Island of the Damned (4 page)

Vincent
Coll and his Irish gang managed for some time to reap benefits from the pickings of some of Schultz’s businesses, while attempting to wipe out his key associates. One of their chief targets was Joe Rao, who by then had become a prominent Schultz lieutenant. In May 1931, Rao narrowly escaped death when a group of men drove their car past a Harlem restaurant where he was dining and opened fire. Although Rao escaped harm, two fellow diners were blasted to death and two bystanders were injured. Months later, on a hot July evening, Rao was standing in front of a social club on 107th Street when he noticed an open car cruising down the street towards him: inside three men were holding machine guns. As they drew close and took aim, Rao ducked and, though wounded, dashed around the corner out of range. However, a group of children playing outside their stifling tenement apartments, splashing in the cool waters of a fire hydrant spray, were not so lucky. In the onslaught of non-stop machine gun fire, five year old Michael Vengali was torn apart by sixty bullets and died in hospital. Four of his playmates were also hit, including his brother: all suffered critical injuries. A baby was shot in the back as he slept in his pram.

The
tragedy was the culmination of an exceptionally bloody year of ferocious, gun battles and contract killings. An unusually high number of innocent passers-by were often the victims. The July 1931 child shooting - dubbed “New York’s child massacre” by reporters - was condemned throughout the US, as the most ruthless crime in 20th century New York gang warfare. It was also one of those atrocities which, by generating continued press condemnation and public outrage, galvanised the city’s authorities, including politicians, social reformers and anti-crime organisations, into demanding a crackdown on organised crime. One such politician, the fiery Jewish-Italian Republican New York State senator, Fiorello La Guardia, launched a series of excoriating attacks on organised crime, while denouncing the failure of the New York authorities to tackle the problem. The massacre of the innocents would eventually prove to be a turning point in the public’s attitudes towards mob violence.

Vincent
Coll was widely believed to be behind the child massacre, and fifty New York detectives hired to hunt down the killer were ordered by the police commissioner to “bring back Vincent Coll, dead or alive”. The commissioner also issued his men with shoot to kill orders. “In the past six months, the police have killed sixteen gunmen racketeers and wounded six. This is not enough. Don’t be the last to draw. Pull first and give it to ‘em.” Despite one of the biggest manhunts in the city’s history, Coll remained at large, until two years later when he was gunned down, apparently by Schultz’s men, as he talked on the phone in a booth on 23rd Street.

Dutch
Schultz’s New York-wide influence also gave him a loud voice on Welfare Island, which, over the years, had seen a big turnover in prison inmates previously in his employ. And, because Joe Rao, who had served Schultz well, narrowly survived several assassination attempts by Schultz’s enemies, it followed that he expected to rely on Schultz’s continued support once he was sent to Welfare Island. Although, by January 1934, Schultz had been lying low for almost a year evading the Federal authorities who wanted him for income tax evasion, insiders knew he hadn’t gone far. There were reports that he was hiding in Upstate New York, sometimes returning under cover to his New York apartment, even running some of his operations from his friend Polly Adler’s brothel in a Manhattan apartment which Schultz had found for her. In her biography,
A
House
Is
Not
A
Home
, Adler confirmed that Schultz would frequently spend extended periods at her place, bringing with him such trusted lieutenants as Lulu Rosenkranz and his financial “fixer”, mathematical wizard Otto “Abadaba” Berman, so called because he regularly came up with complex mathematical combinations which ensured the odds were stacked against the majority of players who had taken out bets. So, even while on the lam, it was business as usual for Schultz. That included keeping tabs on how Rao’s rackets were doing in jail and making sure he received necessary protection from those with ultimate power, i.e Schultz’s own partner in crime, the most influential politician in Tammany Hall.

