The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (20 page)

Leebove
admitted talking to Kaplan about the convicted men and claimed that
Kaplan told him, "these boys are here because of one of the
worst frame-ups I've ever heard of. The prosecutor of Wayne County
knew they were not guilty, yet participated in their conviction
because he saw political advantage accruing to him..."

The
prosecutor from their case vehemently denied the accusations, saying
the Purples had been defended by eminently capable attorneys and that
none of the three gangsters had taken the witness stand in his own
defense. Edward Frensdorf, testified before the Senate committee that
he had interceded with Warden Corgan on behalf of the three at
Marquette Prison at the specific request of Isiah Leebove.

According
to Frensdorf, Kaplan claimed it was customary in New York State for
attorneys to conduct private interviews with prisoners. Corgan,
however, refused to allow Kaplan to interview the prisoners
privately. He further stated that Leebove introduced him to Fred
Kaplan, and told him that Kaplan was interested in some clients in
Marquette Prison, and did not understand why he should not be allowed
to interview them in private.

Leebove
later contacted Frensdorf and told him that his friend Kaplan was on
his way to Marquette to obtain testimony. Leebove planned to come as
well, on an inspection trip. He explained that he thought Kaplan
might have trouble and specifically asked Frensdorf to speak to the
warden about it.

The
interview was ultimately refused. Leebove denied all charges.

The
real story was that Leebove was a former New York criminal attorney
who had moved to Michigan to speculate in oil. He had contributed
heavily to Comstock's political campaigns and established a personal
friendship with the governor, who then appointed him to conduct a
survey of the Michigan prison system sans salary or expenses.
Although none of the criminal allegations were proven by the
investigating committee, the Michigan Democratic Party still did not
trust Leebove and castigated Comstock for appointing him.

Leebove's
connections to the Purple Gang did, in fact exist, through his
Mammoth Petroleum and Refining Company. By 1934 it was the largest
independent oil outfit east of the Mississippi, and employed Sam
Garfield, a grade school friend of the Purples and other future
underworld powers.

Garfield
worked for Leebove in the oil fields, learned the oil business until
1933, and was then rewarded for his diligence by gaining the deed to
one quarter royalty interest in the Mammoth Petroleum Corporation. A
suspiciously generous gift.

He
incorporated his new property as The Garfield Oil and Gas Corporation
and named himself as President. Former Purple Joey Bernstein was its
treasurer. The only change in the gangsters' ways was in the business
they conducted. Before incorporating, Garfield decided to deed some
of the royalties back to Joey Bernstein.

In
an interview Bernstein said The Garfield Corporation was a closed
firm. No stock would be sold to the public. The only outside
shareholder except those named in the incorporation papers was
Isadore Bernstein. When asked how he had gotten into the oil
business, Joey replied that he had known Garfield for years, but
neglected to mention how.

Both
Garfield and Joey Bernstein lived in two of the finest homes in Mt.
Pleasant, Michigan. The suave and fastidiously dressed Bernstein
paraded around Mt. Pleasant wearing a $12,000 blood red star ruby
ring. When questioned about his past, Bernstein denied that he had
even been in business with his brothers and avowed, "I'll sue
anybody for $5 million who calls me a racketeer. I never have been a
racketeer!"

For
all of his efforts to extend legitimacy to gangsters, Isiah Leebove
earned himself a gangster's death. He was shot down while sitting in
the cocktail lounge of the Hotel Doherty in Claire Michigan. His
slayer was a former employee named Carl Livingston. Sam Garfield,
mysteriously on the scene when reporters looked into

Leebove's
death, stated that the trouble between Livingston and Leebove had
been brewing for several
years.

Livingston
was an alcoholic, and his drinking problem created a rift between him
and Leebove. According to Garfield, Livingston came to believe that
Leebove had cheated him out of some oil leases. He swore that someday
he would kill Leebove, but friends claimed that he lived in fear of
Leebove.

At
Livingston's murder trial in November of 1938, the defense requested
a court order for the Police records of Joey and Ray Bernstein. They
tried to show that Livingston had only acted out of fear that Leebove
would send his associates, the Purple Gang, after him. Because of
this trial the link between Isiah Leebove and Joe Bernstein was
positively established, proving Bernstein's connections to Leebove
and Sam Garfield. Carl Livingston was acquitted on a temporary
insanity defense, but ten years later would be found dead in a New
York hotel room from an overdose of sleeping pills.

After
Leebove was murdered, Garfield took over the controlling interest in
the Mammoth Producing and Refining Corporation and disclosed that he
was the Secretary and Treasurer of Bernstein Oil and Gas Corporation.

For
the next 40 years, Sam Garfield prospered in the oil business. He
invested some of his wealth in mob gambling enterprises. Garfield was
interested in the Havana Rivera Casino owned by the infamous Meyer
Lansky.

In
1964 Garfield convinced Lansky to invest some $250,000 of his rumored
underworld fortune in Michigan oil wells. By the mid-sixties,
Lansky's properties were grossing $25,000 to $30,000 a year. Lansky,
too, had managed to retire as a businessman.

Not
many Purple Gang associates fared as well as Sam Garfield and Joey
Bernstein. By 1935, having relinquished control of the Detroit
underworld, Henry Shorr became the next major leader to disappear.

