Phillip Musica

Philip Mariano Fausto Musica (1877 – December 16, 1938), also known as F. Donald Coster, was an Italian swindler whose criminal career spanned parts of three decades. His various crimes included tax fraud, bank fraud, and bootlegging. However, he is best known as the mastermind of the McKesson and Robbins scandal in 1938, one of the largest financial scandals ever perpetuated by a single person.

Early life Musica was born in 1877 in Naples, Italy, to Antonio and Maria Musica. His family moved to New York City when he was seven years old. He grew up in Mulberry's Bend, a rough neighborhood in Little Italy. Musica started copying the commissioner's speech and mannerisms. under the alias Frank D. Costa, with Joseph Brandino as his partner. Its nominal business was the manufacture of a hair tonic called "Dandrofuge" and cosmetics. In truth, it was a front for a bootlegging venture. His machine continued to roll through the Great Depression until by 1937, McKesson was the third-largest drug company in the world. However, he remained an intensely private man, in part out of fear of being unmasked. For instance, he turned down an offer to run for president in 1936 on the Republican ticket.

Collapse Coster's downfall began in 1937, when McKesson's board ordered him to convert $2 million of his crude drugs into cash to build up profits and reduce outstanding debt. Coster responded with a demand that the firm obtain a $3 million loan "for improvements."

Julian Thompson, the company's treasurer, was puzzled by this demand. He figured a firm as successful as McKesson shouldn't need to obtain an outside loan. Several aspects of the company's arrangement with W. W. Smith and Co.--which had been inherited from the Girard merger—also troubled him. On a hunch, he contacted Dun & Bradstreet, who informed him W. W. Smith's report was a forgery. He also discovered that the crude-drug division was more or less nonexistent and that, in 1929, Coster had looted the division of $640,000 to cover losses on the stock market. Altogether, Thompson discovered Coster had stolen $3 million from McKesson over the years.

When Thompson confronted Coster with his findings, Coster accused him of "trying to wreck this company." He then tried to place the company in equity receivership to throw Thompson off the scent long enough to cover up the fraud. However, Thompson countered by having the board file for bankruptcy protection under the Chandler Act. After an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Coster, Vernard, and George Dietrich were arrested and released on bail on December 13.

An investigator with the New York state attorney general's office thought he recognized Coster's face as that of former investigator William Johnson—the alias Musica had used after his release from The Tombs. A check revealed Coster's fingerprints to be an exact match to those of Musica. At a midnight press conference on December 15, officials dropped a bombshell—F. Donald Coster, the now-disgraced drug tycoon, was really two-time convicted fraudster Philip Musica.

Musica got word that he'd been unmasked and that federal marshals were on their way to arrest him. Unwilling to face almost certain conviction and a long prison term, he locked himself in the bathroom and shot himself in the head on the morning of December 16. He was careful to stand in a way that when he fell into a large marble bathtub, none of his blood stained the carpet on the floor.

Nazi Propaganda Musica was mentioned in the 1938 Nazi pamphlet Roosevelt verrät Amerika! (Roosevelt Betrays America!) by Dr. Robert Ley. He wrote "The Coster-Musica scandal aroused considerable excitement in the American business world at the end of 1938. Coster-Musica had carried out swindles on a widespread scale, including drug smuggling, weapons sales, and crooked dealings, and was a member of many prominent clubs. Coster-Musica had been in jail for fraud as early as 1906. He was convicted in a huge financial scandal in 1913. Given his connections to 'high society,' he did not serve time in prison. His company collapsed when the fraud was discovered. 13,500 stockholders lost over $100 million. He committed suicide because he feared his well-placed friends were no longer able to protect him from the wrath of those he had cheated."