Article By Paul Guzzo | Tribune Staff
Published: October 18, 2014
TAMPA — Ken Larsen knew what had happened as soon as he heard the voice on the other end of the line. The words didn’t matter.
A Tampa police detective, Larsen was ringing Richard Cloud, who had just recently been fired as head of the police narcotics squad. But the voice wasn’t Cloud’s. Larsen was on the line with another investigator.
“It wasn’t just that it was a homicide detective,” Larsen recalled. “It was one Richard did not like and would never have invited into his home. So I knew right then what happened.”
Cloud, 34, had been murdered by the Tampa mafia.
It was Oct. 23, 1975, and the who, where and why of the notorious hit have since been answered: Benjamin “Buck” Gilford shot Cloud at Cloud’s Seminole Heights home on Oct. 23 because Cloud, as the man assigned to disrupt organized crime’s drug trafficking operations, had crossed the wrong people.
But for Larsen and his former partner, Bobby Pennington, there’s still more why to be told.
The two men, both 66, have never talked publicly about Cloud, their former boss. Until now.
“We figured it’s time to say what we know to honor Richard and his legacy,” Larsen said. “I don’t think people understand what he did for this city. If they knew, they would respect him even more.”
What people learned from extensive news coverage at the time was that Cloud crusaded against corruption, waging war against drug trafficking within the justice system as well as outside it. What they might not have known is how effective he was, introducing techniques that were revolutionary in Tampa at the time.
Running undercover operations was one, while protecting the identities of his secret force at all costs.
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There was an unwritten rule in Tampa then, Larsen said: If you were of Italian or Cuban heritage, a native of the city, and your local ancestry dated back at least two generations, you were above the law.
This was because criminals and law enforcement types often grew up together, he explained, as did their parents, and their grandparents migrated here to establish lives together.
They protected their own.
Then came Cloud.
Pennington described him as a “no nonsense cop” who cared nothing about tradition.
In 1975, he helped arrest a man on top of the list of Tampa’s “untouchables” — Joe Bedami Jr.
Bedami’s grandfather, Angelo Sr., and father Joe Sr. were members of Tampa’s underworld, compatriots of the notorious local mob leader Santo Trafficante Jr.
“Santo Trafficante didn’t dine at your house unless you were very important,” Larsen said. “And he was regularly at the Bedami home.”
By 1975 Bedami’s grandfather had passed away and his father had disappeared, never to be found.
Bedami and his brother Angelo Jr. picked up the mantle, mainly drug trafficking and money counterfeiting.
“Those kids were protected,” Larsen said. “They were looked after.”
But even organized crime had rules: Don’t touch law enforcement officers. Too much commotion.
Then in March 1975, Cloud was fired from the police department for refusing to take a lie detector test. He had been accused of using force on a subject during questioning.
As a civilian, he was fair game for the mob.
Powerful people had him killed, in part to get him out of the way — he had continued working with state and federal agents — but also to unmask his undercover officers, Larsen said.
The Bedamis were never charged in connection with the murder. Through a friend, the Bedami family declined to comment for this story.
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Larsen and Pennington say they have no idea whether the Bedami family knew of the order to kill Cloud.
What is clear, they say, is how the hit reflected the depths of corruption in Tampa and the ruthlessness of organized crime in protecting its turf.
The changes that allowed Cloud to chip away at the problem began with the election of Dick Greco as mayor in 1967, Larsen and Pennington agreed.
Greco would do what was necessary to stop law enforcement from making exceptions for friends, they said.
“I had to appoint a new police chief and decided to find one who not only was honest but would not allow any of his officers to be dishonest even for a second,” Greco said in a recent interview. “I asked some of my friends with the FBI who I should hire and they suggested James ‘Babe’ Littleton. They said he was the most honest man in the Tampa Police Department.”
To test Littleton, Greco told him he might name him police chief — but only if Littleton was willing to look the other way when needed.
“He looked me in the eye, sneered and said, ‘You have the wrong guy,’ ” Greco recalled. “And I said, ‘No, I have the right guy. You’re hired.’ Babe would have arrested his own mother if she broke the law.”
The appointment shocked many in organized crime. Greco was a third generation Tampa resident who grew up alongside them. His family had long owned an Ybor City hardware store where they all shopped. They considered him a friend and expected him to follow tradition.
Shortly after Littleton was hired, Greco was invited to meet with a group of veteran numbers runners who worked the local lottery racket.
They didn’t threaten him, Greco said, but pleaded with him, asking why he had turned his back on his friends.
“They were scared. They knew they would soon be out of a job. They were my friends but they didn’t understand that I had to do what I did to better the city. None of those men ever spoke to me again.”
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Greco told Littleton to do things “his way” and not to bother asking for approval.
Littleton promoted Cloud to sergeant in charge of the narcotics squad.
Cloud was a man who thought the same as Littleton. There would be no playing favorites.
Cloud hired Larsen in 1970. Pennington joined in 1971.
Both men worked as undercover detectives, buying drugs and counterfeit bills until they built a strong enough case for uniformed officers to make an arrest.
