Joseph Bruno's Blog, page 84

Guest Mob Blog From Partick Smith – NYC Mob Tour

http://nycmobtour.wordpress.com/2011/...

1957. Doo-Wop gently pleading from car radios on hot summer nights. Fall-Out Shelters marked clearly for all to see.Violent troubles brewing in exotic colonial lands. All this and the beginning of the fall of the American Mafia. 1957. Americana is a commodity. Anything that fucks with it gets put down like a dog. Coca-Cola, Marlboro and Hilton carried the vision worldwide. Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East were playgrounds for men with money and guns. All this and the working man was doing pretty good in 1957, assuming he is a white man. Unions are holding down the fort. Unions were keeping the rich from becoming pig rich. A little balance. A bit of shared power.

"But why should I hate unions, daddy," little Billy asks as he passes the peas. "Because son, they are controlled by amoral thugs and communists. Now, stop asking so many questions and tell me about your day at school." Bad men and wicked Reds down by the waterfront in the still of the night. A mid-20th century Manet.

But in Mafiaworld the nights are miles from still and impressionistic. For the boys they are fast and harsh. After a decade long detente, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese take it to the streets in an epic war for control of the Luciano crime family, the largest and most profitable borgata on the planet. Luciano had given his personal blessing to Costello, nee Castiglia, back in 1947 at the Havana Conference. Genovese was furious. He sold lots of heroin and built up a massive war chest. He surrounded himself with tough guys and strays. He put the snakey Anthony Strollo–Tony Bender–in charge of the maintaining the cold war with Costello. Jazz got modern during this Mafia cold war. The Russians acquired the bomb. Bobby Thompson hit "The shot heard 'round the world." But within the Luciano Family, there were no shots at all.

Then comes 1956. Elvis. Rock and Roll. And two out of every three made men were in prison on heroin charges. New junk laws made that fact tres bad ju-ju 'cause they carried twenty year bids. A guy looking at a double saw just might give up. Might roll. Might sing a song.

Genovese and the crews loyal to him expanded into the east Bronx, New Jersey and Brooklyn. He told the messengers of moderation, among them Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchesse to piss off. This was Luciano Family Bizaneesa…but it wasn't just. Genovese was grabbing with two hands in everyone's pond. Meyer Lansky carried a message from Luciano himself, "Vito, chill. Frank's the boss. You'll get your turn." I paraphrase. "Va fa Napoli," Vito replied. Paraphrasing once more, but that was the point. I'm taking mine.

He killed anyone he wanted, whenever and where ever he pleased. He held the Mafia Commission in disdain.

Costello and the gathered forces of the Anastasia Family, of which Carlo Gambino was a member and a rising star, Meyer Lansky and his guys, and with Luciano's blessing, pushed back.

The cold war was heating up fast on the streets of New York. Then, in early May of 1957, Genovese made his big play. He tried to have Big Frank shot dead.

This event can even be called an assassination attempt, that's how powerful and untouchable Costello was in everyone's mind. It was the first link in a year long chain that was, in retrospect, a garrote that tore open the Mafia's neck and let the blood spill everyfuckingwhere.

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Joe Bruno on the Mob – Umberto's Restaurant

This article is in reply to an article on the website NYC Mob Tour, web address: http://nycmobtour.wordpress.com/2011/...

 

In the early 70′s (I'm not sure of the exact date because I was in the military service at the time), Larry's Bar became Umberto's. It was ostensibly owned by Matty "The Horse" Iannello, a reputed member of the Genovese Crime Family. However, the day-to-day operations were supervised by one of his brothers. Men like Matty don't get involved in the nuts and bolts of running a restaurant. They just come for their cut, every once in a while. And it better be there, and not short either.

When it first opened, Umberto's did not get rave reviews from neighborhood people. To the people who lived north of Canal Street, "Vincent's Clam Bar," on the corner of Hester and Mott, was consider the best shellfish restaurant in the neighborhood. The people who lived south of Canal Street, as I did, felt "The Lime House," on the corner of Mott and Bayard was the best. Then there was "Little Charlie's" on Kenmare Street, which had excellent food. And also a small place on the Bowery, below Canal, the name of which escapes me, which had excellent food too. In the early 1970′s,Umberto's was new, and everybody in the neighborhood tried it. But to me, the food was slightly above mediocre.

Everything changed in he early morning hours of April 7, 1972, when Crazy Joe Gallo was gunned down in Umberto's, during his last stop on a night on the town (and in this world too), while celebrating his 43rd birthday. From what I heard on the streets, there was an open contract on Gallo because he was believed to be behind the murder of Joe Columbo, who was gunned down on June 29th, 1970 at the Italian/American Civil Right League rally, at Columbus Circle. Approximately 150,000 were in attendance when Columbo was shot. He remained in a vegetative state for several years, before he finally died.

For a reason I cannot fathom, a full page glossy, color, picture of Gallo, laying dead in the middle of the street in front of Umberto's, was spread on the cover of Time Magazine. Suddenly, Umberto's became an overnight sensation, as tourists from around the world flocked to Umberto's to see the site of the famous gangland killing. However, the Little Italy neighborhood people ho-hummed the entire situation, because someone getting gunned down in Little Italy was not exactly a novel idea to the people who lived there. And who wants extra stunads roaming the streets of our neighborhood anyway?

Still, despite all the hype, the food at Umberto's remained the same. Slightly above mediocre.

So what's the big deal now about Umberto's anyway? It has a new location around the corner from the original site. I haven't been there yet, but if the food is like the original Umberto's, I wouldn't bust my butt trying to get a table there.

PS – I dined at Umberto's many times, including a few hours before Gallo's murder (I think I ate scungilli and calamari over spaghetti, with the medium/hot sauce). And I was safely out of Umberto's before midnight (Thank God!). The shooting occurred around 4 a.m.

After the Gallo murder, I either ate at The Lime House, or at Vincent's. And sometimes at Little Charlie's. Once in a while I'd go to Umberto's, but was always unimpressed by the food. And especially annoyed that the joint was filled with tourists, and not the regular neighborhood clientele.

You could legitimately say, after the killing of Joe Gallo in Umberto's, there went the neighborhood.

My new book "Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks, and Other Creeps – Volume – 1 – New York City" is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Mobsters-Gangs-...

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Irish Mob Boss Isaiah Rynders

Over the years, New York City has been well represented by Irish mob bosses: from 19th Century Tammany Hall titan John "Smoke" Morrissey, to Mickey Spillane, the powerful boss of the West Side waterfront in the 1940s-50s, to Jimmy Coonan, a mad-dog killer who ruled the Westies Gang in Hells Kitchen during the 1970s-1980s. However, the first Irish mob boss in the history of New York City was Captain Isaiah Rynders, and he wasn't even a full-blooded Irishman.

Rynders (1804-January 3, 1885), was born to a German/American father and an Irish Protestant mother. Rynders was first known as a professional gambler and pistol/knife fighter on the Mississippi River. In the mid-1830s, Rynders surfaced in New York City and immediately hitched his wagon to Tammany Hall, which was the Democratic party political machine that ruled New York City. Rynders soon clawed his way to the top of the Tammany Hall ladder. His specialty was organizing the Five Points street gangs on Election Day, assuring the poor Irish, most of whom couldn't read or write, would vote for the right person.

Rynders made himself a wealthy man, as the owner of half a dozen grocery stores in the Paradise Square area, in addition to being the proprietor of several dive saloons. Rynders first drinking establishment was Sweeny's House of Refreshment, located on Ann Street, which was frequented by volunteer fireman, most of whom were gang members themselves.

In 1843, Rynders founded the Empire Club, at 25 Park Row. From the Empire Club, Rynders organized such street gangs as the Dead Rabbits, the Plug Uglies, and the Roach Guards into a wave of political operatives, that ensured the election of anyone Tammany Hall wanted elected. Some of Rynders' best men were, Dirty Face Jack, Country McCleester, Edward Z.C. Judson, Paudeen McLaughlin, Jim Turner, Lew Baker, and John Morrissey, who eventually took over from Rynders as the mob boss of the Five Points area. Rynders' influence was so great at the time, his men's intense prodding of the voters, led to the presidential elections of Franklin Pierce in 1852, and James Buchanan in 1856. After Buchanan was elected President, one of his first acts was to appoint Rynders to the post of U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of New York.

What ever went on in the Five Points area, and sometimes, anywhere in Manhattan, Rynders was sure to be involved. In 1849, Rynders was almost single-handedly responsible for the 1849 Astor Place Theater Riots. The riots started as a result of a transcontinental rivalry between American actor Edwin Forrest and British actor George Macready

Macready was considered to be the finest actor on earth. However, Macready was also a snob, who considered American actors to be far inferior to himself. Philadelphia-born Edwin Forrest was a New York actor, who was adored by the Five Points gangs. Unfortunately, it it was Macready who was the favorite of the American aristocrats, who frequented the upscale New York City theaters.

In 1848, Forrest traveled to England to play Hamlet. Forrest, although he felt he was at the top of his game, was rudely treated by the London crowds, and literally booed off the stage. In addition, the London newspapers excoriated Forrest as a lightweight, compared to their homeboy Macready. Forrest blamed Macready for inciting the theater-goers who insulted him while he was on stage, and also for the negative London press.

When Forrest returned to the United States, Rynders had already gotten wind of what had transpired across the pond. Rynders directed his cohort E. Z. C. Judson, who wrote under the pen name — Ned Buntline, to write a scathing piece, fanning the flames of the incident that had occurred in England, into a conflagration of international proportions.

The tensions increased when Macready decided to make a four-week "farewell tour" in America, commencing on May 7, 1849. Macready's first appearance was scheduled to take place at the new Astor Place Theater, on Astor Place in Manhattan. As soon as Macready strutted onto the stage, Rynders rose from his seat, and along with the Irish street gangs he had brought with him, began pelting the stage with tomatoes, eggs, shoes, and what ever else they could get their hands on. Incensed at the indignity, Macready stormed off the stage and vowed never to appear in America again.

The New York City blue-blood crowd was up in arms about Rynders' treatment of their favorite actor Macready. Immediately, they assembled a petition with 47 signatures, which included those of Washington Irving and Herman Melville, imploring Macready to give it one more try on the American stage. Macready gave in, and on May 10, just three days after the Rynders' gang insurrection, Macready was scheduled to appear again at the Astor Theater to play Macbeth. By coincidence, Forrest was also scheduled to be on stage that same night playing Spartacus in "The Gladiator," in a playhouse a mile south of the Astor Place Theater.

To heighten the tensions, the English crew of a docked Cunard liner announced they would become a visible presence at Macready's performance. The bluejackets decreed they would physically confront any Five Points gang member who would dare humiliate Macready again.

Rynders did not take this threat lightly. He rounded up all his boys, and plastered posters all over New York City saying, "Workingmen, shall Americans or English rule this city? The crew of the English steamer has threatened all Americans who shall dare to express their opinion this night at the English Aristocratic Opera House! We advocated no violence, but free expression of opinion is to all men!"

New York City Mayor Caleb C. Woodhull feared a riot, and he dispatched 350 policemen, commanded by Police Chief G.W. Matsell, to the Astor Place Theater, to quell any potential violence. Woodhull also summoned General Sanders, of the New York Militia, to march his eight companies of guardsmen and two troops of Calvary, to the area surrounding the playhouse. It was estimated that by 7pm, more than 20,000 people had assembled on streets around the Astor Place Theater, itching for a fight.

When the curtain opened at 7:40 p.m., Macready faced a full house of 1800 people. The pro-Macready contingent vastly outnumbered Rynders group of motley gang members. For some unknown reason, during the first two scenes, Rynders and his crew did not budge from their seats. The authorities hoped, in spite of all the rhetoric, nothing untoward would occur that night at the theater.

That hope dissipated when Macready strode onto the stage for a third time. Deciding it was time to act, Rynders and his gang vaulted to their feet, and began hooting and hollering at Macready. The crowd outside took this as a cue to go into full attack mode. A huge mob, brandishing assorted weapons, charged at the theater, screaming, "Burn the damned den of aristocracy!"

The mob threw rocks and stones, which broke all the theater's windows. Then, just because they could, the rioters busted every street lamp in sight. The police, which were vastly outnumbered, tired to squelch the disturbance, but to no avail.

