Part 9 (1/2)
Mickey was now hard-pressed for cash. The government had frozen access to the various safety deposit boxes he'd opened (under various aliases) across town. Worse, Mickey had to demonstrate to the court that the money for his defense was coming from legitimate sources. So Cohen sought out Marvin Newman, auctioneer to the stars, who in turn placed an ad in the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times trumpeting, ”The Year's Most Interesting Auction... furnis.h.i.+ngs from the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mickey Cohen, Nationally Prominent Personality ...” More than ten thousand people showed up for the preview. The auction itself was something of a dud. Tuffy's mahogany bed sold for just $35. trumpeting, ”The Year's Most Interesting Auction... furnis.h.i.+ngs from the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mickey Cohen, Nationally Prominent Personality ...” More than ten thousand people showed up for the preview. The auction itself was something of a dud. Tuffy's mahogany bed sold for just $35.
In truth, Cohen was in desperate shape. Sam Rummel, Cohen's longtime attorney who had delivered him from every previous legal sc.r.a.pe, was dead. Rummel's partner, Vernon Ferguson, was dying of brain cancer. Harry Sackman, Mickey's longtime accountant, had turned state's witness (though he did die suddenly of a [natural] heart attack before the trial began). In short, Cohen was going to trial utterly unprepared.
The trial began on June 4, with the prosecution a.s.serting that it would show that Cohen had spent some $340,000 between 1946 and 1948. To the press, Mickey displayed the old bravado, confidently predicting at the end of the trial's first day that he would ”beat the rap.” Perhaps he really was confident. But this time, Mickey misunderstood the odds. In previous cases, such as the one recently brought against Cohen and his minions in connection with the beating of the widow-robbing radio repairman Al Pearson, Cohen had been able to present himself as something of a Robin Hood (or plead self-defense). This time, his lavish lifestyle was on trial. To secure a conviction, all the U.S. Attorney's Office had to do was persuade jurors that Cohen had ”willfully” avoided paying his taxes.
The prosecution's strategy for doing this was simple: parading witnesses before the grand jury to testify about Cohen's profligate spending in the late 1940s. All told, more than a hundred people were called. Furrier A. Lispey recounted delivering a $3,000 mink and a $2,400 marten cape to LaVonne. A maitre d' was brought in to recount a $600 tip. An Italian shoemaker was brought in to tell the jury about how he custom-made ”two or three” pairs of shoes a week for Mr. Cohen at a cost of $65 a pair (and up). Bail bondsman Louis Gla.s.ser testified that Cohen's house and lot in Brentwood was worth a quarter of a million dollars. John O'Rourke, whose testimony in Miami before the Kefauver Committee had done so much to put Mickey in the feds' crosshairs, was also brought in to testify. He now claimed that Mickey had won between $60,000 and $70,000 from him in the past three years.
Perhaps the hardest to bear of all, though, was the prosecution's final witness-LaVonne's interior decorator. ”This woman,” Cohen would later rant, ”who many claim robbed me of $40,000 or $50,000, got on the stand and finished me off exactly as the prosecution wanted the job done.”
At the end of each witness's testimony, prosecutors added to a running chart of Cohen's spending. As the numbers climbed higher-Cohen's spending for 1947 added up to $180,000, a figure considerably higher than the $27,000 declared on his taxes-Mickey could feel the jury turning against him. His new attorneys seemed unable to stop the bleeding. Mickey tried to say that he'd lost large sums to O'Rourke in Miami as well, but O'Rourke denied it. He insisted that he never won more than a thousand dollars or so from Cohen. Attempts to a.s.sert that other expenditures had been reimbursed (and thus should not count as expenses that pointed to a large undeclared income) were likewise unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the prosecution produced evidence that Cohen had safety deposit boxes registered under fake names and stuffed with cash all over the city, Prosecutors portrayed them as further evidence of willful tax avoidance. Things were going so poorly for the defense that one day a reporter pulled Cohen aside and asked him if he knew what he was doing. The impression from the gallery, the reporter said, was that Mickey ”was being thrown to the lions.”
Cohen's mood darkened. His behavior became more erratic. The following day, a bailiff had to restrain Cohen when he lunged toward a Bureau of Internal Revenue agent. At other times, such as when he lingered to autograph copies of his old friend Jimmy Vaus's new book, Why I Quit... Syndicated Crime Why I Quit... Syndicated Crime (which Mickey had written the preface to), he was the preening Hollywood celebrity. (which Mickey had written the preface to), he was the preening Hollywood celebrity.
