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Saren Elizabeth, Saren Elizabeth, what's up? How are you doing? Good?
Good listen? You know what's ridiculous?
Oh my god, I'm so glad you asked. I've been waiting to tell you. Game of Thrones. Yeah, that's pretty right. Okay, you know the Knights watch you know nothing, John Snow, No, you know the show? Right? Okay, there's a show called Throne.
I've not seen it.
You've never seen.
Okay, I you know, I joke say.
I don't watch TV.
You know, I watch a hell of a lot of TV, but I've actually I don't watch You've.
Never seen Game of Thrones, not even a single minute. No, I've seen like a minute or okay, we are you familiar that there are guys on the show who are wearing big furry black jackets. You've seen them. Sure, they're called the Knight's Watch. Okay, right now, those big dope black shag that they're wearing. It turns out that those were made from they look like their enormous bear skin rug like some kind of like what wear yak, Yeah, exactly like saber to wear yak. Anyway, So those are
actually a Kia rug get out. They were like shaggy white Ikea floor rugs that they then died black and then they like tailored into coat. So the next time you watch the Night's watch those are Ikea rug very clever. Sorry to spoil that show, but it's spoiled itself.
Yeah, from what I've heard. Yeah, no, that's very cool.
That ridiculous. That is ridiculous.
I love it.
So I'm going to be doing that, ma, getting all my clothing at Ikea floor shows.
Okay, this sounds good, I'll drive you do you know what else is ridiculous? No, that's why I'm here holding out on legs, Diamond. No, this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free, one percent ridiculous.
You damn right. Welcome back.
Once upon a time there were two boys, Maximilian and Yako Okay, half brothers, fifteen years apart in age. The family lived in Poland at like the turn of the twentieth century. They were hard workers, but terribly poor. Maximilian, he had been working since the age of eight. When he was nine, he got a job as an apprentice for a wig maker. Had work. Yeah, a nine year old in a wig.
Well, there's that, I'm sure from there had some chemicals that are not good for sure, his skins turning blue.
He got a job at a cosmetics and hairstyling company in Berlin, and then by the time he was fourteen, he was working at a wig maker and cosmetician in Moscow. Wow, dolling up the Imperial Russian Grand Opera thirteen years old.
Whoa, I forget the child labor laws. I'm impressed with his.
Talents and the time, the speed is Yeah. So he's served in the Imperial Army in Russia for a spell, and then he opened a shop and he sold handmade makeup, perfume and wigs and yeah, this nice thing. All of the theater folks loved and used his products.
They were so into it. He's innovative too.
Yeah, well he was, and he was eventually chosen as the official cosmetics expert for the Russian royal family and as well as the opera.
What do you do for a living? I am the cosmetics expert for the royal family.
Yeah that sounds good. It drew a lot of attention to him and his young family. But not all of it good because I've mentioned in other episodes that there was incredible anti Semitism in Eastern Europe at the time. Ah yes, not just discriminatory but violence.
Oh yeah, not real life. Yeah bad so.
In nineteen oh four, at the age of twenty seven, Maximilian and his family went to America. Good call, Yeah, it's a common story. Once there, they met up with his older brother in Saint Louis. Meet me in Saint Louis.
He said, They said, sure, and I'll be there.
But what of Yakka?
What of Yakika? I've been wondering about old Yaka.
He and the rest of the family met up with Maximilian two years later, in nineteen oh six.
Ye Echo was twelve. Is I like Jacob Jacob?
Ye so Maximilian And that's m A K S Y M I L I A N whoa.
I love this totally.
He was taking the world by storm, folks. Maximilian Factrowitz was a hit.
Oh wait a minute, I'm hearing it now, you don't.
He had the opportunity to sell his cosmetics at the nineteen oh four World Fare U huh. He changed his name to something easier for Anglo Americans to pronounce something punchy memorable.
Yes.
Unfortunately, his business partner made off with all of the stock in the profits.
He changed his name to Maybell Maybelene.
Go On Loriel. So Maximilian was crushed. Absolutely. His family was there for him though. They helped him open a barber shop in Saint Louis.
How about I know you've been.
High flying and doing how we want to cut hair at a barbershop?
How about shaven haircut too?
But was the sweet hair?
No?
Not me no, So it would be a good business for him though as he got back on his.
Feet, people need to do hair all the time, totally.
People have hair, they need hair.
They need to cut all the time.
People like to gather up the hair at the barber shop and like save it.
Like Elvis for dinner, save it and bring it over as a treat delectables. So anyway, let's discuss.
But he didn't give up on his dream though. A few years later shop is doing really great business and he even brought his half brother Yako into the mix. Like I said, Maximilian wanted more. He headed to Los Angeles and he opened a shop selling hair care products, and he positioned himself to be like the makeup guy in the new filming.
Ow under his new name sl Right.
So then soon all of the starlets they wanted his his you know what his name was, what and wild? All of the starlets want it his service. Uh, everyone wanted to slett me say one more time. All the starlets wanted to service.
They wanted services.
Glorious Wanson, Mary Pickford.
Need services, Jean Harlowe loved.
The services for the services, Beddie Davis service, Queen Lucille Ball and friend of the show Judy Garland. Yeah, he had all the luminaries. He invented Clara Bo's heart shaped liplow.
Oh that was the that's huge.
He also pretty much invented like pancake makeup foundation.
Clara Bo was the first girl. She was the first time we had like, oh, this is the coolest person is because of him. Yeah, I'm saying that's he created the look that everybody wanted under.
