Rothstein (36 page)

“Well,” A. R. counterattacked, “I’ve been looking up yours, too, and I’ll stack up against you. So we’re even at that.”

Later, Carl J. Austrian (no known relation to Alfred Austrian), an attorney representing many creditors of these failed bucket shops, expressed chagrin at Rothstein’s supercilious behavior: “Nothing is more outrageous than what we believed happened, and the conduct of witnesses in this proceeding.”

“This baseball thing has been the sore spot in my career,” Rothstein responded self-righteously. “I faced the Cook County Grand Jury in Chicago and got vindication.”

Referee Chadbourne demanded to know: “Do you know a man in Boston named William J. Kelly?”

Rothstein wouldn’t talk, didn’t want to talk about Kelly. “What’s that got to do with this case?” he snapped.

Chadbourne retorted that a witness couldn’t pick-and-choose what questions to answer.

“Do I know him?” A. R. sneered. “Yes, I know him.”

“He’s an attorney, isn’t he?”

“I know him as something different,” said A. R. “I think he’s a blackmailer, to tell you the facts.”

“Did you engage W. J. Kelly to represent you in the Grand jury proceedings over the World Series in 1919?”

“You ought to be ashamed to ask me that,” Rothstein spat back. “This is no place to ask that kind of question. You ought be ashamed. Before I’d be a tool like you are I’d jump into the Hudson River.”

Despite such insults, Chadbourne bore on: “Did you have any conversation with W. J. Kelly with respect to the Chicago-Cincinnati series of 1919?”

“I never had any conversation with Mr. Kelly regarding those games,” A. R. lied. (He later admitted that he had met him in Chicago in 1921 and had once spoken to him on the phone.) “I never spoke to him but once in my life. That ought to stop all your silly questioning.”

The sparring continued as A. R. commented superciliously, “I am just answering those questions to please you. How can a man refrain? It’s an absolute outrage.”

Q-“Did Fuller place any bets with you on the world’s series in 1919?

A-I don’t remember whether he did or not….

Q-And do you know J. J. Sullivan of Boston, commonly called “Sport” Sullivan?

A-Yes, I know him too.

Q-Now don’t you know you had a conversation with Kelly about representing you and Attell and Sullivan during the Chicago investigation?

A-Absolutely not.

Q-Did you have any conversation with William J. Fallon regarding his representing Sullivan, Attell, and yourself?

A-Absolutely not, I’m not going to answer any more such questions.

Q-Isn’t it a fact that you paid William J. Fallon $26,000 to represent you in those proceedings?

A-No, positively no.

Q-Sullivan is known as one of the great handicappers in racing circles in this country, is he not?

A-He wants me to tell him something, is that it? [The referee ruled Rothstein did not have to answer questions about Sullivan being a handicapper.]

Q-You actually did place bets, including one with Fuller, didn’t you?

A-That hasn’t anything to do with this case, and I refuse to answer it.

Q-What do you know about a handicapper?

A-I’m not going to answer. I don’t know anything about it. I’m in the insurance business. I’m not a gambler.

Q-You seem pretty well informed.

A-Yes, and you do too.

Q-I’ve been following your career pretty closely.

A-And I’ve been following yours, too.

Q-Do you not know that Sullivan doped out percentages on races, crap games, etc.?

A-I refuse to answer. What has that to do with this case?

Q-Did you bet with Fuller on the result of the world series in 1919?

A-Yes, I had one bet, and Fuller won that.

Q-[By Referee Coffin]: Did he get his money?

A-Sure he did. I always pay my bets.

Q-[By Chadbourne]: Didn’t you consult Sullivan regarding the world’s series of 1919 with respect to the various games so as to be in a position to determine what odds should be placed?

A-I don’t remember. That’s too far back. It’s a silly question.

Q-You refuse to answer?

A-Yes, on the ground that it has no bearing on the case.

Q-Didn’t you consult “Sport” Sullivan as to the way bets should be placed on the World Series?

A-You don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s that got to do with the case of Fuller assets whether I consulted him or not?

Q-As a matter of fact, you were represented at the hearing [the Cook County Grand Jury] by William J. Fallon and Kelly?

A-I have no attorney.

Q-Isn’t it a fact that you had a conversation with Sullivan prior to the series of 1919 with respect to that series?

Again, Rothstein didn’t want to answer. Referee Coffin instructed him to. He still refused:

A-I wouldn’t answer at all, as it has no bearing on the case.

