Roger Touhy

Roger Touhy (September 18, 1898 – December 16, 1959) was an Irish American mob boss and prohibition-era Chicago bootlegger. He is remembered for having been framed by his rivals in Chicago organized crime for the fake 1933 kidnapping of Jewish-American organized crime figure and Chicago Outfit associate John "Jake the Barber" Factor, a brother of cosmetics manufacturer Max Factor Sr.

Despite numerous appeals and at least one federal court ruling freeing him, Touhy spent 26 years in prison until he was finally exonerated and released in November 1959. In retaliation for filing a lawsuit against acting boss Tony Accardo and other senior Mafiosi, Touhy was murdered in an alleged contract killing by the Chicago Outfit less than a month after his release.

Early life and career Early years Touhy was born on September 18, 1898,

Legitimate employment Roger began working full-time for a living at the age of 13. His ham radio hobby enabled him to get a job as a telegrapher with Western Union, and he proved so adept that he was soon made manager of the small office where he worked. He was fired in 1915 for expressing support for unionization efforts. Touhy says he spent some time as a union organizer for the Commercial Telegraphers Union of America, but felt the job had no security. He joined the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, which qualified him for a well-paying railroad job. He obtained a position with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and moved to Colorado.

The United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, and Touhy enlisted in the United States Navy in 1918. Touhy did not see combat; rather, the Navy assigned him to a teaching post at Harvard University near Boston, Massachusetts. The college had lent the Navy classroom space, and Touhy taught officers Morse code. For the rest of his life, Touhy tried to impress people by claiming he taught at Harvard.

After leaving the Navy, Touhy traveled to Oklahoma with a friend from the Navy. He paid a petroleum engineer a bottle of bootleg corn whiskey to spend a few hours teaching him the fundamentals of petroleum engineering. Touhy bluffed his way into a petroleum engineering job, paying the drilling rig and well mechanics in corn whiskey to do his job. Saving $1,000 ($ in dollars), he began speculating in oil leases with his Navy friend. After about a year in Oklahoma, Touhy had made $25,000 ($ in dollars). He returned to Chicago, and on April 22, 1922, he married a 23-year-old telegraph operator, Clara, whom he had met seven years earlier while working for Western Union.

Touhy's bootlegging business expanded dramatically. Touhy and Kolb built 10 illegal beer and liquor breweries northwest of Chicago The Teamsters were a particular focus of the Outfit. Touhy declined to participate in the scheme. Capone went ahead with the takeovers of the local unions anyway.

The Outfit's attempt to take control of the Teamsters District Council and other local unions began in the fall of 1930. Touhy claims he retained the money until Berrell and Jerry Horan, president of the Building Service Employees International Union, retrieved it some time later. Gilbert became so wealthy from his participation in organized crime that by 1950 he was derisively called "the richest cop in America". Under the agreement, Courtney had to approve of the leaders of IBT locals in the area, and was permitted to bar certain individuals from membership.

Courtney faced a Chicago Outfit in disarray. When Al Capone was imprisoned on October 24, 1931, only two of the Chicago Outfit's top 16 leaders remained out of prison.

Lower-level mobsters now fought for control of the Chicago Outfit. Irish gangster and Outfit member George "Red" Barker had been in control of a number of union locals in Chicago since 1928, and now began using this base of power to put pressure on the Sicilian mobsters who had dominated the Outfit under Capone. Barker was murdered in June 1932. The press reported at the time that the Sicilian faction was responsible,

Touhy was aware of the collusion between Courtney and the IBT to dominate the District Council. After the death of Barker, Courtney installed a pro-IBT president as president of the Coal Haulers, and removed Looney as president of the Excavating, Grading, and Dump Drivers. ordered a series of vandalisms and bombings that intimidated business owners and unions alike into remaining under the Outfit's control.

The Cullen–Harrison Act, which legalized the sale in the United States of beer and wine with an alcohol content of 3.2% (by weight), went into effect on April 7, 1933. Organized crime sought to retain its profits by imposing a protection racket on now-legal brewers. On April 8, the Prima Brewing Company plant in Chicago was bombed, and there was some suggestion that Touhy (not the Chicago Outfit) had planted the explosive device.

Touhy's last known involvement with the labor movement came in April 1933. Early that month, Horan and Arthur Wallace (secretary-treasurer of the Chicago District Council of the Painters Union) met with Touhy and told him they were giving in to the Chicago Outfit's demands. Horan asked Capt. Gilbert to set up a meeting with the Outfit, and turned his union over to the mob. Wallace did the same. On Friday, April 28, 1933, a group of men wielding machine guns entered the Teamsters District Council headquarters building at 637 S. Ashland Avenue in Chicago at about 8:30 A.M. and held about 80 people hostage for three hours.