Ned Buntline stood at the head of the angry mob, chanting, "Workingmen! Shall Americans or Englishmen rule? Shall the sons whose fathers drove the baseborn miscreants from these shores give up liberty?"

At 9 p.m., Col. Sanders and his troops arrived. Chief Matsell, finally giving up on his policeman being up to the task, and after being hit in the chest with a 20-pound rock, gave Col. Sanders the go-ahead to have is men shoot into the crowd. The firing commenced at a dazzling rate. Men, women, and children were hit by bullets, and a lady, who was sleeping in her bed 150 yards from the theater, took a bullet in her leg.

In a little over an hour, 22 people were killed and 150 injured. Five of the injured died within five days. Ned Buntline was arrested, along with 86 others. Buntline was tried and convicted of "inciting to riot," and sentenced to a year in jail, and a $250 fine. Rynders somehow escaped arrest, and he and his gang members hightailed it back into the Five Points.

Rynders' downfall started when he inexplicably abandoned Tammany Hall and his Irish cohorts, and joined the opposition Native American, or "Know Nothing Party." Rynders renamed his political organization the Americus Club, and he aligned himself with Butcher Bill Poole, the head of the Native American Bowery Boys gang. Rynders' place at Tammany Hall, and as commander of the Five Points Irish gangs, was immediately taken by John "Smoke" Morrissey.

The loss of Rynders' power was vividly displayed during the 1857 Fourth of July holiday, when gang riots that took place in the area, in and around the Five Points. The Irish Five Point gangs began their Fourth of July celebration on July 3, when they raided a Bowery Boy's dive at 42 Bowery. Initially, the two Irish gangs involved were the Dead Rabbits and the Plug Uglies. However, the Bowery Boys were able to beat the two Irish gangs decisively, driving them back into the Five Points.

The following day, the Irish Roach Guards joined the other two Irish gangs, and the tide turned decisively. The three Irish gangs invaded a ginmill favored by the Bowery Boys called "The Green Dragon," on Broome Street, near the Bowery. They pummeled the Bowery Boys out of their own joint, and for good measure, they ripped up the entire dance floor and drank all the liquor in the establishment.

The following day, the Bowery Boys, who were now joined by another Native American gang called the Atlantic Guards, invaded Irish gang territory in the Five Points. The two warring factions met head-on at the corner of Bayard Street and the Bowery, and thus began one of the most spirited free-for-all gang fights in the history of New York City. The battle spread along Bayard, Baxter, the Bowery, Mulberry, and Elizabeth streets. It was estimated that 800-1000 gang members took place in the brawl. Combatants used bludgeons, paving stones, brick-bats, axes, pitchforks, guns, and knives. Not only were citizens attacked, but the gangs also looted every store in sight.

The New York Times wrote, "Brick-bats, stones, and clubs were thickly flying around in all directions, and men ran wildly about brandishing firearms. Wounded men lay on the sidewalks and were trampled upon. Now the Rabbits would make a combined rush and force their antagonists up Bayard to the Bowery. Then the fugitives, being reinforced, turned on their pursuers and compelled a retreat to Mulberry, Elizabeth, and Baxter streets."

At the time, there were two New York City police forces fighting amongst themselves for the right to police the city. They were the Metropolitan Police Force and the Municipal Police Force. These two groups were more interested in battling themselves, than they were in quelling the riots. Therefore, they were at best – ineffective, and at worst – disinterested, in ending the gang war. Not realizing Rynders had lost the favor of the Irish gangs, on the evening of July 4, the captains of both police forces decided to call in Rynders to help end the riots. Rynders stood in the middle of the combatants and begged both sides to stop the senseless hostilities.

"I implore you to end this carnage!" Rynders yelled. "You are killing each other for what purpose? For what end?"

The rioters ignored Rynders, and instead, both sides, including the Irish gangs whom Rynders had once ruled, threw rocks and stones at Rynders. Rynders was severely wounded and forced to run for his life.

In the years that followed, Rynders faded into obscurity. He surfaced briefly in 1862, when he backed crooked New York City Mayor Fernando Wood, in Wood's attempt to withdraw New York City from the Union, and make it a sovereign state unto itself. Then in 1863, Rynders opposed the Federal Government's right to draft men to fight into the Civil War. This resulted in the 1863 Civil War Riots, which caused scores of Negroes to be slaughtered, as well as the deaths of over 1000 rioters, mostly gangs members once aligned with Rynders, when he was de-facto boss of the Five Points area.

To add insult to injury, Rynders Street, which had been originally named in Captain Isaiah Rynders' honor, was changed to Centre Street, which it is still named to this day.

In 1976, Captain Isaiah Rynders was portrayed in the historical novel The Furies, by John Jakes and he also appeared in the non-fiction book Lucrecia Mott (1999), by Dorothy Sterling.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – - Crooks and Thieves -The Green Goods Scandle

In the late 1800s, the "Green Goods Swindle" was the most successful scam in America. The beauty of the scam was that the victims were trying to commit a criminal act themselves, and hardly in any position to run to the police, crying they had been swindled.

The basis of the "Green Good Swindle" was that people from around the country would be lured to New York on the premise of buying counterfeit money at a mere fraction of face value. The swindle worked like this: Men called "Writers" sent out tens of thousands of circulars throughout the country to people who had bought tickets in lotteries. The feeling was that these were the type of people who were not always honest, and could be sucked into a scheme preying on their greed. The language in these circulars was intentionally vague, and could be taken to be perfectly harmless.

A typical green goods circular sounded something like: "I am dealing it articles, paper goods – ones, twos, fives, tens, and 20s – (do you understand?). I cannot be plainer until I know your heart is true to me. Then I will satisfy you that I can furnish you with with a fine, safe, and profitable article that can be used in any manner and for all purposes, and no danger."

The green goods writer was careful not to mention the word "counterfeit." Sometimes to misdirect a police official who might intercept one of these circulars, the green goods writer would pen something like, "These goods are a certain brand of cigar."

Former Confederate soldiers were also likely targets for the "Green Goods Swindle." New York City assistant district attorney Ambrose Purdy said, "Former Confederates were so emotionally embittered and economically indebted, that they viewed green goods as a good way to hurt the government. They became an easy prey of Northern sawdust men."

One of the top green goods operators (bosses) was James McNally. McNally directed his writers to state on their circulars, "If you have been unsuccessful in your business, I can supply you with goods which you can pay off all your debts and you can start free and clear again."

Some operators ordered their writers to be more specific in what they were doing, Even going as far as to mention the word "counterfeit." One such circular read:

"Dear Sir, I will confide to you through this circular a secret by which you can make a speedy fortune. I have on hand a large amount of counterfeit notes of the following denominations: $1, $2, $5, $10, and $20. I guarantee every note to be perfect, as it is examined carefully by me as soon as finished, and if not strictly perfect it is immediately destroyed. Of course, it would be perfectly foolish to send out poor work. And it would not only get my customers into trouble, but would break up my business and ruin me. So for personal safety, I am compelled to issue nothing that will not compare with the genuine. I furnish you with my goods at the following low prices, which will be found as reasonable as the nature of my business will allow:

For $1200 in my goods (Assorted) I charge $100.

For $2500 in my goods (Assorted) I charge $200

For $5000 in my goods (Assorted) I charge $350

For $10,000 in my goods (Assorted) I charge $600."

Once the out-of -town marks arrived in New York (either New York City, or somewhere in upstate New York), they were met at the railroad station by the middlemen called "steerers." These steerers would take the marks to the operator, or "turning point," who was waiting in a bogus storefront, ready to complete the old switcheroo, which would leave the mark devoid of this cash, and not in a very good mood.

The scam ran like this: As soon as the mark arrived, he was shown a stack of bills that looked genuine, which of course they were. Then, after taking the mark's money, the "turning point" would fill the mark's suitcase (a suitcase provided by the turning point himself) with the prescribed amount of money the mark had purchased. Then a diversion would take place, and in seconds, an identical suitcase, stuffed with newspaper or just plain sand, would be substituted, with the mark being none the wiser until much later.

The steerer would then tell the mark to follow him to the nearest railroad station, where the mark would board a train to take him to his hometown. The steerer would tell the mark not to speak to anyone on the streets, until he was safely on a train and headed back home. During the train ride (or when he arrived home), the mark would realize he had been swindled, but by then, he had little recourse, since what he had intended to do – buy counterfeit money – was against the law.

Sometimes as a safety precaution, a New York policeman, or detective, was in on the deal. These crooked cops would follow the mark and the steerer, and if by chance the mark opened the suitcase and discovered no counterfeit cash, before the mark could make a scene, the policeman would hustle the mark, by force if necessary, onto the train and quickly out-of-town. Almost always, instead of being taken to jail, the mark would decide that discretion was the better part of valor, and he would reluctantly hop on the train, with his tail between his legs, cursing to himself how utterly stupid he had been.

The chief operators in the "Green Good Swindle" had as many as half the New York City Police Department in their back pockets, sometimes paying the fuzz as much as 50% of their profits. Some cops were paid to look the other way, and others were paid handsomely, to chase the marks out of New York once they had been relieved of their cash.

One of the most prolific steerers was the famous pickpocket George Appo. Appo, half Irish and half Chinese, had been in out of jail so many times for pickpocketing and other street crimes, he decided the "Green Goods Swindle" was a step up on the totem pole of criminality. This decision almost cost Appo his life.

"I worked as a steerer for over eight years and was very successful," Appo said, in his autobiography which was never published. "Everyone I steered to the 'turning point' always made the operator from $300 to $1000. I received only 10% of the money, while the writer and the man, who put up the bank roll of $20,000, each received 45% of the deal. The man who put up the bankroll would have as many as 15 writers on his staff, and each of these men would bring on at least one or two victims per day."

Because most of the marks usually carried firearms, the steerers were sometimes in danger of being, shot and sometimes killed.. George Appo was once sent to Poughkeepsie, New York to "steer" two marks who were coming in from North Carolina. After he arrived in Poughkeepsie, Appo went to a hotel and met Hiram Cassel and Ira Hogshead. Both men were 6'2" tall, and they towered over the diminutive Appo, who was 5'4" and barely 120 pounds. Appo handed the men an envelope which introduced him as a messenger and friend of the "Old Gentleman," with whom they had been corresponding about the sale of the green goods. Appo told the two men that the "Old Gentleman" had instructed Appo to deliver the two men to Mott Haven, where they could examine the goods.

Appo took the men to the train station, telling them "I will get you your tickets, and after you are through with your business with the 'Old Gentleman,' I will see you safely aboard the train to your home. While we are walking to the depot, stay 10 feet behind me and don't talk to, or ask questions of anybody, not even me. Remember the nature of our business. Don't board the train until you see me get on board. Take a seat near me. When the train starts, I will hand you your tickets, and have a talk with you, and give you other instructions."

Unfortunately for Appo, Hogshead was suspicious and did not heed Appo's orders not to speak to anyone on their way to the train station. After the three men arrived at the train station, Appo, while he was standing with Cassel, spotted Hogshead in deep conversation with an Officer Morgan. Appo approached Hogshead and asked him why he had not boarded the train. Hogshead told Appo, "I don't care to do business. I've changed my mind."

Appo, trying very hard not to lose his mark and a very profitable payday to boot, told Hogshead that he would return to hotel with them and discuss why they had had such a change of heart. When they got the hotel, Appo joined Hogshead and Cassel in their hotel room. Hogshead began drinking heavily from a flask of whiskey, and was getting more belligerent by the minute. Appo told the two men he would go by himself to Mott Haven and tell the "Old Gentlemen" that two men did not want to do business. He'd also tell the "Old Gentleman" that "goods" should be brought here to the hotel for the two men to examine. And if the two men were not satisfied that the goods were as the "Old Gentleman" said they were, Appo would then give the two men expenses to and from their home in North Carolina. So what did they have to lose?

Mr. Cassel seemed pleased with Appo's proposal, but Hogshead kept drinking from his flask of whiskey. Then Hogshead screamed at Appo, "I tell you! I know what I'm going. I've changed my mind and that settles it."

Appo knew his little scheme had reached the end of the line, so he offered his hand to Hogshead and said, "You are leaving an opportunity of your life go by unneeded. So I will bid you goodbye."