He did this all under a new name that he'd given himself and eventual cosmetics Empire Max Factor.
Down. I was so certain it was.
No affect Horowitz. So while Max Factor was making the beauty he's in Hollywood even more beautiful.
What of Young?
Let yo?
What of Young?
Asked that, we asked that all the time.
He found.
He changed his name to Eve Saint Laurel. No, he was still in Saint Louis, still cutting hand.
He's now known as Rudolph Valentino.
Yes, he changed his name too, though, and he kind of shortened it like Max did. He became John Factor. John he's got the John factors max factor, max factor that sings. That sounds like you're in a spaceship. We've hit Max Factor.
No, John Factor, non factor sounds like something that's like, oh, he's the new host of the show. I don't watch John Factor.
Because of this job that he had cutting her, he would later earn a nickname that he hated.
I bet Jake the barber that is not a.
Good called him Jake the Barber. So John moved on from the family business and he got a job as a barber at the uber Lux Morrison Hotel.
And everyone knows it's Jake the snake, Brutus the barber. I mean, it goes it might be the only one. They mixed it up. Okay, we'll go on. So he's working on literation people. He's working at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago.
And just like Max Over on the West Coast, John cater to the rich and famous and sometimes the infamous.
Oh he's the bad brother.
He's the bad brother.
He's on this show right now. It's just a story of two guys.
Setting hair make up this wholesome America. And you know what, the crime was a crime of fashion. Okay, so cutting hair wasn't enough. He had a little bit of the con man in him. Resists a lot, Yeah, couldn't resist it. Nineteen nineteen, he's indicted on a federal warrant for stock fraud. Yeah, so he did a big jump.
In nineteen nineteen. Yeah, it's like ten years before everyone else was getting busted stock fraud exactly.
So he agreed to give back all the money that he collected on phony stocks and the case was dismissed. Ok So, remember Addison and Wilson Meisner and the Florida land boom in the twenties. We talked about them. I'm going to take you right back there, please. Who would show up but John Factor, John Factor, he too got into the land swindles down there. Of course, so he's right next to him, Addison magnet for.
Con artists and and sham up people.
No, it's right for the picking Addison meister. He went bankrupt. Wilson just got all the way out of town. Factor wasn't so lucky. He was indicted for land fraud.
Oh, he got caught on the swamp, caught and.
He likely he was likely selling plots that didn't even exist.
Oh, he wasn't even selling bad swamp.
Yeah, like, oh, you can build on this swamp.
He's like, there's no land there.
Go to this address. They're like that that numbers not on the street.
In the world. And he's like, yeah, in Biscayne Bay.
So he collected even more indictments over the next few years, this time for larceny mail fraud. He had a lot of irons in the fire, but he didn't seem to be too good at keeping them hot because he keeps getting indicted. So then he got into the gold mines stock scam game. Remember the diamond hoaks.
I once told you the field was littered with gems.
Yeah, refer to your notes. The government didn't catch him on this one, but it was like similar, and he became a very wealthy man.
From it.
Oh really yeah, selling all these fake minds.
Yeah.
And then he goes back to Chicago. So he's got all this money, he buys a fourteen room apartment on the Gold Coast.
Smart.
Yeah swank, Hillary Swank was there. He was a long way from sweeping up here in Saint Louis, very far.
Yeah, or worrying about a safety in Poland. It's a long way.
Safety it's going concern, especially in nineteen twenty three and especially in the circles in which John Factor ran.
Is he kind of getting mobbed up at this point?
Well?
Yeah, is he in the Capone gang? Almost? Kind of?
Yeah, he is.
He gets there.
So he had an idea. He you know, he had done the stock scams before, kind of screwed up, got indicted. He has another idea. He's like, how about this time we'll do it in Europe?
Oh, good call.
Yeah.
They don't they even have police, they don't.
Know, they don't know how to read, they don't know how to write.
Yeah, come on the old world.
So he had it all worked out and he was sure that he could make a ton of money on this. Okay, he needed an investor.
Though, always always going to need a money.
He needs someone with money and no morals.
Ah.
I'm always looking for that myself.
He knew just the guy, your guy. In late nineteen twenty three, he made his move. He went to none other than your guy, Arnold the brain Rock, and I guess this.
I didn't want to ruin the timing of you what you were had to say, but I was like, who's going to be the investor. It's got to be the brain, the brain, the brain.
So, as you've mentioned, this is the criminal mastermind from New York who rigged the nineteen nineteen.
It's this point. Yeah, he's four years off of his greatest like poll.
Yeah yeah. Factor asks him for fifty thousand dollars as an initial cash investment for what he explained was a fool proof stock scam, and Rostein heard him out and bought it. She would He's like, okay, this sounds yeah. So early nineteen twenty four, Factor heads to London. Once there, he starts selling these like worthless penny stocks to chumps and he promised these fools seven to twelve percent return on their investments, and most places, you know, pay out one to two percent.
That's going to beat your five year lipper average.
Exactly exactly in the motor Trend car of the year Ward. So Factor he paid people out. At first, it was like any good Ponzi ski and the happy Yeah. They start telling their friends, They're like, get a load of may it's amazing. So Factor he starts working this. He pulls in one point five million dollars.
In that money in that money.
Wow, And then that was his cue to pull up stakes. Yeah, I got him out of here. He leaves town. He was sure that he wouldn't be arrested, though, because his clients were super rich, and some of them were even in the royal family, so they didn't want to make their idiocy public and be better saying thing.
Yeah.
So he's right that no one went to the cops.
