MOB TOWN: SHOT, BOMBED AND CONVICTED

The years 1973 and 1974 were cruel to Mrs. Pauline Smaldone, a convicted bookmaker and estranged wife of Denver mobster Clarence "Chauncey" Smaldone.

She was shot and critically injured, bombed and tried on gambling charges in federal court - in that order.

No arrests were made in the shooting or bombing. No motive was established. Nobody knew nothing. Mrs. Smaldone was a survivor, though, and lived until age 91. She is buried at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Wheat Ridge. 

At age 49, Mrs. Smaldone took three bullets outside her home at 2997 Pierson Way in Lakewood. The date was July 6, 1973. A few months later, Jan. 10, 1974, she escaped injury when the home was bombed. The same week, Mrs. Smaldone was indicted on gambling charges. Convicted in May, Mrs. Smaldone got probation. 

The larger Smaldone family established control over Denver's underworld - mainly gambling - in the 1930s. The main players were Pauline's husband "Chauncey" and brothers, Eugene "Checkers" Smaldone and Clyde "Flip Flop" Smaldone. Assorted relatives partook.

Recalling the bombing in an interview with journalist Dick Kreck, Mrs. Smaldone said: "When they bombed the house I never went back. I just fixed up the house and sold it."

In a strange turn, former University of Colorado football player John "Skip" LaGuardia, a Smaldone family associate, was shot dead outside his home in Lakewood two weeks after Mrs. Smaldone was shot. They lived blocks apart. That case went cold too.

[Photo: Find A Grave]