Whereas Hogshead refused to shake Appo's hand, Cassel was happy to do so. As Cassel and Appo were shaking hands, Hogshead pulled out a Colt revolver and shot Appo in the right temple. Appo, severely wounded, spent several weeks in the hospital with a bullet lodged close to his brain (it remained there the rest of his life). In days, Appo's right eye became severely infected, and as a result, it had to be removed.

However, although Hogshead and Cassel were arrested for shooting Appo, Appo was also arrested for running the "Green Goods Swindle" on the two men. Since Appo was a career criminal, and despite the fact he had only one eye, Appo was convicted and sentenced to three years and two months at hard labor. And fined $250.

After Appo had been sentenced, at Hogshead's and Cassel's trial, Hogshead maintained he shot Appo in self-defense because, "I was afraid of him. I didn't mean to kill him."

Being the standup "good fella" that he always claimed to be, Appo refused to testify against Hogshead and Cassel. In fact, Appo said he had not been in Poughkeepsie perpetrating any scheme, but was in fact looking for his long-lost father, who was reportedly in a lunatic asylum somewhere along the Hudson River. Due to the lack of evidence, and Appo's refusal to testify against them, under the direction of Judge Guernsey, Hogshead and Cassel walked out of court free men.

The innocent verdicts of Hogshead and Cassel, and incarceration of Appo, were so outlandish, the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle wrote in their editorial, "These acquittals and the incarceration of Mr. Appo is the most wretched farce we've ever seen in a court of justice. Cassel and Hogshead were not simply innocent victims; but rather both were 'morally guilty.' One gets his eye shot out, and his life put in serious danger at the hands of the other, and he gets three years in state prison. The other, who does the shooting, goes free on the payment of a $50 fine. That may be Judge Guernsey's idea of justice. It certainly isn't ours."

Probably the most famous green goods dealer of his time was James McNally. McNally, who was born Lower East Side of Manhattan, was the declared "King of the Green Goods Men." Famed New York City detective Thomas Byrnes described McNally as being "industrious, educated, self-assured, ingenious, and gifted, with a good knowledge of human nature."

In 1890, McNally was considered not only the top green good 's operator in New York City, but also of the entire entire states of America. McNally's scams even ventured into Canada. McNally had over 35 employees working for him, and they had 800 different aliases. McNally was so prolific at his job, his "writers"printed more than 2000 circulars at a time. And they sent out more than 15,000 circulars every day.

McNally was so proud of his green goods trade, he didn't even consider it to be against the law. "There is nothing wrong with the green goods trade," McNally said. "It does not hurt anybody. I meet all my men face-to-face, man-to-man, and if he loses his money, he certainly ought to, because he is a bigger crook then I am."

McNally claimed that the"Green Goods Swindle" was "built upon the common desire in human nature to get something for nothing." McNally's green goods scams made him a millionaire. He claimed that he once made $48,000 in one day, and $250,000 in one month.

The downfall of McNally, and the "Green Goods Swindle" in particular, started in 1893 with an investigation by the Lexow committee. The Lexow committee was an offshoot of an anti-Tammany Hall campaign started by the Rev. Charles Parkhurst of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. The Lexow committee consisted of seven state senators, and the chairman was Republican Clarence Lexow. This committee uncovered the incestuous relationship between the green goods operators, and the New York City Police Department. The Lexow Committee concluded that police officers were little more than "criminals in uniforms."

As a result of the Lexow investigation, more than 30 police officials were indicted. The Democratic machine of Tammany Hall Was stripped of its power, and Republican William Strong was elected mayor. One of the Strong's first moves as mayor was to appoint Republican Theodore Roosevelt as his Police Commissioner. Roosevelt, who would later become Governor of New York and then President of the United States, went full force against corrupt policeman, and the "Green Goods Swindle" in particular. All the main green goods operators were arrested, and basically put out of business. James McNally was particularly hit hard. In late 1894, McNally claimed that he was totally broke. McNally had bought a house in Connecticut in 1893 for $30,000, but he soon lost that house because he couldn't make the mortgage payments.

McNally moved to Chicago and tried his "Green Goods Swindle" there. However, he was soon arrested for postal violations and sentenced to four years in the Joliet state prison. By 1905, McNally was impoverished and working as a waiter in a Coney Island restaurant. In 1907, McNally was homeless and living out on the street. He was so desperate for food and a roof over his head, McNally went to the Tombs Prison and begged to be admitted as an inmate.

By 1912, the "Green Goods Swindle" basically ceased to exist in New York City. Famed lawyer Arthur Brisbane said that Police Commissioner Roosevelt, using the postal inspectors as his allies, started treating the green goods operators as "a farmer treats weeds – root them out and prevent them from coming back again."

Roosevelt was so successful in weeding out green goods operators, by 1914 the official police instruction manual no longer mentioned the "Green Good Swindle" as one of the most common confidence games perpetrated in New York City.

Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps – NY City-Volume 1 – Introduction – by Criminal Attorney Mathew J. Mari

I have been a criminal defense lawyer for 34 years, specializing in organized crime cases. Like Joe Bruno, I was born in New York City's Little Italy. My first residence was 146 Mulberry Street on top of Angelo's Restaurant. At the age of six years old, I moved a mile south to the Lower East Side to a place called Knickerbocker Village, which borders the East River, and is located between the historic Manhattan Bridge and the majestic world-famous Brooklyn Bridge.

Like Joe Bruno, I lived in Knickerbocker Village for three decades. Our neighborhood was one filled with unforgettable characters, most of whom were criminals, and many of whom were in the Mafia. Joe got to meet and see many famous criminals during his years in Little Italy and in Knickerbocker Village. It is no surprise to me that he was fascinated not only with the mafia characters he knew and heard of, but with the entire history of Lower Manhattan, and New York City in general.

His book, " Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 1- New York City" is a composite of characters and events, that weaves the criminal characters of the underworld with the rich history of New York City, from the early 1800′s, through the early 1900′s. It is not just another mafia book, although Italian-American criminals are covered. The book covers the Jewish gangsters as well, who truly were the pioneers of organized crime, the Irish gangs, and the Englishmen, who were one of the first ethnic groups to run the New York City rackets. Joe even presents a fair amount of "lady gangsters".

Most of all, " Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 1- New York City" is easy to read. The short chapter format is a stroke of genius. It is interesting, informative, entertaining, and to the point. You won't be bored reading it.

Joe Bruno has hit the mark in presenting Old New York the way it really was. Rough and bloody!

Mathew J. Mari

Harry Thaw – The Man Who Murdered Sanford White

This story would be a tragic one if it didn't involve two men who were undoubtedly creeps. Illustrious creeps, but creeps nevertheless. One was a world-famous architect, and the other a rich scion, from an even richer family. There are no nice guys here, and the girl in the middle, although considered the most beautiful woman of her time, and one of artist Charles Dana Gibson's famous "Gibson Girls," was no lily-white lassie herself.

So why do we care? Simply because it was the most deliciously decadent murder story of the early 20th Century.

On June 25, 1906, it was high society's night out. It was the opening of the new musical Mamzelle Champagne, on the outdoor roof garden of Madison Square Garden, which at the time was bounded by Fifth and Madison Avenues, and 26th and 27th Streets. The structure, which included an amphitheater on the ground floor, was designed by world-famed architect Stanford White. In fact, White had a front row table, in which he sat by himself, to enjoy the show, which was not going over too well with the crowd, since people were milling about from table to table, kibitzing, instead of paying attention to the show.

Suddenly, the audience heard three loud shots. At first, they thought it was a part of the show. But when they saw White topple to the floor, his head encased in a pool of blood, they knew the theatrical scene was for real.

Harry Kendall Thaw, a spoiled, rich punk, had casually walked over to White, pulled out a pistol from beneath his long black coat, and plugged White three times: twice in the shoulder and once through his brain. After he fired his final shot, Thaw screamed at White, "You deserved this! You ruined my wife!"

Seeming to be not in any particular hurry, Thaw casually pointed the gun up over his head and strode to the elevator. Thaw took the elevator down and met his wife, the beautiful actress Evelyn Nesbit, in the lobby by the elevator. Mamzelle Champagne being the awful spectacle that it was, Thaw and Nesbit had left with another couple moments before the shooting. Nesbit did not realize her husband did not ride down the elevator with her. Nesbit heard the shots, and a few seconds later, when her husband strode out of the elevator holding a smoking gun, she screamed at him, "Good God Harry, what have you done?"

Back on the rooftop garden, the stage manager was trying to sort out exactly what had transpired. He jumped on a table and shouted to the orchestra, "Keep on playing! And bring out the chorus!"

The musicians, actors and actresses, dumbfounded over a real live murder being perpetrated right in front of their eyes, sat, or stood dumbfounded. A doctor, who was in attendance, rushed to White's body. White's face was disfigured from the powder burns. Still, the doctor announced with certainty that White was indeed dead.

Down in the lobby, a firemen in attendance wrestled the gun away from Thaw, who did not offer any resistance. Moments later, a policeman arrived and immediately arrested Thaw. The policeman brought Thaw to the nearest police station, which was located in the Tenderloin District, an area known for its gambling, prostitution, and various other crimes, both violent and nonviolent. When Thaw arrived at the police station, he identified himself as John Smith, a student at 18 Lafayette Square in Philadelphia.

The desk sergeant asked Thaw, "Why did you do this?"

Thaw seemed disinterested. "I can't say why," he said.

By this time, several news reporters, who were familiar with Thaw, had followed him to the police station, and identified him to the police by his real name. Thaw immediately clammed up and refused to say another word, unless he was represented by an attorney.

The following day, the killing of Sanford White was on the front page of every newspaper in New York City. The New York Times, usually staid and proper, ran this blaring headline.

THAW MURDERS SANFORD WHITE!

Shoots him on the Madison Square Garden rooftop

ABOUT EVELYN NESBIT

"You ruined my wife," he cries and fires.

AUDIENCE IN PANIC

Chairs and tables overturned in a wild scramble For the Exits

Stanford White, who was born in 1853, was the most famous architect of this time. White was a partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White, for which he designed houses and mansions for the rich and famous. White also designed the upscale gated community Seagate in Brooklyn. Besides designing Madison Square Garden, White designed the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, the New York Herald Building, the First Bowery Savings Bank (at the Bowery and Grand Street), and the Washington Square Arch. The final two White achievements are still standing to this day.

However, White, despite his exalted status, was a quirky man, who had several fetishes, some bordering on illegality. Even though he was married, White was a man-about-town, who courted several young ladies, some of them young enough to be his daughter. It was his encounter with a 16-year-old Evelyn Nesbit that was the cause of his demise.

Evelyn Nesbit was born Florence Evelyn Nesbit on Christmas Day 1884, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Her father was a struggling lawyer, who died in 1893, leaving his wife and daughter in considerable debt. Even at a young age, Nesbit was a stunning beauty. She began modeling in Pittsburgh, but she and her mother decided it was best she moved to New York City, to enhance her career. Almost immediately Nesbit was a hot New York City model. She modeled for such famous photographers as Frederick S. Church, Herbert Morgan, Gertrude Kasebier, Carl Blenner, and Rudolf Eickemeyer.

Nesbit's beauty was such, newspaperman Irvin S. Cobb describe Nesbit as having, "The slim, quick grace of a fawn, a head that sat on her flawless throat like a lily on its stem, eyes that were the color of blue-brown pansies and the size of half dollars, a mouth made of rumbled rose petals."

In 1901, Nesbit met White for the first time. Nesbit and a girlfriend, who was accompanied by another man, were invited to have lunch at White's apartment on W. 24th Street. Shortly after they finished their meal, her girlfriend's male companion left. White then invited the two girls to an upstairs room, where he kept a red velvet swing. Like a father doting on his two young children, White gave both the girls a turn on his swing, gleefully pushing them back and forth, until their legs almost touched the ceiling.

"He had a big Japanese umbrella on the ceiling," Nesbit said. "So when he swung us very high up in the air, our feet past through the umbrella."

White became very smitten with Nesbit. Using her mother as a chaperon, White dated Nesbit quite often. At the time, White was the perfect gentleman, and he tried to make sure Nesbit had every advantage, as she pursued her career in modeling, and in acting.

However, everything changed when Nesbit's mother decided to visit friends in Pittsburgh. White was so magnanimous, he even paid for Nesbit's mother's trip. By this time, Nesbit had gotten a bit part in a play called Floridora. On the second night that her mother was gone, White sent Nesbit a note at the theater, inviting her to a party at his apartment on 24th Street. When Nesbit arrived at White's apartment, she was surprised no one else was there.

