The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (17 page)

At
6:15 that same morning a sixteen-year-old boy found a .38 caliber
Smith and Wesson revolver. Six empty shells were still in the
chambers. Afraid to turn the weapon over to police after news of the
murder was out, he waited. After communicating with a friend who knew
detectives on the Special Investigations Squad, the weapon was turned
over to police. Ballistics
tests
indicated that the gun was one of the weapons used to kill Jones.
Both Jack Green and Peter Gorenfield, principal owners of the Stork
Club, denied admitting Jones or any of the four murder suspects to
the club. Admittance to the cabaret was by card only. Supposedly, by
this system anyone who entered was either vouched for by friends or
known by the proprietors or employees. Green and Gorenfield were held
for questioning as police witnesses. Several other Stork Club
employees and known patrons were also picked up and questioned by
police. Witnesses positively identified two of the gunmen from mug
shot photographs at Police Headquarters. The two suspects turned out
to be local gangsters and members of the Eastside Mob. They were
named as Pete Licavoli and Joe Massei. Detroit police were also
searching for Joe "Scarface" Bommarito and Pete Corrado,
both known gunmen who they believed had accompanied Licavoli and
Massei to the Stork Club the night Jones was murdered.

The
cases against Pete Licavoli and Joe Massei for the Jones slaying were
eventually dropped. Massei was finally arrested in Detroit on the
original murder charge on February 2, 1933, Pete Licavoli was
arrested on May 2, 1933. The charges were dismissed after Peter
Gorenfield jumped a $5,000 bond as a police witness and disappeared.
Jack Green, also held as a witness, was released because of the
Court's inability to locate Gorenfield.

In
the meantime, the Purples' leaders were all in jail. The Collingwood
massacre trial defense team had been working on a legal strategy to
free Ray Bernstein, Irving Milberg, and Harry Keywell. Immediately
after the convictions of these three in the Collingwood Manor
Massacre case, the Purples' chief lawyer, Edward Kennedy
Jr.,
filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court. The original appeal
was still pending in March of 1932 when defense attorney Henry Meyers
filed a motion for a new trial.

The
defense team had been told that if new evidence surfaced they should
proceed with such a motion. It was the beginning of a long legal
battle to free the three men. Meyers was one of a team of attorneys
retained by the families of the convicted trio. The new defense
motion was based on information presented in an affidavit purportedly
made by Solly Levine.

Levine
had been the prosecution's star witness in the original murder trial
and the only eyewitness to the murders. He had gone into hiding
immediately after the Collingwood Massacre trial ended. Levine now
claimed that Bernstein, Milberg, Keywell, and Fleisher were not the
killers. According to him, he had been forced to testify by the
police and the County Prosecutor's Office.

Wayne
County Prosecutor Harry Toy filed ten reasons why Meyers's new motion
should be quashed by the court. Toy's main argument was that Judge
Donald Van Zile no longer had the jurisdiction to grant the men a new
trial. The statutory period during which such an appeal could be made
had expired on December 10th, 1931.

Original
jurisdiction in the case had passed to the Michigan Supreme Court,
where the motion filed in January of 1932 was still pending. Judge
Van Zile had presided over the original murder trial and sentenced
the three gangsters in the case. The affidavit from Levine had been
received the previous week. In it Levine swore that he did not know
who the actual killers were but that he could identify them if he
ever saw them again.

Levine
also promised to repudiate his original trial testimony. In the
affidavit Levine said that Detroit police had tortured him to obtain
a confession.

At
first, according to Levine, detectives had tried to force him to name
Abe Axler, Joe "Honey" Miller, and Isadore Bernstein as the
killers. After grilling Levine for many hours without food or sleep,
the police named Ray Bernstein, Harry Keywell, Irv Milberg, and Harry
Fleisher as the prime suspects in the massacre. When Levine objected,
he was told that if he did not name the four he would be charged with
the slayings and go to prison for life.

