Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (84 page)

By some stroke of luck (or more likely a tip was phoned in), at around 6 a.m. the police found the gray Packard in a downtown garage rented by William Libby. The owner of the garage told the police that Libby and Louis Shapiro lived in the same boarding house a few blocks away from the garage. The cops dragged Libby and Shapiro out of bed and herded them up to the 16th Precinct. It didn’t take the two men long to cough up the name of the man who had rented the car - Bald Jack Rose.

On Tuesday afternoon, Bald Jack Rose strolled into police headquarters. Rose admitted to the police he helped orchestrate the murder of Herman Rosenthal, and he said he had done so at the direction of Lieutenant Charles Becker. Rose said he had to do what Becker demanded, or Becker said he would make life miserable for Rose and for several of Rose’s gambler friends. Rose said Becker promised Rose if Rose didn’t do as Becker demanded, Becker would send the gamblers up the river on a trumped-up charge, and then kill Rosenthal himself. Rose said Becker also promised him that after Rose had Rosenthal whacked, Becker would use his police influence to make sure nothing happened to Rose or the killers.

Within hours of Rose’s appearance at Police Headquarters, the police arrested Bridgey Webber, and Harry Vallon turned himself in two days later. Fellow gambler Harry Schepps was arrested on August 10, in Hot Springs Arkansas.

With the arrest of Bald Jack Rose and his boys, Swope went into full attack mode, and his prey was the New York City police department.

The day after Rosenthal’s murder, Swope wrote in the
New York World
:

“Herman Rosenthal was murdered in cold blood by the System. The System is the partnership between the police of New York City and the criminals of New York City. The System murdered Rosenthal because he threatened to expose it. It murdered him because he came to the World offices Saturday night and made affidavits as to the System’s activities.”

Of course, this was typical Swope. He had made himself and his newspaper part of the story, and to a certain extent, they were. But by doing this, Swope forced his puppet Whitman to concentrate solely on the New York City police department, and specifically Lieutenant Becker, when the more likely suspects were the dozens of gamblers whose livelihoods were at stake because of Rosenthal’s intended actions. Bald Jack Rose, Harry Vallon, Sam Schepps, and Bridgey Webber, for instance, had much to gain if Rosenthal was eliminated. First, because of the intense scrutiny he was bringing to their operations, Rosenthal’s babbling was hurting them in their pockets. And secondly, Rosenthal was a direct competitor, whose elimination would send Rosenthal’s clientele into their own gambling joints.

Rose, Webber, Schepps, and Vallon were the more likely suspects, but all Swope and Whitman could see was Lieutenant Charles Becker.

Another reason why Swope and Whitman were so hot for Becker was that the arrest and conviction of lowly gamblers like Rose, Webber, Schepps, and Vallon was small-time news. But the arrest and conviction of a New York City police lieutenant was just what Swope and Whitman needed to further their careers.

While Rose, Webber, and Vallon stewed in the sweltering and decrepit Tombs Prison (Schepps was still in Hot Springs, Ark.), they got together and decided if they gave Whitman
Becker as a scapegoat, they might be able to escape prison altogether, not to mention avoid the possibility of frying in Sing Sing’s electric chair.

On Sunday July 28, the three gamblers asked for an audience with Whitman. Whitman agreed to the meeting, and at this meeting, which took place in a room at a midtown hotel, Rose, who was well-known as a stool pigeon and collection man for Becker, told Whitman that Becker had given him $1,000 to disperse to Rosenthal’s four killers. Rose also told Whitman that he had first approached the killer’s boss - Big Jack Zelig - who was known at the time as “The Toughest Man in New York City.”

However, Zelig turned down Rose’s proposition, and he wasn’t too nice about it either. It seemed that when Zelig had been arrested recently by Becker’s men, it was for carrying a gun, which Zelig said Becker’s men had planted on him. Zelig also blamed his set-up arrest on Rose, who was notorious for doing this sort of thing to people he didn’t like or felt threatened by.