Chapter
Three - Business as Usual

In the days and weeks following their raid on Welfare Island, Austin MacCormick and David Marcus not only made it a priority to clean up the jail in every sense, but, as importantly, to determine the extent of the mob’s power in running their activities on the island. When MacCormick went on his second inspection round of the cells he was surprised to find himself being loudly cheered by over 1400 rank and file prisoners who had been slowly starving to death and subjected to inhuman conditions while the gangster elite lived in obscene luxury. Realising that these inequities were now at an end and that they were to receive ample and edible food, medical care and a clean-up of their cells, the inmates regarded MacCormick not as their foe but a friend: in the days following the raid, they were prepared to answer his questions and provide him with further information about the rackets.

On
the other hand, when David Marcus interrogated prison staff, he was appalled to discover that far from being regarded as a vicious, power-crazed thug, Rao was held to be a positive influence by some of the authorities. Although Deputy Warden Sheehan and his superior, Warden Joseph McCann, had been stripped of their duties and placed under arrest pending charges, they had to remain temporarily on the island to help investigators with interrogations and further searches. When Marcus questioned McCann about Rao’s activities, he was stunned to be told that Rao was “the most valuable prisoner” on the island, and “better than a deputy warden in preserving order.” As McCann saw it: “Joey Rao is an influence for good in here. He is most affable, tractable and sensible. Whenever trouble was brewing, I would call Rao in and talk the matter over with him, with the result that a short while later everything would be smoothed out”. In his role as gang chieftain, Rao, said McCann, was: “the intelligent one who smoothed out differences whenever there was trouble with his Italian mob, and the rival Irish gang headed by Cleary.”

Following
the raid, Rao and Cleary along with their teams, were placed in solitary confinement. When Marcus visited Rao in his cell, he was struck by the mobster’s low mood and unwillingness to talk. Previously jaunty and insouciant, to the point of cockiness, Rao now appeared exhausted and withdrawn, even depressed. Deciding to speak to him another day, Marcus instead questioned other inmates and keepers, determined to find out which figures of influence and power in New York City - over and above known underworld thugs - had masterminded the Welfare Island rackets. It didn’t take him long to discover that one so-called “higher up”, a prominent politician, was indeed regarded as the ultimate protector of the mob and their rackets, which included the provision of early paroles. The only problem was that no one would identify him.

None
of this came as any surprise to David Marcus. For several years he had heard allegations of a thriving business in the “sale” of early paroles for long term prisoners: now the evidence was emerging. Because of the surrounding publicity, the raid on Welfare Island was all of a sudden encouraging people with inside information to speak out. Reluctant whistle blowers, once too frightened about losing their jobs, were now given a green light. As the President of the New York Prison Association, Edward Cass, revealed to Marcus: “I have heard stories from time to time right here across my desk about money that was paid for early release on parole. The people came here and told me about it. In one instance, a man said he had paid $500 and he involved a member of the city judiciary.” Cass assured Marcus that these were not isolated cases: “Perhaps ten cases have been brought to my attention, but in none of them could I persuade the complainants to sign affidavits that would have enabled me to take action in the matter. They were afraid, in most cases, that something would happen to the man on the inside – that he might have to serve his maximum sentence.”

Another
frustrated whistle blower who broke his silence was Harry Schulman, a former research director for the New York State Crime Commission, who decided to call a press conference to disclose what he knew – and how long it had been going on. According to Schulman, the worst evils uncovered by the raid were already well established two years previously, when he too carried out a lengthy survey of conditions at the prison. The survey was made up of interviews Schulman and his team carried out with 1,000 prisoners. Although Schulman had issued a detailed report to the city authorities about the extent to which gangsters were in control of the jail, no action was taken. At the time of the survey, Schulman said that Joe Rao was already the recognised monarch of Welfare Island. “I personally saw Warden McCann spend a half-hour, on one of his busy days, getting a lot of lemons for Rao in order that Rao might have lemonade,” he told reporters. “The Rao group, in turn for the many favours conferred by the warden, always did the noble thing. When the warden returned from a vacation or from an absence due to illness, they would always decorate his office with flowers. Some of these flowers they grew in Rao’s private greenhouse on the island and some they bought on the outside. But the warden never came back without finding that evidence of their appreciation.”