Hamm kidnapping charge Conceiving the Hamm kidnapping Alvin Karpis, Fred Barker, and Fred's mother took up residence in St. Paul, Minnesota, in late December 1931. There, Alvin and Fred formed a new incarnation of the Barker–Karpis gang. Local gangster and casino owner Jack Peifer put the Barker-Karpis gang up in a rented cottage in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, on the outskirts of St. Paul. Kidnapping had become a lucrative enterprise for American gangsters in the past year. The number of high-profile kidnappings reached 27 in 1933, more than double the number in 1932. It was safer than bank robbery but just as lucrative. In early June 1933, Peifer met with Barker-Karpis gang leaders and persuaded them to kidnap William Hamm Jr., president of the Hamm's Brewing Company and heir to the Hamm family fortune.

The rationale for kidnapping Hamm, Peifer said, was the $100,000 ransom ($ in dollars) the gang could expect to collect.

Some historians assert that the Barker-Karpis gang was manipulated into kidnapping Hamm so Touhy could be framed for the crime and eliminated as competition for the Chicago Outfit. Sources vary widely as to who conceived of framing Touhy. It may have been Outfit head Frank Nitti, but the idea may have come from Murray "The Camel" Humphreys, the Outfit's chief fixer and labor racketeer. Tom Brown, the corrupt ex-chief of police of St. Paul, or Chicago Police captain Daniel Gilbert may also have conceived of the plot. Crime historian Jay Nash says the idea came jointly from Peifer, Harry Sawyer, and Fred Goetz ( George "Shotgun" Ziegler), a Chicago Outfit assassin. Historian Julie A. Thompson, however, attributes it only to Peifer.

Hamm and Factor kidnappings The Barker–Karpis gang kidnapped Hamm shortly after 12:15 PM on June 15, 1933, as he walked from the brewery to his home in St. Paul. Four men assisted Karpis and Barker in kidnapping Hamm: Arthur "Doc" Barker (Fred's brother), Byron Bolton, Charles "Old Fitz" Fitzgerald, and Fred Goetz. Brown, still a detective with the St. Paul police, kept the Barker-Karpis gang apprised of the FBI and St. Paul police investigations into the kidnapping. The Hamm family paid the $100,000 ransom on June 17, and Hamm was freed at dawn on June 19.

Melvin Purvis was the FBI Special Agent in Charge of the investigation into the Hamm kidnapping. From the beginning, Purvis believed that the Touhy gang committed the kidnapping. Purvis may have convinced himself of this, but it is also documented that Capt. Daniel Gilbert told Purvis that the Chicago police had information that Touhy was responsible.

On June 30, gangster and stock manipulator John "Jake the Barber" Factor disappeared. Factor was facing extradition to the United Kingdom for trial on charges of stock fraud. Factor conceived of the kidnapping as a way to avoid extradition, as American law enforcement and prosecutors would need to keep him in the U.S. as legal proceedings against the kidnappers went forward. The British consul in the United States declared the kidnapping a farce.

Factor's disappearance was convenient for the Outfit: Not only could police blame the Factor "kidnapping" on Touhy, but Factor (himself an affiliate of The Outfit) could accuse Touhy as well. Capt. Gilbert told Purvis that he was convinced Touhy was responsible. Gilbert publicly accused Touhy of engineering Factor's abduction on July 3, and repeated the claim several times to the press. Gilbert later claimed that he had 25 law enforcement officers trying to find Touhy in the days after Factor's kidnapping, but could not find him. Factor reappeared on July 12, allegedly after payment of a $70,000 ransom ($ in dollars). The same day, Gilbert's men arrested two members of the Touhy gang for kidnapping Factor. While returning to Chicago on July 19, Tuohy's car skidded off the road in misty, rainy weather and struck a utility pole. Touhy reported the accident and attempted to pay for the pole. Police discovered some weapons in Touhy's vehicle,Efn|Police said they found a rifle, seven pistols, a large amount of ammunition, a roll of gauze, adhesive tape, rope, and $1,730 in cash in the vehicle. Purvis drove to Wisconsin, and took Touhy and his three associates to Minnesota without an extradition order.

The FBI falsely claimed to have an "ironclad case" against Touhy. Taxicab driver Leo J. Allison failed to identify any of the four men as the person who paid him $2 to take a ransom note to the Hamm family. The four men were taken to Hamm's brewery office in secret, and Hamm failed to identify them as his kidnappers. With little evidence on which to hold Touhy, FBI agents beat Touhy brutally and did not let him sleep in an attempt to wring a confession from him.

