Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 3, August 1973

Violent Mickey Cohen by David Mazroff

Misshapen, monstrously evil, a spawn of Brooklyn’s worst slum was to muscle and murder his way to gangland leadership, defying both the Brotherhood and the police. Micky Cohen has escaped death — so far. But he lives in fear, knowing each day may be his last on earth. Meet—

There is no formal beginning to the story of Mickey Cohen, and as this is being written, no end. Mickey Cohen is still in prison. He was attacked there by cons on more than one occasion. There are no guns in the pen for men like him, and no bodyguards. There is a good chance he may be killed before he is released. If he is, it would surprise no one, because Mickey Cohen is notorious for his big mouth and his penchant for antagonizing men.

In the decade before 1951, when Cohen went to prison, gangland warfare and slayings in Los Angeles had become as regular as the rising sun. From 1951 until 1955, while Cohen was sitting it out in a prison cell, there wasn’t a single gangland killing in Los Angeles. The sudden quietude, the almost unbelievable serenity which swept over the city was understandable. Mickey Cohen had been taken off the streets.

No gangster in America’s black history of underworld mischief had a more lethal record of beatings, shootings, torture, and murder than this pint-sized would-be Napoleon. Mickey Cohen, nee Meyer Harris Cohen, was born in 1913 in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. It was the very same area which spawned Lepke Buchalter and Gurrah Shapiro of Murder, Inc., Frankie Yale, Albert Anastasia, Bugsy Siegel, and hundreds of others who found their way into prisons, the morgue, or in dirty alleys bleeding and dying or dead from underworld guns.

Mickey Cohen was the youngest of six children of a Russian immigrant who was a produce peddler and dealer. The father died when Mickey was only three months old so he never really knew he had a father. His mother, a typical God-fearing Jewish woman, was beside herself as to what to do about her mizhinik, the youngest of her brood. At an early age, Cohen indicated that he was a violent non-conformist with society and its rules.

The family moved to Los Angeles, into the squalid, teeming section of Boyle Heights, which is like the ghettos of New York City, or any other large city. The move from Brownsville to Boyle Heights was no improvement, as Mrs. Cohen had hoped it would be.

Mickey Cohen started out on his depredations while in knee pants. He sold newspapers which he stole from other kids or from newsstands, robbed fruits and vegetables from pushcarts and, when the unfortunate peddler protested or attempted to stop the young hoodlum, Cohen turned over the pushcart and sent the peddler’s wares tumbling into the street. He hustled craps, poker games, and anything else that would bring him a buck. That was his goal, the buck, his passport out of the ghetto.

Strangely enough, he was an apt pupil in school and had a fine potential, according to his teachers, a potential which never materialized. He was a bully in the schoolyard, fought other boys and won most of his fights. He then began hanging around the gyms where such name fighters as Fidel LaBarba, Jackie Fields, Newsboy Brown, Mushy Callahan, and other top-notch ringmen trained. He was fascinated by the lure of the boxing game and the crowd, the hustlers, trainers, managers, promoters, and newspaper men. He badgered name fighters to teach him the art of professional fighting.

Before he entered Boyle Heights Junior High School he was boxing at club smokers. He began skipping school and got into trouble with truant officers. When he was fifteen he was transferred to a high school for incorrigible delinquents. That didn’t suit him either and he ran away from home. He hitchhiked to Cleveland, where an older brother lived.

In Cleveland, Mickey Cohen sought out a gym where fighters trained and began working out. He was matched with fighters in his own class in the smaller clubs in and around Cleveland. After two years he went to Chicago, where he fought some main events but never showed the promise of a champion or near-champion. He was battered around by good featherweights in every fight. With only a broken nose to show for his battles in the ring, he gave up the hope of ever achieving a title and turned to gambling. Here, too, he was small-time.

An operator of a book, Syndicate controlled, hired Cohen to pick up bets and to collect from losers. This was right up Cohen’s alley. Knowing he had the Syndicate behind him, he muscled gamblers who were behind in their payments. His quick fists and hair-trigger temper resulted in many beatings which he administered to those who didn’t meet his demands to pay off. His reputation for collecting from losers spread to Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, Al Capone’s bagman.

“You’re a pretty bright guy,” Guzik said. “A little rough but bright. I’ve got some work for you. Can you follow orders?”

“You bet,” Cohen replied quickly. “Right down the line.”

“Good.” Guzik handed him a list of names and addresses. “These guys are way behind in paying off their losses. The amounts are listed after each name. Get the money. You get ten per cent.”

With Jake Guzik’s power behind him, Cohen ran wild. He beat up a few important people. They complained to Frank Nitti, who had taken over the mob when Capone was sent to prison for income tax evasion. Nitti learned that Cohen was collecting for Guzik.

“Who the hell is this Mickey Cohen?” Nitti demanded.

“A good boy out of New York and Cleveland. He’s getting results. That’s what matters,” Guzik finished.

“Like hell it does! He’s bringing us heat. He muscled a few important guys. I’ve had some calls. He’s got all his brains in his hands. We don’t operate like that, Jake!”

“Look, Frank, all the guys he was sent to were months behind in paying off and all I got was a lot of excuses. I gave them extensions. They didn’t make one single effort to bring the amounts down. Some of them owe as much as ten grand.”

“Okay! Bring me the list. I’ll get the money. You take that two-bit muscleman off right now!”

“I said he’s a good boy, Frank. I can use him. Who you going to put on to collect the small stuff, the hundreds and two hundreds?”

“We’ve got a lot of men. I’ll put somebody on. Cohen is out! I don’t want to argue about it.”

Guzik called Cohen and told him he had to stop his collections.

“How will I live, Jake? I’ve got expenses.”

“Tell you what? Find yourself a small place, a store, something, and open up a horse room. I’ll okay it and put in the wire service for you. That okay?”

“Sure, Jake. Thanks. I’ll find something.”

Frank Nitti heard of it and refused to allow Cohen to run. Cohen went back to Los Angeles. He was broke. He turned to robbery. He was picked up but was released when witnesses could not or would not identify him. This was in 1933, and was the first in a series of forty arrests for every crime in the book. He was then only twenty years old, an unknown punk to the Los Angeles Police Department. He was picked up several more times in the next two years on various charges but was released for lack of evidence. He told himself the cops were stupid and couldn’t convict him on anything. This kind of thinking added to Cohen’s already monumental ego. He was, he assured everyone who would listen, immune to conviction and jail.

“I’m too smart for cops,” he declared. His boasting appeared to be justified for while his arrest record mounted, the conviction record was bare.

Los Angeles eventually got too hot for him and he decided to return to Chicago. He sought out Jake Guzik and asked for help.

“Can’t you fix it for me to open up a book?” he asked Guzik. “I’ll run it nice and clean. If you need me to do anything for you, I’ll be right there.”