He come across this often with a very very wealthy yeah, like all the other people know, I'm a mark.
I'm a Mark. It'll be embarrassing. I'll just write it off and will act like nothing.
I lost pocket change.
And no one went to the cops. He got away with it. So he heads back to the States and he cuts Rothstein.
And I've got to start fleecing the ultra wealthy. Elizabeth, what is this whole telling stories there. I don't know, should take the skills we've learned from this show.
Make me more than the lotto tickets?
I thought so.
Anyway, he cuts Rothstein in It's like, here's your share. The brain very happy.
That was easy. You got to pay off the brain.
Yeah. So the brain is so happy that he funds another round of phony stocks.
And that's rare. He doesn't usually like to be increasing your risk every time exactly.
So Factor headed over. He set up shop in this very expensive, very impressive joint on Grosner Square, and he.
Started very legit.
Oh yeah, it's a fancy office. He starts a stock brokerage firm called Tyler Wilson.
In company sounds completely legit, totally.
He tells his clients, I have a great opportunity for you. It's a stock called Triplex, which sounds like something now that someone would say, like anyway.
It sounds made up. Yeah, if you're and even now.
Yeah and so, But it was a real stock and it was trading at about, you know, American dollars four dollars a share.
Oh wow.
The Factor said that he would turn around and buy back the stock at six dollars a share, So they're going to make a fifty percent profit.
Buy it for I'll buy it back from you at six.
I don't get it.
People didn't ask why do you need this mediary?
I don't know. So the dupes are hooked though.
Sure I love stock, profit, not free money. Take it.
So he waits a bit and then he offer. He offers another stock, Edison Bell, at three dollars a share. As soon as he sells them to him, he's like, turn around, I want to buy him back.
At six the original stock.
Oh, the three dollars Edison Bell stock. He's like, oh, buy it back at six. I still, how do none of them think this is suspicious? This sounds fantastic. Okay, here's the thing. He was buying them back in word only, and he was selling them in word only. He never filed any paperwork, so they paid for the stocks that they never got and they're waiting for payments that are never processed. So he's like, give me, you know, give me three dollars. I'll buy you a share, and then
here and I'll sell you. Here's the paper to show that I sold you back. But all he's doing is collecting the three dollars never buying the stock. So factor he puts out the word that he has a line on two pretty much worthless stocks, Vulcan Mines and Rhodesian Border Minerals, both supposedly South African gold mining companies. So he like dances around the fact that the companies are about to blow up. He's like, I don't know, I'm just hearing these things. I don't want to say too much.
You know, huge profits might be on the way. So his caginess about it made the investors drool. They wanted in on it. And the stocks are going to like nothing like twenty pence. There's nothing stocks, So the investors come pouring in. Everyone is desperate to get a piece of this, and they're thrilled when they get paid out at two point fifty a share two dollars to fifty cents a share. But they get paid in land. You mean, well, they're getting deeds to plots of supposed.
Land on another Africa.
Yeah, okay, yeah, and there's Stokes. They're like, oh, look at me, I've got three acres in in Africa.
What tre Africa. Yeah.
Meanwhile, back at home, there was trouble for Rothstein. The most serious kind of trouble.
Oh he was murdered.
Oh yeah, like that's why that point five percent.
That's rough. Yeah, so that'll make a bad day for it. That's a big trouble right there.
So he gets killed over debts that he owed from a three day high stakes poker game. Oh right, he owed three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, which is almost six million today, but he wouldn't pay it because he said the game was fixed.
Yeah.
Yeah, So he was shot at Park Central Hotel died two days later in the hospital. As he's laying there dying, Rostein refuses to identify his killer. When the cops asked. He would only say, you stick to your trade. I'll stick to mine.
Yes, won't say a thing. I'm sorry, that's ball.
Yeah, so that's my point five percent here.
Okay.
So one of Rothstein's right hand men was a guy named Jack Legs Diamond. Oh, yes, Legs Diamond. When I was growing up, if my brother and I would be like dancing around, my grandma would say like, oh, look at you, Legs Diamond. I always thought leg Simon was a dancer and then I found out. Anyway, So Legs Diamond he had a lot to gain in the passing of Rothstein. It was hinted that, like he might have been involved in this.
You also have to wonder how does a man get the nickname Legs at that time as a mobster. You know, like he's probably super tall. I know, but Legs.
Everyone's like, I can't help but look at the stick exactly.
It's like gams hot gams. I would suspect that he may have known about it before so much.
Yeah, So either way, Legs figured that he was picking up a lot of Rothstein's revenue streams. You know, Rostein's gone here, I'll take them.
You know.
One of those was factors the same game, new name, Right, He's got factors London stock scam. So who's going to take that? Factor though, thought that since Rothstein was now dead, the whole operation was his because you know, like the rest of Rostein's crew really wasn't involved and the suff Yeah, so Legs reaches out to Factor and he tells him to pay yup.
He's like, look, I'm the new man.
Yeah, I'm the big boss. Now you pay me Legs diamonds. See, but Factor is like call me. Factor doesn't answer, Hey, call me doesn't doesn't call him, So Legs sets sail to England on a luxury liner to talk to Factor face to face. Factor won't meet with him, Yeah, won't meet with Legs Diamond. Instead, he closes up shop and runs off with eight million dollars.
Yeah, buddy, eight million back then.
Uh huh, eight million back then. When we come back, I'll Russia. I'll tell you how that goes for Jacob.
I bet it didn't go well. Hello Zaren, Hello Elizabeth.
