Reno, Nevada, 1940s

1945-1946

In the Bank Club, a co-proprietor of a local gambling saloon, Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, shot to death James Lannigan, a small-time thug, on October 30, 1944, an action for which he was acquitted.

In the Palace Club, bouncer Frank Richardson brutally assaulted Alfred E. Cushman on November 11, 1945, leading to a legal resolution in Cushman’s favor.

In the Town House, four employees, on July 9, 1946, bound and beat up Edwin X. Beisel, to whom the court also awarded damages.

“It is nothing out of the ordinary to have disturbances, petty quarrels and arguments in such establishments. The nature of the business invites such occurrences and in order that responsible order may be preserved it has long been the custom to employ ‘strong arm’ boys who can throw out the disturbing elements” noted the Reno Evening Gazette (Jan. 22, 1945).

The above and other high-profile crimes in Reno, Nevada casinos got some locals considering changes to the status quo of security in gambling houses, to solve in part what had become the “bouncer problem” (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 12, 1945).

Distinctive Attire Suggested

In 1945, a Washoe County grand jury recommended mandating that anyone policing in gambling clubs, saloons and the like wear a uniform or easily be identified while working. Later that year, Dr. Earl T. Martin of the Veterans of Foreign Affairs asked the city council to require bouncers to wear uniforms. He argued that patrolmen identified as such by their garb would have a psychological effect on guests, particularly current and former military members, and go a long way toward helping maintain order in gambling establishments. Although the councilmembers agreed to review Martin’s recommendation, nothing came of it. 

Police Officers V. Employees

In the following year, 1946, the third iteration of an ordinance on the issue was introduced at a Reno City Council meeting. It required that all gambling places with more than six game tables or other devices (excluding slot machines), have a uniformed Reno Police Department officer on the premises.

It required the gambling houses to pay the city clerk wages for these officers — $250 (about $3,200 today) per month per officer — and the city then in turn would pay the officers. The monthly salary was to graduate from $200 during their first year of service to $205 in their second and $215 subsequently.

The proposed ordinance also mandated that gambling licensees post a $10,000 ($129,000) bond, holding the city harmless from any liability from damages occurred during an incident involving a city police officer.

A Mysterious End

The council deferred action on the proposed ordinance at the subsequent meeting then didn’t act on it at the following two ones. The measure never even got to a vote.

“No reason for allowing the bill to die was ever mentioned in open meeting of the council,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (April 5, 1946).

Sources

1940s

1945-1946

Alfred E. Cushman entered the Palace Club, in uniform, shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 11, 1945. Prior to that, the recently discharged U.S. Army veteran participated in the Armistice Day parade in Northern Nevada. After the procession, he drank eight to 10 beers then shared three or four quarts of whiskey with five other people.

Violence Begets Injuries

An altercation took place inside the casino between Cushman and the bouncer, Frank Richardson. It ended with Richardson tossing Cushman out the back door into Douglas Alley and then allegedly kicking him several times when he tried to get up.

At the behest of Richardson, Reno police officers arrested Cushman and charged him with disturbing the peace. He was taken to Washoe General Hospital, where he received medical care for a scalp wound, fractured thumb, swollen eye, chest tenderness, and bruises and abrasions on his head, face and neck. The hospital bill, which he couldn’t pay, was $1,000 (about $14,000 today).

He was released from policy custody on bail of $50 ($670 today), paid by local veterans many of whom rallied around Cushman then and in the ensuing months. Reno Attorneys Ernest Brown and Ralph Morgali, also former military service members, provided legal services pro bono to Cushman, who’d served four years during World War II in places such as the Philippines and Japan.

Cushman

The Disparate Stories

At the trial, which began on November 17, Richardson, a Missoula, Montana man who’d been employed at the Palace Club for 11 months, testified that Cushman had instigated the trouble and had thrown the first blow.

He said he saw Cushman ask a pit boss for money “nastily” and when denied, harass the women in the cashier’s cage, as reported by the Reno Evening Gazette (Nov. 17, 1945). He told Cushman to leave them alone and “take a walk for your own good,” he recalled. Then Cushman went to grab money from a roulette table, so Richardson took him by the shoulder and instructed him to leave or risk a call to the military police. Cushman then hit Richardson in the face twice. “Then I knocked him down,” Richardson said, “and he grabbed my legs.” Richardson ejected Cushman from the club but didn’t touch him in the alley.

Cushman, who’d pleaded not guilty, told his version of what happened, which was that Richardson had attacked and beaten him ruthlessly for no reason.

