George Remus

George Remus (November 14, 1878 – January 20, 1952) was a German-born American lawyer who was a bootlegger during the early days of Prohibition, and later murdered his wife Imogene.

Early life Remus was born in Landsberg, Germany, on November 13, 1876, to Frank and Marie Remus. Remus arrived in the United States on June 15, 1882, (departing from Norway on the Fifington to New York) and briefly lived in Maryland, then Wisconsin and finally moved to Chicago in 1885. At age 14, George supported the family by working at his uncle's pharmacy because Remus's father was unable to work. After graduating from the Chicago College of Pharmacy at the age of 19, Remus became a certified pharmacist, and bought his first pharmacy at the age of 21. Remus married Lillian Klauff on July 10, 1899, after a quick courtship. Remus specialized in criminal defense, especially murder, and became quite famous, due in large part to the highly publicized William Cheney Ellis murder case in 1914. It was in this case that Remus pioneered the "transitory insanity" defense that evolved into what is now known as the "temporary insanity" defense. By 1920, Remus was earning $500,000 a year, approximately $ today.

Following the ratification of the 18th Amendment and the passage of the Volstead Act, on January 17, 1920, Prohibition began in the US. Within a few months, Remus saw that his criminal clients were becoming very wealthy very quickly through the illegal production and distribution of alcoholic beverages. He decided to become a criminal himself, using his knowledge of the law to escape punishment.

Remus memorized the Volstead Act and found a loophole which allowed him to buy distilleries and pharmacies to produce and sell bonded liquor for medicinal purposes, under government licenses. The outside world thought it was only accessible by dirt road. The actual distillery was located at 2656 Queen City Ave. The alcohol was distilled in the attic of the house then dumb-waitered below. A trap door was located in the basement, which was the entrance to a tunnel about long and under the ground.

In addition to becoming the "King of the Bootleggers", Remus was known as a gracious host. He held many parties, including a 1923 birthday party for his wife Imogene, in which she appeared in a daring bathing suit along with other aquatic dancers, serenaded by a fifteen-piece orchestra. Local children saw Remus as a fatherly figure, and some played on the estate. In 1922, Remus and his wife held a New Year's Eve party at their new mansion, nicknamed the Marble Palace. The guests included one hundred couples from the most prestigious families in the area. As parting gifts, Remus presented all the men with diamond stickpins, and gave each guest's wife a brand new car. The marriage ended in divorce in 1920 after Remus began an affair with his legal secretary, Augusta Imogene Holmes (née Brown). Holmes was a young divorcée with a young daughter, Ruth. Remus and Holmes were married in Newport, Kentucky, in June 1920.

Legal issues In 1925, Remus's plan to use his legal knowledge to evade the law went awry. He was indicted for thousands of violations of the Volstead Act, convicted by a jury that made its decision in under two hours, and given a two-year federal prison sentence. He spent two years in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for bootlegging. While he was in prison, Remus befriended another inmate and eventually confided in him that his wife, Imogene Holmes, had control over his money. The inmate was an undercover prohibition agent, Franklin Dodge, The would-be assassin didn't follow through because he feared being double-crossed, and told Remus about the plot instead.

In late 1927, Imogene Holmes filed for divorce from Remus. On the way to court, on October 6, 1927, for the finalization of the divorce, Remus had his driver chase the cab carrying Holmes and her daughter through Eden Park in Cincinnati, finally forcing it off the road. Remus jumped out and fatally shot Imogene in the abdomen in front of the Spring House Gazebo to the horror of park onlookers. Remus pleaded transitory insanity, which he had used previously during his time as a defense lawyer, emphasizing his distress at his wife's betrayal. The jury deliberated only nineteen minutes before acquitting him. The State of Ohio committed Remus to an insane asylum since the jury found him insane, but prosecutors were thwarted by their previous claim (backed up by the prosecution's three well-known psychiatrists) that he could be tried for murder because he was not insane, and Remus was freed from the asylum after only 7 months. George Remus later moved to Covington, Kentucky (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati), where he lived modestly the next 20 years without incident. He married for a third and final time to his long-time secretary Blanche Watson. Remus ran a small contracting firm, Washington Contracting, until he suffered a stroke in August 1950. For the next two years, he lived in a boarding house in Covington in the care of a nurse. Remus died on January 20, 1952, at the age of 75. He is buried beside his third wife at Riverside Cemetery in Falmouth, Kentucky.

Remus is sometimes credited as the direct inspiration for The Great Gatsby, though Gatsby might have been based on one of several figures such as Arnold Rothstein.