The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (23 page)

The
search of the Fleishers' apartment was more rewarding. It turned up
clues regarding the disappearance of Jack Ekelman. Ekelman's mud
splattered car was found at Woodward and Sibley in Detroit the day
after he was reported missing. Police found a pair of muddy shoes in
Fleisher's apartment. He told detectives that he had picked up the
mud walking around his father-in-law's place in the country.
According to Fleisher, he hadn't seen Ekelman in months. A notebook
was discovered with sixteen addresses in it. Police identified all of
the addresses as disorderly houses in Macomb County, Ecorse, and
Wyandotte. Next to each entry was a W or an M. Detectives believed
these letters represented monthly or weekly payoffs. Police also
found newspaper clippings of Ekelman's disappearance, a picture of
Ekelman, and a list of the addresses of every barbershop in the city
in a suitcase.

Jack
Sherwood continued to deny that the guns were his. He had no local
police record so his fingerprints were sent out. On the morning of
May 1st, 1938, fingerprints and photos of Jack Sherwood were received
at Highland Park Police Headquarters. It turned out that Sherwood's
real name was Sidney Markman. He was wanted in Brooklyn, New York for
the murder of a Brownsville poultry dealer. It was reported that the
21-year-old was a gunman for a mob which controlled New York City's
lucrative, four-million dollar a year, extortion racket. The murder
was an example to anyone else who refused to pay protection to the
ring. The merchant was killed a short distance from the poultry store
he had operated for nineteen years, the bullet finishing off his five
year long defiance of the mob.

After
being identified, Markman confessed to the slaying. "Yeah, I
killed him, so what?" Markman told detectives. Later that day
New York City detectives arrived to question him. It was discovered
during the investigation into Markman's background that Lou
Fleisher's brother-in-law, a man named Lou Satren, had brought
Markman to Detroit because he was on the lam for the Brooklyn murder.
Satren was married to Fleisher's sister Betty. He figured that Lou
Fleisher could put Markman to work as a muscle man in the meat
cutters protection racket and planned for Markman to take the blame
for the arsenal in Fleisher's apartment. This would prevent him from
being extradited to New York on the murder charge. Before Markman
could be returned to Brooklyn to stand trial, the Federal Court at
Detroit had to withdraw its request to prosecute Markman under the
Federal firearms law.

On
May 2nd, 1938 Lou and Nellie Fleisher and Sid Markman pleaded
innocent to the firearm charges before U.S. Commissioner J. Stanley
Hurd. The three were held on warrants containing three counts each.
Each count carried a possible 10 year sentence. The specific Federal
charge was possession and transfer of unregistered submachine guns.
Markman was to
face
the Federal charges before being returned to New York.

Markman
was returned to New York after being arraigned in Detroit on the
Federal charges. In February of 1939 he was convicted of first degree
murder in the Frank slaying. On February 21st, 1939 the New York
judge postponed his sentence because of a Federal court order
requiring him to appear in Detroit on the firearms charges. In March,
Markman was returned to Detroit from the Sing Sing Prison death house
to stand trial. During the Federal trial Detective James Byne of the
Detroit police Scientific Lab testified. He described two of the
weapons confiscated at Fleisher's apartment as "most deadly"
because they had been modified to make them fully automatic. This
permitted up to thirty cartridges to be discharged with one pull of
the trigger.

"Why
do you say these particular weapons are the most deadly known to
man?" asked John Babcock, the Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney.

"Because
they are uncontrollable," replied Payne. "Once you start
firing them you can't stop the fire until all of the cartridges in
the magazine are discharged. The guns are of relatively light weight.
Consequently, the recoil causes the gun to kick up in such a manner
that the person operating it cannot place his shots."

The
testimony coupled with the backgrounds of the defendants quickly
brought a verdict of guilty when the case was given to the jury. On
April 7th, 1939 the Fleishers and Markman were found guilty on a
combined total of fourteen counts. Lou Fleisher and Sid Markman were
sentenced to 30 years each in Federal prison. Nellie Fleisher
received a term of 10 years in a Federal detention home. Markman was
never to serve

any
of his Federal sentence. On April 10, 1939, he was returned to New
York to await the results of an appeal of his death sentence. On
January 18, 1940 Markman was executed in the Sing Sing electric
chair. The Federal conviction was essentially the last of Lou
Fleisher's presence in the Detroit underworld. Shortly before
Fleisher was arrested on the firearms charge, one of the last of the
Purple leaders was gunned down in a popular Twelfth Street
restaurant.

Chapter
12

Harry
Millman:

Last
of the Purple Gang Cowboys

"Ms
number
is up and it's only
a
question
of time. He has kept himself on the streets with his guns and his
fists. He is going to die one of these days and die violently. "

—
Detective
Harold Branton, August 29, 1937

"Millman
had stalked through the underworld for seven years with a chip on his
shoulder, rye whiskey on his breath and a robust eagerness to be a
tough guy."

—
John
M. Carlisle

It
was Millman who was responsible for setting up and murdering Purple
lieutenants Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher in November of 1933, as
Axler and Fletcher had double crossed him, Harry Fleisher and the
Bernstein brothers in a business deal. There was little evidence in
Harry Millman's childhood that he would someday become one of the
most feared gangsters to ever walk the streets of Detroit.

As
a youngster he attended public schools, but finished high school in a
Kentucky military academy. Possibly Millman's mother and father had
sensed the rebellion in the boy and thought that the discipline of a
military school might do him some good. Millman had a reputation as a
champion swimmer.