The smoking gun, however, came in the form of a net worth statement, signed by Mickey himself, that stated he had earned $244,163.15 in taxable income over a three-year period. Cohen felt blindsided. He'd never understood or paid attention to such things. Keeping him clean was Sackman's job. Instead, by getting Mickey to sign this statement, Sackman had virtually ensured a conviction. On June 20, the court reached their verdict. Cohen was found guilty of three charges of income tax evasion and on one charge of falsifying a Bureau of Internal Revenue net worth statement. A sentencing date was set for early July. Cohen's fate was now in Judge Ben Harrison's hands.
Three weeks later, Cohen returned to court. Judge Harrison began his remarks on a remarkably mild note. ”Los Angeles must take part of the responsibility for what has happened to [Cohen],” the judge began. ”He was permitted to operate here as a betting commissioner with what I think was the virtual acquiescence of law enforcement officials.”
The judge then expounded on the ”questionable environment” in which the ”personable” gambler had been raised. He also noted the many letters he had received testifying to Mickey's good side, prompting the exasperated a.s.sistant U.S. attorney to interject that the proceedings risked becoming ”a society for the admiration of the good qualities of Mickey Cohen.” While acknowledging that Mickey had ”been a good son to his mother,” the prosecutor reminded the judge that ”he is here for the bad things he did.”
Judge Harrison s.h.i.+fted course, saying that he saw no prospect of Cohen resisting the temptation of easy money.
Mickey interjected. ”Right now, I could go into the drugstore business in Arizona if the authorities hadn't stopped me,” he said pleadingly. But Judge Harrison brushed this aside. Instead, he sentenced Cohen to a five-year prison term, to be served at the McNeil Island federal penitentiary off the coast of Was.h.i.+ngton State in the Puget Sound. He also fined Mickey $40,000 and ordered him to pay the government the $156,000 he owed in back taxes for the years 1946-1948, plus the cost of the trial itself, another $100,000.
Cohen was stunned. It was, he would later claim, ”the only crime in my whole life of which I can say I am absolutely innocent.”
A request for bail was denied. Instead, Cohen was sent immediately to the county jail. A game of cat and mouse began. Cohen's attorneys filed a series of motions requesting that their client be allowed to post bail pending a decision on his appeals request. In November, a federal judge ordered Cohen released on bail. But before he could be released, prosecutors succeeded in winning an injunction and then in overturning the order. If Cohen wanted to persist in appealing his conviction, he would do so from jail. In an effort to dissuade him from doing so, law enforcement authorities set out to make Cohen's life behind bars as miserable as possible. Federal authorities insisted that Cohen be held in isolation and denied access to any visitors other than LaVonne and his attorneys. Only one exception was made to the no-visitors rule and that was for the Rev. Billy Graham, who stood by the little gangster.
”I am praying that after Mickey Cohen has paid his debt to society, he will give his heart and life to Christ,” Graham told Time Time magazine that summer. ”He has the making of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time.” magazine that summer. ”He has the making of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time.”
The feds' unsavory strategy to convince Mickey to drop his appeal request should have worked. To someone like Mickey, whose normal routine involved rising around noon, showering for an hour or so, and then changing into fresh (if not new) new) clothes and shoes, imprisonment wasn't just an ordeal; it was torture. At least, it should have been. But the feds had a problem: head jailer Charles Fitzgerald, whom Mickey would later describe as ”a very good friend.” Fitzgerald was a humanitarian. Under his supervision, Mickey had a way of gaining access to certain indulgences-multiple baths a day instead of just one a week, ready access to a good barber, fresh clothes, and food from outside. Cohen also found ways to exercise his innate talents: Rumor had it that he was running a variety of gambling rackets from the inside. clothes and shoes, imprisonment wasn't just an ordeal; it was torture. At least, it should have been. But the feds had a problem: head jailer Charles Fitzgerald, whom Mickey would later describe as ”a very good friend.” Fitzgerald was a humanitarian. Under his supervision, Mickey had a way of gaining access to certain indulgences-multiple baths a day instead of just one a week, ready access to a good barber, fresh clothes, and food from outside. Cohen also found ways to exercise his innate talents: Rumor had it that he was running a variety of gambling rackets from the inside.