Guzik thought about it. He knew that he would be doing the wrong thing if he okayed Cohen in the face of Frank Nitti’s order that Cohen was not to operate in Chicago. However, he had taken a liking to Cohen for some reason. Too, he decided to test his power against that of Nitti in the Organization. He told Cohen to go ahead and open up.

Cohen opened a Lake Shore horse parlor. He did well for a while but ran into a bad streak when he was hit for a score of big wins. He needed money to pay off. He went to several gamblers, some of them legitimate businessmen, and asked for loans. When they refused he muscled them. Bad luck followed him. He was hit again. This time he took a quick trip to Cleveland, looked up an old pal named Frank Niccoli. They rigged a phony holdup of a Cleveland restaurant. The cops nailed him this time. He received a suspended sentence and two years’ probation. He managed to fix the probation rap and beat it back to Chicago.

In the next two years he was arrested half a dozen times for bookmaking, assault with a deadly weapon, and other shennanigans. Frank Nitti got wind of Cohen again. He called Guzik.

“Jake, I thought I told you I didn’t want Cohen to run in this town. What the hell are you trying to do? He’s causing all kinds of heat. You tell Cohen to close up and get the hell out of town. Three days, Jake. If he isn’t out of town by then he’s going to wind up in the morgue.”

This was no idle threat. Guzik knew that Nitti was hotheaded and when he was mad he’d just as soon do the killing himself as he would to order it. “Okay, Frank. Cohen is out. I’ll deliver the message.” Guzik realized that without Capone’s protection he could not stand against Nitti. Capone was in Alcatraz. There was no way of getting to him. Even if he could reach Capone it would do no good. Nitti was boss.

Cohen closed lip the horse room and took a train back to Los Angeles.

When Cohen arrived in Los Angeles he learned that Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was in control on orders from the National Crime Cartel which rules the nation’s underworld.

Bugsy Siegel, although a guy with a hair-trigger temper and a reputation as a killer for Murder, Inc., was the complete antithesis of Mickey Cohen. The Bug was smooth, polished, quiet, and deadly, He was also shrewd and cunning and bossed things with an iron hand. He did go off the deep end once and wound up a corpse. That’s the way with the Syndicate. Step out of line and you’re dead. It happened to a lot of the big boys — to Albert Anastasia, Willie Moretti, Dutch Schultz, Legs Diamond, and many others.

At the moment, however, Bugsy Siegel was riding high. He moved in the circle of movie stars, directors, producers, and the king-pins of the industry. He was seen with some of the loveliest stars. One of them was his mistress.

Mickey Cohen looked on and licked his chops. He hungered for everything that Siegel had, especially the big money and the beautiful women. He lacked a few items, physically and mentally. Siegel was as handsome as a movie star. Cohen was short, chunky, with a broken nose, thick lips, and a limited vocabulary that ran to Brooklynese and the vilest kind of profanity.

Morally, there was nothing to choose between them. Siegel and Cohen were both bums, vicious, atavistic, jungle marauders. Siegel could give Cohen cards and spades in viciousness.

Cohen could have risen high in the National Crime Cartel but two things were against him. His mouth was too big, and he was Jewish. The latter wouldn’t have been too large a hurdle to leap because men like Abner “Longy” Zwillman, Meyer Lansky, Jake Guzik, Lepke Buchalter, and Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, among others, were big in the Syndicate.

The Italian people as a whole have been seriously maligned because of the notoriety of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra. Only a handful, proportionately, are involved in the rackets. But those few are as evil as they are deadly.

Mickey Cohen, during the years he was free and operating in Los Angeles, took a lot of heat off the Chicago and New York mobs, all Sicilians or Italians with a few exceptions. Cohen didn’t have the kind of police protection that Bugsy Siegel had, and certainly nothing to compare with the Chicago Syndicate. It is generally known that the Windy City mob, leftovers from the days of Capone, is undoubtedly the most politically insulated and police-protected criminal organization in the world. That includes Sicily, the birthplace of the Mafia.

Mickey Cohen could riot, even at the very height of his career as the top hood in Los Angeles, command the kind of protection necessary to operate illegal enterprises with immunity. His police record, as previously noted, became spotted with arrests. A man like Tony Accardo, who ran the Chicago mob for years, never served a single day in jail. Accardo, however, despite the fact that he never went beyond the sixth grade, was shrewd, clever, innately intelligent, and closemouthed. Cohen was the exact opposite.

Cohen was more along the type of Jake “Gurrah” Shapiro or more, perhaps, like Momo Salvatore Giangono, alias Sam Giancana. Cohen has been described as a “snarling, ill-mannered, sarcastic, sadistic psychopath.” It was a justly earned description.

Bugsy Siegel took Cohen under his wing. He saw something in Cohen that reminded him of his own early days when he was a gunman and killer for Murder, Inc., a partner with Meyer Lansky in the notorious Bug and Meyer Mob. Siegel was having trouble with Jack Dragna, who had bossed things in Los Angeles prior to Siegel’s coming. He felt that Cohen could serve him well in the matter of straightening out some of Dragna’s hoods who were a little out of form, muscling bookies, gamblers, narcotics dealers, and whores under Siegel’s protection.

“I want you to lean real heavy on these bums, Mickey,” Siegel said. “Bust ’em up, put them in the hospital, break their arms and legs. Anyway, you want to do it so long as they get the kind of message I want them to get. Understand?”

“Sure, Ben. I know just what you want. Leave it to me.”

Cohen quickly impressed Bugsy Siegel with his efficiency at quieting stubborn rivals. He beat more than a dozen of Dragna’s hoods, roughed them up in a way he knew too well. Most of them became hospital cases. After six months of this, Dragna sought peace with Siegel.

At this time, in 1939, a war for control of the wire-service in Chicago was going on. The Chicago Syndicate wanted to take over the wire-service which supplied thousands of handbooks across the country with information on horse races to be run and those which already had run. A handbook could not operate without this vital service which not only provided the results of each race but also’ furnished the win, place, and show prices.

James Ragen and Arthur B. “Mickey” McBride operated the wire service for Moses Annenberg. Annenberg was at one time circulation manager of all Hearst newspapers. As he gained knowledge of the newspaper business, from end to end, Annenberg quit Hearst and built a vast empire of his own that rivaled Hearst’s newspapers. Among those newspapers and magazines were the Philadelphia Enquirer and the Morning Telegraph and Racing Form. His knowledge of Chicago’s underworld when he rough-housed his way through the many wars for circulation supremacy aided Annenberg in taking over the wire service from Mont Tennes who first thought of it, built it into a multi-million dollar operation, and held it for about ten years. Mont Tennes named it the General News.

Moses Annenberg went to prison for income tax evasion, and that left Ragen in full control. Mickey McBride and Louis Rothkopf were his lieutenants. Both were at one time associated with the notorious Mayfield Mob of Cleveland where Mickey Cohen tried unsuccessfully to gain a foothold. Enter now, Mickey Cohen.