Q-Did you have a talk with Attell about seeing Sullivan regarding the series of 1919?

A-No.

Q-Did Attell report to you any conversation he had with Sullivan regarding that series?

A-Absolutely not. I really shouldn’t answer those questions and only do it to please you, Mr. Chadbourne.

Q-I want to be fair with you.

A-You don’t want to be fair with me. That’s the last thing in your mind. You wouldn’t know how to be fair if you tried.

Q-Didn’t Attell report to you that because of the nationwide [sic] interest in that series the results would be determined and millions might be made?

A-[Angrily] I’m not going to say “yes,” or “no.” This has got to be a joke.

Again Referee Coffin demanded that A. R. answer Chadbourne’s questioning. Again Rothstein refused, saying it had no relevance:

Q-Did Abe Attell in 1919, prior to the world’s series, repeat any conversation with Sullivan?

A-No sir.

Q-Did you know Bill Burns, a former ballplayer?

A-He knows whether I do.

Chadbourne repeated his question, and Rothstein deigned to answer. “He introduced himself to me one night and I insulted him by telling him I did not want to know him, if you call that knowing him. I’d like to know who’s paying you to ask me these questions.”

Chadbourne ignored the jibe, now demanding to know if A. R. could recall “another meeting in the Hotel Astor in 1919 with Abe Attell and Sullivan to discuss the world’s series.”

“I’m not going to answer that either because it hasn’t anything to do with the case.”

“Isn’t it a fact,” Chadbourne continued, “that at that conference proper percentages on bets on the world series were doped out?”

“I’m not going to answer because it has no bearing on the case.”

“Isn’t it a fact,” Chadbourne demanded to know, “that at that conference the question of fixing the White Sox was discussed?

“I don’t remember,” A. R. perjured himself. “I wouldn’t discuss such a thing. There wasn’t any such conference, so how could I discuss it?”

“Then I understand you never had such a conference?”

“I’m not accountable for what you understand.”

“Did you have a conference anywhere else in New York?”

“I don’t want to discuss that,” said Rothstein, truthfully for once, before lying again. “There never was such a conference.”

A. R. wouldn’t even admit if he met Attell “at any time in New York in 1919.”

“I’ll answer all of these questions at the proper time,” he responded, knowing there never would be a proper time. Referee Coffin again demanded Rothstein answer. A. R. still refused.

He also refused to answer repeated queries as to whether he had known the 1919 Series was fixed and whether he had fixed bets with Fuller. Then Chadbourne returned to the topic of Sport Sullivan, asking, “Did you ever have a conference with `Sport’ Sullivan after the series for a division of the winnings?”

A. R. retreated behind the stock response: “I refuse to answer.”

Chadbourne, who seemed to have very good inside information, then asked, “Didn’t `Sport’ Sullivan accuse you of welshing?”

“I never welshed in my life,” Rothstein answered. He hated to be called a welsher. It was the worst thing you could call him. The sparring continued:

Q-Don’t you know the White Sox players were to get $100,000 bribes?

A-No, I don’t know that.

Q-Don’t you know the White Sox players made the charge they’d been doublecrossed, and didn’t get the money after they had thrown the first game?

A-I never promised them any money. I don’t even talk to ballplayers.

Q-Did you have any connection with William J. Fallon as to getting the Chicago Grand jury minutes?

A-No.

Q-Don’t you know that Fallon got those minutes?

A-No, did he?

Finally, the testimony got around to how Rothstein and Fallon engineered Sammy Pass’s perjury, clearing Abe Attell:

Q-Do you know a lawyer in Chicago named Leo Spitz?

A-Yes, very well.

Q-Did you have Spitz send a man named Sammy Pass here about the extradition of Abe Attell?

A-No, I don’t remember.

Q-Are you prepared to testify you didn’t ask Sammy Pass to come here to testify in the proceedings against Attell?

A-Yes. Did he?

Q-Didn’t you pay Pass $1,000 to come here?

A-No.

Q-Did you make him a loan?

A-Yes, if it’s any of your business. I loaned him $1,000, and he paid me back $500. He’ll return the other $500. He’s a nice little boy.

Q-Did he ever say he didn’t consider that a loan?

A-No, he’s a nice boy and wouldn’t say such a thing.

Not if he knew what was good for him.