The federal court scheduled a hearing on Touhy's motion for summary judgment on August 14. Federal agents made a series of wild and inaccurate claims which bolstered their case in public. The FBI said it had been investigating Touhy for two years already, and had intensified their focus on him after enactment of the Federal Kidnapping Act on June 22, 1932. Federal law enforcement officials now claimed that Touhy had kidnapped people in Kansas City, Missouri; Denver, Colorado; and Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, and had operated a vast kidnap ring operating across the entire Midwestern United States. FBI agents told the press that Touhy was a "callous killer; cruel by nature and devoid of any human attributes; driven by an insane desire for gangland power, which makes him absolutely ruthless and more deadly than a viper". They claimed he had a gang of more than 100 killers, Touhy, they said, led "a reign of terror" and "boasted that the law could not touch him"

On August 8, the Justice Department convened a federal grand jury to hear evidence regarding an indictment against Touhy and the other three men on charges of kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, and interstate transportation of a person held for ransom. Testifying before the grand jury were the arresting officers from Elkhorn, the Walworth County sheriff, three Chicago police officers, among others. Efn|Most of the evidence concerned the alleged kidnapping materials found in the trunk of Touhy's car, although the prosecutor also claimed that a pistol altered into an illegal machine gun. Prosecutors also claimed that the money found in Touhy's automobile matched the serial numbers on the money used to ransom Hamm. Efn|George Wilkie and his wife, Stella, were arrested by FBI agents on August 2 and charged with being accomplices in the Hamm kidnapping. L.L. Drill, the United States District Attorney for St. Paul, now admitted the case against Touhy was thin at first, but he was "fairly confident" that now it had "nothing lacking". Dissatisfied with Drill's preparation and handling of the case, United States Attorney General Homer Cummings replaced him with Special Assistant to the Attorney General Joseph B. Keenan. Keenan had successfully convicted George "Machine Gun" Kelly and three others for the kidnapping of oil man Charles F. Urschel, and his experience was believed to be critical to convicting Touhy.

The FBI now developed evidence of Touhy's innocence. Alvin Karpis, "Doc" Barker, and George Fitzgerald had left their fingerprints on the ransom notes given to the Hamm family. The FBI Technical and Research Laboratory, established in the fall of 1932, had only just developed a technique to lift fingerprints from paper. This technique was now used to lift the Karpis gang's prints from the ransom notes on September 6, 1933.

Despite evidence of the involvement of the Barker-Karpis gang, law enforcement continued to press their case against Touhy, McFadden, Schaefer, and Sharkey. Touhy was indicted for leading a $234,000 ($ in dollars) mail robbery in Sacramento, California, in February 1933. Efn|Also indicted were Gus Schaefer, his wife, convicted felon George Kerr, William Barry, and a John Doe. Schaefer and Sharkey, along with Frank "Blackie" McKee and "Silent Jim" Ryan (two other alleged members of the Touhy gang), were indicted for a mail robbery in Minneapolis in January 1933.

Hamm trial Judge Matthew M. Joyce of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota presided over the Touhy trial. The lead prosecutor was Joseph B. Keenan. The nine jurors were seated on November 9, 1933.

Keenan's star witness was William Hamm. Hamm identified McFadden as one of his kidnappers on the trial's first day, and then recanted his testimony the next day. When asked by the prosecution to identify Willie Sharkey as one of his kidnappers, Hamm could not do so. He was able to testify about a Wisconsin road sign he saw, which the prosecution said put the place of his imprisonment in Wisconsin. Keenan also called Daniel Rush to the stand, but Rush, who had seen the kidnapping from his home, was not able to identify any of the kidnappers. When pressed, Rush could only say that Sharkey "resembled" the driver of the kidnap car. Taxicab driver Leo Allison proved so reluctant to testify that Keenan had to ask the court for permission to treat Allison as a hostile witness. Only after extensive questioning did Allison admit that the man who'd given him the ransom note resembled McFadden. Two other prosecution eyewitnesses, dentist Dr. Horace C. La Bissoniere and drug store owner Clarence J. Thomas, also testified that Touhy "resembled" the man who left ransom note in Thomas' drug store. Neither could not positively identify him, however.