"The others have turned us down," White told Nesbit.

"Then he poured me a glass of champagne," Nesbit said at Thaw's trial. "I don't know whether it was a minute after, or two minutes after, but a pounding began in my ears. Then the whole room seemed to go around."

Nesbit lost consciousness, and when she awoke, she was lying in bed, naked. The room, in which the bed was located, was completely mirrored, even on the ceilings.

"I started to scream," Nesbit said. "Mr. White tried to quiet me. I don't remember how I got my clothes on, or how I went home, but he took me home. Then he went away and left me. I sat up all night."

The following day, White visited Nesbit at her apartment. He found her there in an almost hypnotic state, just staring out the window.

"Why don't you look at me, child," White said.

"Because I can't," she said.

White told Nesbit not to worry. "Everyone does those things," he told her. White also told Nesbit her fellow starlets in Floradoa all were involved in sexual escapades with assorted men. White told Nesbit the most important thing was not to be found out. He made Nesbit promise not to say anything to her mother about what had transpired in his apartment the night before.

Harry Thaw was born in Pittsburgh, in February of 1871, the son of coal and railroad baron William Thaw. As a child, Thaw shuttled in and out of several schools. He was an insolent child, considered by this teaches not to be very bright, and a troublemaker. Yet, because he was the son of William Thaw, Harry Thaw was admitted into the University of Pittsburgh, supposedly to study law. However, Thaw was not much of a college student, so his father used his influence to get him transferred to Harvard University. At Harvard, Thaw did little more than drink, carouse with the ladies, and play night-long poker games.

Thaw left Harvard without a degree, and he became an expert in getting into trouble. It was about this time that Thaw began his systematic drug use. Thaw consumed large amounts of cocaine and heroin, and it was rumored that Thaw was heavy into "speedballing," which was the process of injecting a combination of cocaine and heroin into a vein. High as a kite, Thaw once rode a horse into a New York City nightclub, from which he had been banned. Adding to his reputation of being an out-of-control lunatic, Thaw also drove a car through a display window of a department store, lost $40,000 in a single poker game, drank a full bottle of the narcotic laudanum, and hosted a decadent party in Paris, where the majority of his guests were the top whores in town. The tab for this party was said to be over $50,000.

When Thaw's father passed away, Thaw was dismayed to discover, that even though he was left $5 million of his father's $40 million estate, it was stipulated in the senior Thaw's will that his son would only get an allowance of two hundred dollars a month. This small allowance would continue until Thaw showed he was responsible enough to handle such a large sum of inheritance money.

In 1905, Thaw became smitten with Nesbit. Thaw courted Nesbit with much enthusiasm, and when White found out about Thaw and Nesbit, he warned Nesbit to stay away from Thaw; telling her that Thaw was an erratic and dangerous man. White knew that Thaw maintained a New York City apartment in a brothel. White also knew that Thaw would entice young girls into his apartment, then he would whip them in a bizarre sex routine, that left the girls in conditions that would sometimes require hospitalization.

However, Thaw could not be discouraged from pursuing Nesbit. He repeatedly begged Nesbit to marry him, and she consistently refused. While they were on a cruise together, Thaw became outraged when Nesbit again refused to marry him. In an act of a madman, Thaw whipped Nesbit like he did the other young girls in his New York City apartment. During this whipping, Nesbit confessed to Thaw about the manner in which he had lost her virginity to White. Thaw said he still loved her and wanted to marry her anyway. Despite the fact that Thaw had whipped her, and was certainly not of sound mind, Nesbit married Thaw on April 4, 1905.

After they were married, Thaw maintained an extreme hatred for Sanford White. So contemptuous of White because of what White had done to Nesbit, Thaw forbade his wife to even mention the name "Sanford White." Thaw insisted that Nesbit refer to White as, "The Bastard" or "The Beast." Yet, Nesbit, more often than not, simply referred to White as "B."

While Thaw was in prison awaiting trial for the murder of White, Thaw's mother, known in the newspapers as "Mother Thaw," was in England visiting her daughter, the Countess of Yarmouth. Upon hearing of her son's predicament, Mother Thaw announced that she was going back to the United States to help her son. "I am prepared to pay one million dollars to save my son's life," Mother Thaw told the press.

Part of Mother Thaw's strategy was to use her considerable wealth to orchestrate a campaign in the press to discredit Sanford White. Suddenly, several newspapers began writing exposés on White, portraying him as a tyrannical abuser of young girls. Mother Thaw went so far as to hire a press agent to generate newspaper publicity detrimental to White, and favorable to her son.

One particular story, Mother Thaw paid the press to print, was extremely damaging to White's credibility, decency, and honor (if he had any to start with). It seemed White had become infatuated with a 15-year-old girl named Susie Johnson. White had met Johnson at a wild party, at which Johnson had sprung from a large cake, almost totally naked. That night, White fed Johnson enough champagne to render her quite drunk. When Johnson became so inebriated she was barely conscious, White took Johnson back to his apartment, and he did to her, what he had done to Evelyn Nesbit. Soon after, White banished Johnson from his apartment, and threw her out into the street, totally broke. As White pushed Johnson out his front door, he told Johnson, "Girls, if you are poor, stay in the safe factory, or in the kitchen."

Johnson lasted eight years hustling on the streets, before she died at the age of 23, and was buried in a pauper's grave.

In order to influence the New York City potential jury pool, Mother Thaw hired a playwright to write a play almost identical to the circumstances surrounding Harry Thaw, Sanford White, and Evelyn Nesbit. The play featured three characters named Harold Daw, Emeline Daw, and Stanford Black. In the final scene of the play, Harold Daw proclaimed from his cell in the Tombs Prison, "No jury on earth will send me to the chair, no matter what I have done, or what I have been, for killing the man who defamed my wife. That is the unwritten law made by men themselves, and upon its virtue I will stake my life."

Mother Thaw's money even made it into the hands of Rev. Charles A. Eaton, who had John D Rockefeller as one of his parishioners. Rev. Eaton made an impassioned speech to his congregation defending Thaw's actions. Rev. Eaton said, "It would be a good thing if there was a little more shooting in cases like this."

While Thaw was in prison, his mother spread enough money around so that Thaw could enjoy extravagances no other prisoners in the Tombs were allowed. Instead of eating the standard prison grub, Thaw had all his meals delivered from Delmonico's, a downtown restaurant, which was considered the finest eatery of its time. While other prisoners dressed in standard prison garb, Thaw was allowed to wear the finest clothes, including silk shirts and silk ties.

Thaw's first trial for the murder of Sanford White commenced on January 21, 1907. Mother Thaw hired the illustrious California trial lawyer Delpin Delmas to represent her son. District Attorney William Travers Jerome, the uncle of Winston Churchill, prosecuted the case for the state.

Jerome told the jury in his opening statement, "With all his millions, Thaw is a fiend. In the conduct of this trial, I shall prove that no matter how rich a man is, he can't get away with murder in New York County!"

The sensationalism of the trial was so extreme, tickets to the trial were scalped at $100. More than 80 world-famous artists and writers flocked to the courtroom to see if maybe they could benefit by either writing a book, or making a movie about the sordid affair.

The defense's shining hour was when Evelyn Nesbit took the stand in defense of her husband. Rumors had it that Mother Thaw enticed Nesbit to testify by promising Nesbit that her son would agree to a divorce. Mother Thaw also promised Nesbit one million dollar after the trial, but Nesbit never received one penny of that money.

On the stand, Nesbit told of the bizarre sexual behavior of Sanford White. Nesbit said that White made her wear little girl's dresses when she came to his apartment. Nesbit also told the jury the manner in which she lost her virginity to White, and that White had plied her with champagne, in order to render her unconscious, so that he could have his way with her.

The prosecution countered Nesbit's words by eliciting testimony from a leading toxicologist, Dr. Rudolph Witthaus. Dr. Witthaus said that Nesbit's story about how White had gotten her drunk in order to take advantage of her, did not hold water, because no drug known to science would have worked as rapidly as Nesbitt said that champagne did to render her unconscious.

Although a group of psychiatrists declared Thaw to be totally sane, during the trial Thaw acted erratically, by constantly crying like a baby, and flying into rages, in which his eyes bugged out, and his face turned nearly purple.

In his final summation, Delmas told the jury that his client, when he shot Sanford White, had been consumed by "Dementia Americana, a form of insanity which makes every home sacred, makes a man believed that his wife is sacred. Whoever strains the virtual life has forfeited the protection of human laws, and must look to the internal justice and mercy of God."

Attorney Delmas had done such a remarkable job, the jury was not able to come to a unanimous verdict. It was revealed later that seven jurors had wanted to convict Thaw on a first-degree murder charge, while five jurors decided on a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. However, at Thaw's second trial, in January of 1908, the jury unanimously voted Thaw not guilty by reason of insanity.

Still, the verdict of not guilty did not set Thaw free from prison. Thaw was declared criminally insane and imprisoned for life at Matteawan, New York. In August 17, 1913, Thaw escaped, and with a limousine waiting for him outside the asylum, Thaw fled to Canada, where he took refuge.

While Thaw was on the run, Nesbit, obviously angry at the fact she had been not paid the one million dollars she was promised by Mother Thaw, made an announcement to the press.

She said, "Harry Thaw has turned out to be a degenerate scoundrel. He hid behind my skirts through two trials and I won't stand for it again. I won't let lawyers throw any more mud at me."

Soon afterwards, Nesbit signed a contract to appear in a vaudeville show, at a salary of $3500 a week.

In September, 1913, the United States government forced the Canadian Minister of Justice to return Thaw to the United States. Thaw faced a third trial in 1915. Bolstered by a cadre of the best lawyers money could buy, Thaw was found to be sane, and the jury found him not guilty of all charges.

Back on the streets, Thaw went back to his old evil ways. Eighteen months after he was released from prison, Thaw was arrested for kidnapping and whipping Frederick Gump. At his trial, Thaw was again declared insane. Yet, before Thaw went back into the asylum, he gave Nesbit her promised divorce. Nesbit spent the next decade appearing in vaudeville, occasional movies, and as a dancer in nightclubs throughout New York City.

In 1924, after seven years in the asylum, Thaw was finally declared sane, and was released from prison. Thaw spent the rest of his life in and out of lucidity. Thaw died on February 22, 1947, at the age of 76, of a heart attack in Miami, Florida. Thaw left a mere $10,000 of his vast fortune to Evelyn Nesbit.

Nesbitt, beset by alcohol addiction, morphine addiction, and several suicide attempts, somehow lasted until January 17, 1967, when she died at the age of 82. Nesbit served as a technical advisor on the 1955 movie "The Girl In the Red Velvet Swing," which was loosely based on her life story.

Marilyn Monroe was originally scheduled to play Evelyn Nesbit, but ultimately, she refused to play the part, which then went to Joan Collins. Ray Milland played Sanford White, and Farley Granger played Henry Thaw.

The Ruth Brown Snyder – Judd Grey Murder Trial

One crime writer called it, "a cheap crime involving cheap people." Famous author and playwright Damon Runyon said the crime was so "idiotic," he coined it, "The Dumbbell Murders," because the murderers were so dumb.

Blonde, broad-shouldered, and buxom, Ruth Brown Snyder was involved in a marriage she could no longer take. She told people her husband Albert Snyder, 13 her senior, had taken advantage of her youth and tricked her 10 years earlier, when she was only 19 years old, into a marriage "she really didn't want." Snyder said Albert, an art editor with Motor Boating Magazine, was a mean man, who was able to convince her to marry him because she was young, innocent, and naïve. Snyder told people that on the day they were married, she was too weak and faint even to consummate the marriage with Albert.

Ruth Snyder said, "He had to wait till I was better before he got his way. But to him I was never any better than the ex-switchboard operator who worked in a typing pool."

Yet, after Albert's death, his editor and publisher, C. F. Chapman said about Albert, "He was a man's man… a quiet, honest, upright man, ready to play his part in the drama of life without seeking the spotlight, or trying to fill the leading role. All the world is made up of good, solid, silent men like him."

Judd Grey was a nondescript, bespectacled corset salesman, who was also involved in a loveless marriage. According to Grey's coworkers, Grey's wife Isabel was an enigma. She was seldom seen or heard by anyone, and had taken on the aspect of an "invisible woman." Few of Grey's coworkers at Bien Joilie Corset Company had ever met his wife, or had even spoken to her. In fact, some of his coworkers did not know that the 32-year-old Grey was even married.

