An innocent man was placed in law enforcement’s crosshairs in late 1930s Los Angeles for a heinous crime … the frame-up stuck.

George “Les” Bruneman

Caught Unawares

While strolling on Southern California’s Redondo Beach Strand, or boardwalk, with a female employee on a July Monday night after dinner with friends, George “Les” Bruneman, 40, was shot in the back. The bullet, which entered his left shoulder, pierced a lung and entered his abdomen. He survived but spent months in the hospital.

“I’m living on borrowed time,” Bruneman told a detective lieutenant. “I’ve got about six weeks more. They’ll get me the next time. They won’t send the same pair, though. They’ll send experts after me the next time” (Oakland Tribune, Oct. 25, 1937).

Bruneman owned/operated the Surf Club gambling house in Redondo Beach and had many horse racing bookmaking establishments throughout that Los Angeles County beach area.

In Cold Blood

Six weeks after his release from the hospital, on October 25, while drinking with friends in Los Angeles’ Roost Café in the wee hours, Bruneman was executed, sustaining four shots from a distance followed by six more at close range. An innocent bystander, Frank A. Greuzard, ran after the killers, but they fatally gunned him down, too.

Police theorized that Bruneman’s murder was related to a gambling feud of some sort, perhaps even rivals wanting his territory for themselves.

Pete Pianezzi, 1981

Seeking A Suspect

While various persons of interest were questioned and released, an informant led police to Peter “Pete” Attillio Pianezzi, an ex-convict from San Francisco, California with bank robbery charges pending against him. He was arrested for the murders of Bruneman and Greuzard.

Pianezzi went on trial for the killings in February 1940, when he was 38. In court, one of the owners and the bartender of the Roost Café identified him as being the shooter. The prosecutor went for the death penalty, but the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict.

In Pianezzi’s second trial, which ended two months later, the panel of his peers convicted him of first degree murder, and the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment at Folsom State Prison.

Around the same time, he was found guilty on three counts of first degree robbery netting $17,000 in bank holdings. For those, he was given three life sentences. All four periods were to be served concurrently.

Long Overdue Exoneration

Pianezzi served 13 years, getting released in May 1953. For the next several decades, he worked to clear his name with respect to the murders and always maintained his innocence regarding them. He especially wanted his wife Frances to see him cleared, but it didn’t happen by the time she passed away.

“I’ve been pretty upset and depressed,” Pianezzi said. “I wanted her to see it. But even if she’s not around, I’m going to hang in there. I didn’t commit the murders, and that’s it” (Folsom Telegraph, June 26, 1981).

In 1966, California Governor Edmond “Pat” G. Brown, offered Pianezzi a pardon on the grounds that he’d been rehabilitated. He turned it down though because he wanted exoneration based on his innocence.

Fifteen years later, in 1981, Brown’s son, California Governor Gerald “Jerry” Brown pardoned Pianezzi, then age 79 and retired from a job distributing newspapers in Mill Valley.

Moceri on left, Bompensiero

Later Revealed

Roughly four decades after Bruneman and Greuzard’s murders, the identity of the actual killers and the motive for the crime supposedly came to light. Two hitmen, members of the Los Angeles Mafia — Leonard “Leo/Lips” C. Moceri and Frank Bompensiero — committed the murders, according to Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno, one of their cohorts who became an FBI informant. Jack Dragna, head of that crime family, ordered the hit, he said. (Moceri and Bompensiero had died, by murder, before Pianezzi’s pardon, the former in 1976, the latter in 1977.)

What allegedly led up to the hit on Bruneman was a dispute between him and Johnny Rosselli, whom the Chicago Outfit had dispatched to Los Angeles to protect Nationwide, the only horse racing wire service provided in California at the time. Bruneman had been bootlegging the service. A rumor swirled that Bruneman wanted to take out Rosselli, then a respected member of the Dragna crime family. When Dragna heard it, he acted pre-emptively.

