1941

The man who played roulette in the Palace Club nearly every day for six months was noticeable for his suave appearance. Henry Helmut, age 47, had a bit of gray hair and sported a tasteful, waxed moustache, Pince Nez glasses with ribbon and sharp, tailored attire.

“He looked like a college professor out on a gay holiday and gambling club operators say he ‘was the most impressive piece of scenery’ they have had around in a long time,” reported the United Press (The Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, Dec. 7, 1941).

Eventful Work Shift

On Friday night, December 5, while Helmut was on the job, shilling for the Reno, Nevada casino, police officers arrested then turned him over to federal agents who’d flown in from San Francisco and New York. Helmut’s capture marked the end of a 1.5-year search for him that required 37,000 travel miles through the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Helmut was wanted on a secret indictment in New York for conspiracy against the United States with international ramifications, the feds said.

The name Henry Helmut was one of 40 different aliases — including Paul Laval, Dr. Hoffman and Martin Helmuth — the dapper man had used. His actual name was Helmuth Hartmann.

On a search of Hartmann’s Reno hotel room, police found an unloaded Mauser firearm, about $350 in bills in the lining of his suitcase, gold ore and letters written in German.

Was he a German spy? Was he a drug trafficker? Was he involved in a counterfeit ring? Was he a Nazi?

The feds wouldn’t say, but they extradited Hartmann to The Big Apple to face trial.

Filling In The Portrait

More information about Hartmann later came to light. He’d been born in Germany but since had obtained American citizenship. He was associated with a New York gang. In fact, Reno Detective Captain Harry Fletcher surmised that Hartmann had been casing the local casinos on behalf of his East Coast colleagues who wanted to get into the business. The gambling club booster’s lavish spending around town on a 50 cents-an-hour income made Fletcher suspicious.

Hartmann had been an international racketeer and swindler (stock and matrimonial cons, for example), and had served time in prison. He’d been an associate of 1) Victor “Count” Von Lustig (an alias), the U.S.-based mastermind of an extensive counterfeit operation that law enforcement dismantled in 1935 and 2) Miroslav Skrivanek, a widely known narcotics trafficker in Czechoslovakia.

Recent Unlawful Activity

Hartmann had been apprehended in Reno for his involvement in an extensive conspiracy to smuggle drugs from Mexico and distribute them in New York City. The specific charges against him were conspiring to import, distribute, conceal and transport narcotics.

He’d acted as the liaison between Mafiosi in East Harlem —the 107th Street Mob — and opiate sellers south of the United States border. In doing so, he’d arranged for New York mobsters — Frank Livorsi, Dominick “The Gap” Petrilli and Salvatore “Tom Mix” Santoro, all with long records of violent crimes, from rape to homicide — to obtain a continuous supply of narcotics from Mexico. He’d accompanied these dealers on a drug buy, at least once, in summer 1940.

“The boys now have enough money to buy all the narcotics you can find in Mexico,” Livorsi had told Hartmann. “Do a good job for us” (Advisory Committee, Feb. 16, 1946).

In Northern Nevada, officers also had discovered opiates, in sample-size quantities, in Hartmann’s belongings:

• 200 grains of heroin
• 41 grains of raw opium
• 133 grains of morphine hydrochloride

Punitive Consequences

Once in federal custody, Hartmann divulged what he knew about the narcotics operations and fingered numerous accomplices. This led to a second indictment, in which he also was named, in Arizona, the state through which the drugs entered the U.S.

Hartmann was found guilty in both the Arizona (May 1942) and New York (July 1942) trials. In each, he was given a suspended sentence of two years’ prison time, with probation.

Sources

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Pince Nez felts by Infrogmation of New Orleans

Roy Merrill, Maricopa County Sheriff, 1937-1938

1937-1938

Within a year of becoming the Maricopa County Attorney, John W. Corbin began work to expose the illegal gambling taking place in the Arizona region. He set his sights on busting the game operators and the public officials taking money to ignore their activities.

“Gambling houses have been running on a wide-open basis, and slot machines are being operated, unmolested, in some 700 to 1,000 spots in Maricopa County. Gambling interests pay an estimated $35,000 a month [cumulatively] to a score of persons for being ‘left alone,’” Corbin told the press (The Madera Tribune, Nov. 18, 1937). (That total amounts to about $597,000 today.)

Those allegedly accepting graft included three high-profile men in law enforcement: Sheriff Roy Merrill, Justice of the Peace Harry E. Westfall and Sheriff’s Deputy Porter Northroup.

To investigate and obtain evidence, County Attorney Corbin pretended, with public officials, that he was agreeable to and complicit in the gambler protection operation. He sought assistance from two men: George Ash, county attorney investigator, and John G. Handy, Los Angeles-based private investigator. Beginning in September 1937, Handy posed as a “John Wilson,” a middle man between the county attorney’s office and the gamblers (the game owners or operators); he was the person to contact and to pay.

Recording Of Transgressions

Handy met with and collected $3,000 ($51,000 today) from gamblers during October and November. All of the transactions were recorded via then cutting-edge equipment: a Dictaphone system that could capture audio through a wall and microphones. Handy initially worked out of a dwelling at 130 W. Adams Street in Phoenix but later moved his setup to a room in the 16-story Hotel Westward Ho at Central Avenue and Fillmore Street.

Also recorded was a conversation between Handy and Sheriff Merrill that occurred in the 1325½ W. Monroe Street apartment, Corbin having introduced Handy to Merrill as his contact. Merrill, who’d declared his anti-gambling stance during his 1936 campaign and after getting elected in ’37, discussed plans for collecting money from gamblers and named some potential targets who were slot machine operators. Merrill also said Deputy Northroup handled collecting throughout the county for the sheriff’s office.

Northroup was captured on tape telling Handy about having arranged with a specific gambling establishment owner a $1,000 a month payment to the sheriff’s office and suggested the county attorney’s office also collect the same amount.

“So dangerous did the probe become that Corbin, Wilmer, Ash and Mullen transcribed their evidence, had a number of copies made, and placed them for safekeeping in bank vaults in a number of cities between Phoenix and Chicago, it was learned,” reported the Arizona Republic (Nov. 19, 1937). (Mark Wilmer, county special prosecutor, and Ted Mullen, county investigator, also were involved in conducting the probe.)

Downtown Phoenix, Maricopa County, in the 1940s

Lawsuits, Trials, Outcomes

In November, County Attorney Corbin filed criminal complaints against 28 people, including Merrill, Westfall and Northroup, and arrests and raids were carried out. All were charged with the felonies of asking a bribe, offering a bribe and/or conspiracy to carry on gambling games.

The complaint against Judge Westfall alleged that he’d implored Corbin not to pursue criminal proceedings against the defendants who’d been operating lotteries and related devices.

By May of 1938, Corbin and Wilmer had prosecuted eight trials in the countywide gambling crackdown. Two of them were against Sheriff Merrill, who was acquitted both times. Four others resulted in hung juries. Defendants — gamblers — were found guilty in only two.

The following month, Corbin asked for and was granted dismissal of all but one of the remaining felony cases because his office believed the chance of any convictions, based on results to date, was “very remote,” he said (Arizona Republic, June 12, 1938). The charges against Justice Westfall and Sheriff’s Deputy Northroup were among those dropped.

“I want it understood I’m not quitting,” Corbin added. “I say the gambling and graft war will continue in spite of dismissal of the cases.”

Sources