As he awaited the electric chair, Grey described his wife, in his autobiography, as such: "Isabel, I suppose, one would call a home girl. She had never trained for a career of any kind. She was learning to cook, and was a careful and exceptionally exact housekeeper. As I think it over searchingly, I am not sure, and we were married these many years, of her ambitions, hopes, or her ideals. We made our home, drove our car, played bridge with our friends, danced, raised our child – ostensibly together – married. Never could I seem to attain with her the comradeship that formed the bond between my mother and myself."

It started out as a blind date arranged by another couple. Ruth Snyder and Judd Grey first met in a tiny restaurant in midtown Manhattan called "Henry's Swedish Restaurant." After four hours of complaining to each other about the miseries of their respective marriages, they vowed to meet again soon.

On August 4, 1925, Albert Snyder and his seven-year-old daughter Lorraine were on a boating trip to Shelter Island. Grey took this opportunity to knock on the door of the Snyder residence in Queens Village. Judd implored Ruth Snyder to have dinner with him at "their place": "Henry's Swedish Restaurant." After they dined and imbibed more than a few alcoholic beverages, Grey invited Snyder to his office on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. His excuse was, "I have to collect a case of sample corsets."

Inside Grey's office, Snyder complained to Grey that she had a bad sunburn. "I've got some camphor oil in my desk," Grey said. "Let me get it for you."

Grey retrieved the camphor oil, and he began rubbing the oil seductively on Snyder's reddened neck and shoulders, which aroused both people sexually. After the rubdown, Grey offered to give Snyder one of his new corsets, which he would graciously fit for her. Of course, this necessitated Ruth removing her blouse, which exposed her corpulent breasts. One thing led to another, and in the Bein Jolie Corset Company, Grey and Snyder first consummated their relationship. Snyder was so overcome with Grey's affections, she said to him, "Okay, from now on you can call me Momsie."

For the next 18 months, while Albert Snyder was at work, Ruth Snyder and Judd Grey met for numerous trysts in Midtown hotels, or sometimes even at the Snyder residence. During these indiscretions, Ruth Snyder's daughter Lorraine was either downstairs sitting on the Snyder living room couch, or sitting in the lobby of a sleazy Manhattan hotel. The slobbering love affair was such that Grey frequently knelt at Snyder's feet, massaging her feet and ankles, and declaring, "You are my Queen, my Momsie, my Mommie." She would look down lovingly at Grey and say, "You are my baby, my 'Bud', my loverboy."

It was around this period of time, that Albert Snyder began having a series of strange "accidents." In the summer of 1925, Albert was jacking up his family Buick so that he could change a flat tire. Suddenly, the jack slipped and the car fell, almost crushing Albert to death, as he quickly scrambled out of harm's way. A few days later, Albert had a problem with the crank of his car. He somehow hit himself on the head with the crank, and he fell to the ground, unconscious. When Albert awoke, he still couldn't figure out how his head could have been struck by that stupid crank.

After those two lucky breaks, or unlucky breaks, according to which way you look at it, Albert had a third accident. In August of 1925, Albert again was working under his car in his indoor garage, with the engine running. Being the good wife, Ruth brought her husband a cool whiskey and soda to help him battle the heat. Ruth also told Albert how proud she was that he was such a great mechanic. Ruth then exited the garage, and a few minutes after Albert drank the whiskey, he began to feel drowsy. Albert glanced at the garage doors, and was shocked to find that instead of the doors being open, they were now tightly closed, which was causing him to inhale noxious carbon monoxide fumes from the tailpipe of his running car.

Ruth Snyder related these three incidents to Judd Grey. Even if Albert Snyder didn't realize what was happening, Grey sure did. "What are you trying to do?" Grey asked Ruth. "Kill the poor guy?"

"Momsie can't do it alone," Ruth said. "She needs help. Lover Boy will have to help her."

At the time, Judd Grey thought, since they had been drinking, it was the alcohol talking, not Ruth. But the next time they met, Grey realized for the first time Ruth had been serious about killing her husband.

After a strenuous bout of lovemaking, Ruth blurted out triumphantly, "We'll be okay for money," she said. "I've just tricked Albert into taking out some hefty life insurance. He thinks it's only for $1000, but it's really for $96,000, if he dies by accident. I put three different policies in front of him, and only let him see the space where you sign. I told him it was a thousand buck policy in triplicate. He's covered for $1000, $5000, and $45,000, with a double indemnity clause, in case of an accidental death."

Even after Ruth Snyder had told Judd Grey that she was intent on killing her husband for the life insurance settlements, Grey still had his doubts. While the two love birds continued carrying on their torrid affair, Albert Snyder was nearly killed in three more "accidents." In July of 1926, Albert fell asleep on his living room couch and almost died because someone had accidentally left on the gas jets in the kitchen. In January 1927, Albert had a violent case of the hiccups. Ruth Snyder said she had the perfect cure for pickups, and she handed her husband a glass of bichloride of mercury. Albert guzzled down the drink, and immediately he became violently ill. Yet, Albert did not die. The very next month Albert Snyder again fell asleep on his living room couch, and he almost expired, because someone had inadvertently left on the gas tap in the living room.

After trying to kill her husband six times, Ruth Snyder knew she needed help if she were to be successful. She told Judd Grey, "My husband has turned into a brute! He's even bought a gun and says he'll shoot me with it."

In February 1927, Ruth Snyder and Judd Grey were trysting in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Ruth was firmly in charge, and after giving Grey a nice roll in the hay, she ordered Grey to go to Kingston, New York, to purchase chloroform, a window sash weight, and picture wire. She told him, that way "we have three means of killing him One of them must surely work."

Grey protested, but Ruth was not to be deterred. She said, "If you don't do as I say, that's the end of us in bed. You can find yourself another Momsie to sleep with. Only nobody else would have you but me."

Grey whined that he was not the type to commit murder, but Ruth kept on applying the pressure. One night, when Albert and their daughter Lorraine were not at home, Ruth brazenly brought Grey to her Queens Village house. They went upstairs to her daughter's room, and had passionate sex. Grey at this point, absolutely terrified that he would not be able to enjoy Ruth's mad lovemaking anymore, reluctantly agreed to participate in the murder of Albert Snyder.

From this point on, Ruth did all the planning, and Grey did what she told him to do. They had several clandestine meetings, where Ruth laid out the step-by-step procedure how they would kill her husband. One such meeting took place at "Henry's Swedish Restaurant," with Ruth's daughter Lorraine sitting at the same table with them, but not truly understanding what they were talking about: that her father was in imminent danger of being murdered.

In the early morning hours of March 20, 1927, Grey fortified by more than a few sips of whiskey from a pint bottle, boarded a bus from downtown Manhattan to the Snyder house in Queens. The house was empty, because Ruth and Albert Snyder, along with their daughter Lorraine, were at a bridge party at the home of one of their neighbors, a Mrs. Milton Fidgeon. Ruth had left the side door unlocked, allowing Grey to enter the house. Grey hid himself in an empty bedroom upstairs. Grey even brought an Italian newspaper to plant later as a red herring for the police.

At around 2 AM, the Snyder family returned home. By this time Albert Snyder was quite drunk, and he immediately went to bed, and fell asleep in an alcohol-induced stupor. Ruth put Lorraine to bed, then she slipped down the hall to the extra bedroom, where Judd was hiding. Ruth was wearing just a slip and a négligée.

She kissed Grey, then said, "Have you found the sash weight?" Grey told her that he had. Ruth said, "Keep quiet then. I'll be back as quick as I can."

A few minutes later, Ruth left the master bedroom and entered the bedroom where Grey was waiting. They finished the last of the whiskey Grey had brought with him, then she grabbed Grey by the hand and said, "Okay, this is it."

Ruth led Grey to the master bedroom. Grey was wearing rubber gloves so he wouldn't leave any fingerprints. Ruth was carrying the window sash weight, the chloroform, and the piano wire. When they opened the bedroom door, Grey saw Albert Snyder for the first time. After they closed the bedroom door behind them, Grey raised the sash weight, brought it over his head, and smashed it feebly down on Albert Snyder's head. It was such an inconsequential blow, Albert Snyder sat up in bed and tried to defend himself. Grey brought the sash down on Albert Snyder's head a second time, this time drawing a little blood. Albert Snyder, now enraged, clutched Grey's necktie and began to strangle him with it. Grey screamed like a little girl. "Help Momsie!" Grey said. "For God's sake, help!"

Ruth grabbed the fallen stash weight, swung it over her head, and with all her considerable might, she smashed it down onto her husband's head. It was a debilitating blow, but Albert Snyder, now semi-conscious, was still alive. With her man-like strength, Ruth Snyder pinned her twitching husband's body down, and stuffed cotton, laced with chloroform, into his nostrils, and into his mouth. As Grey stood dumbfounded, Ruth Snyder tied her husband's hands and feet, then she strangled her husband to death with the piano wire.

With Albert Snyder now quite dead, Ruth and Grey got busy washing the blood from their clothes. Having done so, Grey put on a clean blue shirt that belonged to Albert.

To make it look like a robbery gone awry, Ruth hid all her jewelry and furs, and also the sash that had been one of the murder weapons. Then they went down to the living room and messed up all the pillows and furniture, to make it look like robbers had overturned everything looking for valuables. That done, Grey loosely tied up Ruth, gagged her with cheesecloth, and left her in the empty bedroom, with the Italian newspaper next to her.

Grey was scheduled to travel to the Onondaga Hotel in Syracuse, New York to resume selling corsets. But before he left, he looked back at Ruth Snyder and said, "It may be two months, it may be a year, and maybe never before you see me again."

Right after dawn the following morning, Lorraine Snyder was awakened by a loud tapping sound that seemed to come from the hallway. She called out to both her parents, but got no reply. Lorraine ran out into the hallway and spotted her mother bound and gagged on the floor. Lorraine untied her mother and took the gag out of her mother's mouth. Ruth jumped to her feet and ran from the house screaming, waking her neighbors Harriet and Louis Mulhauser. Ruth told them, crying, "It was dreadful, just dreadful! I was attacked by a prowler. He tied me up. He must have been after my jewels." Then she paused, "Is Albert all right?"

Louis Mulhauser ran into the Snyder house, up the stairs and into the master bedroom. He found Albert Snyder bound and dead, with two massive head wounds.

The police were called in immediately, and they quickly were suspicious about the way the living room had been tossed. The police interrogated Ruth Snyder as if she were the perpetrator of a husband's demise. However, Ruth stuck to her outlandish story. She insisted to the police, "I was attacked by a big, rough – looking guy of about 35 with a black mustache. He was a foreigner, I guess some kind of Eyetalian."

Dr. Harry Hansen was called in by the police to examine Albert Snyder's dead body, and to examine Ruth Snyder for any sign that she had been assaulted. After examining Albert's dead body, and Ruth also, Dr. Hansen was convinced that Ruth Snyder's story was a complete fabrication. He gave his findings to Police Commissioner George McLaughlin, and the Police Commissioner agreed with Dr. Hansen's conclusions. The Police Commissioner immediately sent 60 policeman to surround the Snyder residence, whereby Ruth was immediately arrested for questioning.

While Ruth was being grilled at the station house, the Snyder house was searched. The police found Ruth's rings and necklaces under a mattress, and a fur coat hanging in a closet. That convinced the police that Ruth had made up the entire episode, and was most likely responsible for a husband's death.

In the Snyder residence, the police also found an address book, with the names of 28 different men in it, including the name of Judd Grey. They also found a canceled check made out to Grey by Ruth Snyder for $200. Now the police knew that Ruth Snyder had had an accomplice.

Armed with this information, the police applied the screws to Ruth Snyder. They hoodwinked her into making a loose confession, by telling her that Judd Grey had already been arrested, and had named her as the killer of her husband. Ruth, incensed that her lover would rat her out so quickly, finally admitted that she indeed took part in the plan to kill her husband, but she pinned everything on the shy corset salesman. "But I didn't aim a single blow on Albert," Ruth told the police. "That was all Judd's doing. At the last moment, I tried to stop him, but it was too late!"