Cushman relayed that he went into the Palace Club to ask a faro dealer for money for a meal, as in the past a pit boss had given him $0.50 when he’d asked. The dealer directed him to a boss who then referred him to another. That pit boss told him to wait by the cashier’s cage as he’d be right back. When Richardson instructed Cushman to leave the bosses alone, Cushman responded he just wanted a meal and was waiting for the man to return, he said.

Again, Richardson said to leave; Cushman reiterated he would wait. Richardson grabbed Cushman by the thumb and bent it backwards. Cushman then punched Richardson, and a scuffle ensued. Richardson hit Cushman in the neck, at which point the latter fell unconscious. He came to in the police car en route to the hospital. Cushman denied reaching for money on a game table or bothering anyone.

Police Judge Guy Watts found Cushman guilty of disturbing the peace and fined him $5 (about $70 today). The outcome demonstrated that city police officers were permitted to arrest and jail casino guests at the request of a bouncer.

I Will Not Go Quietly

Cushman took on the Palace Club. On November 23, he sued the club’s owners — Archie Sneed, Elmer West, Ernest “Ernie” J. Primm and Joseph Hall — and Richardson. The veteran sought $15,000 in damages for having been “beat, bruised and battered — in [a] cruel, inhuman, shameful manner,” in an assault that was “unprovoked, unnecessary and without just cause,” read the complaint (Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 24, 1945). It also noted Cushman hadn’t been able to defend himself in the casino due to his weakened condition brought on from his war service, and from the assault he’d suffered “heart and nervous injuries that diminished his ability to earn a living.

The next year, in mid-March, the trial of Cushman v. Palace Club Inc. took place. It was “one of the most widely-watched civil actions in Reno’s history,” the Reno Evening Gazette reported (March 27, 1946).

Deemed Punishable

After much verbal sparring on both sides, the presiding judge, A.J. Maestretti, ruled. First, he said this about the incident: “In the history of Nevada there are few parallels of the brutality used by Richardson in his treatment of the plaintiff. He did to a human being what an ordinary man would not do to a dog” (Nevada State Journal, March 27, 1946).

He ordered the defendants, Richardson and the club owners, to jointly pay Cushman $10,000 in damages ($128,500 today).

He castigated both Richardson for his actions and the owners for “tolerating conditions which would allow such a situation to exist.”

Not Quite Over

The five Palace Club men threatened to appeal the district court ruling unless Cushman accepted a smaller monetary settlement. Cushman refused.

The debtors filed a motion for a new trial, which if denied, meant an appeal could go straight to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Before the motion could be decided, however, both parties compromised. In court, on May 1, the Palace Club owners and Richardson handed $7,000 ($90,000 today) over to Cushman. That ended six months of litigation.

Sources

Officer Herbert “Burt” D. Long

1932

At about 4:30 on a Sunday morning, a drunk Bartley “Bart” J. Smithson was target practicing in the Palace Club, shooting at a spittoon and a silver dollar with a 0.38 Smith & Wesson Special. Bullets were flying, some lodging in the building’s rear wall.

Smithson was a well-known resident and the proprietor of this saloon-gambling house in the rural mining town of Ely, Nevada.

What The . . . ?

Nearby, Herbert “Burt” D. Long, on duty as the night officer and in the Northern Hotel’s lobby at the time, heard the shots. He walked down Aultman Street to the Palace Club, entered and noted a few patrons inside.

A conversation ensued between Long, 32, and Smithson, 48, something like this:

— “Bart, you can’t shoot like that in here. It’s against the law.”

— “Why not? There’s a steel door in the rear.”

— “That makes no difference. Give me your gun.”

— “What are you going to do with the gun?”

— “I’m going to give it to the district attorney. He’ll just give it back in the morning.”

— “Like hell he will.”

Long took the revolver away from Smithson and ejected the shells.

— “If there’s any more of this, I’ll have to throw you in [jail]. Don’t go after any more guns, Bart.”

When Long was on his way to the door to leave, Smithson darted behind the bar, grabbed a rifle, pumped a shell into the barrel and called Long’s name. When the officer turned, Smithson, only about four or five feet away, shot him. Long, hit in the heart, fell and quickly died.

Law And Order

The sheriff and marshal rushed to the crime scene after learning of the incident. They busted into the rooms above the saloon-casino and arrested Smithson, who surrendered willingly.

In jail, he was charged with first degree murder.

At his arraignment, he pleaded guilty and was held over for trial without bail.

The court proceedings began Feb. 29 and lasted four days. The prosecution asserted that Smithson’s shooting of Long was premeditated, that once Long had taken his gun, Smithson had decided to kill him.