Chadbourne had made a valiant attempt to get to the bottom of the Black Sox scandal, acting with far greater diligence than any Chicago grand jury or trial court, but he never got A. R. to admit a thing. Rothstein relied not on his own wits and nerve, but also on excellent counsel. In bankruptcy court, he didn’t employ a William J. Kelly, Leo Spitz, or even a Bill Fallon. His counsel was far more respectable: influential Manhattan Republican George Z. Medalie, a former assistant district attorney under Charles Whitman. Whenever federal authorities pursued Rothstein, A. R. turned to Republican attorneys. Medalie argued it was “the most remarkable situation in the history of gambling” that Fuller would have made only sixty bets with Rothstein (the number of checks found by Ferber) and lost each and every one. He also contended his client may have passed Fuller’s payments on to other betting “commissioners.” Regarding one $30,000 check, Medalie claimed it had merely been cashed at Rothstein’s gambling house. Whether Fuller then lost all or part of that $30,000 to Rothstein, A. R. couldn’t possibly know. “His client kept no books, Mr. Medalie said,” the New York Times reported, “because his business was illegal.”

Only for Arnold Rothstein could such a defense succeed.

Federal authorities pursuing Fuller’s assets indicted A. R. for a single minor transgression. As E. M. Fuller collapsed in 1922, Eddie Fuller asked Rothstein to hide an asset from the bankruptcy court, his lavish Pierce-Arrow. Accordingly, A. R. and Fuller backdated a $6,000 mortgage for the vehicle. In April 1924, a federal grand jury indicted Rothstein for the crime. The case never went to trial.

While A. R. testified one day at the John Street offices of bankruptcy referee Terrence Farley, Watson and Ferber were present to watch. Ferber peered out a window, and saw the street literally lined with gunmen-twenty-two Chicago mobsters led by hoodlum Joe Maroni. Watson and Ferber feared revenge from A. R. and Tammany for having stirred everything up. In those days, major newspapers employed private armies to battle each other in vicious and bloody circulation wars. Watson wanted his circulation manager Ben Bloom to dispatch the American’s own goons to scare off these hoodlums, but Ferber argued that if gunfire erupted every other paper would enjoy a field day blasting the Hearst papers and their hired gunmen.

Ferber agreed that reinforcements were necessary-but not gunmen. By phone he summoned every photographer on staff, each equipped with his largest camera. They would indeed shoot Maroni’s men, but with something more feared than guns: cameras. Within a few minutes, Maroni’s mob slipped away quietly.

While Rothstein fought to retain his gambling earnings, Bill Fallon-acting at the behest of Tom Foley-defended Eddie Fuller and Bill McGee valiantly against charges of stock fraud. Through two hung juries and a mistrial, Fuller and McGee remained free. With Fallon already possessing a reputation as New York’s premier jury-fixer, the New York American’s suspicions were naturally aroused.

Nat Ferber remained busy investigating the bucket shops (eventually bringing down eighty-one crooked operations), so Victor Watson assigned Carl Helm, another top reporter, to snare Fallon. Charles W. Rendigs was one of four jurors holding out for acquittal in the third Fuller trial. Helm discovered that Rendigs had also served jury duty during Fallon’s November 1922 defense of the Durrell-Gregory bucket shop. In the Durrell-Gregory case, six of twentythree defendants presented no defense and seven of their former associates actually pleaded guilty to mail fraud, but Charles W. Rendigs held out for acquittal and hung the jury.

A remarkable coincidence. The fates had conspired to favor Mr. Fallon. However, fate also played a cruel trick. In most criminal or civil cases, jurors are asked if they know the attorneys involved-but usually not under oath. In the third Fuller trial, they were, and Charles W. Rendigs swore he’d never seen Fallon before in his life.

Rendigs now faced prison for perjury. To save himself, he swore that in the Durrell-Gregory case, Fallon paid him $2,500, laundering the bribe through Joe Pani, proprietor of the Woodmansten Inn. Before long, Helm had others who were willing to testify against the Great Mouthpiece.

The American’s staff cajoled bankruptcy referee Coffin to subpoena certain E. M. Fuller records, documents Nat Ferber conveniently misfiled while riffling through firm archives. When Fuller and McGee failed to produce the evidence, Coffin jailed them for contempt of court, ordering them held in the city’s worst and hottest lockup, the Lower East’s Side Ludlow Street Jail, until they surrendered the missing documents.