Louis Piquett

Louis Piquett (September 24, 1884 – December 12, 1951) was an American lawyer notable for defending John Dillinger. He was also a prosecutor for the city of Chicago. He is depicted by Peter Gerety in the 2009 movie Public Enemies.

Early career Piquett was a bartender active in Chicago Democratic politics. He studied law in night school. By 1915, he was chief clerk to the city prosecutor of Chicago. In the early 1920s, he was appointed city prosecutor by Mayor William Hale Thompson.

By the summer of 1923, Piquett was in private practice in Chicago. In August 1923, for instance, he represented James J. McGrath, who owned films showing a boxing match between Tommy Gibbons and Jack Dempsey. Piquett won a decision from the circuit court which stated that the films were neither immoral nor obscene, and enjoined the police from interfering with their exhibition.

In 1931, Piquett unsuccessfully defended Leo Vincent Brothers against charges of murdering Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle.

Defense of Dillinger In 1934, Piquett defended Dillinger in Crown Point, Indiana. He successfully argued that Dillinger should be allowed to appear in court free of shackles and without armed guards present.

Criminal charges In January 1935, Piquett was charged with harboring the fugitive Dillinger and of conspiring with a number of others, including two doctors, to hide Dillinger while he underwent plastic surgery. He was acquitted after less than four hours of deliberation. During this trial he was called "the brains of the Dillinger mob."

In May 1935, he was convicted of harboring Dillinger associate Homer Van Meter, fined $10,000, He was pardoned for this crime in 1951 by President Harry Truman.

Early life Born in Benton, Wisconsin, he hopped trains to California sometime around 1900 where he enrolled in Stanford University and was a stand out on the track team.