Realized she had been tricked, Ruth Snyder then told police where they could find Judd Grey. The police cornered Grey in a Syracuse hotel and arrested him. Immediately, the usually quiet Grey began talking nonstop. He admitted everything, exactly as it happened, naming Ruth Snyder as the instigator of the whole sordid affair.

"I would have never killed Snyder, but for her," Grey said. "She had this power over me. She just told me what to do, and I did it."

The daily New York City newspapers played up the trial as "The Granite Woman," versus the "Man of Putty." The trial, which started on April 18, 1927, lasted 18 days. During the trial, Ruth Snyder was dressed entirely in black (obviously in mourning for her dearly-departed husband). She wore a crucifix on a chain around her neck, and she continuously fiddled with rosary beads, which were clutched in both hands on her lap. Judd Grey, dressed in a double-breasted, blue pinstriped suit, with fastidiously pressed trousers, sat impassively, as if he was resigned to his fate.

Celebrities from around the country attended the trial, with the thought of writing books, and possibly making movies about murder. Those people included mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, director D. W. Griffith, author Will Durant, actress Nora Bayes, and evangelists Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson.

One of the New York City's top crime reporters, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, wrote in the New York Daily Mirror. "Poor Judd Grey! He hasn't IT! He hasn't anything. He's just a sap who kissed and was told on. This 'Putty Man' was wonderful modeling material for the Swedish-Norwegian vampire. She was passionate, and she was cold-blooded. Her passion was for Grey; her cold-bloodedness was for her husband. You know woman can do things to men that make men crazy. I mean, they can exert their influence over them in such a way that men will do almost anything for them. And I guess that is what Ruth did to Judd."

The trial itself was a three-ring circus, in which each defendant blamed the other for the murder of Albert Snyder. Ruth Snyder said on the witness stand that it was Judd Grey who had dragged her to illegal speakeasies and nightclubs. And it was he who drank until he got drunk. Snyder said she didn't drink herself, and certainly never smoked. Then she told the big lie. She said under oath that it was Judd Grey who had insisted that she take out an expensive life insurance policy on husband's life. Ruth told the court, "Once, he even sent me poison and told me to give it to my husband."

When Judd Grey took the stand, he was a much more believable witness than Ruth Snyder. He told the court that Ruth Snyder had tried to kill her husband several times previously, but had been unsuccessful every time.

Grey said under oath, "I told her she was crazy, when she told me that she had given a husband poison as a cure for hiccups. I said to her that it was a hell of a way to cure hiccups."

The entire time Grey was on the witness stand, Ruth Snyder sat with her head bowed, crying incessantly and fingering her rosary beads. Ruth's outbursts of sorrow were so loud, the judge glared at her and told her to control herself.

Grey's attorney tried to save his client from the electric chair, with a brilliant summation to the jury. Grey's attorney told the jury that his client was, "The most tragic story that has ever gripped the human heart." He said Judd Grey was a, "law-abiding citizen who had been duped and dominated by a designing, deadly conscienceless, abnormal woman, a human serpent, a human fiend in a disguise of a woman." His attorney also said that Judd Grey had been "drawn into this hopeless chasm when reason was gone, mind was gone, manhood was gone, and when his mind was weakened by lust and passion."

On May 9, after the jury deliberated only 98 minutes, Ruth Snyder and Judd Grey were both found guilty of first-degree, premeditated murder. The judge immediately sentenced both of them to die in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison. In her prison cell while she awaited her execution, Ruth Snyder received 164 marriage proposals.

On January 12, 1928, Judd Grey sat in the electric chair first. After telling the Warden that he had received a letter from his wife forgiving him, he told the Warden that, "He was ready to go and had nothing to fear."

Four minutes after Grey received the juice, Ruth Snyder sat down and was blindfolded in the electric chair. An enterprising reporter from the New York Daily News somehow entered the execution room with a tiny camera strapped to his ankle. At the instant the electric shock jolted Ruth Snyder's body, the reporter snapped her picture. That death picture appeared on the front page of the New York Daily News the following day.

In 1944, the highly successful and critically acclaimed movie Double Indemnity, staring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, was released. The plot was based on the Ruth Brown Snyder and Judd Grey murder case. In 2007, the American Film Institute listed Double Indemnity as the 29th best movie on their list of the top 100 American movies of all time.

Mobsters,Criminals and Crooks – Howe and Hummel – The Most Crooked Law Firm of All Time

I'm sure you've all heard about the fictitious law firm of Dewey, Screwem, and Howe. But in real life there existed a law firm which was, without a doubt, the most crooked and corrupt law firm of all time. The name of the law firm was Howe and Hummel (William Howe and Abraham Hummel). These two shyster lawyers were the main players in a sleazy law firm, founded in 1870, of which New York City District Attorney William Travers Jerome said in 1890, "For more than 20 years, Howe and Hummel have been a menace to this community."

The founding member of the law firm was William Howe. Howe was an extremely large man, over 6 feet tall and weighing as much as 325 pounds. Howe had wavy gray hair, a large walrus mustache, and he dressed loudly, with baggy pantaloons, and diamonds, which he wore on his fingers, on his watch chains, as shirt studs, and as cuff buttons. The only time Howe wore a tie was at funerals. At trials, or anytime he was seen in public, instead of a tie, Howe wore diamond clusters, of which he owned many.

A New York lawyer, who was acquainted with Howe, said Howe derived tremendous enjoyment from cheating jewelers out of their payments for his many diamond purchases. "I don't think he ever paid full price for those diamonds of his," the lawyer said. "He never bought two at the same jewelers. When he got one, he would make a small down payment, and then when he had been dunned two or three times for the balance, he would assign one of his young assistant shysters to fight the claim. Of course, he had enough money to pay, but he got a kick out of not paying."

Howe's background before he arrived in New York City is quite dubious. What is known, is that Howe was born across the pond in England. Howe arrived in New York City in the early 1850′s as a ticket-of -leave man, or in common terms, a paroled convict. No one ever knew, nor did Howe ever divulge, what his crime had been in England. However, it was often said that Howe had been a doctor in London and had lost his license, and was incarcerated, as a result of some criminal act. Yet, Howe insisted that while he was in England he was not a doctor, but in fact, an assistant to the noted barrister George Waugh. Yet, Howe's explanation of who we was, and what he did in England, could not be confirmed.

In 1874, Howe and Hummel were being sued by William and Adelaide Beaumont, who were former clients of the two lawyers, and were claiming they had been cheated by them. Howe was on the witness stand being interrogated by the Beaumont's attorney Thomas Dunphy, who asked Howe if he was the same William Frederick Howe who was wanted for murder in England. Howe insisted that he was not. Dunphy then asked Howe if he was the same William Frederick Howe had been convicted of forgery in Brooklyn a few years earlier. Howe again denied he was that person. Yet, no definite determination could ever be made whether Howe was indeed telling the truth.

Rumor had it, before Howe set down stakes in New York City, he had worked in other American cities as a "confidence man." Other crooks said that Howe was the inventor of the "sick engineer" game, which was one of the most successful sucker traps of that time. In 1859, when he arrived in New York City, Howe immediately transitioned from criminal into criminal attorney, which in those days most people considered to be the same thing.

In the mid-1800s, it was easy to get a license to practice law, and background checks on the integrity of law license applicants were nonexistent. Famed lawyer George W. Alger once wrote, "In those days there were practically no ethics at all in criminal law and none too much in the other branches of the profession. The grievance committee of the Bar Association was not functioning and a lawyer could do pretty much anything he wanted. And most of them did."

In 1862, "Howe the Lawyer," as he came to be known, suddenly appeared as a practicing attorney in New York City. However, there is no concrete evidence on how Howe actually became admitted to the New York Bar. In 1963, Howe was listed in the City Directory as an attorney in private practice. In those days, almost anyone could call themselves a lawyer. The courts were filled with lawyers who had absolutely no legal training. They were called "Poughkeepsie Lawyers."

Howe began building up his clientele in the period immediately after the Civil War. Howe had the reputation of being a "pettifogger," which is defined as a lawyer with no scruples, and who would use any method, legal or illegal, to serve his clients. Howe became known as "Habeas Corpus Howe," because of his success in getting soldiers, who didn't want to be in the service, out of the service. Howe would bring his dispirited soldiers into court, where they would testify that they were either drunk when they enlisted, which made their enlistment illegal, or that they had a circumstance in their lives at the time they were drafted, that may have made their draft contrary to the law. In a magazine article published in 1873, it said, "During the war, Mr. Howe at one time secured the release of an entire company of soldiers, some 70 strong."

Howe also had as his clients scores of members of the street gangs who instigated the monstrous "1863 Civil War Riots." Reports were that Howe, using illegal and immoral defense efforts, was able to have men, who committed murders during those riots, acquitted of all charges. As a result of his dubious successes, by the late 1860s Howe was considered the most successful lawyer in New York City. One highly complementary magazine article written about Howe was entitled "William F. Howe: The Celebrated Criminal Lawyer."

In 1863, Howe hired a 13-year-old office boy named Abraham Hummel. At the time, Howe had just opened his new office, a gigantic storefront at 89 Centre Street, directly opposite The Tombs Prison. Hummel was the exact opposite in appearance of Howe. "Little Abey" was under 5-foot-tall, with thin spindly legs, and a huge, egg-shaped bald head. Hummel walked slightly bent over, and some people mistook him for a hunchback. Hummel wore a black mustache, and had shifty eyes, that always seem to be darting about and taking in the entire scene. While Howe was loud and bombastic, Hummel was quiet and reserved.

However, Hummel was sly and much more quick-witted than Howe. Where Howe dressed outlandishly, Hummel's attire consisted of plain expensive black suits, and pointed patent leather shoes: "toothpick shoes," as they were called at the time. Hummel's shoes were installed with inserts, a precursor to Adler-elevated shoes, which gave Hummel a few extra inches in height, putting him just over the 5-foot mark. Hummel considered himself neat and fastidious, and extremely proud of the fact.

Hummel started off as little more then an office go-fer for Howe. Hummel washed the windows and swept the floors at 89 Centre Street. Hummel also was in charge of replenishing Howe's ever- dwindling stock of liquor and cigars. Hummel's job also included carrying coal from the safe, where it was stored, to the stove, which stood right in the middle of the waiting room. Soon, Howe recognized the brilliance of Hummel's mind, and directed him to start reading case reports. Howe called Hummel "Little Abey," and Howe repeatedly told his associates how smart his "Little Abey" was.

Yet, instead of Howe being jealous of Hummel's superior intellect, Howe felt that Hummel's abilities were the perfect compliment to Howe's brilliant courtroom histrionics. And as a result, in 1870, Howe brought Hummel in as a full partner. At the time, Hummel was barely 20 years old, and Howe 21 years older.

With his reputation of being a sly fox before the jury, Howe handled all the criminal cases, while Hummel was the man behind the scenes, ingeniously figuring out loopholes in the law, which was described by Richard Rovere in his book Howe and Hummel, as "loopholes large enough for convicted murderers to walk through standing up."

Howe was known for his dramatics in the courtroom, and was said to be able to conjure up a crying spell whenever he felt it was necessary. Other criminal attorneys said these crying spells were instigated by Howe sniffling into a handkerchief filled with onions, which he conveniently had stuffed into his coat pockets. Howe's courtroom melodrama was so pronounced, he once gave a complete two-hour summation to the jury on his knees.

Howe and Hummel's names were constantly in the newspapers, which with their ingenuity in getting off the worst of criminals, they were almost always front-page news. Whereas, in the newspapers, Howe was called "Howe the Lawyer," Hummel was always referred to as "Little Abe." There were rumors that the two shyster lawyers had several newspaper men in their back pockets, and there was more than a little evidence to prove that was true.

Howe and Hummel's clients were as diverse as President Harrison, Queen Victoria, heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan, John Allen (called by the newspapers, "The Most Wicked Man in New York City"), P. T. Barnum, actor Edwin Booth, restaurateur Tony Pastor, actor John Barrymore, belly dancer Little Egypt, and singer and actress, Lillian Russell. They also represented such murderers as Danny Driscoll, the ringleader of the street gang "The Whyos," and Ella Nelson. Howe's histrionics before the jury in Ms Nelson's trial was so effective, he got the jury to believe that Ms. Nelson, who was on trial for shooting her married lover to death, had her finger slip on the trigger, not once, but four consecutive times.

