The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (15 page)

When
word reached Capone about them, Sutker, Lebovitz, and Paul were paid
a visit. The gunmen were given a choice: they could leave Chicago
voluntarily or be carried out in a box. Seeking greener—and
safer—pastures, they left for Detroit.

There
they became associated with members of the "Little Jewish Navy"
faction of the Purple Gang, a group who operated out of a
delicatessen and acquired their moniker from the member-owned
speedboats used to run liquor from Canada. The operation was out of
character for the Purple Gang. They usually preferred hijacking to
high risk rumrunning.

Sutker,
Lebovitz, and Paul met the Purple Gang through a peripheral Detroit
underworld character named Solly Levine. Although Levine came from a
well-to-do family, he had grown up with the original Purple gangsters
and gone to grade school with the Bernstein brothers.

Levine
worked legitimately at his father's business for a short time before
succumbing to the lure of the underworld. He dabbled in all of the
liquor related crimes, as a beer pusher, rumrunner, saloon owner,
handbook operator and alcohol cutter. When Levine saw potential in
the transplanted Chicago thugs, he introduced them to the Bernstein
brothers.

The
Purples allowed the three men to operate in a small area of the city
in return for the customary kickbacks. But Sutker, Lebovitz, and Paul
soon proved untrustworthy. They hijacked fellow Purple gangsters and
preyed on other underworld operators, disregarding the territory of
the other mobs.

They
were so treacherous that no one dared to work with them, except Solly
Levine who was tolerated because he bankrolled their underworld
schemes. The trio became known as the Third Avenue Terrors. The three
gunmen were attempting to establish themselves as an independent
power in Purple Gang-controlled Detroit. By the late twenties,
Lebovitz, Sutker, and Paul had signed their own death warrants by
double dealing in the Detroit underworld.

When
Federal Prohibition agent was badly beaten by members of a downriver
Italian mob and Feds cracked down on rumrunning operations, it became
necessary for the Italian mob to purchase alcohol from
Detroit.

They
approached the three Little Navy gangsters, assuming they were buying
from the Purple-controlled alley brewing business, but Sutker,
Lebovitz, and Paul purchased it from the Purples on credit and jacked
up the price. They then began to muscle in on the Italian
mob's
customers.

By
1930 the three imported gunmen and began shaking down Purple
Gang-protected gambling and liquor rackets. Purple gangsters caught
the trio's hired hands, who were taken for rides or forced to repay
the money and leave town.

Still
the Third Avenue Terrors refused to retreat. Sutker and Solly Levine
opened a handbook operation as a front while Lebovitz and Paul
operated a bootlegging business out of the back. Just before the
Collingwood Massacre, the group had taken heavy
losses
in their handbook and were unable to pay off the winners.

To
bail themselves out, they purchased $15,000 worth of alcohol from the
Purples and several Italian mobs on credit. They planned to undercut
local distributors and make up their losses by selling cut whiskey at
an American Legion Convention in September of 1931.

Failure
to pay off bets and undercutting the Purple Gang's liquor prices
finally sealed their fate. The Purples decided it was time to do a
little housecleaning. They had given Lebovitz, Sutker, and Paul their
start and now had a responsibility to eliminate the problem. Ray
Bernstein devised an elaborate scheme to set up the three men. The
murders of Sutker, Lebovitz, and Paul had to be perfectly planned.
They were seldom alone, always armed, and trusted nobody. Since they
had tried to establish themselves as an independent power in the
underworld, what they craved was recognition from the Purples that
they had risen to the status of equals.

On
August 18th, 1931, a man appeared at the manager's office of the
Collingwood Manor Apartments on quiet, residential Collingwood
Avenue. The stranger identified himself as James Regis and told the
manager, Frank Holt, that he was interested in renting an apartment.
He then returned two days later with $60— first month's
rent—and was handed a set of keys to Apartment 211.

Bernstein
decided to use Sol Levine as an unknowing accomplice to the plan. The
arrangement appeared innocent enough. Ray Bernstein bumped into
Levine in a Deli. Bernstein told Levine that the Purples had decided
to let him, Sutker, Lebovitz, and Paul be their agents in the liquor
business.

They
would handle wine, alcohol, and tickets (counterfeit liquor labels).
The specifics would all be settled at
a
future
meeting. Bernstein shook hands with Levine and told him that he would
call in a couple of days to let him know where the meeting would be.

On
September 16th, 1931 Ray Bernstein called the Selden Avenue handbook.
He told Levine that a meeting had been arranged, and Levine was to
bring his three partners to 1740 Collingwood Avenue.

All
four men were unarmed when they entered the Collingwood apartments.
As they walked into the lobby they were met by Ray Bernstein, who
accompanied them to the apartment where they were greeted by Harry
Fleisher, Harry Keywell, and Irving Milberg. The men shook hands and
sat down.

The
men engaged in lighthearted conversation. Sutker and Paul lit cigars.
Suddenly, Ray Bernstein said, "Where's Scotty with the books?"

"Why
don't you go down to the corner drugstore and call him,"
Fleisher suggested.

Bernstein's
sedan was parked in the alley below. He started the car and raced the
engine until it started backfiring. He then began blowing the horn.

Right
on cue, Fleisher casually stood up, pulled a .38 caliber revolver
from his coat and shot Lebovitz at point blank range. The bullet
whizzed past Levine's nose, barely missing his head.

