meeting with the government’s lawyers, whisked to the offices of the attorneys for the defendants where they were questioned on what they had discussed with the FBI. William Frank was beside himself at the resistance Nucky was putting up. It’s best to let Special Agent Frank speak for himself:It now became perfectly clear the opposition was well-organized. It was not a case of individuals committing perjury, but the perjury was the result of a gigantic conspiracy and must have been planned by lawyers. Every day that the grand jury sat a group of lawyers hung around in the corridor of the Post Office Building ready to step in and defend anyone who was either cited for contempt or indicted. There is no question but that these lawyers were engaged by the organization and were not representing individual defendants. One Bondsman was always present, and always posted bond, no matter who was indicted.
As Frank learned, his battle with Nucky was only beginning.
The Austin Clark verdict was followed by several guilty pleas and convictions of minor defendants, all who refused to cooperate with the government. The first major trial hitting at the core of Nucky’s empire was that of the numbers bankers, totaling 14 defendants. They were charged with conspiracy to commit perjury and income tax evasion in connection with the numbers syndicate.
The government began its case on April 29, 1940, with high hopes of convicting all 14 defendants. In addition to the testimony of the agents, the prosecution was forced to use as witnesses employees of the defendants. These witnesses didn’t know enough to incriminate Nucky and weren’t making enough money to risk imprisonment. They gave the government the same statements they made to the grand jury; nevertheless, on cross-examination by the defense they answered “yes” to any leading question put to them. This destroyed the value of their testimony and the government had to rely on telephone records and statements made by the defendants to prove its case. But the jury wasn’t convinced, and after two days of deliberating the court declared a hopeless stalemate. William Frank and his agents weren’t about to quit and requested the U.S. Attorney’s office to move for a re-trial, which was scheduled in July.
Several weeks after the first trial, the judge who heard the case received a letter informing him one of the defense lawyers had bribed several jurors. While the agents were unable to prove a bribe had actually been paid, they later obtained convictions against several of the defendants and one of their lawyers for jury tampering. The lawyer was Isadore Worth, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney. Worth was convicted and disbarred the following year.
A second trial on conspiracy charges against the same 14 numbers bankers began on July 8, 1940. The government’s case went in much stronger than the first time and the prosecutors were certain of a conviction. Despite the prosecutors’ confidence, the defendants didn’t appear the least bit concerned. This time only two of them took the stand in their defense. Their lawyers put up little resistance, almost as if they were conceding the case. The agents, prosecutors, and judge were baffled when the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
William Frank feared his investigation was at an end and knew Nucky Johnson was behind the acquittal. Judge Biggs, who heard the trial, was troubled by the jury’s verdict and urged Frank to have his agents question the jurors. The result was startling. One of the jurors, Joseph Furhman, was a plant, some think, by friends of Nucky’s in the Federal Clerk’s office. He was personally acquainted with two of the defense lawyers, Carl Kisselman and Scott Cherchesky. Furhman’s brother was an attorney associated with Kisselman. It was common for Kisselman and Cherchesky to meet Furhman socially for lunch and to shoot pool together at the Walt Whitman Hotel in Camden. Neither Kisselman nor Cherchesky advised the court of their relationship with Furhman at the time the jury was selected.
Upon questioning the jurors, William Frank learned the prosecution never had a chance. From the first day of trial, Furhman ridiculed the government’s case to the jurors and mocked the judge and the prosecuting attorneys. When the deliberations began, the ballot was eight to four for conviction; however, Furhman was a strong personality and badgered the other eight jurors until he succeeded in getting them all to change their votes. The defendants were tried again—on the substantive crimes as opposed to conspiracy—in March 1941, but only after the panel of jurors had been carefully screened and lectured to by the court. This time there was a conviction.
With Austin Clark and several other defendants sitting in jail and a conviction of all 14 numbers bankers in hand, William Frank and his people turned on the pressure. Frank had the U.S. Attorney subpoena the convicted defendants before the grand jury and questioned them concerning the payment of protection money to Nucky. In response to their perjury, Frank threatened them with a second indictment and, if convicted, a second jail term. The pressure was more than they could handle. It wasn’t possible for all 14 to remain silent, and several of them agreed to testify in exchange for leniency on their sentences. A critical witness who came forward was Ralph Weloff, one of the partners in the numbers syndicate. Weloff admitted that from 1935 through 1940 he and others personally delivered to Nucky a minimum of $1,200 per week in protection money. That was all the agents needed. The government obtained a second indictment and pressed for trial on both of them, which was scheduled in July 1941.
The tampering with the first two juries to hear the trial of the numbers syndicate haunted William Frank and the prosecutors. Albert Marino, the judge who presided at Nucky’s trial, ordered a careful check of the entire jury panel to prevent any meddling by Johnson. Sure enough, several days before Nucky’s trial was scheduled to begin, the agents uncovered a third conspiracy to tamper with a jury.
In May 1941, Zendel Friedman, who was a partner in the nighttime numbers game, went to trial and was convicted of income tax evasion. One of the people from the group of prospective jurors for Nucky’s trial had sat on Friedman’s case. When questioned by the agents, this juror revealed that Zendel Friedman and Barney Marion had offered him a bribe. Two days later a second and a third juror gave statements that they too had been offered bribes and that one of the persons who made the offer was employed with the Atlantic County Sheriff’s office (Nucky’s brother, Alf, was sheriff). This person, Joseph Testa, admitted that Nucky’s bodyguard, Louie Kessel, had asked him to approach the juror.
The government assumed the publicity given to the other jury tampering matters would discourage Nucky’s people from trying it again, but they were wrong. The contempt citations, convictions, and jail sentences of the people involved in jury tampering hadn’t deterred Friedman at all. If Nucky went to such lengths to protect a single numbers racketeer, what would he do to save himself? With the trial only a week away, the prosecution was on the verge of panic.
On July 14, 1941, after 4? years of exhaustive work by William Frank and his team of investigators, Nucky’s case finally went to trial. The courtroom was standing room only and had a carnival atmosphere.
Nucky was a national phenomenon and lived up to his reputation, appearing the first day in a vanilla-colored suit, red carnation, and lavender tie, sporting a straw hat and brass-handled cane. His case received so much advance publicity that special press tables had to be set up in the courtroom to accommodate the more than 30 reporters from throughout the nation who attended the trial each day. Hawkers and vendors of all kinds set up shop outside the courthouse to make a buck off the crowds. Despite having the testimony of Corio on the railroad contract and Weloff on the protection money, the prosecutors were ill at ease as the trial began. In preparation for one of Nucky’s rumored defenses, the government summoned 125 persons prior to trial whom they believed the defense might call as witnesses to support Nucky’s alleged “political expenses.” Frank wanted to explain to them the meaning of perjury. Most of the people summoned never showed. Nucky posted one of his goons in the lobby of the Post Office Building where the agents had their office. Those witnesses who did show were told to go home.
Joseph Corio, who had resigned his judgeship, was the main witness in the first half of the government’s case.