The prosecution had better luck from two other eyewitnesses, however. Printer Walter Bowick, who was in the drug store when one of the Hamm ransom notes was delivered, positively identified Touhy as the man who delivered the ransom note. Farm hand Charles Carlson positively identified Touhy, McFadden, and Schaefer as the men he saw loitering near the spot where the ransom money was left. Carlson stuck to his testimony despite strong defense cross-examination. Toward the end of the government's case, various law enforcement officers testified about the weapons found in the Touhy car, although none mentioned a pistol converted into a machine gun. The prosecution rested on November 16. Defense attorney Thomas McMeekin attempted to introduce extensive evidence that Walter Bowick was an inveterate liar who had fled town after his prosecution testimony.

Touhy's defense relied on an alibi for June 15 and 16. The alibi was provided in part by Des Plaines lawyer Vincent Connor and his client Gus A. Palmquist. Both men said they met with Touhy on the night of June 16 when drug store ransom note was delivered, and Connor said he'd telephoned Touhy at Touhy's home on June 15. Telephone records supported Connor's testimony. Connor and Edward J. Meany, a Des Plaines realtor and insurance broker, also testified that they had met with Touhy in Des Plaines on June 15. Local police arrested both Connor and Meany as they left the courtroom, claiming they had violated a local ordinance against registering in a hotel under an assumed name. Judge Joyce was outraged when he learned of it, and freed both men. In addition to depositions from the motel clerks, Two handwriting experts testified that Schaefer had written the postcards. A prosecution attempt to impugn their testimony by comparing prison letters to the postcards failed when the experts pointed out the different writing instruments used.

Touhy's wife, Clara, testified for the defense regarding certain "kidnapping" items found in Touhy's car. The "sash cord" was a clothes line rope her children used to play with, she said. The "bandages" were rags used to clean up the car when her children became carsick, and the rubber boots were hers.

The defense rested on November 25, declining to provide alibis for McFadden or Sharkey. but never did so. The government then rested on November 25. Efn|In 1959, Touhy said that during the Hamm trial, he communicated with his wife in court by tapping his fingers in Morse code. Touhy claimed that he told her about eyewitnesses who could provide an alibi, and he believed that these eyewitnesses were critical to proving his innocence in the Hamm case.

Factor now told police that his kidnappers were demanding even more money or they would kidnap him again. Factor agreed to allow FBI agent Melvin Purvis to tap his telephone, and Purvis listened in on a number of the demands for more cash. Purvis told Factor to arrange for a new payment, and the FBI decided to set a trap for anyone who showed up at the ransom drop site. The ransom was delivered by two undercover police officers in St. Paul on August 15. Basil "The Owl" Banghart and Martin "Ice Wagon" O'Connor ( Charles Conners) showed up at the location. The two gangsters realized it was a trap, and shot their way clear even though more than 300 FBI and local law enforcement officers surrounded them and two law enforcement spotter planes circled overhead to track their getaway vehicle.

Law enforcement continued to build their case against Touhy as the Hamm kidnapping trial went forward. On September 15, Chicago Police Capt. Dan Gilbert claimed several eyewitnesses saw three members of the Touhy gang loitering about the Dells Roadhouse where Factor was kidnapped. Banghart was captured in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 11. Arrested with him was Isaac "Ike" Costner.

Immediately after Touhy's acquittal for the Hamm kidnapping, federal authorities arrested Touhy, McFadden, Schaefer, and Sharkey on charges of kidnapping Factor. Schaefer and Sharkey were also arrested for robbing the mail in Milwaukee in January 1933. Thomas Courtney, Minnesota state's attorney prosecuting the case, convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to not deport Factor in the interest of law enforcement. The prosecution called six eyewitnesses who claimed they saw Touhy and his co-defendants kidnap Factor. Factor himself testified at the trial. Now claiming that his blindfold had slipped one day, he accused Touhy of being his kidnapper. Under cross-examination, Factor was confronted with the fact that he'd failed to identify any of the four co-defendants in July 1933. Factor now claimed that he'd been told not to by Capt. Daniel Gilbert. Touhy was able to provide an alibi for the night of Factor's kidnapping, with several neighbors testifying that he had sat on his front porch conversing. The jury deadlocked, and a mistrial was declared on February 2, 1934.

A second trial began on February 13, 1934. Charges were inexplicably dropped against Connors, and charges against McFadden dropped as nol pressed. Banghart and Costner were brought to Chicago to testify in the case. Costner turned state's evidence and completely corroborated Factor's accusations. Banghart testified for the defense. Banghart claimed that Jake Factor had recruited him and others to fake Factor's kidnapping as a way of helping Factor avoid deportation, and Banghart was paid $50,000 for his trouble. Factor and others then began framing Touhy and his gang for the kidnapping. A police officer who saw Factor minutes after he claimed to be freed claimed Factor was clean-shaven and his clothes in good appearance (even though Factor said he'd slept in his clothes for nearly two weeks and not been allowed to shower or shave). The press reported that the judge and jury giggled at Banghart's testimony, and that even Touhy's defense attorney hid a smile at how ridiculous it seemed.

