Friends: Bob Guccione, Dershowitz, and Trump —‘In the House’

Bob Guccione compares his magazine Penthouse with Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

Back in the swinging ‘70’s Bob Guccione was riding high as founder of Penthouse magazine. He was quite the Renaissance man—an artist, photographer, fortune teller, lover of women, and even worked as a manager in a laundromat.

Guccione was friends with Alan Dershowitz, the attorney whose client list before Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein included such notorious clients as Claus Von Bulow, Leona Helmsley, and Mike Tyson. Dershowitz had defended Guccione on a number of First Amendment cases, and made the observation that he never, ever saw a naked woman when he was at Guccione’s house.¹Or even a partially naked woman. Of course Mr Alan Dershowitz admitted he had made an appearance partially clad somewhere. In Epstein’s mansion. In his underwear. Which he never took off, but yes, he did have a massage. By an elderly Russian women named Olga. But he didn’t like it.²

Yes, it was all so respectable said Mr Dershowitz, regarding his friend, Bob Guccione. All the people he met there were philosophers, British barristers and poets. And of course they were all fully dressed. Guccione led a fairly solitary life, unlike Huge Hefner, who used his house to personify his sexual values, said Dershowitz, who was a frequent dinner guest at Guccione’s stylish East Side mansion in New York.³

Although his enterprise was described by Dershowitz as the opposite of the bunny loving bacchanalian rival Hugh Hefner, of Playboy fame. Whose bestiality, abuse and cult sex allegations by former bunnies of Playboy would arise as similar allegations surfaced from Penthouse playmates as Guccione’s empire began to crumble.⁴

Guccione was also friends with Donald Trump. Which, according to some, was why his empire crumbled. Apparently Trump told him that getting a Penthouse themed casino was a great idea but that he’d never get a license for it. While Guccione tussled with the FBI as they hamstrung his project, Trump was making friends at the FBI and with the Atlantic City gaming officials.⁵ After an FBI probe, a bank that had promised him a loan of $125 million for the project backed out, but by 1980 he had sunk around $65 million of Penthouse profits into the casino project.⁶ Eventually Guccione had to offload the project for financial reasons and had to sell the casino to Trump.⁷A financial transaction that was apparently decided at a level higher than Trump.⁸Maybe it had something to do with Trump’s tax returns, because in 2005 he made an immense amount of money that year, which put him in a class of super-rich Americans.⁹

But perhaps the persona of Trump was an elaborate facade. Just maybe behind this bright and shiny super-rich American there lurked a darker side. It seems that in 1987 Donald and his wife Ivana flew to Moscow where they discussed deals with the Politburo (the highest committee of the communist government). And the KGB (a CIA equivalent). They hinted he could be president some day.¹⁰

Or maybe Guccione was sidelined and then financially decapitated due to his meanderings with various types of energy. There was of course, the sexual energy, which captured Guccione’s attention various ways, via various projects, Penthouse magazine being the most obvious, but he made his foray into movies. He produced the movie Caligula, a saga about the debauched Roman Emperor. Ever the extravagant artist, Guccione paid for the movie himself—hired Gore Vidal to write the screenplay and hired top British actors, but the movie was a flop. Guccione became mired in lawsuits and distributors wouldn’t carry the movie due to its extreme lewdness.¹¹

The other energetic financial endeavors involved nuclear fusion. Guccione invested twelve million dollars on portable nuclear fusion kits, and partnered with the National Fusion Industries of Israel. Included in this partnership were prominent Israeli gun runners that were involved in the covert US/Israeli arms sales to Iran and the Contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador. These gunrunners were also implicated in the Jonathon Pollard espionage ring.¹²“At one point, Penthouse magazine was supporting 82 scientists in San Diego,” Guccione said. “Eighty-two scientists from around the world. We had Russians, Israelis, computer experts, physicists. They were all working on this fusion project.”¹³