When I left off, when I left you hanging Yes, Jake the barber on Factor. He was on the run from Leg's Diamond with eight million dollars burning a hole in his pocket.
And Legs, I mean he's tall, he's got, he's just.
It takes like three strides and he's walked like a city block. Factor. He left England and went somewhere logical, India, Monte Carlo. And he didn't just lilo there amongst the rest of the wealthy. He had to keep his head in the game, so he rigged the casino tables and he broke the casino bank. Well done you, Yeah, So he had to that heat. So in December of nineteen thirty he went down Mexico away.
Oh, yeah, to Mexico.
The sole purpose was to get to see a Dad Juarez and cross the border at El Paso.
Oh. He wasn't doing like the Trotsky to go see Mexico City.
He was like, I gotta get back home.
I got to get back. How do I sneak into America? Yeah?
Yeah, So he crosses the border and he writes out a sworn statement that he was born in England in Hull. To be exact, that was actually true. He was born had been born in England to a Polish family who later moved back to Poland. Right, Okay, so you know he's trying to avoid all this detection, but he's got to swear something when he comes in.
Now. Quick question. I'm not sure if you know this. If you're born in England, does that make you an English subject? I believe so, okay, I'm just wondering. I don't know how that law goes. Yeah, I don't know if we were a citizenship is a birthright? Clitaizenship is common?
Yeah, I don't know.
I know it's not common in a lot of places in Europe. I thought maybe England, who knows.
Who knows quite frankly, who cares. So here's the problem. Though, there was already a statement on file from nineteen oh five that his parents had signed when they immigrated over They said that he was a Russian national born in Poland.
They lied.
This opened a file on him and it didn't give him trouble right then, but it would in the future. So anyway, Factor knew that Legs was trying to like, he is going to try and keep finding him. He wasn't going to give up. He's he's leg Simon. So Factor goes to Chicago and he looks for help from the outfit.
Oh man, that's probably the best Icago. Yeah, go to the sum at the top and go, hey, can you ask protect me?
As it's called, so Murray the camel Humphries took him in in exchange for a cut of all the cash that Factor was carrying, and a couple of years later, Legs Diamond is killed and Factor considered his debt to Legs erased.
Of course, that's it's one to.
Collect it and whoever comes after Legs is like, I don't know about all these other things, you know.
Anyway, So it's like in Hollywood where like the when an executive leaves all those projects die with them.
Yes, yes, yes, so factor he comes out of hiding. It's finally safe. But he was immediately arrested and because the Brits had put out a warrant for receiving property that was fraudulently obtained. He was released on a fifty thousand dollars bond, but a judge ruled that he should be extradited to England. Why because the English are coming
after him, Like, you know, it's the British warrant. Here's the thing, Like, in the time that he was on the run, he had already been tried and convicted in absentia.
There, okay, then that changes.
He sentenced to twenty four years in prison, hard labor definite.
Yeah. Yeah.
So his lawyers said that he hadn't conned anyone at all, that there was no fraud. They said that the clients had in fact been given a little bit of land in South Africa's payment, and a federal judge agreed with this and overruled the extradition.
Oh there you go.
Yeah, So the Justice Department appealed this decision and it went to the Supreme Court.
What all the way up?
He and his lawyers used every delay tactic in the book, and something major happened. Zarin, Yes, closure out. I want you to picture it. It's midday on April eighteenth, nineteen thirty three, and you're a student at Northwestern University in Chicago. You've made lots of pals, and you love your studies, the books and paper and pencils and all that. You're standing outside the arch at the corner of Sheridan Road and Chicago Avenue. The wind is whipping, so you pull
your scarf tighter around your neck and face. You're supposed to meet your friend Jerome here and then head out to get a bite to eat. Cars rubble passed, and you adjust the strap on your book bag. You wish you'd warn a thicker sweater. Two students laugh and chat as they walk by. Otherwise the sidewalks are empty. You keep your eyes open for Jerome and his small round glasses. You spot him coming down the path from University Hall,
a sweet grin on his face. As he approaches you at the curb, a car comes screaming around the corner and peels to a stock right in front of you. Two thugs right out of the comics burst out of the back seat and grab Jerome on either side. His little looks fall to the ground. They shove a rag in his mouth and shuffle him toward the car. The driver stares at you and shakes his head. You weekly call out, you shouldn't do that. Do you know who his pop is? The car races off and too sits horn.
You're left alone on the sidewalk wondering if you should call the police or John Factor, Jerome's dad. Oh, Nat, Jerome Factor has just been kidnapped. There's a ransom five thousand dollars, which is one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars today. Two days after that, on what would have been the opening day of his hearing at the Supreme Court, another ransom note arrived, this one for fifty thousand, which is
one point two million today. The kidnappers said that they would send Jerome home in quote pieces if the ransom wasn't paid. And a couple of days after that, another ransom letter comes, this one for one hundred thousand, which is two point three million dollars. Wow, do they just keep amber better?
Answer?
Yeah. Detectives grabbed the guy who delivered the notes. He was questioned for less than an hour and then released. When he exited the station, reporters are everywhere. All the delivery man said to them was I can't talk to you guys. Murray Humphries told me to keep my mouth shut. So Factor assembled a crack team to find his son. So he's got Murray Humphries, you know, putting the kibosh on everything. The cops are running their investigation, and Factor
calls in men from the outfits. They set up shop in a suite at the Congress Hotel. And this is thirty three.
So Frank Nitty still alive. He's pretty much running it at this point.