Chapter
11

The
Brothers Fleisher

"Shorr
blustered his way through the underworld a big hulk of a man, never
well liked, sometimes feared not so much for himself as for his
so-called connections,
a
racketeer
suspected of many things by police."

—
John
M. Carlisle,
The
Detroit News
December
1, 1935

"Do
you know the eleventh commandment? It is thou shalt not squeal. I
have nothing to say."

—
Henry
Shorr

On
a December evening in 1934 former Oakland Sugar House boss and Purple
Henry Shorr left home to meet an associate. He was never heard from
again. A series of strange incidents followed.

When
police were notified that he was missing, they suspected that Shorr
had been kidnapped by the underworld. In an anonymous call, someone
claiming to be a member of the Shorr family reported Henry
missing.
Federal agents became involved, but dropped their investigation when
it became obvious that Shorr had been taken for a ride.

The
Shorr family insisted that they were in contact with him and that he
was alive and out of town on a business trip. It appeared as if the
Shorr family were trying to cover something up. The day after Shorr's
disappearance a car owned by Harry Fleisher was stopped by police.

Police
noticed that the cushions of Fleisher's car were freshly stained with
what appeared to be blood, but Fleisher was released, his name had
yet to be connected to the Shorr case.

On
January llth Charlie Leiter was called to Headquarters to answer
questions regarding his whereabouts the night that Shorr disappeared.
Leiter admitted seeing Shorr but claimed he had no idea what happened
to him. Police were well aware that Leiter and Shorr had once been
close friends and parted ways after a brewery deal fell through.

Progress
in the Shorr case continued to be held back by the Shorr family's
refusal to cooperate. On January 14th Harry Fleisher appeared at
Police Headquarters. He told homicide detectives that he was there to
assist them because he was concerned about the fate of his good
friend, Henry Shorr.

During
questioning Fleisher calmly explained to police that the blood seen
by detectives on his car was from a nosebleed. He had lent his car to
friends and one of the men had slapped his girlfriend in the face.
The stains on the upholstery were the result.

By
the time Fleisher appeared for questioning his car had been
reupholstered. Specifics about the Shorr investigation were not
revealed until years later during the Michigan State Police
investigation into the murder of State Senator Warren Hooper.

According
to
a
confidential
report long buried in the files of the State police, Leiter and Shorr
had acquired breweries through the influence of State Republican
Party Boss Frank McKay. When these deals collapsed, Shorr severed
connections with his former Purple associates and went into business
for himself. Shorr created competition for his old partners. Police
believed that the Purple's Harry Fleisher and Sam "Gorilla"
Davis were Shorr's executioners and Charlie Leiter had been the man
who put Henry Shorr in the right place for them to do it. There
really was no honor among these thieves.

During
the subsequent Senator Hooper murder, former Police Inspector John
Navarre was interviewed about the case by investigators. He believed
Shorr was killed over a money deal involving brewery property. The
Inspector had also received information from underworld sources that
Shorr's body was cremated in an industrial incinerator.

In
1938 Mrs. Mary Shorr and her attorneys traveled to Alcatraz Island
Federal Penitentiary where Harry Fleisher was serving time for
violating I.R.S. laws. Mrs. Shorr wanted him to help her prove to the
insurance company that her husband was really dead, since no body was
found.

Shorr's
wife was looking to collect on the life insurance policy her husband
had taken out shortly before his disappearance and was reported to
have included a double indemnity clause if it could be proven that
Shorr had died a violent death. It was not her lucky day; Fleisher
was hardly willing to volunteer information which would convict him
of murder!

For
Fleisher to have murdered one of his own mentors in organized crime
demonstrated just how badly the Purple Gang had deteriorated, and how
fragile was the ability of these thugs to feel loyalty to anyone but
themselves.

The
Fleisher Brothers

It
seemed ironic for Harry Fleisher to have murdered one of his mentors
in crime, but to the underworld it came as no surprise. Born in
Russia in 1903 and brought to the U.S. as an infant, he was the
oldest of three Fleisher brothers. H.F., as Harry Fleisher would
later be known, had grown up with the original Purples on Hastings
Street. Both Harry and his younger brother Lou were members of the
juvenile Purple Gang. They attended the Old Bishop School and had
only rudimentary educations.

Like
most of the members of the juvenile gang, the two oldest Fleishers
graduated into the world of organized crime with the advent of
Prohibition. Both Harry and Lou served their apprenticeships as
members of the Oakland Sugar House Gang, Harry as a bodyguard for
Charlie Leiter. Both Fleishers gained reputations as strong arm men
and hijackers. Lou continued to work sporadically with the father,
Louis Sr., who ran a junkyard while H.F. branched out and as an adult
had little to do with Lou. Meanwhile Sam Fleisher began driving
truckloads of liquor for the Purples.

Harry
Fleisher became known as a killer. Soft spoken and slightly
overweight with a cherubic face, he looked and acted more like an
accountant than a gangster. There is little doubt that his mild
manners and general appearance lulled adversaries into a false sense
of
security, because H.F. was extremely strong and utterly ruthless. Lou
Fleisher developed a reputation as a practical joker and an
extortionist. During the late twenties he was known to run his car up
on the sidewalk when he spotted a friend and chase him down the
street laughing loudly while pedestrians ran for their lives. The
Fleishers' father was known for his skill at building hidden gun
compartments into the side panels of touring cars. This was a
sideline business at the family junkyard.