However, probably the most outrageous defense Howe had ever perpetrated in the courtroom, was in the trial of Edward Unger. Unger had confessed he had killed a lodger in his home, cut up the body, thrown parts of the body into the East River, and mailed the rest of the body in a box to Baltimore. Howe had the courtroom, including the judge, jurors, District Attorney, and the assembled press, aghast, when he announced that Unger was not the murderer at all. But rather the true murderer was Unger's seven-year-old daughter, who was at the time, was sitting on Unger's lap in the courtroom. Howe, crocodile tears flowing down his chubby cheeks (onioned handkerchief?), said that Unger felt he had no choice but to dispose of the body, to protect his poor little girl, who had committed the crime in the heat of passion. As a result, Unger was found innocent of murder, but convicted on a manslaughter charge instead. Unger's little girl was never charged.

At the peak of their business, Howe and Hummel represented and received large retainers from most of the criminals in New York City. These criminals included murders, thieves, brothel owners, and abortionists. In 1884, 74 madams were arrested in what was called a "purity drive." All 74 madams were represented by Howe and Hummel.

Lawyer and legal crime writer Arthur Train claimed that Howe and Hummel were, during their time, the masterminds of organized crime in New York City. Train claimed Howe and Hummel trained their clients in the commission of crimes, and if their clients got caught doing these crimes, Howe and Hummel promised to represent them, at their standard high fees, of course.

In the case of Marm Mandelbaum, the most proficient fence of her time, Howe and Hummel were able to post bond for her, while she was awaiting trail, using several properties Marm owned as collateral. Marm immediately jumped bail and settled in Canada. When the government tried to seize Marm's properties, they were aghast to discover that the properties had already be transferred to her daughter, by way of back-dated checks, a scheme certainly devised by Abe Hummel, but a crime which could never be proven.

During the mad 1870′s-80′s, in which the city was in the death grip of numerous street gangs, including the vicious Whyos, Howe and Hummel represented 23 out of the 25 prisoners awaiting trial for murder in the The Tombs. One of these murderers was Whyos leader "Dandy" Johnny Dolan, who was imprisoned for killing a shopkeeper and robbing his store. Dolan had invented an item he called, "an eye gouger." After he had killed the shopkeeper, a Mr. Noe, Dolan gouged out both of Noe's eyes, and kept them as trophies to show his pals. When Dolan was arrested a few days later, Noe's eyes were found in the pockets of Dolan's jacket. Even the great William Howe could not prevent Driscoll from being hung in the Tombs Prison, on April 21, 1876.

However, before Dolan was executed, he escaped from the Tombs prison, by beating up a guard. After his escape, Dolan dashed across the street to the law offices of Howe and Hummel. The police, following a trail of Dolan's blood, found Dolan hiding in a closet, in a back office of Howe and Hummel. Of course, both Howe and Hummel denied any knowledge of how Dolan wound up in their closet, but the police were sure Howe and Hummel were in someway involved in Dolan's escape. However, since there was no concrete evidence, and also because Dolan dummied up under police questioning, Howe and Hummel were never charged.

While Howe was an expert in criminal cases, Hummel was the mastermind in "breach of promise" cases, some of which Hummel invented himself. Hummel's methods as a divorce lawyer, and as a petty blackmailer were an opened secret in New York City. Whenever Lillian Russell needed a divorce, and that was often (since she was married four times) it was "Little Abey" who came to her rescue.

No doubt, Hummel's blackmailing/breach-of-promise schemes were a thing of beauty, as long as you weren't the rich sap whom Hummel was scamming. It was estimated between 1885 and 1905, Hummel handled two to five hundred breach-of-promise suits. Amazingly, Hummel was so good at his job, just the threat of him bringing a breach-of-promise case to court, was enough for the rich gentleman, or more correctly, the rich gentleman's lawyer, to bargain with Hummel over the price of the settlement, behind closed doors, of course, at 89 Centre Street. Because of Hummel's discretion, not one of the victim's names was ever made public, or entered into any court record.

However, Abe Hummel wasn't a man to sit idly by and wait for "breach-of-promises" cases to come to him. When things got a little slow, Hummel sent two of his employees, Lewis Allen and Abraham Kaffenberg (Hummel's nephew), to walk along Broadway and the Bowery looking for potential female customers, who had been wronged in the past, and didn't realize they could make a bundle as a result of a past dalliance. Allen and Kaffenberg would explain to young actresses, chorus girls, waitresses, and even prostitutes, that if they could remember a rich man whom they had relations with in the past one-three years, that their boss Abe Hummel would be able to extract a sizable settlement from Mr. Moneybags. From this settlement, the girls would get half, and the law firm of Howe and Hummel would get the other half.

Sometimes these young "ladies" would tell the truth about their liaisons with rich men. However, sometimes the affidavits drawn up by Hummel were pure fiction. Yet the rich mark, who was probably married in the first place, would pay, and pay handsomely, just to have the case disappear, whether he was guilty or not.

Most of the time, Hummel never even met the rich mark, whose life Hummel was making miserable. Lawyer George Gordon Battle, sparred with "Little Abey" many times in these matters. Battle said, "He (Hummel) was always pleasant enough to deal with. He'd tell you right off the bat how much he wanted. Then you'd tell him how much your client was fixed. Then the two of us would argue it out from there. He wasn't backward about pressing his advantage, but he wasn't ungentlemanly either"

To show he was of good old sport about these sort of things, when the bargaining was done, and the payment made, always in cash, Hummel would provide his legal adversary with fine liquor, and the best Cuban cigars. Then Hummel, in plain view of the other attorney, would make a big show of going to his desk, where he removed all copies of the affidavits, and handed them to the victim's lawyer, so that the lawyer could verify them as the proper documents. After the verification was done, the victim's lawyer had a choice of bringing the documents to his client, or have them burned in the stove right in the middle of Hummel's office. Almost always the latter course of action was chosen. After the affidavits were destroyed, Hummel and the other attorney would kick back their feet, toast themselves with the finest liquor, and spend the next hour, or so, laughing about lawyerly schemes.

Yet Hummel, in certain ways, was a man of principle. Hummel made sure that none of his blackmail victims were ever troubled again by the same girl who had scammed them in the past. Hummel once explained how he did this to George Alger, a partner in the law firm of Alger, Peck, Andrew, & Rohlfs.

"Before I hand over the girls share," Hummel told Alger, "the girl and I have a little talk. She listens to me dictate an affidavit saying that she has deceived me, as a lawyer, into believing that a criminal conversation (what they called an act of adultery in those days) had taken place, that in fact nothing at all between her and the man involved ever took place, that she was thoroughly repentant over her conduct in the case, and that but for the fact that the money had already been spent, she would wish to return it. Then I'd make her sign this affidavit; then I gave her the money. Whenever they'd start up something a second time, I just called them and read them the affidavit. That always did the trick."

So much money was coming into the law firm of Howe and Hummel, it is extraordinary that neither of the two lawyers kept any financial records at all. At the end of the day, both lawyers, and their junior associates, would meet in Hummel's office. There they would all empty their pockets of cash onto the table. When the money was finished being counted, each man would take out his share of the money in accordance with the proportion of his share in the business. As time went on, this procedure was changed to take place on Friday nights only.

In 1900, Howe and Hummel were forced from their offices at 89 Center Street (the city needed the site for a public building). They relocated to the basement of New York Life Insurance Building at 346 Broadway. Soon after they moved, Howe became sick; then incapacitated. Howe stopped coming into the office, and instead stood feebly at his home at Boston Road in the Bronx. Howe was said to be a heavy drinker, and this had affected his liver. Howe suffered several heart attacks, before he died in his sleep, on September 2, 1902.

After Howe's death, Hummel muddled on, as he had before, handling all the civil cases, and an occasional criminal case. However, the bulk of the trial work Hummel designated to two of his former assistants: David May and Issac Jacobson.

Hummel was 53 years old at the time of Howe's death. He must have figured he had a good 10 to 15 more years to accumulate more wealth. However, New York City District Attorney William Travers Jerome had other ideas. It was the Dodge-Morse divorce case that was Hummel's undoing. For years, Hummel had skirted around the law, and sometimes, in fact, broke the law, but there was never enough evidence to indict him. However, this time Hummel went too far. The Dodge-Morse divorce case dragged out for almost 5 years (Hummel was able to finagle delay after delay, using his thorough understanding of the procedures of the law), but in the end, District Attorney Jerome was able to get an indictment against Hummel for conspiracy and suborning perjury.

Hummel went on trial in January of 1905. The trial lasted only two days, and Hummel was found guilty. Still, Hummel was able to avoid jail for another two years. He hired the best lawyers available, hoping they could find some loophole in the law, or some technicality, that would keep Hummel from going to prison. But nothing could be done, and on March 8, 1907, Abraham Hummel was imprisoned at Blackwell's Island, the same island, where in 1872, Hummel was able to have 240 prisoners released on a technicality.

Hummel left prison after serving only one year of his two-year sentence. Upon his release, Hummel traveled to Europe, and spent the rest of his life there, mostly living in France. Hummel, as far as it can be determined, never returned to his former stomping grounds in New York City.

After Hummel's conviction, he was also disbarred. Furthermore, in 1908, the law firm of Howe and Hummel was enjoined by law from further practice, thus ending an era of lawless lawyering that has never been duplicated. Howe and Hummel are accurately portrayed in the annals of American crime, as the most law-breaking law firm of all time.

Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks, and Other Creeps -The Murder of Helen Jewett

She was a beautiful prostitute; he was a handsome clerk. They seemed destined to live together, happily forever after. Yet, when the disfigured and charred body of 23-year-old Helen Jewett was found smoldering on April, 10, 1836, in a brothel bed at 41 Thomas Street in downtown Manhattan, the prime and only suspect in her murder, was her boyfriend, 19-year-old Richard Robinson.

Helen Jewett was born Doras Doyen in Augusta, Maine in 1813. Her father died when she was 13, but a local judge, smitten by her remarkable beauty, took her under his wing. This judge spent a small fortune on Doras' education, and he provided her with all the tools needed to attain a successful status in life.

Like a wild stallion needing to run free, Doris, at the age of 17, abandoned her benefactor and took off with a prosperous young banker from Portland, Maine. In Portland, the banker provided Doras with every luxury. They lived in a palatial mansion, where swanky parties and flowing champagne were the order of the day, and especially – of the night. It was apparently during this period of time that Doras first became a prostitute. Yet, Doras was am impetuous person. She and the banker quarreled often, and finally, Doras left him flat. She traveled to New York City, and changed her name to Helen Jewett.

In New York City, Helen Jewett threw herself eagerly into the profession of prostitution; working in the most luxurious brothels in town. To increase her business, Helen used to stroll invitingly down Broadway, searching for old flames, or for new men to seduce. Helen always dressed entirely in shades of green, which matched the color of her captivating eyes. As a result, Helen became know as "The Girl in Green." In time, Helen was the most sought-after prostitute in New York City. It was said Helen had a voracious sexual appetite, and she enjoyed the company of several wealthy men a night, sometimes in groups or two or more.

Helen's beauty was such, Warden Sutton wrote in his book, The History of the New York Tombs, "She was beautifully formed; had large green eyes which snapped with mischievousness, and one of the most fascinating faces that ever imperiled a susceptible observer. Her disposition was as beautiful as her face and figure, and she was charitable to a fault with all who required assistance."

Richard Robinson was born in Durham, Connecticut in 1818. His parents had considerable means, and they spared no expense in raising and educating their young boy. Richard grew up to be a very handsome man, tall and broad, and always immaculately dressed. Yet Richard, as was Helen, was a free spirit, and when he reached the age of 17, he ran away from his parent's home, and absconded to New York City.

Richard, due to the fine education he received through the good grace of his parents, was immediately hired at a dry goods store owned by Joseph Hoxie, on Maiden Lane. Richard soon became, what the people of those times called a "roisterer," or someone who was part of the "jet set": motoring about from one fine event to another, with nary a care in the world. Richard made a fine appearance, resplendent with dark curly hair, and dressed in his usual rich Spanish cloak.

As fate would have it, Richard was entering a downtown theater, when he saw a thug attack a young, beautiful woman, who was also about to enter the same theater. Richard, by far the bigger man, was able to easily throttle the ruffian, thereby thrusting himself as a hero in the young woman's eyes. This young woman was none other than Helen Jewett. Immediately enthralled with the handsome young man, Helen handed Robinson a business card, that read, "Helen Jewett, Palais de la Duchesse Berri." This was Helen way of telling Robinson that she was an high-class prostitute, who only serviced the upper crust of society.