Pretty much. And so they get this beautiful suite at the Congress Hotel in Chicago. The press we're calling it the Hoodlum Detective Agency, and the cops didn't trust this operation, so they raided it and they arrested the outfit guys, Murray Humphries, machine Gun, Jack mcgern, Wow, Sam golf bag Hunt, Tony Acardo, Oh wow, yeah, Frankie, Rio, Phil Deandria, and Rocco de Grazia.
Dude Anthony Orcardo would later do murder ink he comes.
He comes up, So all of them tell the same story. We're just working to get Jerome back. The cops didn't really have anything, so they booked them on vagrancy charges. You're just lounging about in the hotel room. Don't worry about it. Factor immediately posts their bail good. So, almost a week after the kidnapping, there's a break in the case. Jerome gets dropped off on the streets of Chicago.
Whoa, yeah, just like Frankie Junior to get out here you go.
Exactly, But no abalony divers. So six men were eventually arrested for Jerome's kidnapping, and three of them had ties to a kidnapping ring in Iowa, Iowa, Iowa kidnapping. Wowah, yeah, okay. So Jerome's mother identified two of the men. She said she'd seen them driving around the house like a few days before all this went down. Factor then told the press his story. Oh and this is popa Factor, not Jerome. John says, he's like, he worked really hard on this
to create dissension in the ranks of the kidnappers. So he pretended to receive the fifty thousand dollars ransom note they never sent it. In truth, he created it to make the kidnappers think someone else was going to try and take credit for their work, and that you know, maybe one or two kidnappers in the gang were trying to score the money out from under the rest of them. So the lead kidnappers to be like, well, wait, we didn't send that note. Now he's going to pay someone
fifty thousand dollars for this. So then he said he hired the Capone men and let them get busted so that the kidnappers would see it in the papers and get freaked out that the outfit was coming after them. They're not even really looking. They just put them on parade. And he also put out false word that the fifty thousand dollars on the streets. He puts out word that it had been paid, and then the boy gets released.
This is brilliant.
Yeah, so factors case again. He works it, but and it delays into delays, But finally the case is back on at the Supreme Court. They're like, they set a new date.
God of Supreme Well, he's doing it to kind of stop.
Well, I mean, this just happens. So all this happens right before the Supreme Court case, and then they reschedule sure, and it's coming up Jerome's Home, Safe and Sound Council for the British Crown, though they accused Factor of staging the kidnapping in order to avoid extradition to England.
Oh wow, oh no though.
June thirtieth, nineteen thirty three, kidnappers struck again.
Did they get this time?
Well, they're supposed kidnappers, and this time it was Factor himself.
Who got got to get the cheese. So Factor is.
Quote released twelve days after he goes missing. He walked up to two cops and he told them, I'm John Factor, Like okay, yeah, he said. He paid his abductors fifty thousand dollars in ransom money for his release. They just throw this fifty k around like that was like a million. And according to him, he paid it all in five and ten dollars bills, so.
It's just like duffel back stack of cash.
Newspaper wire reports said that Factor was returned quote in a serious condition, suffering from a nervous breakdown. So he said in a statement to police, quote they never harmed me, but they were pretty tough in their threats.
Once they put they looked.
A funny once they put machine guns against me, one and back, and another in front, and they said they were going to kill me. Another held a big pair of shears close to my face and let me feel them. They said they were going to cut my ears off, just like drags the scissors down. This cutting a little girl's neck is like cutting warm butter. I'm quoting Commando.
That's not what anyway. So the truth is that he and his lawyers had figured out that a kidnapping was a really good way to stall a trial.
Yeah apparently.
So there are conflicting reports as to whether Jerome's kidnapping was even real, but there's original, the original, but there's no doubt that his was staged. He and his lawyers knew that if they delayed the trial long enough with these various kidnappings, the statute of limitations would run out and the charges would be dropped. They just needed now, okay, so now they got to go back. Okay, Now we got to.
Frame something that you can keep going through parts of appeals.
No, but you know, I don't know who he's I'm.
Sorry, I'm not a simple though.
They need to They need to cause more confusion and delay. So instead of just saying well, we don't know who the kidnappers are that sucked. They're like, we know who it was, now we need a whole trial and I'm going to have to be a witness. So they need to frame someone for it. Murray Humphries. Uh, Rank Nitty Needy.
Frank Nitty, not a great guy, but a great mobster.
Yeah, he's the acting boss that now that Paul the Waiter Rica and another Chicago.
He's another legend.
Yeah he's he's Yeah, he's a crime boss. They all get together and they picked a stooge for the crime. They would pin it on Roger the Terrible too.
He oh, I don't know Roger the Terrible two.
Irish American mobster.
Two.
He had been a thorn in Capone's side. You know that he he ran all these liquor rackets and Capone wanted a piece of it, and and.
Like and he's a Chicago guy, not a Detroit guy.
Terrible to he he would yeah, he's a Chicago guy. He would kind of blow it up like he had all of these these associates and this huge operation. He would pretend to be on the phone with people like yeah, go ahead and kill him. And then when he was talking to Capone's guys, and these guys are naive. Oh my god, Like he's got like PHI, he's got like a kill squad out there. He's just talking to the dial tone.
Yeah he's doing that's a DJ.
Move and totally exactly. So Capone's side like the outfit. They want him gone. He's a big problem and this is a clean way to do it. So December fourth, nineteen thirty three, Factor lost his extradition case. The US Supreme Court held that he should be turned over to the British and he was taken into custody on April seventeenth, nineteen thirty four. His wife begged a federal district court to dismiss the extradition because he had been held for
longer than the two months permitted under US law. Everyone's looking for loopholes. The Secretary of State intervened and he asked the court to release Factor because he might be needed as a witness in the case against Tuohey.