However, Rose said Zelig’s four hatchet men - “Gyp the Blood” Horowitz, “Whitey Lewis” Muller, Louis “Lefty” Rosenberg, and “
Dago Frank” Ciroficci - seemed quite interested in whacking Rosenthal. And although Zelig didn’t tell them explicitly not to get involved, he didn’t forbid them to whack Rosenthal either (coincidentally, Zelig was on the lam at the time of Rosenthal’s murder; ducking the law on the illegal-gun charge).

The following morning, Whitman convened a grand jury to hear evidence from Rose, Webber, and Vallon concerning the murder of Herman Rosenthal. Becker, along with his attorney, John Hart, was summoned to the grand jury meeting in the evening. But Becker’s fate had already been sealed.

Becker sat there stoically; befuddled by what he heard coming out of the mouths of the three gamblers. Rose did most of the talking, and Webber and Vallon each parroted the main parts of Rose’s story. At the meeting’s end (around 9:20 p.m. that night), the indictment was immediately read to Becker, charging him with arranging the murder of Herman Rosenthal. After attorney Hart entered a not-guilty plea, Becker was led to his cell on the bottom floor of the Tombs, never again to be a free man.

Before he pinned the rap on Becker, if Whitman had been thinking straight, he would have realized that Becker, considering Rosenthal’s conduct of the past two days, would have been the last person in the world to want Rosenthal murdered in such a public fashion. The reason being: Becker would be the prime suspect in Rosenthal’s murder and the perfect patsy for a frame. But Whitman wanted a big trophy over his mantelpiece: the head of a New York City police lieutenant, Charles Becker. Innocent or guilty, Whitman wanted Becker to go down for the murder of Herman Rosenthal. For his career’s sake, Whitman felt this was the right thing to do.

The four shooters in Rosenthal’s murder were rounded up in the weeks that followed. “Dago” Frank Ciroficci was captured first, at a boarding house at West 154 Street; and then Whitey Lewis was nailed in the upstate Catskill Mountains. “Lefty” Rosenberg and “Gyp the Blood” Horowitz were found hiding in a Brooklyn apartment with their wives.

T
HE “TOUGHEST MAN IN NEW YORK CITY” GETS WHACKED

Big Jack Zelig returned
to New York City in early August to discover he was wanted by a grand jury to testify as to his involvement in Rosenthal’s murder. This was in addition to the concealed-gun charge Zelig had been wanted on since June.

Zelig had an axe to grind with Bald Jack Rose, since it was Rose who had approached him with the idea of the Rosenthal hit in the first place; which Zelig had turned down flat. Zelig was certain it was Rose who had told Whitman that Zelig was somehow involved in Rosenthal’s murder. And even though it was Becker’s men who had planted the gun on Zelig, Zelig figured it was done without Becker’s knowledge and by the direction of Bald Jack Rose, who for some reason envisioned Zelig as a threat to him personally. This made Big Jack Zelig quite angry indeed; not a good thing for Bald Jack Rose, if and when he hit the streets of New York City.

Rose had to figure out what to do about Zelig, and do it quickly.

On August 22, Zelig marched into the Criminal Court Building on Center Street to testify in the concealed gun charge against him. Before testifying before the grand jury, Zelig was met by a group of reporters outside the courtroom. Zelig told them, as far as the concealed gun charge was concerned, it was Bald Jack Rose who had framed him; not Becker.

As for the Herman Rosenthal murder, Zelig said, “Herman was my friend. If I were not in the predicament I am at the present, I would make it a point to find out who did the killing and break his leg for him.”

When Bald Jack Rose read Zelig’s comments in the next day’s papers his head began to hurt.

However, Rose was nothing if not diabolically brilliant. When he learned that Zelig was scheduled to testify for the prosecution at Becker’s trial, which was set for October 7, Rose figured a way to eliminate Zelig, and then have the blame put on Becker; the proverbial gambler’s daily double. Rose found his Lee Harvey-like patsy in the name of “Red Phil” Davidson, a degenerate gambler and part-time pimp, who, because of his gambling, never had two nickels in his pocket at the same time to rub together. How the connection was made and what the payoff was is all conjecture, but the facts are the following:

Around 8 p. m., on Saturday, October 5, a little less than two days before Becker’s trial was set to begin, Zelig was sitting in his usual hangout - Segal’s National Café,  on Second Avenue - when the phone rang, and a woman asked for Zelig. Apparently, it was a paramour of Zelig’s; a manicurist who owned an uptown salon. Even though Zelig was married, he had a weakness for members of the opposite sex, and that became his undoing. Zelig agreed to meet this pretty young thing, and after bragging to a few pals what he had in store for the evening, Zelig left Segal’s, hopped on the Second Avenue Streetcar, and headed for the girl’s uptown apartment.