Eventually, the newspapers got wind of these indulgences and started reporting on Cohen's behind-bars shenanigans. In response, the federal government dispatched an investigator to Los Angeles to tighten controls. Care packages from LaVonne and the multiple baths a day were ended. Greatly stressed, Fitzgerald retired, and a new jailer was appointed. He immediately summoned Cohen to his office and ”in a very excited manner that also carried an apologetic tone” informed Mickey that measures would have to be taken to knock down the rumors in the papers. Mickey replied calmly that there was no satisfying the press: If he was put into solitary confinement on the roof, he told his new jailer, some newspaper would surely report it was penthouse living. Little did Mickey know that his life was about to take a turn for the worse.
One day in early 1952, soon after Mickey's awkward interview with the new warden, Cohen was rudely awakened at five in the morning and, without even being given a chance to put on his socks or shoes, brought into the chief jailer's office. There he found the Justice Department representative and two U.S. marshals waiting for him, along with an order to transfer him immediately to the city-run Lincoln Heights Jail. Mickey Cohen was about to enter the domain of Chief William H. Parker.
Cohen was placed in solitary confinement. His cell had no windows or furniture, only a toilet and a concrete slab. No toilet paper was provided. Mickey's request to take a shower was denied. No outside food was permitted. He was not allowed to shave or to see a barber. In order to ensure that no friends on the force did him any favors, Parker and Hamilton inst.i.tuted rules that barred any officer from interacting with Cohen in any way without having a lieutenant and a third officer present. When his wife, LaVonne, arrived for a visit, she was allowed four minutes-and forced to speak to Cohen through a speaking tube. Even newspapers were restricted, lest someone try to communicate with Mickey through code.
On the fourth day of his confinement, chief U.S. marshal James Boyle came to visit. He professed to be shocked (shocked!) by Cohen's conditions.
”Mickey, my G.o.d, why don't you let me make arrangements to get you out of here and send you on your way to McNeil Island Penitentiary, where you will at least get some fresh air occasionally and some exercise,” Boyle said, with faux sympathy.
Four days in the hands of the LAPD seemed to have done the trick. ”I had to get out of the clutches of certain vultures in the LAPD,” concluded Cohen. His attorney was summoned and (with a police officer present as a witness), he agreed that if Mickey couldn't take these conditions anymore, he should go ahead and request removal to McNeil Island. So Mickey did so. The next day, on March 13, Cohen was flown to Tacoma to begin serving his federal prison term.
Although their client was absent, Cohen's attorneys went forward with their appeal. It was rejected. Cohen's incarceration was now official. He would be eligible for parole in twenty-two months.
LaVonne escaped conviction, after the prosecution decided to drop their unprecedented attempt to go after a mob spouse for her husband's misdeeds. But Mickey's incarceration left her in a difficult position. His gang had largely been dismantled; his rivals were ascendant; his a.s.sets were scattered (or hidden). The guests who had flocked to Mickey's table now drifted away. One of the few people who didn't forget her was Billy Graham. Knowing that LaVonne was probably hard up for money, Graham allegedly arranged for a $5,000 gift to tide her over while Mickey was in prison. He also occasionally sent a car over to pick her up for dinner. On one occasion, soon after he'd had a chance to exchange a few words with Mickey, Graham appealed to LaVonne to turn to the Lord.
”Mickey is in a terrible frame of mind-very bitter, LaVonne,” Graham said, consolingly. ”Why don't you accept Christianity?”
”I am a Christian girl,” said LaVonne. ”A Catholic or something-I think.”
Graham pressed on, confident, no doubt, that nothing less than a full-scale born again experience would suffice to save the Cohens.
”You have to give your life to the Lord,” he insisted.
”The only way I would do that is if Mickey would come with me,” LaVonne replied.
So far, at least, he wouldn't. But the ordeal of McNeil Island was still to come.
FOR CHIEF PARKER, the incarceration of Mickey Cohen should have been a moment to savor. But no sooner had Cohen been locked up, than Parker found himself caught in a series of scandals that threatened his job. The first came on October 7, when a police reserve officer shot and killed an unarmed eighteen-year-old college student, James Woodson Henry, whose only apparent offense was sitting in his car late at night. Henry's slaying and the poignant newspaper accounts of his parents' reaction caused a public furor. Parker responded, testily, that he could hardly dispense with the reserves when he was trying to police a city of two million people with a mere 4,189 officers, nearly 2,000 officers short of the police-to-civilian ratio suggested by most policing experts. While this was probably true, the tone of Parker's rejoinder sparked more attacks on the chief. Chastened, Parker decided to strip the reserves of their firearms. That just angered the people who had originally supported him.