Bugsy Siegel had started Trans-America in Los Angeles. The wily Siegel figured that if the Chicago mob took over the wife service from Ragen the next step would be to take over Trans-America Press, the wire service he controlled in Los Angeles and which was netting him hundreds of thousands dollars a year. He then turned to Cohen.

“You know Ragen?”

“James Ragen?”

“Yes. I knew him in Chicago.”

“Do you know Mickey McBride?”

“Sure. From Cleveland. He’s circulation manager of the News, I think. He’s got a lot of connections.”

“Like who?”

“A lot of good people. Big Al Polizzi, Gameboy Miller, King Angersola, Sammy Haas, and a bunch of others.”

“You know these people?”

“Sure. All of them.”

“Okay. You go to Chicago and get in touch with Ragen. The boys there are trying to take over the wire service there. You work with Ragen.”

Cohen hesitated, “Ben, Jake Guzik is a friend of mine. He gave me some breaks. I can’t do that to him.”

“Can you do it to me?” Siegel demanded. “Whose side are you on now? You make a choice. Me or Guzik.”

“Come on, Ben. You know it’s you. Hell, I couldn’t go against you. You’re giving me breaks too.”

“Bigger ones. Okay. Go to Chicago.”

The whole situation now took on the aspects of a Greek drama where the cross and double-cross was a part of every scene.

Mickey arrived in Chicago to visit his mother, so he said, who was ill with cancer. He contacted Ragen and told him he was there on orders from Siegel to render whatever aid he could in the matter of the wire service.

Cohen contacted Mickey McBride in Cleveland and told him he would like him to come to Chicago for an important business matter. Cohen talked big. He dropped Siegel’s name at every instance that he thought necessary to add to his own prestige. He was Siegel’s partner. Siegel wanted Ragen to stay in control of the service. McBride came to Chicago.

In a meeting attended by Ragen, Sr., James Ragen, Jr., Jack Lynch, Louis Rothkopf, and Mickey Cohen, it was decided to fight the Syndicate, legally and otherwise.

Jack Lynch was connected with Mont Tennes and had fought Annenberg in the courts during the time that Annenberg was trying to take over the wire service. He knew the legal angles. He was paid off by Annenberg. The sum, according to the best sources of information, was over a half million dollars. What was revealed by Ragen now was a rather peculiar circumstance.

“On the day I settled with Lynch,” the elder Ragen said, “I paid Frank Nitti one hundred thousand dollars. I delivered the money personally to him. A thousand one-hundred dollar bills. I can’t understand why he’s trying to take over the service now, after I paid him off.”

“Nitti isn’t the whole boss,” Cohen said. “The Council of the mob has a lot to say about it. That’s the Fischettis, Tony Accardo, Paul „The Waiter“ Ricca, and a couple of others. Nitti doesn’t run the whole show.”

Ragen, Sr., turned to McBride. “Mickey, I want you in with me on the Service. I need your help. Also your connections in Cleveland. How about it?”

“I’ve got too many interests in Cleveland,” McBride said. “However, I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do. I’ll come in and you can spread it around that I’m a partner. Since I can’t be here to help you control things I suggest you make your son general manager, if he’s willing.” He turned to young Ragen. “How about it, Jimmy? You willing to take over?”

“Sure, if dad wants me to. I’ll take it over.”

“Okay. I’ll put in Tommy Kelly to help things. Kelly is my brother-in-law. A good man.”

“That’s a good setup,” Cohen said. “Siegel will approve it and do all he can to ease matters. He told me he would do that, talk to the boys in New York and ask them for their help.”

“Okay,” the elder Ragen said then. “I’ll send word to Moe Annenberg about the new setup.”

On November 15, 1939, Annenberg was officially out of the wire service business and the Ragens in, with Mickey McBride and Tommy Kelly as partners. Mickey McBride turned over his one-third of the Service to his son, Eddie, a decent young man who was a student at Notre Dame.

The mob soon got wind of the deal. Word went out to Cohen to get out of town or be carried out. He took the next train back to Los Angeles. Actually, all he did in the deal was to get McBride to take over a third of the Service. However, as things turned out, it was enough. For the time being, anyway. However, despite what Cohen thought, the mob turned against him and Siegel. Siegel, because he had Meyer Lansky behind him, and Lucky Luciano, was too big to touch. Cohen wasn’t. A half dozen attempts were made to kill him but he managed to escape each time.

Back in Los Angeles, Siegel congratulated Cohen.

“I’m going to give you a nice piece of action, Mickey,” Siegel said. “You can open up a couple of handbooks and I’ll give you my service for free. Good enough?”

Cohen smiled. “Very good, Ben. Thanks.”

With Siegel’s blessings, Cohen opened up a horse book behind a cigar store on Santa Monica Boulevard arid another a few blocks from Schwab’s famous drug store on Hollywood Boulevard. He lasted only a short time because the heat was on. Cohen turned to Siegel.

“Play it cool, Mickey. You can open up again when the heat is off. It will only last a few weeks.”

The heat was turned off and Cohen opened up again in the same two places. He had to close in short order.

On Thanksgiving Eve, Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg, a former Murder. Inc., henchman, was knocked off and the heat was on again. It was the first gangland execution in Los Angeles and the papers howled in long editorials which focused on the racketeering going on in the city and demanded a clean-up.

There were mixed stories in the underworld as to why Greenberg was put on the spot. One story declared that Greenberg was about to talk to the cops about Murder, Inc., and his doings in it — sluggings, extortions, murders. This hardly seemed to be true because Greenberg for the past fifteen years had been close to Lepke Buchalter, Jake “Gurrah” Shapiro, Lucky Luciano, and Bugsy Siegel. He wasn’t the kind to talk to the cops.

The other story, and which seemed to be the valid one, was that he had been sent to Los Angeles to liquidate Mickey Cohen for Cohen’s part in the wire service deal in Chicago. Siegel was not asked for his okay for the hit because the mob knew that the Bug had sent Cohen to Chicago to help.

At any rate, Greenberg drove to his apartment house in Los Angeles on this night, parked his car. As he did so, a black sedan drove past and poured out a barrage of bullets. Greenberg slumped over the steering wheel. He was already dead but the slugs kept pouring into his body.

The cops picked up Bugsy Siegel, Frankie Carbo, a fight promoter, Mickey Cohen, and a couple of other Siegel hoods. Cohen had an unimpeachable alibi and was turned loose. The others stayed in jail for a time but were ultimately released. If Cohen did not have an actual part in the slaying of Greenberg, the underworld grapevine said he did know who the hitmen were and why it was done.

Now, almost three thousand miles away, the inside story of the Greenberg killing came to light. The Brooklyn crime busters had Abe “Kid Twist” Reles and Allie “Tick Tock” Tannenbaum in jail and were sweating them. Both decided to talk.

Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who almost became President of the United States, was handling the interrogations of Tannenbaum and Reles.

“If you want any kind of breaks from us,” Dewey said to Allie Tannenbaum, “you’ll tell me everything you know. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Dewey.”

“Now then, I have a request for information about the Harry Greenberg killing in Los Angeles. My information, gathered by my staff, is to the effect that you personally were involved in the murder. What about it?”

“Will you send me to California to stand trial if I cop out?”

“No, I won’t. The Los Angeles police will try to extradite you but I’ll fight it. I will also declare that since you will testify as a state’s witness that you are to be granted immunity. Are you satisfied with that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, let’s have it, from start to finish.”

Tannenbaum’s story disclosed all the facts leading to the hit. Lepke Buchalter and Jake “Gurrah” Shapiro were on the lam, hiding out from a murder warrant. Lepke sent word that certain of the mob was to blow town. Among those ordered to do so was Greenberg.

Greenberg went to Toronto. He was broke shortly after and sent word to Mendy Weiss, who had taken over as boss of Murder, Inc., on Lepke’s orders, that he needed money. Weiss, tight-fisted, sent back word that there was no money. All the money on hand was to be used in defending Lepke and Shapiro if they were apprehended and had to stand trial.

Greenberg sent back word that he would either get the money or spill his guts. Since every member of the mob was hot, Weiss called Los Angeles and told Siegel he wanted a man to hit Greenberg. Siegel said he would send Mickey Cohen.

“Cohen knows how to track a guy down,” Siegel said. “He’ll do the job.”

“Good. Pay him five G’s. I’ll forward the money.”

Cohen went to Toronto. He traced Greenberg from hotel to hotel and from boarding house to boarding house, then learned that Greenberg had gone to Montreal. Cohen went back to Los Angeles. Siegel was furious.

“I said you would make the hit!” he told Cohen. “Why the hell didn’t you go to Montreal?”

“Those Canuck Mounties got a line on me. I was getting hot. I thought the best thing for me to do was to get the hell out of town. What good would it have been for me to get picked up?”

“Okay, okay,” Siegel shouted. “I’ll call Weiss and tell him the story. You sure Greenberg is in Montreal?”

“Yeah. First class info.”

Siegel called Weiss and relayed Cohen’s information. Weiss decided to make the hit himself and took a train to Montreal.

Now, Greenberg was no dunce. He knew from his own experience in the mob that anyone who threatened to talk, whether he did so or not in the end, signed his death warrant. He had to move fast. The day before Weiss arrived in Montreal, Greenberg flew the coop. He went to Detroit. The mob there called New York and was told to keep Big Greenie on hand. “We’ll send a couple of boys out there.”

Weiss called Siegel and told him Greenberg was in Detroit.

“Good,” Siegel said. “I’ll send Cohen and another man there today. He won’t miss this time.”

The Detroit mob was too cordial to Greenberg. He figured they must have checked with New York. He decided to blow town and go to Los Angeles! Cohen and Greenberg must have passed each other somewhere west of Chicago.

Cohen returned to Los Angeles. He was fuming. “What the hell kind of wild goose chase are you sending me, Ben? Every time I go to where you tell me Greenberg is, he isn’t!”

Siegel laughed. The situation had its humorous side. “Cool off, Mickey. Greenberg blew in town a couple of days ago. We’ve got him lined up.”

“What now?” Cohen asked.

“I’ve got Whitey Krakow casing Greenberg. He’ll set him up and we’ll take him.”

Krakow’s report was to the effect that Greenberg stayed put. He was holed up in an apartment house near suburban Bel Air. The only time he went out was for a nightly drive to get a newspaper. On the evening of November 22, Thanksgiving Eve, Big Greenie went out for his newspaper.

Siegel and Frankie Carbo were parked in Siegel’s Cadillac at the corner of Yucca Street. Another car with two men in it was parked a half block from Siegel’s Caddy. One of the men in the second car was Allie Tennenbaum. The other man in the car was never named. The grapevine said it was Cohen.

Greenberg drove into Yucca Street and parked. It was the end of the road.

Tennenbaum was driven to San Francisco, where he took a plane back to New York.

Bugsy Siegel and Frankie Carbo were indicted for the Greenberg killing. Lepke Buchalter and Mendy Weiss were also indicted.

Siegel was a wild man in jail. He cursed Weiss day and night. However, he couldn’t allow his vast business enterprises to fall so he named Jack Dragna and Mickey Cohen to handle things. Cohen now made headway.

He opened up half a dozen handbooks and ran a floating crap game. He also cut himself in on other operations. At this time he met arid wooed LaVonne Weaver, a beautiful redheaded Hollywood model, and moved his bride into a ritzy apartment. He was on his way. He sought out the movie crowd, starlets, stars, directors, producers, wined and dined them. He was a big shot and reveled in it. What he didn’t know was that the movie crowd despised him. He was too crude, too loud, too brazen.

The Greenberg murder case fizzled and Siegel and Carbo were released. Siegel was called to New York for a conference. He told Dragna and Cohen to keep things running. Smoothly. No more rough stuff for a while.

Dragna, an old-line Sicilian chief, stuck in Cohen’s craw. Dragna wanted things run peacefully, just as Siegel ordered but Cohen was all for the hustle, to move things, move up, take in everything he could. Joe and Freddy Sica, two tough hoods, Mafia oriented, kept peace between the two chiefs. The brothers had, for some reason, become close to Cohen, probably because they felt he was a comer and Dragna a has been although the Sicas were on Dragna’s payroll.

Mickey Cohen now began building up his own mob. He brought Frankie Niccoli, Happy Meltzer, Hooky Rothman, a junkie, and a dozen other tough hoods. Mickey used his connections with the Mayfield Mob of Cleveland to increase his hold on Los Angeles. Dragna knew he could not fight against such strength. Men like Louis Rothkopf, Big Al Polizzi, Gameboy Miller, Mushy Wexler, and Tommy McGinty had connections with all the mobs, from coast to coast. Why they backed Cohen and what they saw in him remains a mystery to this day.

Mickey Cohen kept the lines hot to the Hollenden Hotel in Cleveland, headquarters of the Mayfield Mob. Tony Milano, a very shrewd and intelligent member of the mob censured Cohen. In a confidential conversation with Forrest Allen of the Cleveland Press, Milano was openly critical of Cohen.

“Mickey,” Milano said, “gets himself in trouble, and he gets others into a mess by using phones on every occasion. He can’t write very well, or not at all, so he just grabs a phone and calls everybody in town. I gave my boys orders to stay away from him. He’s big trouble.”

Cohen moved away gradually from Jack Dragna and built his own territory in Los Angeles and Hollywood, a territory he held as inviolable. He was ruthless enforcing his mandates with beatings, mayhem, and the gun. On May 15, 1945, Cohen murdered Maxie Shaman.