Wow, he's dirty. He's Secretary's stayed dirty.
So the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals this is, I.
Guess what FDR's Secretary of State thirty three?
Yeah, he orders Factor released and extradition proceedings ended. There It is February twenty third, nineteen thirty four, two Hey and two gang members found guilty of kidnapping John Factor. I didn't, is it t o u h Y?
I imagine too. I don't know. It's an Irish name, so I could be totally wrong.
Yeah too, who knows.
I'm sorry.
If that's your name and I'm saying it wrong, Twey will say it is. He fought tirelessly to have his case reopened, but it was always denied. And even though there's more and more evidence that he's in his Yeah, just keep stacking. Oh, he totally did. Gen O'Connor was in prison with Tuey and served a life sentence for the He was serving a life sentence for the robbery and murder of a Chicago cop. He thought that his only option was to make a break for it, to escape,
and he convinces Touey that his fate is the same way. Wait, only way you're gonna get out of it. You gotta we gotta make a run for it.
Um so two.
He later said, I stayed awake until dawn and myself thinking I was without hope. I was buried alive in prison, and I would die there. I couldn't see a light ahead anywhere, nothing but darkness, loneliness, desperation. The world had forgotten me. After eight years, I was a nothing. Well, there was only one way I could focus public attention on my misery.
I could escape.
I would be caught, of course, but the break would show my terrible situation. What cock eyed thinking that was my mental attitude was a mess? I later came to realize, I'd yeah, I think so. He gets caught after a month on the run, and the stunt earned him an additional one hundred and ninety nine years on his sentence.
Oh god, yeah, that backfired.
But in nineteen fifty nine he writes a book about his false imprisonment.
You know how it goes, his stolen years, Okay.
And later that year he's exonerated and released from prison.
What's for the book? You say?
So good?
You got a book tour today, bro?
What was factor up to while? You know, jimmy bookmaker over here was writing books in prison.
Playing golf of Franknity. No hangout.
I hang out during these ads, and I'll tell you when we get back.
Nice zaren Yes, Elizabeth, did you finish your test?
Uh?
No, you beat me. You went again. You're first one, He.
Spun like spelling quizzes.
Yeah, during the break and you want problems?
Yeah anyway, Roger Toohey, he's doing time for a crime he didn't commit. John Factor, free from his extradition out on the town, never won to stray far from his criminal roots. He got involved in a large scale effort later known as the million dollar whiskey warehouse receipts scam.
That's sound probly helpful.
Yeah, Factor, He's started this Delaware corporation.
Called hasn't started corporation among us.
It's called United Bottling and Distributing.
I'm not even lying. I have started a.
Good for you whiskey receipts. So United Bottling and Distributing whisky. Do you know what whiskey warehouse receipts are?
No, go, please explain it.
I shall tell you. Whiskey warehouse receipts are a way to finance the liquor as it ages. So it's basically a marker stating that you have a product that will be worth something in X number of years. He convinced John Factor convinced owners of whiskey warehouse receipts to exchange them for bottling contracts, where United Bottling would hold the whiskey until it was properly aged, get it bottled and distributed, and then send the profits minus a service fee of course,
back to them. So the thing is there's no bottling plant and there's no distribution. It's all on paper. And as soon as they got the receipts they would turn around and sell them.
Okay, So like as a small market, people would hear about this really quickly. So it's like a.
Day you don't know whiskey receipt community. Most of the receipts holders lived in Iowa, oddly.
Enough, always with the Iowa it's interesting. Not just in cold Blood. No.
So when the Feds came calling, they indicted Factor and his minions in Cedar Rapids. Yes, and in nineteen forty two he was convicted for mail fraud and sentenced to ten years, got out in six. After that he moved to Los Angeles.
Good place for a con the big windy angel Baby.
Yeah, he set himself up well. He borrowed five thousand dollars and he started investing in real estate, which is a great.
Thing to do. Then, yeah, there's always the movie.
And then and then an old pal came calling. Oh no, you ever heard of Big Tuna? And I'm not talking about Andy's nickname for Jim on the office.
Oh okay, then Joe Batters. No, I don't think Bill Parcells aka Bill Parcells. Yes I do, thank you, producer, Dave. That is the only two Big Tuna I know.
Tonycardo.
Oh that's his nickname, is big Tuna. I've never heard that Big Tona. Yea, I've always heard as Anthony Accardo. I mean, like Andrew here. I heard people call him Tona. It's Anthony.
His friend called them Joey Batter's Big toun.
Joey Batters.
So Chicago mobster, part of the outfit. He rose through the ranks. He went from common street hood to day to day boss to.
Oh yeah, top dog like runner of the Summit.
Yes, in the fifties he was big into slot machines, vending machines, counterfeit liquor, and ran vegas.
They're the one whom they make.
Vegas right, that's the Chicago and get into that. Sorry, calm down, narcotic smuggling. I did that too, and so they got like you said, they go from Chicago to Vegas. They tried to muscle out the five families from New York who were in trying to establish in Vegas. They're making a ton of cash and so like, while the slot machines were bringing in dough, it would have been more if they had a whole casino. And casinos are popping up on the strip. Mom wants in, Big Tuna
wants in. Johnny Yes, bootlegger Tony Carnero aka Tony the Hat he also wanted in. He wanted to open his own casino in Las Vegas, the Star Dust, he'd call it.