The place where Helen worked at that time was what was called, "a furnished resort," owned by Mme. Berri on Duane Street. Soon, Robinson became a frequent visitor of Helen at Mme. Berri's. Instead of his real name, Robinson introduced himself to Mme. Berri as "Frank Rivers." This was a common practice at the time, since men who had respectable jobs didn't want people working in not – so – respectable places, like brothels, to know their real names.

Within a few weeks, Helen, although she was four years old than Robinson, was obviously more infatuated with Robinson then he was with her. Sensing something was wrong, Helen was obsessed by the idea that Robinson was maybe sharing his affections with another woman. One night, Helen disguised herself as a boy, and follow Robinson around lower Manhattan. After he made the rounds of several bars, Helen spotted Robinson entering a brothel on Broome Street. Helen somehow gained admission to the brothel, and she found Robinson in bed, in the embrace of another woman. Incensed, Helen attacked the woman, striking her repeatedly, with blow after blow on the woman's face. Helen's gaudy diamond rings slashed several bloody tears in the woman's cheeks, forehead and nose.

Robinson was incredulous at the ferocity of Helen's attacks, and he told her in no uncertain terms that their relationship was over. Helen was crushed, and she started bombarding Robinson with letter after letter, begging him for forgiveness. But it was not to be. Robinson discarded Helen like an old newspaper, and Helen, dismayed at the turn of events, left New York City, for places unknown.

Helen returned to New York City in October 1935, and immediately became employed at the brothel of Rosina Townsend, located at 41 Thomas Street. As luck would have it, while Helen with strolling on the docks by the East River, she ran into Robinson. They reconciled, and "Frank Rivers" became a frequent visitor at 41 Thomas Street.

A few months later, Helen found out, that while she was away, Robinson had become involved with another girl, who inexplicably died by ingesting poison, allegedly administered to her by Robinson. Helen confronted Robinson with this accusation, which he vehemently denied. Ultimately, Robinson was able to convince Helen of his innocence in the death of the girl in question. Robinson also told Helen that he was so in love with her, he wanted her to abandon her wicked life at 41 Thomas Street, and marry him instead.

On April 10, 1836, Robinson, the cad that he was, informed Helen that not only was he not going to marry her, but that he was, in fact, engaged to be married to a young women of great wealth and position. Helen was heartbroken. She wrote Robinson a letter saying, "You know how I have loved, but for God's sake don't compel me to show how I can hate."

On the following day, Robinson wrote Helen a letter in a disguised hand, telling her that he would come to her place of business at 9 PM that evening. Robinson also insisted that Helen should be the one to greet him at the front door.

At exactly 9 PM, on April 11, 1836, "Frank Rivers" knocked at the front door of 41 Thomas Street. However, by coincidence, Rosina Townsend was near the front door at the exact moment Robinson knocked, and she admitted Robinson instead of Helen. As was his custom, Robinson wore his distinctive long Spanish cloak.

Helen, upon hearing Robinson's voice, rushed to the front door and hugged Robinson. She said, "Oh, my dear Frank, how glad I am that you have come."

Robinson and Helen then retired to Helen's apartment.

Marie Stevens was another prostitute, who occupied the apartment next door to Helen's. At approximately 1 AM, Stevens heard a noise emanating from Helen's apartment. Stevens later said it sounded like someone had been struck by a heavy blow, and then the injured person had emitted a long, mournful moan. Moments later, Stevens heard Helen's door being opened. Stevens opened her door just a crack, and she spotted a tall man, wearing a long cloak and holding a dimly lit candle, slither out of Helen's apartment. Terrified, Stevens locked herself in her own apartment.

A few minutes later, Stevens heard a knock on the front door. Rosina Townsend answered the front door and admitted another male "guest." After this "guest" went to the apartment of the "lady" he was visiting, Townsend noticed that there was a lit lamp in the parlor. Townsend examined the lamp and determined it belonged either to Helen, or Stevens. Townsend also noticed that the back door to the building was ajar. She yelled out, "Who's there?" But there was no answer.

Townsend first knocked on Stevens' door. After determining that the lamp did not belong to Stevens, Townsend knocked on Helen's door. Upon hearing no answer, Townsend opened the door to Helen's apartment, and was overcome by a large cloud of smoke. Townsend's screams aroused the rest of the house's occupants. In a panic, the male "guests" put on their trousers, dressed quickly, and ran from the building, lest they be caught in an embarrassing situation by the authorities.

Townsend opened the window and began screaming into the night air, "Fire!"

A night watchman, who was the precursor to a New York City policeman, heard Townsend's cries. He rushed into the house, into Helen's room, and he extinguished the fire. What he saw next, caused Ms. Townsend, and the rest of the female inhabitants of the building, to scream in horror.

The scantily clad body of Helen Jewett was lying on the bed. Her skull had been split open with three powerful blows, apparently made by a hatchet. Any one of the three blows would have been enough to kill her. The left side of Helen's upper body was charred, from her having been set on fire, after she was savagely attacked.

When the authorities searched the backyard at 41 Thomas Street, they found a bloody hatchet, which was apparently the murder weapon. Found next to the hatchet was the cloak which Robinson normally wore. Apparently, the murderer had fled out the back door, dropped the hatchet and cloak, and scaled a white fence that had recently been painted. The murderer then fled down a side street. He was spotted by an Negro woman. The woman said she could not detail the man's facial features, but that his general appearance was similar to that of Robinson's.

No one at 41 Thomas Street knew "Frank Rivers" real name. However, one of the working girls did know that "Frank Rivers" worked as a clerk for a merchant in a dry goods shop on Maiden Lane. This young lady also knew the address of that dry goods store.

That night, watchmen Dennis Brink and George Noble went to the dry goods store on Maiden Lane and asked if anyone knew a "Frank Rivers." They were told the man they were looking for was actually Richard Robinson, aged 19, and that he lived at a boarding house at 42 Dey Street.

Brink and Noble went to that address and found Robinson in bed. Robinson claimed he had been in his room for many hours. Robinson's roommate verified the fact that Robinson had been home almost the entire night.

Brink and Noble searched the room and found Robinson's trousers stained with white paint; the same type of white paint that was on the fence at 41 Thomas Street. As a result, Robinson, although he said he was innocent of all charges, was arrested and taken to the jail on Chambers Street. After an indictment came down, saying there was sufficient evidence to try Robinson for murder, he was taken to a prison cell in Bellevue Hospital on 29th Street, where he was housed with the criminally insane.

Since Robinson came from a wealthy family, his relatives immediately hired the best criminal attorneys in town. These attorneys were up against New York City prosecutors who claimed that Robinson had killed Helen Jewett, because she had threatened to reveal to his present fiancé that he had, in fact, killed his former girlfriend

The trial was scheduled for June 2, 1836.

Several mysterious circumstances suddenly started working in Robinson's favor. The colored woman, who had seen Helen Jewett's killer run from the scene, mysteriously disappeared. And Marie Stevens, who had seen the killer slip out of Helen Jewett's room, died in her bed before the trial started. It could not be determined if Stevens had died of natural causes, committed suicide, or was murdered.

Without advance notice to the prosecutors, Robinson's lawyers called a man named Robert Furlong to the witness stand. Furlong stated that Robinson, at the time of Helen Jewett's murder, had been, in fact, sitting in his cigar store, smoking a cigar and reading the newspapers.

Notwithstanding the two missing witnesses, and the surprise alibi supplied by Furlong, the case against Robinson seem to be overwhelming. Robinson was seen entering Helen Jewett's room by Ms. Townsend. In addition, Ms. Townsend said that at 11 PM on the night of the murder, she had entered Helen Jewett room to deliver a bottle of champagne. When she entered the room, she saw both Helen Jewett and Robinson lying on the bed.

The hatchet, which was the murder weapon, was identified by an employee at the dry goods store where Robinson worked, as the hatchet that Robinson had used frequently. Also, Robinson's roommate admitted on the witness stand, under oath, that Robinson, in fact, had not been home the entire night of Helen Jewett's murder.

After Robinson's lead attorney gave his closing statement, and the District Attorney gave his closing statement, the judge inexplicably told the jury that any testimony given by prostitutes, including Ms. Townsend, because of the nature of their employment, should not be believed. This slanted the case decidedly in Robinson's favor. The jury took less than a half an hour to render a verdict of not guilty.

The consensus in the New York City newspapers was that a guilty man had been set free. Two weeks after the trial, Robert Furlong, who had conveniently provided Robinson with an alibi for the time of Helen Jewett murder, inexplicably killed himself, by jumping into the Hudson River. And besides the judge in the case obviously favoring the defendant, it was suspected that several members of the jury had been bought off by Robinson's rich relatives.

However, nothing could be proven, and Robinson walked away a free man. The "real murderer" of Helen Jewett was never found, nor could it be ascertained if anyone was, in fact, looking for that murderer.

Yet, justice may have been served in an unexpected manner. Ostracized by the Helen Jewett murder trial, Robinson left New York City and took up residence in the state of Texas. Two years later, Robinson contracted an unspecified illness. In a state of delirium, Robinson was taken to a local hospital. Before he died at the age of 21, on his death bed, Robinson muttered his last words: "Helen Jewett."

The story of Helen Jewett and Richard Robinson did not end after their deaths. In the following years, their wax figurines traveled in sideshows throughout the Northeastern states. The implied message in these traveling shows, was that young people should think twice, before getting involved in a life that was steeped in decadence and immorality.

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast – Book Review by Carla Stockton- NYC Mob Tours

Review by Carla Stockton- NYC Mob Tour-Find Big Fat Fanny Fast

http://www.nycmobtour.com/

http://nycmobtour.wordpress.com/2011/...

A quick read, entertaining and earthy, Big Fat Fanny Fast is ripe to be cinematized. Abe Ferrara, are you listening? Martin Scorsese, why haven't you scooped it up?

This is pure Good Fellas meets Mob Wives, a hard look at the hard on guys who run the mob and a woman who screws them all before she screws them to the wall. It can't miss. It's funny, has a wide appeal for the 18-35 age group that the money guys are so fond of, and it's got a unique woman in the lead role.

Fanny is just what her name implies, a formidable foe, a literal femme fatale . Six foot six, six hundred and sixty pounds, Fanny literally envelopes her prey. She sucks them in with her disarming beauty – the beehive blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes and her bountiful bosom – and once she's buried the poor schmucks in her voluminous flesh, she stabs them with her razor-sharp knives.

The best thing about Fanny as a character and an assassin is that she takes her victims unawares. "To say Fanny walked in would not exactly be accurate. She sort of like oozed into a room, like a giant glacier slowly navigating the icy waters of the Antarctic." No one knows she's a killer, her knives are easily hidden in the folds of flesh draped in voluminous layers over her looming frame. And, men are easy to fool – dogs that they are, their hunger is whetted by her watermelon breasts; before they can realize they've been had, they're gone.

If the filmmakers are wise, they can use the Little Italy and Brooklyn locations quite inexpensively. I'm guessing there are actors who own property in both places that they would be happy to trade for the exposure in a mainstream movie; New York offers myriad incentives for filmmakers and can keep the costs down, especially because there are no big ticket budget items, and the bulk of the budget can go for securing the big sale cast.

Joe Pesci would be a great Tony B, the lowlife but funny thug who engages Fanny's services – all her services – on a regular basis. He's a widower, a numbers runner, bookie and shylock, and by page 44, he's managed to get rich, have a son and need Fanny to eradicate a Chinese nemesis. Pesci looks the part and can sell it. For his son, we could bring back Lillo Brancato, the kid from The Bronx Tale, now known as the thief who tried to be an actor. We'll be selling tickets as soon as the cast is announced during pre-production.

The trouble is casting Fanny. I mean the really good fat actresses are all old, and fat is not something most actresses good or bad try to cultivate. Or already dead. Lanie Kazan. Shelly Winters. Conchata Farrell. Gorgeous Camryn Manheim is too thin already, though if she were just a little younger, her you'd believe in the part. Maybe knowing the role is available will encourage Kate Hudson to add some weight?

A challenge for sure, but it'd be worth pursuing. I'm telling you – it'll make a bundle!

R