Baltimore

In the early 1980s, Alvin Snyder, of Baltimore, was suspected of being a front man for the Mobs in Atlantic City. Synder owned the Colton Manor Hotel. He also owned or held the leases on several other waterfront leases

including the famous Steel Pier that juts out from the Boardwalk into the ocean.

Snyder, a disbarred lawyer had been president of a Maryland savings-and-loan association. But in 1972 he pleaded nolo contendere to charges that he had received kickbacks from loans he had approved to a Baltimore company. Three years later he was disbarred by the Maryland Bar Association. “I'm not ashamed,” Snyder says. “It's just one of those things.” Asked about his plans for Atlantic City, he explains, “I'm a creator. You can't keep kicking a guy when he's down if he's trying to do a good job.”