L.A.'s African American community was upset with Parker too, thanks to the California Eagle's California Eagle's reporting on an incident of police brutality that it claimed was ”unsurpa.s.sed by the most vicious in the deep South.” The case, which had come to public attention one month earlier, involved twenty-three-year-old George Hunter. Hunter had been waiting for the last Watts car at a Pacific Electric station when a detective allegedly accosted him. After demanding to know why he was there, the detective then insisted that he was drunk. Hunter denied it, but the detective returned with uniformed backup and arrested him. The men shoved him into a small room. There, from 3 a.m. until 7:30 a.m., he was allegedly beaten and slugged unmercifully about the head, face, and body ”while being cursed, berated, and reviled with obscene language.” reporting on an incident of police brutality that it claimed was ”unsurpa.s.sed by the most vicious in the deep South.” The case, which had come to public attention one month earlier, involved twenty-three-year-old George Hunter. Hunter had been waiting for the last Watts car at a Pacific Electric station when a detective allegedly accosted him. After demanding to know why he was there, the detective then insisted that he was drunk. Hunter denied it, but the detective returned with uniformed backup and arrested him. The men shoved him into a small room. There, from 3 a.m. until 7:30 a.m., he was allegedly beaten and slugged unmercifully about the head, face, and body ”while being cursed, berated, and reviled with obscene language.”
During the course of the beating, Hunter's real offense came out. Wrote the Eagle Eagle reporter, ”Repeatedly, the officer blurted out, 'I'll teach you, whenever you address an officer, to say 'sir.'” reporter, ”Repeatedly, the officer blurted out, 'I'll teach you, whenever you address an officer, to say 'sir.'”*
White parents were fearful. The black community was indignant. One major ethnic group remained to be angered-Mexican Americans. But they didn't have to wait long. A barroom brawl between LAPD officers and a handful of young Latino men was about to explode into the greatest crisis of Chief Parker's brief tenure.
* To bolster the impression that Bowron was in the underworld's pocket, Mickey Cohen adorned his Cadillac with a giant sign trumpeting his support for the mayor. To bolster the impression that Bowron was in the underworld's pocket, Mickey Cohen adorned his Cadillac with a giant sign trumpeting his support for the mayor.* He was right. After turning state's witness in 1978, Fratianno confessed to killing the two Tonys. (Demoris, He was right. After turning state's witness in 1978, Fratianno confessed to killing the two Tonys. (Demoris, The Last Mafioso The Last Mafioso, 54.)* Complaints from the African American community about disrespectful stops and brutal treatment were so commonplace that the Complaints from the African American community about disrespectful stops and brutal treatment were so commonplace that the Los Angeles Tribune Los Angeles Tribune, the city's other leading black paper, sarcastically teased General Worton when he first became chief for taking them seriously: ”So naive is this new chief... that he veritably pounced on a police stenographer... to make a note of the complaints ... as if something was going to be done about them!!!” (Los Angeles Tribune (Los Angeles Tribune, July 14, 1949.)
16.
Dragnet.
”When any function of government, national or local, gets out of civilian control, it becomes totalitarian.”-Los Angeles Daily News editorial, March 4, 1952 editorial, March 4, 1952 THE TROUBLE ARRIVED on Christmas Eve 1951, when police received a call about several young men-possibly minors-drinking a bit too heavily at the s...o...b..at Bar, a little joint on Riverside Drive northeast of downtown. Two officers were dispatched to respond. When they arrived, they found a group of seven young men. Five of the men were Latinos-Danny and Elias Rodela, Raymond Marquez, Manuel Hernandez, and Eddie Nora. The other two-Jack and William Wilson-were Anglos. The officers asked to see some ID. The men produced it. None were underage. Nonetheless, the two police officers asked the men to finish their drinks and disperse. That's when the trouble started.
Exactly what touched off the brawl is unclear. One of the revelers, Jack Wilson, would later say that before he could comply with the officers' request, he was put in a hammerlock and dragged outside. His friends followed. One accosted one of the officers; a melee broke out. Wilson's friends would later claim that the scuffle began when they tried to prevent one of the officers from hitting a member of their party with his blackjack; the police insisted they were attacked when they asked one of the men to leave. Despite making free use of their blackjacks, the police officers got the worst of it. One officer got a black eye when one of the men got him into a headlock and punched him. The fight ended when a neighbor with a rifle broke things up. Meanwhile, someone inside the bar had called the police department for backup.
It was just after 2 a.m., Christmas morning.