The problem was.
The gaming license.
That's a tough one.
It is tough one. I hear. The Nevada Gaming Commission is tough.
Yeah. The cowboys are a little skeptical of outsiders.
So you can't get a gaming license if you have prior convictions or association criminal association.
Yeah, that's the big one for the mom.
Right. So Tony Cornero he couldn't get the gaming license, so he leased the casino to a small group of investors. The Gaming Commission wouldn't issue the license without a list of those investors. He didn't provide it. Construction gets stalled. The lease is eventually approved, but deals kept falling apart, and the place wasn't even open at this point, And eventually it winds up in receivership, and so buyers stepped up. They wanted to buy it. They're super eager to grab
this hot property in Vegas. It's about to be completed. The winning bid was put forward by none other than Relea Factor, wife of John whoa she helped. So she goes up there, she bids who helped pay the price tag of four point three million dollars, which is like forty six and a half million dollars today. Oh god, yeah, she's like, here's my bid, who helped her? Big tuna, Big tuna. So there's John Factor running a casino with the mob.
With Ado, with Anthony acarda like.
So the Factors, though, they're becoming a fixture, not in Vegas but in La. They lived at eleven eighty five Loma Linda Drive in Beverly Hills, which area a property that is actually currently for rent as of this recording. Of course I did. It's thirty two thousand dollars a month to rent this place. It's a lot more. It's okay. It's on a little more than half acre, looks out over the city of Angels in the ocean beyond. So
the Factors were living large. If you want to go look on Zillo, you can tour the home rabbit Hole. So at the John Factor he's still owning and running the casino and giving a taste or a very big bite to Acardo. But they were very generous in their philanthropy, John and his wife. In nineteen sixty John Factor was the largest individual donor to John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign with twenty thousand dollars. That's like two hundred thousand dollars today.
The Chicago outfit got John Kennedy.
So it's always good to buy.
In, Yes, exactly, get in on the ground floor of a presidency.
You'll see in nineteen sixty two, he sells the hotel and Casino, a very very profitable hotel and casino, for only fourteen million to another mob frontman Mode Dallits Oh and so yeah, in the seven years that he ran it, the casino brought in close to two hundred million dollars. And then he turns around and sells it for fourteen million. Yeah, so quite the deal.
Is Yeah.
So later that year someone darkened his doorway. Another mobster, I'm guessing close the Feds. So remember that whiskey warehouse receipt thing. He was convicted on multiple counts of mail fraud.
Did time mail fraud? It gets you every time.
And remember how I told you that the border guards in El Paso were told that he was born in England. Well, it seems since his whiskey scam conviction, immigration laws had changed. It used to be that in order to deport someone, they had to be convicted in at least two separate cases before deportation proceedings could move forward.
Just one.
The law changed. A person was now deportable if they got convicted of more than one count in a single case. Oh okay, thusly Factor could now be deported. Yes, so the same law had just been used to issue a deportation order for Frank Castello, boss of the Luciano bribe family. The government tried to strip his naturalized citizenship in the fifties but it didn't work out. But now they're going after John Factor.
So Factor and he's got twenty four years hanging over him. If this goes through exactly.
So he had recently been named Man of the Year by a local Jewish charitable organization. Of course, he goes and he tells the press he's outraged as the year it keeps coming up in all the news articles that, like, you know, he was named man of the year, and they don't name it. It's just a local Jewish charitable organization.
I don't know it's one that he started.
So this is what he tells the press quote, I just can't believe it. It's a horrible thing. This conviction happened twenty years ago. Since then, I've always cooperated with the government as far as I'm concerned. I believe I am just as good an American as anyone. I will fight this case all the way. What else can I do?
Play out there?
Remember Factor had friends in high places.
Oh yeah, and low ones.
Yeah. It was a US Attorney General, Robert Kennedy who put the wheels in motion to deport Factor.
Oh okay, yeah.
RFK was going hard on organized crime.
He was so wild about that. Elected He's like, I'm going to bite the hand that feeds me and go after anything else I can't, right.
Well, so what triggered the look at factor was the low sales price of the startup, of course, and RFK wanted to know who really owned the startup. And then a gaming commission, we're looking into the stardust in hope of capturing like hidden mafia ass.
Yeah.
So RFK had to be stopped in Factors estimation and the only the only help would come from his brother JFK.
Max Factor's brother. Oh wait, oh I got it.
Okay, go on, so remember Factors twenty thousand dollars donation to President Kennedy. It didn't stop there, I bet not. Here's what happens. A made man working for Chicago mob boss Sam g and Conna. He goes outside of the bar where they all hung out like their little club house, and.
Sam Zondher got him elected, got youa elected.
So this made man walks out and he walks up to an FBI surveillance tale parked across the street. It's like leans up against the car. And this is what agents later relayed. He said, quote this is their report. English is bemoaning the fact that the federal government is closing in on the organization and nothing can be done about it. He made several bad remarks about the Kennedy administration and pointed out that the Attorney General raising money
for the Cuba invaders makes Chicago syndicate look like amateurs. Wow, see here's what he's referring. This is his reference. RFK had been working the phones trying to drum up donations to help rescue Bay of Pigs survivors. Yes, and it wasn't just a kind request, it was mafia flavor. He would tell executives and rich guys, you know, hey, you know you have contracts waiting to be approved by a shakeman. Yeah, and you know, maybe you have a pending criminal case.
He just calls him a pay did you get you at the top.