Schulman
described other gross examples of the trafficking of favours: “I have been in Warden McCann’s office when Joe Rao came in, and seen the warden hand Rao a list containing the marks given to prisoners by the parole board, and ask Rao if they were satisfactory. Rao, in this instance, marched out with the list looking very sour and glum. The warden called after him: ‘Hey, what’s the idea of walking out with that?’ Rao came back with the list and pointed out that some of the men whom he had recommended for parole before Christmas would not get out until March. He was obviously dissatisfied.” In one case, said Schulman, a prisoner told him of a case where an inmate obtained an early release by having members of his family pay a relative of a member of the parole board at the rate of $100 for every month that was cut off his prison time. In another case, a former deputy commissioner of the Department of Correction – employed before Austin MacCormick and David Marcus were appointed – acted as a go-between for the New York City’s district leaders and certain members of the parole board.

Shulman
revealed that the four most important rackets in the prison controlled by Rao and Cleary’s groups, were the traffic in drugs, the trade in stolen food, the distribution of privileges and the sale of inmates’ clothing. “The man assigned to the ‘clothes box’, the place where newcomers shed their civilian garments, would pick out the best clothing and sell it. He would also confiscate anything of value he found in the pockets. Very often prisoners were released in the dead of winter with the thinnest of clothing because their own garments had been sold.” Schulman told reporters, adding that in contrast, Rao and Cleary had valets to press their clothes, polish their shoes, cook their food and wait on them hand and foot as if they were feudal barons. “The average prisoner on the island could recognise the gang leader and prison boss by the sharp crease in his trousers, his polished shoes, the good cigars he smoked and his general bandbox sleekness that bespoke the best of personal attention.”

When
it came to jobs on the island, these had to be purchased by prisoners. “Who got the money? I don’t know. I heard from inmates that men paid from $50 to several hundred dollars for graft jobs,” said Shulman. Gambling was conducted by the “captains” – gangsters who occupied strategic positions in the dormitories and wings of the prison blocks. “They got a ‘cut’ on every play and averaged about $15 a day in cash and in commodities such as cigarettes.” So complete was the gangsters’ control according to Schulman, that they installed their own wiring systems for radio and private telephones. “They used this telephone system to send warnings back to isolated blocks when guards or keepers were approaching.” Schulman also revealed that any orders made to the warden by officers from the headquarters of the Department of Correction were generally ignored. “But on the other hand, as far as I could determine, orders from outside politicians – district leaders and the like – were obeyed with alacrity. There were constant phone calls to the warden from outside. Every time the warden heard that a certain leader was on the wire, he would jump up as if he were shot from a catapult, and run to the phone booth. He took all those calls in the booth.” Schulman quoted a former deputy warden of the prison who had confessed to him: “I am often asked to do things that would make even a hardened prisoner blush.”

As
if on cue, several prominent establishment figures also went public about the longstanding situation on Welfare Island. Joseph Fishman, a respected former deputy commissioner of the Department of Correction, noted for unsuccessfully attempting to reform the prison service, declared that undermanned prison staff had little option but to delegate authority to certain prisoners, relying on them to keep order. “Curiously enough, the worst class of prisoners wields the influence. Men like Rao, bad as they are, have to be used to a certain extent. There should however be a demarcation line, so the prisoner will understand that he is still a prisoner,” said Fishman, who had written an article revealing the full extent of the illegal activities on Welfare Island, published two weeks after the raid in the February 1934 issue of
Vanity
Fair
. Former U.S Attorney George Medalie, for whom David Marcus had previously worked as an assistant, claimed publicly that outside corruption lay at the root of the current crisis: “A major contributing cause to what occurred on Welfare Island was politics. I know from an investigation I made last October, with the connivance of the warden and his assistants, of eminent politicians who used to go to visit prisoners without ever having been recorded. Why did they go there and what was their influence with the warden?”