From the perspective of law enforcement, a.s.saults on police officers were unacceptable, no matter what the circ.u.mstances. So the police went back to look for the a.s.sailants. Most were picked up immediately and taken to Central Division for booking. Police kicked in the door of the last drinker involved in the brawl, Danny Rodela, at about 4 a.m. They dragged him out of bed, away from his screaming, pregnant wife, all the while hitting him with a blackjack. Unfortunately, the men who were now in custody weren't the only people who'd been out drinking. So had a great many police officers in the city of Los Angeles.
Christmas was a special holiday for the officers of the LAPD, particularly for those in Central Division. Christmas was tribute day. Dance hall operators, B-girl bar proprietors, and tavern keepers literally put bottles of whiskey out on the corner for their local patrolmen to pick up-an annual ritual of fealty that not even Chief Parker had been able to suppress. Not all of that booze went straight home. A fair amount made its way to an impromptu Christmas party at Central Division. More than a hundred officers were still there, drinking, when rumors started circulating that two officers had gotten roughed up while trying to arrest a group of Mexicans-and that one of the officers had lost an eye. By the time the prisoners were hauled in, an angry mob of officers-more than fifty strong-was ready to teach the prisoners a lesson in respect.
The prisoners were taken into an interrogation room and told to a.s.sume a spread-eagled position. Then they were kicked and beaten. The injuries the men suffered speak to the brutality of the police attack. One young man was worked over until his bladder burst. One of the victims was kicked so hard in his temples that his face was partially paralyzed. Another man's cheekbone was smashed. Frenzied officers slipped and slid across the b.l.o.o.d.y floor, struggling to land a fist or foot on the prisoners. Some even fought with each other. Onlookers yelled ”cop killer,” ”get out of the country,” and ”Merry Christmas” at the men their fellow officers were pummeling. Between fifteen and fifty officers took part in the attack. Another hundred officers were in the building and had direct knowledge of the a.s.sault. When the prisoners were taken to the Lincoln Heights Jail, they were a.s.saulted again. The prisoners were then sent to the Lincoln Heights receiving hospital. Danny Rodela arrived later, when the rumors circulating among the police were even more fantastical. He was beaten so badly that one of his kidneys was punctured. If not for three emergency blood transfusions at the old French hospital, he might well have died. After being treated, the men were returned to jail. Later, on Christmas Day, they were finally bailed out.
No one breathed a word about what had happened. The entire incident might never have come to light but for the beating of Anthony Rios.
Two months after the Christmas beatings, Rios and a friend saw two men, who appeared to be drunk, beating a third man in the parking lot of a cafe at First and Soto Streets in East Los Angeles. Rios attempted to intervene. The two a.s.sailants identified themselves as plainclothes officers. Rios demanded their badge numbers-and was promptly threatened with death. Then Rios and his a.s.sociate were arrested for interfering with police officers. After being booked at Hollenbeck station, Rios was badly beaten. But the LAPD had messed with the wrong Chicano. Rios was an influential member of the Latino community and a Democratic County Central Committee member. He promptly sued Chief Parker and the department for $150,000. (The case was eventually dismissed.) News of his arrest and mistreatment infuriated newly elected city councilman Edward Roybal, L.A.'s first Latino councilman. Nonetheless, prosecutors in the city attorney's office insisted on prosecuting Rios. As Rios's February 27 trial date approached, other stories about police brutality and misconduct vis-a-vis Latinos began to come to light.
Parker's initial response to the Rios ”incident” was ham-handed. First, he dismissed accusations of police brutality as ”unwarranted.” He warned that unsubstantiated complaints of police brutality were ”wrecking the police department.” He wouldn't even meet with the department's critics. When Councilman Roybal and a group of concerned citizens sought a meeting with Parker, he referred them to the Police Commission instead. It was in this explosive atmosphere that prosecutors announced plans to bring charges of ”battery” and ”disturbing the peace” against six of the seven men who had been beaten on Christmas morning by drunken police officers at Central Division station and the Lincoln Heights Jail.
The liberal Daily News Daily News and the and the Mirror Mirror, the Chandler-owned tabloid that competed with Hearst's Herald-Express Herald-Express, started digging. They soon located the victims of the attack and presented their account of events of the evening. The jury impaneled to prosecute the case shared these newspapers' skepticism about the official version of events. On March 12, it found only two of the six defendants guilty (on two counts of battery and one of disturbing the peace). From the bench, an irate Judge Joseph Call denounced ”lawless law enforcement” and announced that ”all the perfume in Arabia” would not be enough to ”eliminate the stench” of police brutality. The officers involved in the beating, continued the judge, were in his estimation guilty of ”a.s.sault, battery, a.s.sault with a deadly weapon, and five violations of the penal code.”