Levine
wrote in a letter that after the trial Detectives Earl Switzer and
Harold Branton took him to Alabama. Levine was then put on a
France-bound ship under the name of Fred Schultz. When he arrived in
the country he was refused admission and returned to the United
States. On February 3rd, 1932, his ship landed in Norfolk, Virginia,
where he was met by his mother, sister, and detectives Switzer and
Branton. At this time Levine stated that he told the two police
officers that he was going back to Detroit to "tell the truth."
Levine was then forced to accompany the two police officers to
Washington, where a passport was obtained for him in his own name.

Levine
claimed the police wanted him to go back to Europe but he refused. He
then added that they started out for Oklahoma City. While passing
through some swamp land, the two detectives stopped the car and
threatened Levine that they would kill him and throw his body in the
swamp if he did not give them a statement when they reached Oklahoma
City. They arrived in Oklahoma City on February 13th, 1932. Under
threat, he signed statements, presented to him
by
the two detectives, which said that Bernstein, Milberg, Keywell and
Fleisher were the shooters in the Collingwood Massacre.

The
new affidavit in the possession of defense attorney Meyers was sworn
to be true and in Levine's words, "made freely and voluntarily
to clear my conscience because I realized a great injustice had been
inflicted on the three men." Shortly after Levine's statement
was filed, another affidavit was filed by his sister. In this
affidavit she swore that on September 18th, 1931, two days after
Levine was arrested as a police witness, she saw her brother in the
office of Judge John A. Boyne. At this time Levine opened his shirt
and she saw that his upper body was black and blue with bruises from
his police interrogation. Four hours later Mrs. Edelson saw her
brother again. His ears red and inflamed, he told her that police had
held a lit cigar behind them.

On
March 18th the motion for a new trial was denied by Judge Donald Van
Zile on the grounds that he had lost jurisdiction in the case. In
October the Michigan Supreme Court finally ruled on the appeal and
upheld the convictions of Bernstein, Keywell, and Milberg.

At
10:15 a.m. on June 9th, 1932 Harry Fleisher, the subject of a
nationwide manhunt for the previous nine months, strolled casually
into the office of Wayne County Prosecutor Harry Toy and surrendered
on the Collingwood Massacre murder warrant, accompanied by his
attorneys, Edward Kennedy Jr. and William Friedman. Both Kennedy and
Friedman had participated in the defense of the three Purple
gangsters convicted in the Collingwood Massacre trial. Toy was
shocked when he saw Fleisher step from the elevator on the fifth
floor of Police Headquarters, dressed in a
new
blue suit and grinning from ear to ear.

Kennedy
presented a written statement to the dumbfounded prosecutor that
Fleisher had turned himself in to help free Bernstein, Keywell, and
Milberg. For the previous nine months while Fleisher had been on the
lam, he had been named as a suspect in almost every crime of
importance, including the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.

The
suspicions were not unfounded. Fleisher had
a
record
as a kidnapper not only in Detroit but in other cities. In February
of 1930 Fleisher and another gangster named Sam "Lefty"
Handel were picked up in New York for the kidnapping of a wealthy
Connecticut Realtor named Max Price. A $30,000 ransom had been
demanded and Price ordered killed when the money was not forthcoming.
After being held prisoner for nine days, Price was released unharmed.
Max Price and a friend later identified Fleisher and Handel as two of
the four men who abducted him from his New Haven home in January of
1930. A neighbor of Price identified Fleisher as the man who
physically overpowered Price and threw him in the car. Both Fleisher
and Handel were arrested and later released when witnesses refused to
testify.

Harry
Fleisher had been on the run since June 1st, 1931, three months
before the Collingwood Massacre. At that time he had been indicted
for conspiracy to violate the Federal Prohibition Law. The indictment
grew out of a Federal raid on the Leonard Warehouse in Detroit.
Federal agents had found a huge distilling plant set up and operated
by a number of Purple gangsters. The investigation had begun with a
fire.

On
January 3rd, 1931, the building mysteriously burst into flames.
Firemen responding to the blaze discovered the huge brewing plant.
Prohibition agents working on the case later disclosed that the
equipment in the plant was valued at more than $150,000. This
equipment was later sold off at a police auction. Harry Fleisher,
Henry Shorr, Jack Grendal, Harry Harris, Louis Gellerman, and John
Silvers were named in the Federal indictment.

