Coast Mafia’s dirty money. The serious laundering takes place in Ron Skinner’s strip joints and bars, but the hotels see less return: ‘only’ $300,000 per year. Once the money has been run through the front businesses, the managers take it to Treasure Key casino (which is ironically where most of it originated in Box BJ-17) and deposit it in their house accounts after playing for an hour; the money is later transferred to a bank account belonging to Hank Skoley.
Should the syndicate require somebody to be rubbed out, Vonn and Hank recruit one of the managers to kill them, as they have no criminal record and will not be suspected. These assassinations are usually assigned to the same man, a bar owner named Delgado who moonlights as a hitman for the Coast Mafia. Occasionally a different manager will be assigned to carry out murders, a fact which ultimately leads to the Coast Mafia’s downfall when Hank selects the wrong man to carry out a hit across state lines.
History[]
Origins[]
The Coast Mafia formed out of the remnants of the Catfish Mafia, a criminal gang from Mississippi that took part in illegal gambling and bootlegging. By the 1980s, most of the original gang members were dead or in prison, and the remaining gang members were bankrupted when Mississippi legalised gambling in 1990. The Catfish Mafia thinned out until only a few key members, five men known as the ‘Cousins’, remained.
Led by a grandson of the Catfish Mafia's founder, who would become known as Vonn Dubose, the group moved to southern Florida and rebuilt their profits through cocaine smuggling and fraudulent land deals. Dubose made enough money to solidify his syndicate into a larger crime organisation, which became known as the Coast Mafia.
Treasure Key[]
At the same time as the group's arrival in Florida, the Tappacola Indian tribe was given a land charter by the federal government. By coincidence, the Coast Mafia owned multiple plots of cheap land near the Tappacola reservation.
Vonn approached the Tappacola with a proposal which would make Vonn, the syndicate and the tribe rich. The tribe would construct a casino on their land, which would be solely operated by the Tappacola and pay a $5,000 monthly pension to all adult members of the tribe. The Coast Mafia would use its influence to make sure the casino was approved. In return, eight million dollars per year would be skimmed from the casino by the tribe's chief to benefit Vonn and his associates. Vonn's proposal was approved by the Tappacola chief.
The majority of the Tappacola opposed the construction of Treasure Key, and in 1993 a tribal referendum was held. Despite the Coast Mafia's efforts, 54% of the tribe, led by a devout Christian named Son Razko, voted not to approve the casino. Two years later the Coast Mafia murdered Razko and framed another opponent of the casino named Junior Mace. The Mafia arranged for a corrupt circuit court judge named Claudia McDover to preside over Junior's trial, and he was convicted and sentenced to death. Digger Robles, a jailhouse snitch who was paid to accuse Junior of the murder, was rubbed out by the Coast Mafia soon after to tie up loose ends.
With Razko out of the way, the Coast Mafia intimidated the tribe into approving Treasure Key, at the same time developing their adjacent properties to provide services to the casino. The Mafia's first project was Rabbit Run, a golf community owned by one of Vonn's front companies that contained eighteen fairways and dozens of expensive condos. Four condos were secretly given to Judge McDover as a bribe; in return McDover dismissed all legal challenges to the casino.
One the casino was built, the Dubose syndicate began defalcating funds from the business with the help of the Tappacola’s chief. At 5:00 a.m. every day, the cash boxes containing each table’s profits would be removed and taken into the back for the money to be counted. Box BJ-17, the box which generated the most cash each day, was removed from the cart by one of the supervisors before it could be counted as the guards looked the other way. BJ-17 would be placed in a locked drawer to which there were only two keys. One key was held by a casino employee, Gavin Prince, and the other by the tribal chief, Elias Cappel. The chief would arrive later to remove the box and deliver it to his co-conspirators. The CCTV tapes were wiped every three days in case the government ever came calling. On average, around $8 million dollars per year was skimmed and rerouted to the conspirators this way.
By the time The Whistler takes place, the Coast Mafia has used the casino profits to expand their operations across Florida. The gang owns dozens if not hundreds of hotels, bars, amusement parks, strip clubs, liquor stores and restaurants all over the state that they use to launder money.
BJC investigation[]
The Coast Mafia’s downfall comes when Greg Myers, a lawyer acting on behalf of the titular Whistler (Judge McDover’s court reporter JoHelen Hooper) files a formal complaint with the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct accusing McDover of accepting bribes in the Rabbit Run development. BJC investigators Lacy Stoltz and Hugo Hatch are assigned to investigate the complaint and pay several visits to the Tappacola reservation, including Rabbit Run, as well as visiting Junior Mace on death row.
When the Cousins get wind of the investigation, they assign one of their managers, a man named Clyde Westbay, to intimidate the BJC by staging a car crash on the reservation. An unidentified mob lieutenant poses as an informant and lures Lacy and Hugo onto the reservation by offering to arrange a meeting. Clyde and a stooge named Zeke Foreman intercept the two of them in a stolen car as they are returning from the cancelled meeting and crash into them. The crash kills Hugo and hospitalises Lacy, but also slightly injures Zeke. The two men then steal the investigators’ phones and leave, accidentally leaving behind a paper towel which Zeke used to wipe the blood off his nose. The killers also stop at a store to get some ice and Zeke is caught on the security cameras.