Of the line. Doesn't keep you out of book?
No, not even that, Not this will do that. He just says, here's a fact, you have a contract that needs approval. And when they try and say something, he would cut him off and he'd say, you know, it's crazy, we have this fund to rescue the Cubans. He's never telling him, if you.
Do this, you can't say the tit for tap, but you say one, then you say that's the only things you say.
And then he'd hang up. That was it so total shakedown. Factor knew about this, and he knew that would be leverage, so he donated twenty five thousand dollars to this fund Bay of Pigs, and when asked by the press about it, he it's just because it's a cause I believe in Maria.
I'm good America.
Christmas Day in nineteen sixty two, John factors.
He's always busy on Christmas Day.
It's always busy, well, especially here he gets pardoned by President Kennedy.
Oh there you go. The Christmas Day pardon has completely.
Wiped his record put an immediate stop to the deportation order.
Hmm.
Factor said of the pardon, quote, I'm very surprised and grateful. I hope I have earned it. It's a wonderful Christmas present, and I believe justice has been done.
JFK said. And I leave Bobby Alow.
And what's weird is that it's like, you know, anyway, I'll get to this part. So not everyone is so happy. GOP national chairman William Miller says, quote, I think it is incumbent on the administration to assure the American people in no uncertain terms that the presidential pardon granted John factor is in no way connected with the fact that he and his wife were substantial contributors to the cause
of the Democratic Party. Our system of justice would be in great jeopardy if the day comes when persons of wealth can obtain leniency in such a manner.
Too many words, brouh.
I'm like, dude, are you new here? This is how it works.
And you got to say it faster than that. Even in the sixties you say it faster than that.
Of course, if you have money, you get out of there.
Yes, exactly, that's what happens. Anyway. I suspect this is an excessive use of dirty money, like say something like that. I don't know.
It wasn't my use of dirty money with someone else, exactly.
It is not how we used dirty money in this town.
What's crazy, though, is that RFK had actually changed the protocol for pardons right before this all happened. So well, okay, it used to be that the request went to the Department of Justice and then it went to the President and he swapped it.
I don't know why.
So requests had to go right to the top and then be sent to the dj to execute them.
Oh okay, so they just finalized the paperwork.
Yeah, and so the thing is, though, is it most usually like these would come in in a group of pardons and factors. It was like a solo submission. It was the only one. So, I mean it's pretty anyway. So the threat of deportation has gone away, and so did the investigation into the startist eight equals clean nice. He never walked away from criminal life completely. At one point he tried to bail out Jimmy Hoffa from financial troubles to Florida real.
Estate, really taking the wrong side on that one.
Yeah, he had another shady stock deal, this time with Murray Humphries's old mob. But for the most part he spent his sunset years as a philanthropist legit. And when you look at newspaper articles, like they'll reference they always reference the kidnapping, and then they are like veiled references to the shadiness and then sometimes they'll talk about mob connections, but very rarely in these newspaper articles at the time, and they just say he's a developer, he's a businessman,
so the legitimate businessman exactly. So he donated money to build all sorts of parks and buildings and like social efforts.
So he was money watching his.
Name, Yeah, all over California, but particularly in inner city underserved communities where he really like dumped money. So he died in nineteen eighty four. He was ninety one years old. His funeral was attended by three US senators and the mayor of Los Angeles. Yeah, what year eighty four? So Tom Bradley, Tom Bradley, and he's alongside hundreds of people who he'd helped through charitable donations over the years. Not bad for a poor kid from Poland.
Seriously, and to be the lesser factor, I mean, he's not Max exactly. He's still killing.
And a lot of accounts said that he died from a long undisclosed illness, but he was ninety one. That illness was life.
It finally got him, you know, I imagine like prostate cancer or something like that.
Anyway, so he yeah, he's a long way from Poland. Dang, Yeah, I loved What is your ridiculous takeaway.
That I did not know Anthony or Carter's nickname was beg Tona, Like, I mean, wow, Burnett, I'm really falling down in the game. I mean, I hope my father didn't hear this one man. No, that was great. I'd love that I did not know that Max Factor's brother was a mobster and that he was so connected to so many mobsters that I did love and I haven't learned about throughout my childhood. I mean, I've heard all these stories of these guys, never really heard about the lesser factor.
Well, I think something that I love, Thank you for asking. Uh here, his nickname is Jake the Barber total and he never kills anybody. Yeah, he's not violent, like.
Doesn't even bring blades into his stuff. Like he briefly worked as a barber, take.
The barber and he's just like, no, literally, I cut her.
Yeah, he's looking to work as like a garbage man or like a fishmonger. I mean that could have stuck with him, making Jake the fishmonger. That would have sucked.
That would suck.
That's it.
That's all I got. Thank you, flank Errol. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. There's merch there or soever.
I'm starting the Frank Nitty fan club there.
Yeah, they're like fan club. Packages's horrible. Maybe some like platform boots should sell platform boots.
I like that.
Yeah, we're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter Instagram about waiters Yeah, hip waiters walking into like deep panama hats. Yes, yeah, toe rings. Okay, we have an email address. Also, you can leave a talkback on the iHeart app.
So do that.
That's it, Bye bye. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Dave the Candlestick Maker. Kusten Research is by Marissa the bean Bag Brown and Andrea the Dustpan Song Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by Thomas the Salad Spinner Lee and Travis the bilge Pump.
Dutton.
Executive producers are Ben the Flat Tire Bowlin' and Noel the toilet Duck Brown.
Crime Say It One More Time Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts. My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.