Cohen’s story was that Shaman, a bookie, came into his paint store which Cohen used as a front for his betting and gambling operations, and threatened to kill him. Shaman reached for his gun but Cohen beat him to it, shooting him three times with a .38 pistol. Cohen turned himself into the police.

He said, “The guy just went nuts. He tried to muscle me. I don’t know what the hell got into him.”

Cohen never was known as a guy with a lightning draw but here he wanted everyone to believe he was a regular Billy The Kid, Doc Holliday, and Johnny Ringo all rolled into one.

The truth is that Maxie Shaman’s brother Joe, another bookie, had laid off $15,000 worth of horse bets with Cohen. The horses won and Cohen refused to pay off. Joe demanded his money or else and Cohen beat him up. Joe Shaman came back the second time and demanded his money and Cohen shot him. Maxie Shaman, a little tougher than his brother, then came to the paint store and argued with Cohen about the payoff. Maxie threatened to call the boys in Chicago and tell them about the welsh. That was when Cohen shot and killed him. Maxie Shaman didn’t have a gun on him. After Cohen shot him he put another gun in Shaman’s hand.

The coroner’s jury recommended that Cohen be tried for murder, but the district attorney felt there was insufficient evidence to gain a guilty verdict and Cohen was released. The verdict went to Cohen’s head. He now felt that he could get away with anything.

A short time later, Cohen and Joe Sica worked over Russell Brophy, West Coast representative for Continental Press, the racing wire service controlled by Ragen, Brophy’s father-in-law. Cohen and Sica beat Brophy unmercifully with their fists. Brophy charged them with the beating. Cohen and Sica were convicted of assault and paid their fines.

At this time, Bugsy Siegel turned over all his Los Angeles holdings, in escrow, to Jack Dragna and Mickey Cohen and went to Las Vegas, where he wanted to open a sumptuous hotel and gambling casino. It was to become the first of the fabulous hotels on the Strip, the famous Flamingo. It was to be Siegel’s swan song.

As soon as Siegel left Los Angeles, Cohen turned his attention to strengthening his position and holdings. He invited Louis “Babe” Triscaro, who was to become a valued lieutenant of teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa in Ohio, and “High Pockets.” Farrinaci, a member of the Mayfield Road mob to visit him in his home. He also invited Louis Rothkopf and his wife Blanche. Blanche and LaVonne became close friends, and that friendship brought Rothkopf and Cohen closer.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, James Ragen was murdered and the Chicago mob took over Continental Press. They now set their sights on the wire service held by Siegel in Los Angeles. Trans-America was an independent, held solely by Siegel. The mob wanted it so they could tie it up with Continental Press and so control the country, coast to coast, with the one wire service.

It must be remembered that the mob held mixed feelings about Siegel and Cohen for their part in the Ragen deal. Siegel’s act was an unforgivable one. Because of his association with Meyer Lansky, Siegel was a member of the inner council of the National Crime Combine. His interference in the Ragen situation was deemed as an act against the Syndicate, amounting to a virtual double-cross. Cohen was regarded as a loudmouth upstart, unpleasant and annoying as a mosquito. Killing Siegel would require the vote and approval of the inner council. Knocking off Cohen was a routine matter, merely getting rid of someone who was causing unnecessary trouble, in spite of the Mayfield Mob who seemed to be Cohen’s Godfather.

Five attempts were made to kill Cohen. He escaped death on each occasion by one miraculous twist after another. Cohen went after the hired hit-men.

On May 2, 1946, Paulie Gibbons, a minor hood with ambition, was ambushed just outside his Beverly Hills apartment and slain. Cohen was picked up for questioning along with Benny “Meatball” Gamson, a rival of Cohen’s.

Both men were grilled intensively. Detectives got nowhere. Neither would tell the cops the time of day. They were held for three days and released. A month later, Gamson was seen by detectives in a suspicious looking car. The automobile had been riddled with bullets. Gamson was taken to police headquarters.

“I don’t know how those damned holes got there!” Gamson yelled. “Some crazy bastards shot it up while it was parked outside my apartment.”

“Was that a warning, Benny?” a detective asked.

“A warning about what?”

“From Mickey Cohen.”

Gamson snickered. “Why the hell would Cohen wanna do that? Me and him is good friends.”

“That’s not the way we heard it, Benny. I think we better hold you for a while for your own protection.”

“I don’t need no protection. From nobody, see!”

Gamson was wrong. The grapevine said that Cohen had put up Gamson’s number. The price on his head was only two grand. He was small time in Cohen’s estimation.

Shortly after, on August 16, 1946, two men walked calmly into Lucey’s Restaurant, a fashionable dinery where movie stars often were seen, and used blackjacks to administer a savage beating to Jimmy Utley, a gambler and known associate of Gamson. One of the men covered the diners and restaurant help with a gun while the other man beat Utley. The man with the gun then used a blackjack to finish the assault. The elite patrons were horrified. Utley was rushed to a hospital. He was questioned by detectives.

“I don’t know the men who did it,” Utley said. “I never saw them before in my life.”

All but one of the patrons in the restaurant said they could not identify the two men who beat Utley. The lone diner, a visitor to the city, picked out Cohen and Sica’s pictures from the rogue’s gallery. Then, after thinking it over, he said he couldn’t be sure. He was prodded by detectives but he held firmly to his statement that he couldn’t be sure. Once more, Cohen and Sica got away scot free.

On October 3, 1946, Meatball Gamson and a newly arrived hood from the East named George Levinson were shot to death in Gamson’s apartment on Beverly Boulevard. Gamson had imported Levinson to kill Cohen. Cohen learned of it and had both men executed. Cohen was again picked up for questioning but proved he had been a mile away at the time of the murders. Detectives, ever skeptical of Cohen’s alibis, knew better but couldn’t prove it, and Cohen again went free.

Cohen continued his irrational attacks on Dragna hoods and those ambitious independents who wanted to move in for a piece of the action. His beatings and shootings roamed over all dimensions of violence, brutality, and murder. He was trying to prove to everyone that he was boss of Los Angeles not only in name but in fact, and that he had replaced Bugsy Siegel, with not only Siegel’s approval and blessings but that of the National Crime Cartel as well. He wasn’t so much sinister as he was a thug without rhyme, reason, or direction. His ability to avoid conviction for any of his depredations increased his already monumental vanity.

A short time after the Gamson and Levinson killings, Cohen beat up Hymie Miller, a bookie. Questioned by detectives in his hospital bed, Miller refused to name his assailant.

Detectives attributed the beatings and shootings to a war between independent bookies and the Los Angeles Syndicate over the racing wire service. Trans-America, without Siegel’s guiding hand, was in serious trouble. Income tax returns filed by Trans-America in 1946 listed losses of $125,000.

