Ciro Mancuso: Back from the Brink

by Robert Frohlich

Proud father of champion skier Julia Mancuso, respected North Lake Tahoe developer Ciro Mancuso also masterminded a marijuana empire that, over two decades, smuggled nearly 45 tons of pot worth $98 million dollars into the West Coast. In 1989, government agents swarmed the Mancusos' lavish Squaw Valley home, yanked Ciro from the shower and threw him in jail. Contrite about the consequences, though unapologetic for his views, he ultimately returned to the fold, finding redemption in the eyes of his family, friends and community.

Inside his Squaw Valley Hidden Lakes home, Ciro Mancuso lounges in well-appointed digs, looking out a Kong-sized dining room window, studying the weather down the valley, where Squaw's Headwall and Tower 1 buttress are whitewashed by a dense fog. Late spring moisture hangs outside like a wet towel. Newly fallen snow rests heavily upon the ground like cake batter.

"The weather reminds me of the day Julia won her gold medal," says Ciro about his famous daughter. "The snowfall was perfect Sierra cement."

Boyish and tousled, Ciro hangs in a comfy chair watching his wife, Katie, play with their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Taly. For an aging preppie and ex-felon whose personality might suggest contradictions and mysteries—and for a person who has captured the imagination of many—Ciro exudes an easygoing air. Aided by a high-alpine deep tan, he looks more like 38 than 58. He loves architecture—he built his first lakefront home at Tahoe in 1974—and, based on the tasteful design of his current residence, obviously has a good eye. Its seductive trappings are as disarming as Ciro's gift for putting people at ease. Savvy, amiable and vitally hip, his charisma explains why former federal prosecutor Dorothy Nash Holmes once said, "He could be running General Motors if he put his brains to work on something legitimate."

Proud Papa

Ciro admits that there was probably no one more relieved than he was when Julia moved into the start gate for her second run of the giant slalom at the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter Games. "All week in Sestriere, I'd had reporters from Sports Illustrated and other media chasing me, trying to tie her story with mine," he says. "I was glad everyone was finally just focused on Julia. This was her show." Most of Julia's family was cheering from front-row seats at the Olympic alpine venue, including her Italian grandparents;Julia's mom, Andrea; and other members of her extended family. To elude searching television cameras, Ciro mingled with the legions of spectators crowding the finish corral. He waited anxiously, Taly and Katie by his side. The atmosphere, even in the midst of a driving Italian Alps snowstorm, was as electric as an Ali–Frasier prizefight going into the 15th round.

"My emotions were intense. I lost my voice screaming," recalls Ciro. "Julia was the last one down. Increasing snowfall had slowed the course. Anja Pärson had just skied a killer run, and most didn't think Julia stood a chance against her time. But Julia came down and took gates like no one else. I knew she'd won it. It was so cool—so amazing. I ran through security to get to her. The week had been full of troubles and pressures, but Julia has this incredible ability to get the job done. A lot of it deals with her strong character after all she's been through."

A collegiate ski racer himself, Ciro first put Julia on skis at age two. She began racing at age five in 1989, the same year an avalanche of arrest warrants and indictments swept over the Mancusos' bucolic mountain life.

Busted

On October 25, 1989, government agents swarmed Ciro's lavish, 10,000 square foot Squaw Valley home, yanked him out of the shower and threw him in jail. As mastermind of a marijuana empire that, over the course of two decades, smuggled approximately 45 tons of pot worth $98 million into the West Coast, the startling public discovery transformed Ciro immediately from well-respected, multimillionaire developer to tarnished Galahad and federal prisoner. Most of the principals associated with Ciro's smuggling ring were well-liked Tahoe locals, many family guys, who skied Squaw and had never been arrested.

It blew everybody's mind. It still does, especially when you about think how well liked and established Ciro was in Tahoe back then, and how involved and successful he is in the same community today. Stories circulated of buried millions, Swiss bank accounts, Thai army generals, false travel-trailer compartments and sailboats making the 7,700-nautical mile run from Asia to deserted coasts in Oregon. It was said that Ciro's smuggling operation was so ambitious, so full-blown and so Sagarmatha over-the-top that if you ever fired up a bowl of weed during the 1970s and '80s in Northern California, you'd probably taken a hit from a Ciro stash.