Then there were the projects regarding genetic engineering. He and wife, Kathy Keeton, were convinced they could find the secret to immortality. Keeton told Arlene Herson on her syndicated program that she wanted to live forever. Keeton was president of Omni magazine, a leading scientific and investigative journal that she and Guccione had founded.¹⁴ But the original concept for Omni magazine came from Keeton—she wanted a magazine "that explored all realms of science and the paranormal, that delved into all corners of the unknown and projected some of those discoveries into fiction".¹⁵

Apparently the occult figured quite strongly in Guccione’s life. John Barnwell of the Mayflower bookstore in Detroit remembers doing readings of an occultic, paranormal nature for Guccione’s wife. He recalls being at a “posh party” doing these readings.¹⁶And the former editor of Omni, and author of The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?, described Guccione as having a “Satanic sense” and darkness about him.¹⁷ The real estate agent selling the Guccione mansion described it as “having an odd energy about it,” and even after having “clearings” on it, people still had disturbed feelings regarding the house, and whenever children were brought in, they wanted to leave.¹⁸

Perhaps looking for scientific clues, contacts, and artistic links is what drove Jeremy Frommer, hedge fund manager, to engage in a bidding war with “Yuri the Russian” from Long Island for the Guccione collection.¹⁹Frommer then partnered with Rick Schwartz, who was at one time a Harvey Weinstein assistant at Miramax, to create a TV series based on Guccione and to sell artwork from his estate.²⁰ Frommer was eventually sent a letter by Guccione’s estate demanding he quit selling and reproducing the works, citing intellectual property right infringement.^21,21.5

The three men had Roy Cohn in common. The political fixer who served as a liason between the financial and political powers who ran New York City, and the mobsters who enforced that rule.²²

Cohn also had served as former FBI director J Edgar Hoover’s pimp.²³And Cohn was Trump’s mentor and his favorite client. The two would often be seen partying together at Studio 54 and various nightclubs and talked up to five times a day.²⁴Then there was the time that Guccione held a birthday party for Cohn at his mansion. Outside of the residence could be seen a double parked row of black limousines belonging to New York State judges.²⁵Dershowitz admitted that Cohn was the force running things, “When Roy Cohn was at the height of his power,” he said, “nobody did anything in New York politics, in New York real estate, without going through Roy Cohn.”²⁶

SOURCES CITED:

1 James Barron, “City Room: In Ways, Town House was World For Guccione,” New York Times, October 22, 2010, archives.

https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-980CEFDC1138F931A15753C1A9669D8B63.html

2 Andrew Rice, “Alan Dershowitz Cannot Stop Talking Accused of a slew of terrible things, the defense has no intention of resting,” New York Magazine, Intelligencer, July 19, 2019.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/alan-dershowitz-jeffrey-epstein-case.html

3 Alan M. Dershowitz, “Bob Guccione Admired by Alan Dershowitz, Lawyer Who Defended Penthouse,” Daily Beast, July 14, 2017.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bob-guccione-admired-by-alan-dershowitz-lawyer-who-defended-penthouse

Playboy bunnies blast ‘predator’ Hugh Hefner’s bestiality, ‘cult’ sex and worse

By Social Links forAsia Grace

Published Jan. 24, 2022

Updated Jan. 25, 2022, 1:21 p.m. ET

https://nypost.com/2022/01/24/playboy-bunnies-blast-predator-hugh-hefner-in-new-doc/

4 Asia Grace, “Playboy bunnies blast ‘predator’ Hugh Hefner’s bestiality, ‘cult’ sex and worse,” New York Post, January 25, 2022.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/24/playboy-bunnies-blast-predator-hugh-hefner-in-new-doc/

5 Trump File, “Donald Trump begins cultivating FBI agents in New York,” March 13, 2021.

https://trumpfile.org/donald-trump-begins-cultivating-fbi-agents-in-new-york/

6 Bob Colapinto, “The Twilight of Bob Guccione,” Rolling Stone, October 21, 2010.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-twilight-of-bob-guccione-242213/