The
addresses of the men were given as the Oakland Sugar House. Shorr had
purchased the brewery equipment in New York and had it shipped to the
Eastside Waste Paper Company, reported to be owned by Harry Fleisher.

Following
Fleisher's arrest for the Collingwood Massacre, he was interrogated
at Police Headquarters by three F.B.I, agents. They wanted to
question him to see if he had any information about the Lindbergh
kidnapping. According to a letter to the Director from the Special
Agent in Charge of the Detroit office, the Feds believed that
Fleisher had been reached by his attorney prior to his surrender. The
agent in charge, Larsen, had been one of the Feds who interrogated
Fleisher. Larsen claimed that during the questioning Fleisher did not
become "hard boiled" but carefully avoided answering
specific questions put to him.

When
asked about the actions of the Purple Gang, Fleisher denied knowing
any of them intimately. "A lot of fellows claim to know me, but
I don't know them," explained Fleisher. Officials involved in
the Collingwood Manor Massacre investigations believed that Purple
Gang lawyers had Fleisher surrender when they felt that the State
lacked witnesses to convict him.

When
questioned about the Price kidnapping in 1930, Fleisher claimed he
knew nothing about it. He had been visiting New York for a few days
when he was picked up by police. Fleisher was also questioned by
Detective Frank Carr of the Newark Police and Louis Bornman of the
New Jersey State Police about the Lindbergh kidnapping.

Throughout
the interrogation Fleisher remained cordial but responded to most
questions with a smile and a shrug. Fleisher's attorneys claimed that
his surrender would prove the innocence of the three convicted Purple
gangsters in the Collingwood Massacre case. Fleisher had an alibi; he
was locked up in the Reading, Pennsylvania, jail the day of the
murders. Fleisher had been named by Levine as one of the gunman. If
he was not there, surely this would cast a long shadow of doubt on
the guilt of the three convicted killers. After what was essentially
a useless grilling, Fleisher was locked up at Police Headquarters.

On
June 21 st, 1932, an indictment charging Fleisher with the
Collingwood Manor Massacre was handed down by a Wayne County Grand
Jury. Fleisher was held without bond in the Wayne County Jail pending
jury action. Before Fleisher's examination on the charge there was
some confusion as to why Prosecutor Toy wanted to transfer the case
from Recorders Court to Wayne County Circuit Court. Toy claimed it
was because of the pending Grand Jury indictment but Judge Jeffries
insisted that the case be based on the original warrant and tried in
Recorders Court.

On
June 25th, 1932, a motion was made to allow a transcript of Levine's
testimony from the Collingwood Massacre trial to be used if Solly
Levine could not be found. When Toy asked for an adjournment of the
hearing to search for Levine, defense attorneys presented a motion
for dismissal of the case. This motion was denied.

Fleisher
was arraigned on June 27th, 1932, and pleaded not guilty to the
specific charge of murdering Isadore Sutker. Edward Kennedy Jr. later
asked the court if Harry Fleisher's plea of not guilty could be
changed to a plea of not guilty by standing mute. This motion was
allowed. Several more examination dates and adjournments transpired.
Finally, on July 25, 1932, Prosecutor Harry Toy admitted to Judge
Thomas Cotter that Solly Levine could not be found. Toy was about to
make a motion for dismissal of the case based on lack of evidence
when the Judge suggested that Levine's testimony in the original
trial be used against Fleisher. After Fleisher was arraigned on the
original murder warrant, he was indicted by the Grand Jury for the
same crime. This only magnified the procedural confusion already
surrounding the case. The legal question posed by Judge Cotter was
whether testimony used to convict three of the defendants in the
original trial could be used against another defendant, specifically
if that defendant, Harry Fleisher, was not present at the original
trial to refute the testimony. On July 25th, 1932, the Fleisher case
examination was again postponed because Solly Levine could not be
found. Cotter threatened defense attorneys, telling them that they
were guilty of tampering with justice if they were concealing
Levine's whereabouts. Cotter argued that Levine's presence was not
really necessary to proceed because Fleisher was in hiding at the
time of the Collingwood Manor Massacre trial. The judge noted that
because Fleisher failed to appear in court to refute Levine's
testimony, he saw no reason why the original court record could not
be used against Fleisher at his trial.