Tribal constable Lyman Gritt investigates the crash and discovers the paper towel at the scene as well as the video of Zeke at the store. Unfortunately, before he can pursue the investigation any further Chief Cappel fires him on the Coast Mafia’s instructions and appoints his equally corrupt son Billy to replace him. Billy makes sure that the investigation is buried and tips off the Coast Mafia that Florida state police are looking for a conspirator named Berl Munger, who subsequently escapes. Vonn later learns the true identity of Greg Myers, whose real name is Ramsey Mix, and attempts to have him killed so that the BJC will be forced to drop the complaint, but Myers has anticipated this and goes into hiding.
Downfall[]
Having kept the evidence in his investigation hidden from Chief Cappel, former constable Lyman Gritt turns it over the FBI after they become involved in the case, and Zeke Foreman is identified as a suspect due to his blood sample. Although Vonn has warned Zeke to get away from Florida after learning of the security video, he is on parole and cannot leave the state without getting an arrest warrant. When he returns to his parole office on October 4, he is arrested for capital murder and quickly informs on Clyde Westbay when the FBI offer him immunity from prosecution. Westbay is arrested and threatened with execution unless he becomes an informant. Agreeing to plead guilty to second-degree murder and serve five years in prison, Clyde reveals to the FBI the extent of the Coast Mafia’s operations as well as the names and roles of the five Cousins. He later wears a wire during a meeting with the Cousins and records Vonn admitting that he and Hank Skoley arranged Hugo’s murder.
Clyde Westbay’s testimony allows the federal government to obtain warrants to tap the Cousins’ phone lines and listen to all of their conversations, giving them the evidence they need against Judge McDover as well as dozens of the Coast Mafia’s members and associates. US Attorney Paula Galloway uses the tapes to prosecute the entire organisation for racketeering as well as the five Cousins for the murder of Hugo Hatch. Meanwhile, Vonn has discovered that JoHelen Hooper is the “Whistler” who informed on McDover to the BJC and sends a hitman to kill her, but Lacy is able to rescue JoHelen and takes her out of state where she will be safe from the Coast Mafia.
After JoHelen escapes, the FBI begins raiding the Coast Mafia’s locations across the Florida Panhandle and arrests all of the known members, starting with the Cousins. Judge McDover is captured while trying to flee to Cuba, and the US Marshals shut down Treasure Key and arrest the Cappels. In total, twenty-three people are arrested for racketeering within twenty-four hours, and the investigation continues for over a year and produces six more indictments. Almost all of them are held without bail and their assets are seized. The lower-level conspirators then start confessing: within six months of Vonn's arrest twelve people have pleaded guilty.
By April 2012, a receiver has been appointed to oversee the sale of all the Coast Mafia’s assets, which results in millions of dollars being secured. Requests by the Cousins to delay the forfeiture until after the trial are unsuccessful. Large shares of the money are paid to JoHelen Hooper, Greg Myers and JoHelen’s ex Cooley for their role in exposing the group’s activities. Verna Hatch, Hugo Hatch’s widow, also files a claim for $10 million of the proceeds as compensation for her husband’s death, and Lacy seeks a similar amount as compensation for her injuries (it is not revealed whether these claims succeed, as they are still ongoing as of the book’s sequel). Fifteen months after their arrest, all five Cousins are convicted of conspiring in Hugo’s murder and sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole. The other members of the Coast Mafia then fall in line and most of them agree to plead guilty in the racketeering case, receiving an average of sixty months’ imprisonment.
Members and associates[]
- Vonn Dubose - Cousin, founder and head of the Coast Mafia.
- Hank Skoley - Cousin, second-in-command to Vonn.
- Maton Brothers - Cousins, responsible for crooked real estate deals.
- Ron Skinner - Cousin, responsible for money laundering.
- Delgado - Manager and hitman. Responsible for the murders of Son Razko, Eileen Mace, and Digger Robles. Later attempted to kill the Whistler.
- Clyde Westbay - Manager and owner of two of Skoley's hotels. Participated in the killing of Hugo Hatch. Became an informant for the FBI.
- Claudia McDover - Circuit court judge in the pocket of Vonn Dubose.
- Elias Cappel - Chief of the Tappacola tribe. Worked with the Coast Mafia to build and skim money from Treasure Key Casino, and later covered up their involvement in the Hugo Hatch murder.
- Billy Cappel - Son of Chief Cappel and member of the Tappacola Tribal Council. Helped his father to cover up the Hugo Hatch murder.
- Adam Horn - Chairman of the Tappacola Tribal Council. Worked with the Coast Mafia to build and skim money from Treasure Key Casino.
- Zeke Foreman - Associate of Clyde Westbay. Participated in the killing of Hugo Hatch.
- Berl Munger - Small-time criminal from Walton County. Stole a car used in the killing of Hugo Hatch.
- Phyllis Turban - Girlfriend of Judge McDover and associate of the Coast Mafia.
- Gavin Prince - Employee at Treasure Key casino responsible for skimming funds.
- Willis Moran - Hitman and associate of Delgado.
- Stavish - Corporate lawyer implicated in racketeering.