Mafia Scandals

The Black Sox Scandal

Joseph Sullivan met with Chick Gandil 3 weeks before the series in Boston's Hotel Buckminister. Sullivan was a bookmaker and a gambler. Gandil knew Sullivan could raise $80,000.00. Gandil was the one who wanted to fix the series. Sullivan convinced Arnold Rothstein to bankroll the fix.

William Burns wanted to organize the fix. He was a former major league pitcher. Burns, Eddie Cicotte and Gandil met at Ansonia Hotel in New York City. They decided to up their ante to $100,000.00. They had Billy Maharg to help them. Maharg was from Philadephia, but came to New York to help. Burns and Maharg couldn't raise any money. They decided to get the number one gambler to help them. This was Arnold Rothstein.

Rothstein was a sportsman and a gambler. Maharg and Burns approached him on September 23, 1919. He was at the Jamaica Race Track. Rothstein told them to go wait in the track restaurant because he was busy betting on horses. Rothstein sent Abe Attell to see what they wanted after the fourth race. Attell was a bodyguard and errand boy for Rothstein. Maharg and Burns told Attell that there was 8 players on the Chicago White Sox team that would throw the series for $100.000.00. Rothstein was the only man with that kind of money. Attell told the men he would get back with them. Rothstein told Attell to tell them he didn't think it would work.

Burns decided to get help from Hal Chase. Chase was a New York Giants firstbaseman and a gambler. He told Burns to meet with Rothstein personally. He confronted Rothstein once again. Rothstein told him to forget the whole thing. This was the end they assumed. Maharg went back to Philadelphia and Burns went back to his oil business.

Abe Attell thought this was a good deal to make money. He was going to tell Burns that Rothstein had changed his mind and was in on the deal. After recieving this news, he wired Maharg to tell him. This was 3 days before the series.

Nat Evans was a partner of Rothstein and he thought the fix was for real. The plan was for Rothstein to give $40,000.00 to Evans to Sullivan to give to the players. The other half was to be placed at the Hotel Congress in Chicago. If the series went on, the money will be payed to the players, if not the money goes back to Evans. Evans assured Rothstein that the fix was on. Rothstein then bet $270,000.00 on the Reds. Sullivan takes $40,000.00 that he received by Evans. He did not give it to the players as instructed. He bets $29,000.00 on the Reds and gives $40,000.00 to Gandil. Gandil gives that to Eddie Cicotte because he demanded that amount up front.

David Zelser, Harry Redmon and Joe Gedeon are a few others who wanted in on the fix also. Burns and Maharg came to Cincinatti a day before the series. They wanted to meet with Attell to make sure the fix was still on. The money was all out on bets. That made Burns very mad because he didn't know what to tell the players. Attell tells him that he will talk to the players.

Attell has a meeting with the players in Cicotte's room. Joe Jackson was not present, only seven played showed up. Attell told them he had the money, but didn't want to give all to them at one time. He said only $20,000.00 for each game they lost. The players didn't like this. Burns was supposed to pick up the money for the players and bring it to the Sinton after they had lost. This didn't happen.

NOW IT'S REALLY A BLACK SOX SCANDAL!!!!!

ST. VALENTINE'S DAY SCANDAL

The North Side gang was led by George 'Bugs' Moran. Moran and Al Capone were enemies. Capone decided he had had enough. With the help of 'Machine Gun' Jack McGurn and others, had a plot that was to make murder history.

Capone had a gangster from Detroit set up a deal with Moran for an abundance of liquor that had been hijacked. Moran accepted the deal and arranged to get it at a garage at 2122 North Clark Street on February 14th, 1929. Capone's friends from Detroit told him of the arrangements. Capone's team got a police wagon, either by theft or bribery, and police uniforms and went to the garage on the morning of February 14th. Two of the hit team dressed in the police uniforms. The others wore long coats and looked like the detectives. They pulled up to the front of the garage and all charged out and in to the building. Inside the garage were six members of Moran's gang. It was the old O'Banion gang. They were Adam Meyer, John May, James Clark, Al Weinshank, the Gusenburg brothers, Frank and Pete and an optometrist Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer. They had all seven men stand up and face the wall. The seven did, expecting a pat-down search for weapons and identification. Then two of Capone's men opened up with guns, shooting each victim with numerous gun shots. The hoods disguised as cops then took the guns and marched the plain clothed gun men out of the garage with their hands raised as if they were under arrest. They all got into the police car and drove off.

The hit was only a partial success, however. The main target, Bugs Moran, was late getting up that morning and he and two others, Willy Marks and Ted Newbury, were just rounding the corner when the police wagon rolled up. Figuring the police were there for just a routine bust, Moran and Co. stayed just out of sight waiting for the police to leave. When the machine guns opened up, Bugs and his friends took off. He was later picked up by the police department for questioning about the incident. Bugs was quoted as saying "Only Capone kills like that."

Al Capone denied all knowledge of the hit. He was actually in Florida at his beach front condo. The members of the hit team never were identified. In fact, the news papers the next day carried the story that it actually was the police that had performed the murders as a reprisal for the theft of the booze from crooked cops some weeks earlier. No one in Chicago at that time found such a claim unusual since the corruption in the police force was so absolute. A forensic scientist from New York , Calvin Goddard, was actually called in to test all the machine guns in the police forces possession to rule out such a scenario. Goddard could not match up any weapon in the police arsenal to the bullets found at the scene.

About a year after the murders, the police raided the home of Fred Burke, a professional killer who sometimes had been hired by Capone. In his possession they came across the tommy guns used in the St. Valentines Day Massacre. Burke was never brought to Illinois to be tried for the massacre though. He was, instead, convicted for the killing of a police man in Michigan and sentenced to life. The rumors surrounding the find were that Burke was never brought to Chicago since his testimony would imply the police in the planting of the weapons and cause police suspicion all over again.

It is not known who actually participated in the killings at 2122 North Clark, but some of the suspects were: Machine Gun McGurn, Tony 'Joe Batters' Accardo, George 'Shotgun' Ziegler, Claude Maddox, Gus Winkler and 'Crane Neck' Nugent.

M & M MURDERS

McCarthy and Miraglia attempted to rob three businessmen in Elmwood Park. The men fought back and were killed. Elmwood was a protected area because many of top mobsters lived in and around that area. The Mob didn't want the police near their neighborhoods. This murder caused the Mob much grief.

M and M were on juice to 'Mad Sam' DeStefano and he was given the job of finding them and bringing them to the Mob for discipline. The Mob hit-men at the time were Chuckie Nicoletti and 'Milwaukee Phil' Alderiso. On May 2nd, these two men were casing the area for the snatch on Jimmy Miraglia when the Police showed up and took the two hit-men in on suspicion charges. Jimmy went underground and could not be found. Tony Spilotro, a fast rising star in the underworld and protégé to Mad Sam, found Billy McCarthy and he was taken before Mad Sam and other Mobsters. Billy was tortured by his hosts. His head was put in a vise and squeezed to the point where one of his eyes popped out under the pressure. It was only then that he gave up the whereabouts of Jimmy Miraglia. In thanks for the information, the Mob then slit his throat. Jimmy was soon located and the Mob had his throat slit too. The two bodies were then dumped in the trunk of the car where they were found two weeks later.

Bill McCarthy and James Miraglia were twenty four year old burglars. They were found in a trunk of a car on May 15th, 1962. It was on 55th Street in southwest Chicago. Their bodies were in the trunk for 2 weeks before they were discovered. The newspapers called the double murder the M & M Murders.

The Anselmi & Scalise Murders