Newspaper editorials again screamed for a cleanup of the hoodlum element. The police had nothing against Cohen they could take into court, although they harassed him constantly by picking him up for questioning. That should have told Cohen something but he was too hard-headed to see it, understand it, or realize he was in serious trouble.

The government now took a look at Cohen and his activities. They began to probe into his sources of income, expenditures, and his income tax return. For the moment, it’ was a keyhole glimpse.

Bugsy Siegel, meantime, had overextended himself in his operation of the Flamingo Hotel and was in trouble with the Syndicate, whose money was invested in the hotel and casino. It was agreed that Siegel was a dismal failure as a hotel and gambling hall operator. The truth of the matter was that he was more interested in his movie star mistress, Wendy Barrie, Marie “The Body” MacDonald, the Countess Dorothy DiFrasso, and Virginia Hill, than he was in the Flamingo. The Syndicate knew this and advised him to give up the hotel. He blew his top when he was told that he was also to give up Trans-America to the Chicago mob.

Lucky Luciano, who had been deported to Italy after his release from prison, was in Havana for a meeting with the top hoods of the country. Siegel flew to Havana for a conference with Luciano who was still the boss despite the fact he was living in Italy. Luciano was courteous to Siegel but insisted that he had to give up Trans-America to the Chicago mob and to turn over the Flamingo to those of the Syndicate who had loaned him money to build it.

Siegel pleaded strongly but Luciano was adamant.

“Ben,” Luciano said, “you’re keeping five women, four that I know about, and one that I don’t. Virginia Hill is enough to break a dozen millionaires. You be a good boy and do as you’re told and we’ll find some things for you in a different setup.”

Siegel blew his top. “Who the hell do you think you’re pushing around, you lousy Wop! I killed for you. I helped put you where you are. I helped make you a big shot. I need Trans-America. I am hot giving it up!”

Luciano stared at Siegel with cold eyes. He didn’t raise his voice when he spoke. “No more talk, Ben. No more arguments. Give up Trans-America and the Flamingo. That’s it.”

“You go to hell!” Siegel stormed, kicked the door before he opened it, and slammed it shut.

A short time later, on June 20, 1947, Siegel was in Los Angeles, at the Moorish mansion at 810 Linden Drive in Beverly Hills where kept Virginia Hill. Allen Smiley, a close pal, was with him. Smiley sat on a divan in the living room whose windows faced a garden. Siegel came down from the upstairs rooms, settled himself on the divan alongside Smiley, picked up a newspaper.

At that instant a shot rang out and shattered the window, and then more shots split the quiet of the night. Smiley dived for the floor at the sound of the first shot. Siegel had been hit in the face, over his left eye, in the chest, belly, and groin. The blood poured out of him in streams. He was very dead.

At that precise moment, either coincidentally or by the most exquisite timing ever employed in an underworld execution, four men walked into the manager’s office of the Flamingo.

“Move out,” Little Moe Sedway, one of the four men and a former pal of Siegel’s, said. “We’re taking over.”

Mickey Cohen and Jack Dragna were picked up for questioning but it was just routine, although the police believed that Cohen may have been either the triggerman or the man who had set up Siegel for the kill. Nothing came of the investigation.

With Siegel dead, Cohen pushed his way to the top of the West Coast rackets, shoving Dragna out of the way despite Dragna’s connections with the National Combine. Repercussions were swift.

On Christmas Day, 1947, a package of dynamite was found on the steps of Cohen’s Beverly Hills home, a veritable fortress that Cohen had wired up with all sorts of alarms and detectors. Something had gone wrong with the mechanism set to explode the dynamite. It saved Cohen’s life.

Two more attempts were made to kill him in the next several weeks but again Cohen escaped unscathed. By 1948, he was the kingpin of the West Coast rackets with an organization of hoods equal to any in New York. He rode around in a special $16,000 bullet-proof Cadillac, moved into a new $150,000 home, blossomed out with a wardrobe of seventy-five suits and seventy-five pairs of shoes, drawers full of handmade shirts and silk underwear. But he was still a bum and his attempts to get into movie society failed. He did manage to attract some starlets and models and he played around with them in Hollywood’s famed Strip joints while LaVonne sat home, faithful to the end.

Among Cohen’s girl-friends were Liz Renay, a Hollywood glamor gal, and Candy Barr, a stripper. Candy wound up in a Texas pen for possession of marijuana, and Liz Renay paid for her friendship with Cohen by a conviction for perjury. Cohen blackened everything and everyone he touched.

As one of his fronts for his illegal operations, Cohen opened up a swank haberdashery on Holloway Drive and Sunset Boulevard. On August 18, 1948, two men walked into the haberdashery and shot the place up. Harry “Hooky” Rothman was killed instantly, and Albert “Slick” Snyder, another Cohen mobster, was wounded in the shoulder. Big Jimmy Rist, the third Cohen hood in the store, was nicked in the ear.

Cohen, who had a habit of washing his hands innumerable times a day, was in the washroom at the time and escaped being wounded or killed. Questioned by detectives, neither Snyder, Rist, or Cohen could name the men who had done the shooting.

Two hotshot Mafia triggermen, Tony Trombino and Tony Brancato, were picked up on stoolie information and questioned about the shooting and killing. They had arrived in town from Kansas City only a few days earlier. Both had alibis and the police had to release them. Snyder and Rist refused to identify them. Cohen knew now that his number was up and that there would be further attempts to kill him. He took great precautions wherever he went, two or three bodyguards always with him.

On May 18, 1949, Cohen was driving home in his Cadillac. A car drove alongside. A sub-machine gun was pushed through one of the windows. Slugs rained on the windows of the Caddy. The only thing that saved Cohen was the bulletproof glass.

A month later, on June 22, one of Cohen’s trusted lieutenants, Neddie Herbert, was entering his West Los Angeles apartment when two gunmen took eleven shots at him with a .45 pistol and a .38 automatic. Herbert dropped to the floor and escaped unhurt. This was only a prelude to what was to come. Cohen had stepped out of line against the Syndicate, and the penalty was death. But Cohen had a charmed life.

On July 20, scarcely a month after the attempt on Herbert’s life, Mickey Cohen, Neddie Herbert, Dee David, an attractive brunette starlet, and Special Agent Harry Cooper of the attorney general’s office who had been assigned to guard Cohen because of the threats on his life, and because the attorney general wanted the hoods responsible for the shootings, were coming out of the fashionable Sherry’s Restaurant on the Sunset Strip. It was two o’clock in the morning. As the quartet came out, a barrage of gunfire exploded from across the street.

Neddie Herbert was fatally wounded. Cohen again escaped with his life. He was wounded slightly.

The two killers who had done the shooting leaped into a gray sedan and sped away. No one could give a description of what actually had occurred other than the fact that the shots came from across the street.