It was a radical approach back then, Larsen said.
“To let money walk was controversial,” he said. “In the past they would have made arrests after the first buy so the money was not lost. That way they didn’t lose the money but the investigation was limited.”
Under the old method, undercover detectives would have made that immediate arrest, exposing their identities, Larsen said.
Cloud changed that.
“Everything he did was meant to protect us.”
Cloud was first to provide cars as part of his detectives’ cover and he insisted they vary their routes home.
Even Cloud, though, couldn’t always make charges stick, Larsen said.
“We would make buys of 150 pounds of marijuana from people who were second and third generation guys from Tampa with last names ending in vowels and the case would be dismissed.”
They would receive a form letter “hot off the typewriter” from court saying the case was “dismissed in the interest of justice,” Larsen said. There was no further explanation.
So Cloud, said Larsen and Pennington, decided to bring certain cases to the federal government, provided there were enough drugs or counterfeit bills involved. Federal law enforcement, the two men said, would not play favorites.
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Among those Cloud worked with was Bill James, chief assistant U.S. attorney in Tampa. After Cloud’s murder, James spoke openly and was quoted in news accounts about the mafia’s influence over Tampa. James died in 2008.
Also on Cloud’s side was Larry Campbell, an agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Campbell served as Cloud’s confidante and helped him by watching for corruption in local government.
“Once Cloud took things to the federal level our work started paying off,” Larsen said. “The cases were getting prosecuted and defendants were receiving long jail sentences.”
Then things began to revert to the old ways when Greco resigned as mayor in 1973.
A year later, Littleton stepped down as police chief.
Cloud confided in Larsen that without Littleton as chief, he worried about whether he could protect his officers.
On one occasion, for example, photos of some undercover officers in police uniforms were stolen from the police station and hung on the wall of a bar popular among underworld figures.
“A pattern was developing,” Larsen said. “How could those photos be leaked? Something wasn’t right.”
The “trip wire,” Larsen said, was the Bedami arrest.
One of Larsen’s informants was a topless dancer who dated Bedami’s bodyguard. Larsen remembers him only as Alfonso.
Through Alfonso, it was arranged for Larsen to purchase about a pound of high-grade cocaine from Bedami at Alfonso’s home in North Tampa.
“We sat at a table,” Larsen recalled. “Bedami was on my right and Alfonso sat at the end pointing a .45 at me.”
No arrests were made that evening.
“We let the money walk to get the lab results and build a stronger case,” said Larsen.
Two months later, Larsen arranged to buy $25,000 in counterfeit bills from Bedami. Bedami was arrested.
In February 1975, two men were arrested after brawling with narcotics detectives in the police headquarters parking lot. The men charged that Cloud brutalized them while they were handcuffed to chairs during questioning.
Cloud denied the charges.
His superiors demanded Cloud take a lie detector test. He refused and was fired.
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Cloud continued helping the federal government in its investigations of cocaine trafficking from Tampa, working with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Justice Department.
Soon, a hit was ordered against Cloud and others, including another man with a reputation as tough on organized crime, federal prosecutor Bernard Dempsey.
“They were trying to cut the head off the snake before the Bedami trial,” Larsen said.
Gilford later admitted he was hired as the gunman and testified he was to be paid $15,000 a hit, starting with Cloud. He said Victor Acosta, a Tampa native, bar owner and drug trafficker, masterminded the plot.
Gilford said he hid the gun inside a box made to look like a package for delivery, then went to Cloud’s house. When Cloud opened his front door, Gilford pulled the gun and shot him.
Cloud had a wife and two sons.
Gilford was arrested in February 1976. Acosta was caught in 1977 in New York City.
Both men died in prison — Gilford by suicide the day before his sentencing and Acosta from a drug overdose before trial.
Bedami was acquitted of the counterfeiting charge.
Shortly after Cloud’s murder, many of his undercover detectives — including Larsen and Pennington — were transferred to the uniformed patrol force.
“It shows that killing Richard to break up the squad and to keep him from testifying in Bedami’s case had the intended effect of ending our ability to send people to prison who weren’t supposed to go,” Larsen said.
Larsen left the Tampa Police Department a few months later and moved to Los Angeles, where he worked with the U.S. Treasury Department for the next nine years. Then he left law enforcement.
Pennington stayed with the police department and helped reinstate Cloud to his job posthumously so his family could receive death benefits. He retired in 2003 and remains an active reserve officer.
In 1976, Frank Diecidue — considered the second most powerful man in Tampa’s mafia, behind Trafficante — was convicted of conspiracy in connection with Cloud’s murder. A year later, the conviction was overturned.
With the acquittals and the breakup of Cloud’s squad, Larsen finds no silver lining in his friend’s slaying — just a legacy of integrity.
“He died because he did everything he could to protect me,” Larsen said, his voice cracking. “I feel such guilt because of that. If he just let things stay the way they are, he’d be here with us today. But he couldn’t be that type of man.”
pguzzo@tampatrib.com
(813) 259-7606