7 Amanda Bell, ‘Secrets of Penthouse’: Donald Trump’s Atlantic City Casino Purchase ‘Outraged’ Penthouse Founder Bob Guccione and Ruined Their Friendship,” The Messenger Entertainment, September 5, 2023.

https://themessenger.com/entertainment/secrets-of-penthouse-donald-trump-bob-guccione-casino

8 Greg Olear, “Tinker, Tailor, Mobster, Trump,” Prevail, March 31, 2020.

Tinker, Tailor, Mobster, Trump

https://trumpfile.org/recruiting-donald-trump/

9 Ian Greenhalgh and Gordon Duff, “How Trump Became the Russian Mafias Bitch,”

Veterans Today, March 28, 2017.

https://veteranstoday.com/2022/02/07/vital-how-trump-became-the-russian-mafias-bitch/

10 Trumpfile, “Donald Trump meets the KGB in Moscow, decides to run for president,” September 9, 2023.

https://trumpfile.org/recruiting-donald-trump/

11 Bob Colapinto, “Twilight.”

12 Trumpfile, “Donald Trump meets the KGB.”

13 Anthony Haden-Guest, “The Porn King in Winter,” New York Magazine, January 30, 2004.

https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/n_9815/index1.html#print

14 Arlene Herson Interviews Kathy Keeton, YouTube,

15 Omni (magazine), Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_(magazine)#CITEREFAshley2007

16 Douglas Gabriel explains BLACK MASS, hauntings, and possessions, Douglas Gabriel, YouTube,

55:26

17 Bob Colapinto, “Twilight.”

18 Max Abelson, “Bob Guccione's Old Mansion, Despite 'Odd Energy,' Closes for $49 M.,” Observer, March 4, 2008.

https://observer.com/2008/03/bob-gucciones-old-mansion-despite-odd-energy-closes-for-49-m/

19 Jeremy Frommer, “The Donald Trump Pictures,” Filthy.

https://vocal.media/filthy/the-donald-trump-pictures

20 Claire Evans, “Resurrecting the Man Behind the Penthouse Empire,” The Guccione Archives Issue, Vice, September 12, 2013.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7b7pw9/an-introduction-to-the-bob-guccione-archives-098123-v20n9

21 Brett Lang, “Penthouse Founder Bob Guccione’s Life Being Turned Into TV Series (EXCLUSIVE),” Variety, April 4, 2017.

https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/bob-guccione-tv-series-penthouse-founder-1202021655/

21.5 Gerry W. Beyer, “Auction House Files Suit Against Penthouse Owner’s Estate,”
Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, October 4, 2013.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/trusts_estates_prof/2013/10/auction-house-files-suit-against-penthouse-owners-estate.html

22 John Hoefle, “Legalized gambling: Britain’s Dope, Inc. subverts the U.S.”, Executive Intelligence Review 24, no. 36: 25, September 5, 1997.

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1997/eirv24n36-19970905/eirv24n36-19970905.pdf

23 Jeffrey Steinberg, “Judicial corruption: It didn’t end with J Edgar Hoover,” Executive Intelligence Review 20, no. 12: 4, March 19, 1993.

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1993/eirv20n12-19930319/eirv20n12-19930319_032-judicial_corruption_it_didnt_end.pdf

24 Marcus Baram, “Eavesdropping on Roy Cohn and Donald Trump,” The New Yorker, April 14, 2017.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/eavesdropping-on-roy-cohn-and-donald-trump

25 Graydon Carter, “All the President’s Men 2.0,” Vanity Fair, August 2017.

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2017/8/all-the-presidents-men-20

26 Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg, “Former McCarthy Aide Showed Trump how to Exploit Power and Draw Attention,” Washington Post, July 17, 2016.

https://washingtonpost.com› investigations › former-mccarthy-aide-showed-trump-how-to-exploit-power-and-draw-attention › 2016 › 06 › 16 › e9f44f20-2bf3-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html