According to Fratianno, Moceri had described to him years earlier how the assassination had gone down and the fallout, concluding with: “Want to hear the payoff? The cops arrested some dago, Pete Pianezzi, and believe it or not, the son of a bitch was convicted and he’s still serving time on that murder rap. It’s a bum beef.”

Sources

Photo of Bruneman: from the Oakland Tribune, Oct. 25, 1937, by the Associated Press
Photo of Pianezzi: from the Arizona Republic, June 25, 1981, by the Associated Press

Commercial Row, Reno, Nevada, early 1900s; the Palace is at the block’s far end

1924-1932

The story of the estate of a long-ago Nevada gambler after his passing is strange and unfortunate.

John Quinn was a man who’d lost and made large fortunes in gambling and mining stock deals throughout The Silver State and other parts of the West.

He’d opened the first saloon-gambling house in the mining town of Taylor in the 1870s, for one. He’d been a partner in Nolan, May & Quinn, “which conducted the most liberally patronized gambling institution that ever graced Reno’s palmiest days” — the Palace casino at Commercial Row and Center Street between 1906 and the year the state had outlawed gambling, 1910 (Nevada State Journal, June 8, 1924).

“The Palace was one of the last of the celebrated western gambling halls, elaborately fitted and equipped with gorgeous chandeliers, mirrors, a mahogany bar, and an excellent assortment of money makers in the form of roulette wheels, faro banks, craps and card tables,” recalled the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 2, 1926).

Question Of Heirs

1924

John died of pneumonia at 85 years old in June in Needles, California, where he’d lived the previous 14 years. He left behind substantial assets —about $100,000 worth in California ($1.4 million today) and $33,000 worth in Nevada ($470,500 today).

John wasn’t thought to have any relatives, but a San Francisco-based attorney, Charles L. McEnerney, through an heir-hunting firm, found at least a son and five grandchildren residing in The Golden State. Although the gambler always had represented himself as unmarried, he’d abandoned his wife and children in Illinois decades earlier. In October of that year, McEnerney was appointed the administrator of John’s estate.

Suspicious Behaviors

1926

McEnerney failed to appear at a subsequent routine hearing concerning the California estate. Soon after, it was discovered that all but $437 of the $100,000 had disappeared. All parties involved suspected the administrator had misappropriated it.

An investigation revealed that McEnerney, in his past, had served time at San Quentin State Prison for burglary and previously in the 1890s, had pocketed $600 from the Vallejo post office where he’d worked.

When faced with fraud charges over the missing Quinn money, McEnerney pleaded insanity and was hospitalized at Agnews State Mental Hospital in California for an indefinite period. One of John’s grandsons, Eugene Quinn, was granted control of John’s estate.

A probe of John’s Nevada holdings began as well after Eugene learned 20,000 shares of the Palace property had been sold but no transaction record filed. That query brought to light that the $33,000 also had been depleted, by about $23,000. The theory was McEnerney had stolen those monies, too.

Taking Responsibility?

1928

In March 1928, McEnerney was released from the institution and immediately arrested on grand theft charges in California.

1930

In late spring, the since-disbarred attorney asked the court to return him to sane status; it was granted. Five months later, his trial for embezzlement of John’s California estate began in the City by the Bay. 

He was convicted only of stealing $8,000 from the Quinn estate and sentenced to 1 to 10 years at Folsom State Prison for grand theft.

Recouping Where Possible

1932

After several legal maneuvers, Eugene, with the court’s approval, sued the United States Fidelity Company for $23,000 misappropriated from John’s Nevada estate because the insurer had provided $35,000 of surety for McEnerney during his stint as its administrator.

The bond company argued the court-appointed attorney-investigator’s accounting was faulty and the Nevada court had lacked jurisdiction in ordering the financial reconstruction.

Eventually, the two parties agreed to a compromise. United States Fidelity would pay $12,500 ($222,500 today) — roughly the difference between the bond figure and the stolen amount — to John’s estate.

With that amount being all, the Quinn heirs received only 10 percent of John’s wealth; the other 90 percent was gone, with no explanation.

Sources

Photo from the University of Nevada, Reno Library’s Special Collections