Sergeant Stoker was an idealistic, no-nonsense, by-the-book vice squad officer, who believed that the LAPD was the finest police department in the world. However, in the spring and summer of 1949 his naivete earned him a crash course in realpolitik that not only toppled his beliefs in the efficacy of the system he'd come to rely on, but took away his job and security, permanently tarnished his good name, and left him tragically disillusioned about people and government. He died without ever being publicly vindicated.
Charles Stoker had joined LAPD in May of 1942, worked briefly in uniformed patrol, and was then transferred to administrative vice. Stoker was a smart, perceptive, and honest cop, surrounded by partners with their hands out, reaching for a crooked buck within a system that not only tolerated corruption but fostered it. Stoker kept his hands in his pockets, which was not an easy or a popular position to take in the plainclothes units, especially in vice, where money greased the skids for felons at all economic levels, particularly purveyors of illicit sex operations run by L.A.'s organized crime cartels. While it worried many of his partners that Stoker remained squeaky clean, they treated him as an oddity and were careful not to do or say anything around him that would force him to report any corrupt activity.
What those officers and the rest of LAPD did not know, however, was that Stoker was more than an honest cop: he was a crusader, for whom police work — and specifically LAPD police work — was above politics. His zeal for the job and the organization, coupled with a tenacious personality, quickly put him on a collision course with his corrupt superiors all the way up the chain of command to an assistant chief of police and his counterparts in city hall. Stoker's refusal to back down also made him a target of many of the top-echelon politicians in the mayor's and district attorney's offices.
Stoker's troubles began with the 1949 arrest of Hollywood vice queen Brenda Allen, whom newspapers referred to as 'Hollywood Madam' and 'the Queen of Hearts.' Allen ran a stable of 114 prostitutes and was paying off Hollywood vice officers as well as officers from the centralized Administrative Vice Unit, which conducted city-wide vice investigations. Hollywood Division needed to be paid off, as that was the division in which Allen lived and from which she based her operation. Brenda's monthly income generated plenty of juice for the policeman's fund and her friends at city hall. Corrupt police and city officials had come to rely on a steady stream of income from graft and payoffs.
In addition to Stoker's arrest of Allen, the newspapers revealed that LAPD had surreptitiously — and without a court order — listened in on telephone calls coming from gangster Mickey Cohen's Hollywood residence. So brazen was the LAPD command that in 1948 several officers experienced in audio electronics donned old clothing and, posing as construction workers, installed bugging devices at Cohen's home as it was being constructed. For over a year, LAPD officers maintained audio surveillance on Cohen's operations, tape-recording the comings and goings of his henchmen as well as many of his guests, which included state agents, police officers, and investigators and staff from the district attorney's office. After gathering a year's worth of covert 'intelligence, ' several enterprising LAPD vice officers in 1948 approached Cohen with a shakedown, demanding $20, 000 for some 'campaign contributions.' All of this would be revealed the following year, and that investigation threatened to topple the entire police department.
In May 1949, Stoker testified in secret before a grand jury to everything he had discovered about internal LAPD graft and corruption by high-ranking police officers. He blew the whistle, even though he had been told that it would ruin his career and probably the rest of his life. But he persisted. The newspapers picked up the scent of scandal, and for months he and the story made local headlines. Stoker's testimony resulted in indictments and perjury charges against then chief of police Clemence Horrall, his assistant chief Joe Reed, a lieutenant, and several sergeants. Many more were expected to follow, with the prospect that L.A.'s best-known gangster, Mickey Cohen, was rumored ready to talk to the 1949 grand jury. It was anticipated that Cohen would reveal high-level LAPD police corruption, as well as corruption within the ranks of the DA's office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which had a shared jurisdiction with the LAPD on Brenda Allen's bordello. Cohen's testimony would confirm all that Stoker had testified to and much more.
Cohen was persuaded to rethink his position about testifying. At 3:00 a.m. on the morning of July 20, 1949, he and his entourage — which included Neddie Herbert, a New York gangster and Cohen's number one man; state attorney general's investigator Harry Cooper, who had been assigned to bodyguard Cohen after rumors circulated of a planned assassination; newspaper columnist Florabel Muir; and actress Dee David — walked out the front door of Sherry's cocktail lounge onto Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sherry's, a notorious meeting place and hangout for local gangsters, was owned and operated by colorful retired New York detective Barney Ruditsky. As the group was saying its goodnights on the sidewalk in front of the bar, shotgun blasts were fired from across the street into the crowd. Cohen, Neddie Herbert, Harry Cooper, and Miss David were all hit. Agent Cooper and the actress, though seriously wounded, survived. Herbert died two days later. Though Cohen received only a minor wound to his right shoulder, it apparently affected his vocal cords. After the attempted hit, the usually forthcoming Cohen refused to make any statements relating to police corruption and provided no information or fuel for the grand jury investigation.
When Cohen backed down, anyone else who might have come forward fell silent as well. And with no one at a high level willing to corroborate the charges the outspoken Stoker had made, he stood alone. Now it was his turn to feel the heat. A policewoman, Stoker's former partner, was quickly brought forward to testify that she had been with him when he committed a burglary of an office building. She alleged he stole back a personal check he had written for some construction work. He was arrested, booked, and charged with a felony count of burglary. Fortunately, Stoker had an airtight alibi for the time the policewoman claimed she had been with him, and a jury speedily found him not guilty.
LAPD regrouped, charging Stoker with 'conduct unbecoming a police officer' and secondary allegations of insubordination. The former is an administrative charge so nebulous as to involve almost anything imaginable, a catch-all that permitted the department to get rid of anybody, anytime, for anything — for example, for driving your city car six blocks to your home to share a forty-five-minute lunch with your wife. 'Conduct unbecoming' was a ground for dismissal.
The hearing board, comprised of LAPD captains and above — the senior chair being held by Deputy Chief of Detectives Thad Brown — quickly convened, refusing to allow Stoker's case to be continued until after the burglary trial could be heard. The board found him guilty of administrative violations, and the case was then submitted to the newly appointed chief of police, W. A. Worton, who would decide the penalty, which could range anywhere from a one-day suspension in pay to termination. Chief Worton reviewed the case and immediately fired Stoker. After Stoker's acquittal on the false and perjured burglary charge in the criminal case, in which most jury members concluded he had been framed, Stoker attempted to be reappointed as a police officer, but his request was denied.
Immediately before he was fired, and three months prior to my father's arrest for incest, Sergeant Charles Stoker was subpoenaed by the sitting 1949 grand jury to testify about all aspects of police corruption that he had discovered while assigned as a Hollywood vice operator. His revelations included firsthand information that went beyond the Brenda Allen scandal and the wiretapping and attempted extortion of monies from gangster Mickey Cohen.
Sergeant Stoker's secret testimony, some of which was leaked to the press, also included his discovery of an abortion ring within the City of Los Angeles, run by medical doctors who were paying protection money to members of the LAPD Gangster Squad, the specialized unit within the Homicide Division.* Stoker learned that this ring of abortionists included only M.D.s; each member paid regular 'dues, ' which entitled him or her to operate