Milberg
and Keywell jumped up and began shooting. Keywell emptied his
revolver into Sutker, while Milberg shot Paul. Solly Levine froze in
terror as the bullets flew by his head.

He
watched helplessly as his three partners scrambled to their feet in a
futile attempt to escape death. Paul and Lebovitz fell in a short
hallway which led to a
bedroom.
Sutker, critically wounded, attempted to crawl under a bed.

In
seconds, the gunfire ceased. Paul and Lebovitz lay face down in the
growing pools of blood. Sutker lay on his side next to the bed.
Fleisher wanted to kill Levine but Milberg and Keywell were against
it. Ray Bernstein had given specific orders not to harm his friend.

All
four men raced for the door, pausing to pitch their pistols into an
open can of green paint. When they reached Bernstein in the waiting
getaway car, Fleisher paused as if he had forgotten something.
Suddenly, he ran back up the steps. Several more shots were fired.

When
Fleisher got to the car the others looked at him in amazement. He
told them that Lebovitz was still alive and he had to go back and
finish him. The getaway car raced away.

After
several blocks Ray Bernstein slammed on the brakes and Fleisher and
Milberg jumped out. After several more blocks, Ray again stopped,
and, turning to Levine, said "I'm your pal, Solly." He
handed Levine several dollars for cab fare, "Go back to the
book, Solly. We'll send a car for you later."

Levine
stepped out, terrified and confused. Meanwhile a tenant from the
apartment below the scene of the massacre knocked on the Super's
door. She told him about the horrifying sounds and how a man had tore
past her on the stairway. The Super banged on the door of Apartment
211.

When
there was no answer, he pushed the key into the lock and looked
inside. As he stepped into the living room, he nearly tripped over
the body of Joe Lebovitz. The floor of the apartment was covered in
blood.

Horrified,
Frank Holt, the building manager, slammed the apartment door and
rushed to his apartment where he called the police. Within minutes,
the detectives were on the scene of Detroit's worst gangland slayings
since the Milaflores Apartment Massacre of '27.

"It
sounded as if the ceiling were about to come down," one tenant
told a detective. When she'd returned to her apartment, blood had
begun to seep through the ceiling from the floor above.

When
Levine got back to the handbook, he told several of his clients that
Sutker, Lebovitz, and Paul had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen on
their way to a meeting with Ray Bernstein.

He
said he'd been told "We don't want you," and ordered to
walk away and not look back. Once word of the Collingwood Massacre
reached the Detroit police, the talkative Levine was arrested.

The
Canfield detectives knew Levine to be
a
partner
of the slain men and became a prime suspect in the murders. For
awhile, Levine tenaciously stuck to his story: the three men had been
kidnapped by unknown gangsters, and for some reason Solly was allowed
to go free. Prosecutor Harry Toy suspected Levine as a fingerman.

The
guns had been thrown into the paint cans by the killers to obliterate
fingerprints. Their serial numbers were filed off, a common practice
for murder weapons, but an acid etching test brought the serial
numbers out. Ballistic tests proved that they were the same guns used
to kill Sutker, Lebovitz, and Paul.

Tired
and frightened, Solly confessed that he had been an eyewitness to the
massacre. Levine then made a formal statement naming Harry Fleisher,
Irving Milberg, and Harry Keywell as the shooters, and
Raymond
Bernstein as the driver of the getaway car. Detectives were
immediately dispatched with orders to bring the gunman in dead or
alive.

Later
that day, Chief of Detectives, James McCarty, received an anonymous
call. "Two of the men you want for the Collingwood murder are at
2649 Calvert. They will be out of town within the hour." Then
the line went dead.

Heavily
armed police rushed to 2649 Calvert and surrounded the house. It was
owned by Charles Auerbach, a long-time underworld consultant and
Purple Gang leader. Ray Bernstein and Harry Keywell were arrested in
their pajamas.

Found
in the house was $9,025 in new fifty and hundred dollar bills, on
Keywell's girlfriend; four .38 caliber revolvers; a .32 caliber
automatic pistol; a 30-30 rifle and tear gas shells. Keywell and
Bernstein were taken to police headquarters.

Irving
Milberg was arrested the following night while preparing to leave
town. He was taken to police headquarters with Fletcher and Axler and
booked on the murder charge. Axler and Fletcher were held for
investigation and released. Harry Fleisher was not found. On
September 21st, 1931 a warrant charging Ray Bernstein, Harry Keywell,
Irving Milberg, and Harry Fleisher with the murder of Joseph Sutker
was signed by Judge Edward Jeffries. On September 30th a frightened
Sol Levine appeared for the pretrial examination. Levine named
Raymond Bernstein, Harry Keywell, Irving Milberg, and Harry Fleisher
as the Collingwood Massacre slayers.

During
his hour of testimony, Levine looked solely at the prosecutor,
avoiding the cold and deadly stares of the three defendants and the
Purple gangsters in the
spectators
gallery. The three defendants glared at Levine the whole time. Purple
Gang defense lawyers failed to shake Levine's story.

Defense
then made a motion for dismissal claiming that Levine's story could
not be believed. The motion was bluntly denied by Judge Jeffries. He
ordered the three men to be held without bond. On October 2nd, the
three were arraigned before Judge Donald Van Zile.

The
men stood mute on the charges of first degree murder, and a plea of
not guilty was entered on their behalf. Extraordinary measures were
taken to protect the State's star witness, Solly Levine. He was a
under a $500,000 bond at police headquarters, and guarded at all
times by eight detectives.