Homicide detectives believed that either Jack Dragna or the Chicago or New York Syndicate had ordered the killings. Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino were picked up for questioning but as usual the two had alibis and the police were forced to release them.

Violent troubles continued to beset Cohen. On August 22, a dynamite bomb exploded in the doorway of a house across the street from Cohen’s residence. The bomb was intended for Cohen but the stupid hood who planted it mistook that house for Cohen’s.

Happy Meltzer, a Cohen gangster, was arrested in New Jersey on suspicion of the icepick murder of Charlie Yanowsky who had talked to Cohen shortly before he was murdered.

Cohen was taken into custody and questioned about the murder. He denied any knowledge of it. The grapevine said he was in it neck deep. It was rumor only. Inadmissible as evidence. Happy Meltzer easily beat the rap.

Shortly after, Frankie Niccoli, a Cohen hood, disappeared. His body hasn’t been found to this day.

On October 10, Little Davey Ogul, another Cohen hood, also disappeared. His body also has not been found at this writing.

On the night of February 6, 1950, thirty sticks of dynamite exploded under the master bedroom of Cohen’s home. It wrecked the bedroom. Once again, Cohen escaped certain death. Luckily for him, he had decided to spend the night with LaVonne in her room across the hall.

The government now stepped in, ready to prosecute Cohen on income tax charges. The publicity Cohen had been receiving because of the shootings had brought the wrath of California’s police down on his head. At this time, too, Cohen was summoned before the Kefauver Crime Investigating Committee. Cohen was forced to tell of his operations as a big-time layoff bookie, a gambler who takes the bets of other bookies who can’t carry the large amounts bet on certain races.

Cohen said he was broke and had only a few hundred dollars.

“I owe money,” Cohen whined. “I’m broke. I owe $35,000 to a bank. I owe everybody.”

He was interrogated thoroughly about the killings in Los Angeles. He knew nothing, he declared, about the murders of Bugsy Siegel, Paulie Gibbons, George Levinson, or Abe Davidian, a key witness in a government smuggling case. The Kefauver Committee filed away his case for further attention.

On December 11, 1950, Cohen’s attorney, Samuel L. Rummel, a mouthpiece for top mobsters, was shotgunned to death outside his Laurel Canyon mansion. Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino were again picked up for questioning. Once more, however, the two gunmen had alibis and were released. The killing of Rummel shattered Cohen’s equanimity. He sold out his haberdashery and announced he was quitting the rackets for good.

That statement didn’t sound good to the government. Cohen’s self-affirmed reformation wasn’t kidding anyone, especially the government. They had built a case against him and moved in. In April, 1951, Mickey and LaVonne Cohen were indicted by a United States Grand Jury on four counts of income tax evasion. They were charged specifically with evading payment of $156,123 for the years 1946-48. The government charged that Cohen had an income of $318,500 during that period but had paid taxes on only $87,500.

The charges against LaVonne were dropped after she testified that she knew nothing of her husband’s many operations, even though she had signed joint returns.

United States Attorney Ernest A. Tolin paraded a line of accountants, gamblers, bookies, and other witnesses who traced Cohen’s numerous and devious financial operations. Cohen protested that he was just a businessmen who had failed in his business. The jury didn’t believe him. They found him guilty on all four counts. On July 9, he was sentenced to five years in federal prison and fined $10,000. That was the beginning of the end for Mickey Cohen.

He was released on October 9, 1955. LaVonne had divorced him. Jack Dragna died in 1956, one of the few mobsters to die a natural death. Cohen was destined to run into more trouble because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Mike Wallace, famed TV reporter, decided to have Mickey Cohen on his show. Cohen appeared on the Wallace show in June 1957. Wallace, an expert and brilliant interrogator, asked Cohen about the many killings attributed to him. Cohen’s answer was a classic.

“I never killed a man who didn’t deserve it!”

Cohen presented himself to Mike Wallace as a man who at least had seen the light and who realized that he had trod the wrong paths, was now penitent and was seeking a way to redeem himself by conversion to Catholicism. He had sought out Evangelist Billy Graham and placed himself in the hands of “this man who is showing me the way to God.” It was all pretty talk and made good copy. It wasn’t, however, Mickey Cohen.

Before the interview was over, Cohen returned to himself. He attacked Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker, Captain James Hamilton of the department’s intelligence squad, former Mayor Fletcher Bowron and former Police Chief C. B. Horrall.

Cohen called Parker some rather nasty names, some of them considered unprintable by every newspaperman in the country, even drunken ones. The performance was certainly a new high in weird interviews.

Cohen had an axe to grind with Chief William H. Parker and Mayor Bowron. It went back almost ten years from the date when he appeared on the Mike Wallace interview. He had made the same kind of remarks to those he made on the Wallace show to his henchmen. The words were stronger, however. The remarks referred to deals and payoffs involving Brenda Allen, infamous madame and vice queen of Los Angeles.

In April, 1949, there appeared a piece in the Hollywood Nite Life signed by Jimmie Tarantino which ignited the fuse that ultimately blew the lid off the vice racket in Los Angeles. The article stated:

“The Los Angeles Grand Jury can ask Mayor Fletcher T. Bowron many embarrassing questions regarding many shady deals with His Honor’s Administrative Vice Department.

“We have about twenty-five questions we would like answered. And so would the public. The puzzle involves Lieutenant Rudy Wellpott and Sergeant Elmer V. Jackson.

“Last week we told you of the alleged shakedown between Lieutenant Wellpott and Mickey Cohen. We also pointed out that Lieutenant Wellpott and Mickey Cohen had been chummy at various public places.

“Now, we would like to ask Mayor Bowron to answer the following questions, of which we are certain he is capable of doing.

“What does Jim Vauss, the wire-tapper, know about the intimate conversations which often took place between Sergeant Jackson and Brenda Allen, well known prostitute now serving sentences of 180 days?

“What does Mayor Bowron know about Sergeant Stokes’ connections with wire-tapper Jim Vauss? And what happened to the wire-recordings?”

Jim Vauss had done some work for Mickey Cohen, had wired his home and put in about $4,000 worth of radar and electronics stuff. He had also done other work for him, made recordings of conversations between Brenda Allen arid Sergeant E. V. Jackson.

In Florable Muir’s column in the Los Angeles Mirror on May 6, the noted columnist wrote:

“I hear that those wire recordings to be offered in the trial of Harold (Happy) Meltzer were sold to Mickey Cohen by the gent who made them for the Hollywood police vice squad.

“They’re supposed to be a conversation picked up between Brenda Allen and a cop.

“Brenda, who was recently convicted on a charge of purveying illicit love, was hotter than a depot stove because the protection she said she had been paying for wasn’t forthcoming.

“If the wire recordings get into the testimony a lot of other people are going to be hotter than Brenda was.”