Basil Banghart was tried separately in the kidnapping of Jake Factor. He was convicted on March 13, 1934, and sentenced to 99 years in prison as well. The day he was convicted, Charles Connors was found murdered (allegedly by gangland thugs) in the Forest Preserve area of Cook County, Illinois.

Incarceration Appeals Touhy was incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois. Touhy immediately filed an appeal. Over the next eight years, he spent most of his bootlegger's fortune on legal fees.

On October 9, 1942, Touhy and six other men escaped from Stateville prison. After a month, Touhy and the others were discovered living in a Chicago boarding house. Touhy and three others surrendered peacefully. The remaining two escapees tried to fight their way out and were killed. Touhy re-entered Stateville on December 31, 1942, and was sentenced to an additional 199 years in prison for the escape.

In 1944, 20th Century Fox released a semi-biographical and highly fictionalized film based on Touhy's life, title Roger Touhy, Gangster. Touhy successfully sued the studio for defamation of character (after six years, he won a judgment of $15,000), but Fox was able to distribute the film overseas without legal repercussions.

On August 9, 1954, Federal District Court Judge John Barnes set Touhy free. The ruling was the culmination of an appeal Touhy began in 1948. The Court found that Capt. Gilbert had induced Costner to perjur himself, that Gilbert had held back critical evidence of Touhy's innocence, that Courtney (now a state circuit judge) had presumably had knowledge of Costner's perjury, that multiple Illinois state attorneys had engaged in other prosecutorial misconduct, and that it was now widely known that Factor's kidnapping had been faked. On August 30, the Seventh Circuit declined Touhy's bid for habeas corpus, ruling he should remain in prison until the state's appeal was fully heard. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Touhy's appeal on February 14, 1955, and did not accept his writ of habeas corpus.

Release While the state's appeal was still pending, Governor William Stratton commuted Touhy's two sentences on July 31, 1957. Stratton reduced the 99-year sentence to 72 years, and reduced the 199-year sentence to three years. Touhy won parole on the kidnapping charge on February 20, 1958. Touhy's three-year sentence for escape began running after his kidnapping parole. He was eligible for parole after serving a third of the sentence, and was granted parole on November 12, 1959. Touhy left Statesville Prison on November 24, 1959, having served exactly 25 years and nine months.

Touhy's autobiography, The Stolen Years, was published in the fall of 1959. John Factor sued Touhy for libel for the statements published in the book.

Death

At 10:30 P.M. on December 16, 1959, Touhy and Walter Miller, a retired Chicago police detective who served as his bodyguard, were gunned down as they entered the Alesia house. stepped out of shadows as Touhy and Miller mounted the steps to the front door. Miller identified himself as a police officer, and the men pulled 12 gauge shotguns from loss of blood. Efn|The burial site is in the Towey family plot. Towey is the spelling of the family name before it was changed. and Thomas Touhy (born c. 1927). Touhy claimed to have sent his children to college while in prison, one attending the University of Florida and the other Stetson University. Both worked in the construction industry for a time. By 1959, Thomas was working as a police officer and going to law school. At the time of his death, however, Touhy had no property, and only $35,000 in cash and some furniture in storage. Clara and her sons relied on the potential royalties from his autobiography for income. The outcome of that case is not known.

In August 1961, Clara and Thomas Touhy filed a $2 million defamation and libel suit against CBS for airing a program about Roger Touhy that included their names. The outcome of that case is not known.

In 1979, Roger Scott Touhy filed suit against 20th Century Fox for breaching the 1949 agreement between the studio and his father, Roger Touhy. The son claimed the agreement barred Fox from distributing the motion picture Roger Touhy, Gangster in the United States. A court found in favor of 20th Century Fox.

Legal legacy Roger Touhy filed a habeas corpus proceeding in federal District Court against Ragen, the warden of Stateville Prison, alleging he was restrained in violation of the Due Process Clause. As part of this proceeding, in 1949 he subpoenaed FBI agent George McSwain to provide documents showing his kidnapping conviction was based on conspiracy and fraud. McSwain refused, citing Justice Department policy. While the District Court held McSwain in contempt for defying the subpoena, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court disagreed, both holding that McSwain's refusal was legal. Thereafter, the proper protocols for subpoenaing a federal agent to appear in court have variously been known as Touhy regulations, ''Touhy letters, Touhy requests or the Touhy'' process.