Further
damning evidence emerged from an unexpected inside source. A Texas newspaper,
The
San
Antonio
Light
, ran a series of sensational articles by a former New York journalist, Joseph Clark, who had been sent to the workhouse on Welfare Island five years earlier for failing to pay support to his wife and children because he had fallen on hard times.

“In
1929 I served four months in the workhouse of the prison. Let me tell you, it wasn’t bad. I lived like a king. I saw and did things on Welfare Island that sound like an opium smoker’s wildest dreams,” wrote Clark in his first report. “I went to steak parties in fancily decorated cells where big shot gangsters lived with all the comforts of a high class hotel. I was the pal of Jimmy the Wop, the convict boss of the workhouse who threw a party every night - and cursed some keepers as if they were slaves.”

A
shocking aspect of Clark’s reports is the amount of inhumanity he witnessed among prison staff. “I saw ten prisoners kick another convict into insensibility while a guard stood idly by. I saw six men try to kill themselves by jumping off tiers or slashing their wrists with jagged knives made out of tin scrap. I have seen drunken men reel about a cell block, watched drug addicts hop about the premises, crazy with the white stuff as all prisoners call cocaine. Guards saw all of this. They never did a thing.”

Clark also admitted, sexual relations between male and female prisoners, including his own relationship with “the most beautiful brunette I have ever seen”, were commonplace while staff turned a blind eye. Nor was there any need to smuggle in booze or drugs Clark explained, because “civilian employees trafficked in booze. Drugs were sold as openly as coffee or tea in a cafeteria. I know that if I was a junkie I could have bought dope more easily on Welfare Island than I could in New York.” Lies and theft seem to have been the order of the day. While working as a bricklayer to build a garage on another part of the island, when the labourers ran out of bricks and cement, the guards ordered Clark to steal a new supply from another building site: the stolen bricks and cement were then paid for by another department. Because many construction workers were alcoholics, bootleggers were attached to the teams to peddle alcohol to addicts throughout the working day. Meanwhile, big shot prisoners lived an easy life said Clark: “Maxie Klein, a big tough ex-pug from the East Side, seemed to be the white haired boy of this end of the prison. Maxie spent all his time lying in the grass in the sun. He was called “the butcher” because he had access to the kitchen and made a good living peddling steaks to other prisoners.”

In
subsequent articles, Clark described serving a second term in 1930 at the institution he described as “New York’s Devil’s Island”. “But this time I was a ‘trustie’..…an OK guy, a big shot, a pampered prisoner who ate and drank the best. I had the best job on the island for six months. I was chief clerk of the recently opened men’s ward in the correction hospital. I lived as we prisoners believed the ‘rich guys’ lived in the apartments across the East River in Manhattan. I quickly got wise to the angles and before long I was either drunk, or half drunk, all the time. I’m not kidding when I say that I saw more drunken men on Welfare Island than I ever did on Broadway which I once covered for police news for a New York newspaper. It was nothing to go wandering around the prison and get invited in for a ‘snifter’ or two by a couple of convicts who had a party in their cells. And some of these guys had the best liquor money could buy. It was brought into the prison by keepers or prison employees.”

Clark’s
experiences suggest that Joey Rao was not the first “overlord” of Welfare Island. “Jimmy the Wop was a tough geezer from the East Side. He looked as handsomely evil as any mobsters in the movies. Jimmy was boss of his dormitory and ruled his section of the workhouse with an iron hand. I saw him arouse and heckle keepers and slug prisoners who dared to disobey his commands .….it was common knowledge that he was the chief drug peddler. It was against prison rules to have money on your person but I saw him with as high as $500 in his possession. His nook in the dormitory was pretty classy. He had a dresser, a mirror and many other comforts. I am not exaggerating when I say he gave a party nearly every night. Steaks – booze – singing. No one ever stopped him.”