The Syndicate now took a firm look at Mickey Cohen and was highly displeased. Internecine warfare was bad enough but fighting the cops as Cohen was doing, openly, in defiance of all the rules, was certain to bring the wrath of the press and public down on all the underworld. Cohen was ordered to quiet down but he was too big, in his own mind, to take orders. The determination to silence him, once and for all, one way or another, was then made by the mob.

A month after Florabel Muir’s column of May 6, appeared she wrote another column, this one on June 8, in which she declared:

“United States District Attorney James Carter says he’s investigating the possibility that Federal telephones have been tapped and if he learns they have he’ll take the matter up with the Federal Grand Jury today.

“Why does he have to wait for government phones to be tapped? It’s just as much against the law to tap anybody’s phone.

“I’ve heard lots of citizens discussing the wire-tapping goings on recently and their reactions are interesting.

“Some of them think it is okay for the police to tap wires to get evidence on suspected criminals.

“But if you ask them how they’d like to have anyone listening in on their own private phone chats, that’s an equine of a different shade.

“The story of Sergeant Charles Stoker of LAPD is very interesting to me because it reveals the way of thinking that seems to be predominant among some young cops today. They have lots of zeal, but not much know-how. Stoker says he heard that Brenda Allen was operating as a madam and the only way he knew how to get her was by listening in on her telephone calls. So he asked agent named Jimmy Vauss who just happened to be riding around in his car with him to put a bug on her phone. He doesn’t explain how he happened to be riding around with Jimmy (Sleight-of-hand) Vauss.

“Jimmy, who always seems to have been ready for any exigency, whips out his electronic tools and presto they’re getting an earful of Brenda’s talk with a Mr. Doe in the police department.”

When Harry “Happy” Meltzer went on trial, Sam Rummel, Meltzer’s lawyer, made an opening statement to the jury in which he declared that Lieutenant Wellpott and Sergeant Jackson had attempted to obtain $5,000 from Mickey Cohen to be used in the campaign of Mayor Bowron.

Rummel said, “We will prove through testimony that the two men first sought $20,000, then $10,000, and finally $5,000 from Cohen in return for their promise to quit harrassing him.”

This was the first direct accusation against police officers made by an attorney representing a henchman of Cohen’s, and it had to stand that it was an accusation made by Cohen himself.

Rummel said further, and this portion of his opening statement to the jury had to be taken with a grain of salt, that:

“We will further show that Cohen told him, Lieutenant Rudy Wellpott, and Sergeant E. V. Jackson, he was a legitimate businessman and refused to be rousted further and charged that even if he gave the $5,000 he was sure none of it would ever reach Mayor Bowron. We will prove that Wellpott and Jackson took their lady friends on tours of such places as the House of Murphy; Slapsy Maxie’s, and other Hollywood night spots and told the management to ‘send the check to Mickey Cohen.’ We will have witnesses from each of these spots to so testify.”

Mayor Bowron issued a statement after the newspapers hit the street. He was indignant over the charges made by Sam Rummel.

“I know nothing whatever of the facts,” Mayor Bowron said. “I never heard of the matter before, directly or indirectly. If there is anything at all to the statement by Sam Rummel, attorney for Mickey Cohen and his gang of hoodlums, I ask who is the accessory after the fact in not revealing the information to the District Attorney at the time of the happening rather than waiting until three weeks before the city election?

“Assuredly, this will make clear to the public mind in whose corner Mickey Cohen is and to what length he and his ilk will go in their effort to break into Los Angeles. This will provide another chapter for the State Crime Commission’s report.”

A police officer named Arthur Logue was the first witness called by District Attorney William G. Russell.

Logue had been a member of the administrative vice squad for two and a half years and at approximately midnight on January 15, in company with Lieutenant Wellpott and Sergeant Jackson, he drove to a spot across from Cohen’s haberdashery in the 8800 block on Sunset Blvd. There the men were met by two other police officers, Gene James and A. L. James. The five men kept Cohen’s store under observation for an hour and a half. At that time five men came out and left in two Cadillacs. Logue said the five officers trailed the first Cadillac, which contained Mickey Cohen, Harry Meltzer and the driver, Dave Ogul.

“We trailed it for nearly two miles,” Logue said on direct examination. “We were in between the two Cadillacs and the rear Cadillac continually blew its horn in an apparent attempt to attract the attention of Cohen. They tried to pass us but we didn’t let them.”

Officer Logue said they finally halted both Cadillacs at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Ogden Drive. He testified that he rushed to the rear right door of the first Cadillac, jerked it open and saw Harry Meltzer sitting in the rear seat with a gun almost completely hidden in both hands.

“I started to raise my gun,” Logue said from the witness stand, “and then Meltzer dropped his gun and opened his hands. I reached in, picked up the gun, put it in my pocket and told Meltzer to get out of the car. I searched Meltzer and Cohen and then made a thorough inspection of the Cadillac. I then placed Meltzer in the police car and after other routine questioning of the five men we drove off with Meltzer.”

These were the facts of the Meltzer case, and the reason why Cohen began his hate of Police Chief Parker and Mayor Bowron. Cohen wanted to help Meltzer. He used veiled threats against the officers in the case, telling them he had recordings of conversations between them and Brenda Allen. In order to make good he offered Jim Vauss a deal for the Allen recording.

In the sum-up of Mickey’s career, lurid, violent, there was an aftermath. Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino, the two Mafia gunmen, were shot down on the streets of Los Angeles. Who killed Attorney Sam Rummel, and why, is anybody’s guess, but it pointed to Brancato and Trombino. Most of Cohen’s hoods deserted him, including Joe Sica. He was mixed up in the Lana Turner affair when the actress’ daughter, Cheryl, knifed Johnny Stompanto fatally.

Cohen demanded all sorts of investigations of the killing because Johnny Stompanto was a pal of his. He got more bad publicity. He tried to kill Paul Caruso, a prominent Los Angeles attorney, who had handled many civil matters for him. There were legal fees in the amount of $8,000. Caruso asked for payment and Cohen told him to try and get it.

Caruso drove to a nursery that Cohen was then operating. Cohen pulled a gun. Caruso grabbed Lillian, Cohen’s sister, who standing beside him, held her in front of him, and backed slowly out of the South Vermont store, leaped into his car and drove away.

The government got after Cohen again for various tax matters and put him away for another ten years. He is still in prison. He is due to be released shortly. He may decide to pick up where he left off. If he does, he will find himself in serious trouble not only with the police but with the underworld. Neither wants any part of him, for obvious reasons. He became accustomed to the big buck, a fancy home, big cars, fancy wardrobe, and a spotlight whose glare he fancied despite the fact it burned him to a crisp. But that’s Mickey Cohen. He probably doesn’t mind a prison cell so long as everyone will recognize him as a big-shot. Was he a big-shot? He’ll be one, in his own mind until he dies. And that could be sooner than you think.