All the stuff movies are made of—except that for Ciro, this one projected itself into a decade-long horror film filled with jail time, recriminations, betrayals and federal parsimony. His life took on more obstacles than a slalom course.

"You can try to define what I did by whatever suits you," says Ciro. "It's easy for some to label me a terrible criminal. I was a product of the sixties, and, to me, this wasn't criminal stuff. I didn't find it morally wrong. We didn't carry guns; we weren't involved in hard drugs. We were a bunch of close friends, guys I skied with, who decided to smuggle some marijuana. I was intrigued with the need for people to have good pot to smoke, not to mention the money we could earn.

"During Jimmy Carter's presidency, marijuana came close to being legalized. And it should be legalized. I really think his administration and future ones have taken their eye off the ball. There are a lot of social ills out there, but smoking pot isn't one of them.

"But, during the 1980s, what started out as a collegiate adventure stopped being fun. Political views changed, as did the public perception. I didn't want my children at risk, so I got out. I actually thought I was out of it and beyond being prosecuted, but I didn't realize the long arm of the law."

Prison Time

Ciro did a 17-month stretch in a Nevada lockup. Facing the prospect of a long prison term—and looking out for his family's protection—he agreed to testify against his lawyer, whom, years later, the feds were trying to jail on charges of money laundering. After the trial culminated with the attorney's acquittal, prosecutors further punished Ciro by ordering him to an additional four years—from October 1995 to October 1999—in a federal, minimum-security prison in Yankton, South Dakota. "It was a horrible moment, being arrested and taken away from my family. It pulled my heart out," says Ciro. "I was denied bail. They indicted my wife on multiple counts and threatened to take our children away. I was constantly harassed. In prison, you're stripped of your identity. I could have become jaded. I fell into periods of depression. But I knew I had a lot of reasons to go forward, so I switched into survival mode. It was important to keep my focus on my family and hold onto my self-worth."

"What the government did to Ciro was inexcusable," said Reno defense attorney Fred Atcheson in a 1995 article published in the San Francisco Chronicle. "He was willing to do his time. Then they indicted his wife and said, 'Your children are never going to see their parents.'"

In prison, Ciro worked in the education department teaching Spanish and helping other inmates learn English as a second language. Julia and sisters April and Sara visited their father once a year and exchanged the occasional letter. Andrea and Ciro divorced in 1995. During his prison hitch, young Julia developed into one of the most successful junior ski racers in U.S. history. She started World Cup racing and was a NorAm champion at 16, competed in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics at 17 and set an U.S. mark for Junior World Championships before she was out of her teens.

"I missed my dad," says Julia. "He was in and out of jail through high school. Maybe it had an effect on me. I turned to skiing. I spent most of my time racing and skiing at Squaw Valley with my two sisters, chasing them around the mountain."

Return Home

Released from custody in 1999, Ciro returned to Lake Tahoe. For a guy who was perceived nefariously by the public for pedalling pot, and who might still be looking over his shoulder for turning state's evidence, the move surprised some people. Andrea had moved to Park City. The U.S. government had allowed him to keep some of his assets, and he could have used that money to relocate elsewhere, even to pricey ski towns such as Aspen, Jackson and Telluride, where his profile would be acceptable, if not outright welcome, at swanky cocktail parties.

But it wasn't his style. For all the troubles that beset him, all the high expectations shattered, Ciro had more strength and inner resources to draw upon than met the eye. And he still had the patina. More than anything, he wanted to reconnect with his girls.

"I looked around the world. I had enough to get started again, but Squaw Valley was my children's home. I came back for them," says Ciro. "The majority of the population didn't judge me. Lake Tahoe's a pretty forgiving mix. I had a lot of friends. Some were afraid, and few really knew the truth, but I was comfortable with myself. I wanted to make a difference in my children's lives."