He
graduated from military school in 1928 and returned to Detroit,
hanging around pool halls and eventually becoming a habitue of blind
pig hangouts of the Purple Gang. According to one acquaintance, "the
older hoods let Harry hang around because he was good looking, had a
reputation as a ladies man and attracted women." Millman was
also good with his fists and liked to drink. He soon developed a
reputation as a barroom brawler. By 1929 Millman evolved into a
somewhat uncontrollable Purple Gang hijacker and gunman with a
reputation for drinking. He was personable and gregarious when sober
but dangerous and totally unpredictable when drunk.

The
fact that Millman was an alcoholic, coupled with the perpetual chip
he carried on his shoulder made him completely ruthless. He pursued
his vocation as a gangster with a vengeance. In eight years of
activity, he was arrested 28 times for assault, armed robbery,
kidnapping, carrying a concealed weapon, extortion, murder, and
operating a gambling joint. These were only the crimes for which he
was caught!

In
his short but colorful career his only convictions were minor traffic
offenses and concealed weapons charges. Millman never spent a single
night in jail.

As
he grew more successful, Millman became the Hollywood version of a
real life gangster, sporting $150.00 tailor made suits, custom shirts
and ties, and a thick bankroll. His quick, vicious temper, amplified
by drinking, once caused him to beat a girlfriend in front of a
restaurant full of shocked witnesses. An observer said that "you
could have heard a pin drop in the place."

As
Harry Millman's reputation grew, so did his violence. He would
sometimes target a particular underworld operation solely because it
was run by the Mafia, the now dominant underworld power. When shaking
down Mafia protected brothels and blind pigs he would walk in, knock
customers off their bar stools, and pistol whip anyone foolish enough
to fight.

Millman
had to answer for his erratic behavior many times in front of Abe
Bernstein and other Purple leaders. It was the Bernstein brothers who
were most responsible for keeping Millman alive the last few years of
his life. He was the one loose cannon in the Purple's and Italian's
cordial relations.

On
numerous occasions the Mafia bosses met with the Bernstein brothers
and demanded that Harry Millman be eliminated. Abe Bernstein would
promise to talk to Millman and "straighten him out." But
like many notorious gangsters, Millman began believing his own press.
He believed he was alive because his enemies were thoroughly
terrorized. In reality, Abe Bernstein's promises were all that kept
Millman alive and on the street.

He
shook down Italian controlled brothels in Michigan towns on a weekly
basis. He would walk into a house, beat up the customers and
generally disrupt business, sometimes robbing the customers on a
daily basis until the business dropped to nothing.

Millman's
last mistake was to muscle into rackets
controlled
by Detroit's Italian Mafia. His move to take over their rackets
created a serious rift between him and Joe "Scarface"
Bommarito, brother-in-law of Mafia boss Pete Licavoli. When the
Detroit Mafia took over the operations of the Purple Gang, it had
been a peaceful transition.

At
the behest of the defeated Abe Bernstein, individual Purples were
forced to work with the Italians. Millman was the only Purple
gangster who challenged the Mafia's authority after the Purples lost
dominance.

In
1936 Millman strutted into Sam Finazzo's cafe at Eighth and Fort
Street in Detroit. The cafe was a hangout for various Italian
gangsters. Millman and Bommarito had a confrontation which ended in a
fist-fight that lasted over an hour, with Millman coming out on top.

Bommarito
was known as the overseer of the Italian mob's street operations,
including the Local 299 of the Teamsters and Truck Driver's Union
whose member Jimmy Hoffa became a labor organizer. The era marked the
beginning of a marriage between organized crime and the Teamsters
Union which lasted through Hoffa's disappearance. Both former Purples
and associates of the Italian mob were firmly entrenched in Local
299.

Their
fistfight was the beginning of the grudge between Millman and Joe
Bommarito. Rumors circulated that Harry Millman walked up to
Bommarito while he was reclined in a barber's chair with a hot towel
on his face. Silently, Millman lifted the towel and spat in his face,
then walked out of the barber shop.

This
final display of contempt ended Harry Millman. Abe Bernstein turned
his back on Harry after that. The period of "sit downs" and
diplomacy to protect him were over, leaving Millman and his rogue
faction of Purples on their own.

In
August of 1937 Millman arrived in Detroit from a short trip out of
town. At about 10:00 p.m. he phoned Harry Fleisher's wife. Harry was
in Alcatraz on the tax evasion conviction.

Millman
invited Mrs. Fleisher out for dinner and dancing at a favorite Purple
Gang watering hole known as the 1040 Club. The two headed out in
Millman's new car, a symbol of his recent success in the handbook and
policy rackets. The pair had dinner and danced for several hours.

He
then sent her home in a cab and stayed on, drinking until the
bartender and the owner's cousin were done with their shifts. When
they were ready, Millman handed the keys of his LaSalle coupe to the
valet, who climbed into the car and turned the ignition key.

A
tremendous explosion blew out the windows of nearby buildings and
sent the hood of the LaSalle coupe onto the roof of a five-story
building. The valet was torn to pieces.

The
ten sticks of dynamite that had been packed into the V-shaped
cylinders of the engine block were meant for Harry Millman, but the
assailants had not done their homework. Millman always gave his car
keys to this valet at the 1040 Club. A silent alarm set off by the
shock wave sent three police cruisers to the F.G. Clayton Company
opposite the parking lot.