Zelig was in such a jovial mood, he didn’t notice “Red Phil” Davidson slip out of a doorway near Segal’s and jump onto the trolley behind him. Davidson was the perfect man for the job, since just two days earlier, the big and burly Zelig had knocked out Davidson with one punch, after the two men had argued about a gambling debt.

As the street car neared 14
th
  Street, Davidson pulled out a police-issued .38 caliber Smith and Weston revolver, snuck up behind the seated Zelig, pressed the gun against the back of Zelig’s right ear, and blew “The Toughest Man in New York City” into the hereafter. The fact that it was a stolen police gun pointed the finger at Becker and his boys more strongly.

Davison jumped off the trolley, but he was so inept a killer, he was arrested minutes later on 14
th
  by a passing policeman, who just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.

At his arraignment later that night, Davidson said he killed Zelig because earlier that evening Zelig had robbed him at gunpoint of over $400. However, Davidson’s acquaintances all agreed Davidson never had $400 at one time in his entire life; so Davidson had no real motive to kill Zelig, unless he was paid to kill Zelig.

Like noted before – Bald Jack Rose was diabolically brilliant.

When the news of Zelig’s demise was related to Whitman, he admitted it would be a minor setback to his prosecution. However, Whitman said he certainly had enough evidence to convict Becker, especially with Rose’s testimony and the presiding judge, John William Goff, in Whitman’s back pocket.

C
HARLES BECKER’S TRIAL No. 1

From the first day
of the trial, which commenced on October 5, 1912 at 1 p.m. sharp, Becker’s attorney, John McIntire, was constantly harassed by Judge Goff. It was as if Judge Goff, and not District Attorney Whitman, were prosecuting the case against Becker. Goff was obviously anti-police, and he was especially annoyed that he had to cancel a planned vacation in order to preside over the Becker trial. Goff insisted that this trial would be over in two weeks, even though most experienced court observers thought that task would be almost impossible.

During the trial, when Whitman objected to McIntire’s line of questioning, Goff sustained the objection every time. And on the occasions when McIntire asked a question of a witness that Goff did not approve of, he would not even wait for Whitman to object. Goff would strike McIntire’s question from the record himself. Even when assistant D.A. Frank Moss took over from Whitman, Goff was decidedly pro-prosecution. It was obvious to all seasoned court observers, that Goff had already found Becker guilty and that a jury “guilty” verdict was just a formality.

The key witness against Becker was, of course, Bald Jack Rose, who during the trial was referred to in the newspapers as “Cue Ball” Jack Rose, because his shiny bald dome resembled the cue ball in the game of pool.

On October 14, Whitman’s questions to Rose were obviously well-rehearsed. Rose stated on the stand that he had no choice but to arrange the killing of Rosenthal for Becker, otherwise Becker, whom Rose seemed to believe ran the entire city of New York, including the court system, would find a way to have Rose incarcerated for a very long time.

Rose said he tried to talk Becker out of having Rosenthal killed, and he offered to have Rosenthal beaten instead.

Rose said Becker told him, “If I wanted Herman beaten, I’d do it myself. I’d just raid his place and beat him up during the raid. No, I want him croaked. Cut his throat. Dynamite him. Anything.”

Rose also said he and Becker had met with Bridgey Webber and Harry Vallon in a Harlem gambling house on June 27, three weeks before Rosenthal’s murder. Rose testified it was outside this Harlem gambling house that the four men had first planned the murder of Herman Rosenthal. Rose’s testimony about the “Harlem Conference” was also verified later by Bridgey Webber and Harry Vallon. Sam Schepps also testified, and even though he admitted to being in the murder car with Rose the night of the murder (but not at the time of the actual shooting), most of Schepps’s testimony was hearsay evidence, because he had not actually participated in the planning of Rosenthal’s murder.