Rebuilding a Life

Ciro returned to his former profession as builder and developer. Since the early 1970s, sometimes with the help of illicit profi ts, he'd built luxury homes around The Lake, including commercial properties at Round Hill and the Truckee Tahoe Airport. His home atop Squaw Summit had been government auctioned and razed, but he still owned land in Hidden Lakes, a Squaw Valley subdivision he'd developed beginning in 1984. With the support of his parents, who still farmed their orchards near the San Joaquin River in Stanislaus County, Ciro went back into business, this time with very legal and visionary ideas.

"I'd known Ciro for many years. We'd crossed paths in real estate," says Lake Tahoe commercial realtor Tom Watson. "He gave me a call after he came back and asked if I'd like to work with him." Not only did their association rekindle a friendship and a series of successful real-estate projects, it acquainted Ciro with Katie Supple, Watson's stepdaughter, who'd grown up at Lake Tahoe and worked for her stepdad's company, Truckee River Associates. Although 23 years separated them, an immediate romance blossomed, and, in 2002, the couple wed, overlooking the cliffs of Big Sur. They built their new home in Hidden Lakes, and Taly was born soon after.

Inspired, Ciro also began eyeing a derelict piece of property near the corner of Highway 89 and Interstate 80 in Truckee. Littered with torn-up tires and discarded construction equipment, the industrially zoned land looked more like a war zone. Many Truckee planners viewed the property as not just an irreversible eyesore but toxic, too. But Ciro saw something other than a waste dump.

"We looked at the property. There were reports of cleanup issues," says Watson, who eventually sold Ciro the 60 acres. "I mentioned that there was a pent-up demand for a business park in Truckee. Ciro took those words of mine to another level. He took a major financial risk and never backed away."

Ciro's development company, Summit Builders, cleaned up the property, replacing the mess with low-cost, efficient, steel-frame construction. He helped design the architectural plan, finishing the structures with natural wood trim and materials from the native surroundings. Calling it the Pioneer Commerce Center, Ciro leased 140,000 square feet and sold 30 more parcels of land to independent businesses. Because of lower than normal construction costs, the industrial park offered affordable rents and loads of backroom office space.

"That site was an ugly, blighted junkyard. It was included in the town's redevelopment and general plan, but no one wanted to touch it," says Truckee town manager Tony Lashbrook. "Ciro was the guy who stepped up. He embraced it directly and personally committed himself with a hands-on, very respectful and positive approach. His vision and persistence resulted in a development that is a positive addition to our town."

The Pioneer Commerce Center presently houses 50 tenants with an array of businesses, from Booth Creek Resort headquarters to engineering offices, construction companies, boat storage and even a fitness gym. Over 600 local residents are employed within the center.

"Without the Pioneer Commerce Center, we'd have had a hard time staying in Truckee," says Clear Capital's Kevin Marshall, who, along with partner Duane Andrews, leases over 22,000 square feet of office space for their 135 employees. "Beforehand, Truckee had very few options for office space that could fulfill our needs and provide a professional and friendly environment. Ciro worked really hard to accommodate our business needs. He's helped lots of business prosper and grow."

As part of his promise to the town of Truckee, Ciro made a commitment, based on his project's success, to build affordable housing. His Spring Creek subdivision, situated adjacent to the Pioneer Commerce Center, consists of 66 homes on 11 acres. Prices for the townhouse residences start at $305,000, well under market price.

Back on Track

Papa and his daughters have reestablished family ties. Julia, when in Squaw Valley, stays with her dad. April, 26, is in medical school. Sara, 17, attends a private boarding school on the California coast. They all ski and snowmobile together, and Ciro invested in a Hawaiian retreat where the girls enjoy surfing and kite boarding with their father, leading Katie to humorously note, "Ciro's raised some pretty incredible girls, but I think sometimes he raised them as boys."

"My family is what has always grounded me, and, to tell the truth, my favorite moments are being able to do stuff with Dad," says Julia. "We love skiing KT. He rips."

Reestablished, doing the right thing, Ciro's once self-made horror film actually has a sweet ending after all. He's back on course, taking the gates as they come, heading for a finish line surrounded by people who love him.

"Everything happens for a reason," he concedes. "I made some unwise choices that came back to haunt me, but life's a learning process. I'd like to think that a person is judged by the final outcome, not certain moments."