The defense counsel argued that Smithson had acted in self-defense. He presented witnesses who testified that Long had been armed, had used abusive language and had threatened to hit Smithson over the head with a revolver.

The prosecution, however, established that Long hadn’t had a weapon.

The jury found Smithson guilty but directed the maximum punishment to be a life sentence. That’s what the judge gave him, to be served in the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

Smithson’s subsequent appeal for reduction of the verdict to manslaughter and a motion for a new trial were denied in the lower court.

Subsequently, he took the case to the Nevada Supreme Court. In trying for a new hearing, he argued two points: 1) The judge had omitted critical information in his instructions to the jury and 2) Officer Long had lacked the power to arrest Smithson for the misdemeanor of firing the pistol because he hadn’t witnessed it occur.

The jurists, however, refuted the latter claim, stating Long hadn’t needed to see the offense take place if his other senses (his hearing) had alerted him to it unmistakably. They denied Smithson’s request for a rehearing.

Smithson was released after serving 12 years and passed away while living with a brother in Mason Valley a dozen years later at age 73.

Sources

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

Bill Pechart, left, and Dave Kessel

1950-1953

During the 1950 federal hearings on organized crime, two Northern California gamblers — Walter “Big Bill” Melburn Pechart and David “Dave” Nathan Kessel — were uncooperative, according to the questioners.

They were Senators Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.), Charles Tobey (R-N.H.) and Alexander Wiley (R-Wisc.), congressmen who comprised the Kefauver Committee, or the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce. During its two-year probe, the group conducted inquiries in 14 major cities across the nation, during which more than 600 individuals testified.

In San Francisco, the committee subpoenaed Bill Pechart and Dave Kessel to testify because they were “big wheels” in illegal gambling along with bookmaking and slot machine enterprises in Contra Costa County, or the East Bay, as described in California Crime Commission reports.

During the 1930s and 1940s the partners owned and operated numerous illegal gambling clubs — including The Wagon Wheel, the 21, the Rancho San Pablo and the Hollywood — in the then-unincorporated area between El Cerrito and Richmond dubbed “No Man’s Land.” They also were former associates of Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer, co-owning at least one gambling house and allegedly bribing politicians to let them operate outside the law.

During those decades, California prohibited all types of gambling except draw poker (legalized in 1911) and horse racing (legalized in 1933).

One-Sided Sessions

At the start of questioning, Kessel, 56, read a statement indicating he wouldn’t answer questions because of potential self-incrimination. He claimed he’d written the verbiage but when asked the meaning of some of the included legal terms, he admitted his lawyer had penned it. Thus, the committee charged him with perjury. Subsequently, he answered nary a question, including whether or not he knew Pechart.

Kefauver described Kessel as “one of the most sinister characters” the committee had interviewed (Oakland Tribune, Nov. 22, 1950). “Very substantial charges as to his operations in Contra Costa County have been made by citizens of that area. He appears from these charges to be a nuisance and a very bad influence.”

Pechart, 57, responded to some queries but invoked his Fifth Amendment right on others, particularly those about the duo’s businesses, income and taxes.

Consequently, the committee cited both men for contempt of Congress, which the Senate subsequently officially affirmed. Kessel was indicted for refusing to answer 32 questions, Pechart for 38.

If convicted, each gambler faced a maximum of one year in prison plus a $1,000 fine for each question they refused to answer: $32,000 for Kessel, $38,000 for Pechart (about $328,000 and $389,000 today, respectively).

Ruling On Contempt

After having pleaded innocent in 1951, the two gamblers went to trial in January 1952.

They were acquitted.

“Taking the whole record and the setting and circumstances in which the questions were asked, there was a right to claim the privilege,” said Federal Judge Louis E. Goodman. Yes, Pechart and Kessel were engaged in illegal gambling and racketeering, but no one can be forced into being a witness against himself.

Goodman also found Senator Tobey to be hostile at times during questioning, which could’ve  contributed to Pechart and Kessel fearing possible prosecution based on any information they might’ve provided.

In one instance, Tobey had asked: “Why in hell didn’t you come clean? When we get through with you, you will wish you had” (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 31, 1952). Another time, the senator had said, “You realize the penalty of breaking faith with this committee. It means a prison sentence.”

“There can’t be the faintest doubt that there was a reality of danger,” Goodman said about the hearing atmosphere, which lacked “impartiality” (Reno Evening Gazette, Jan. 30, 1952).

Kefauver, however, stated there was “no possible excuse” for the gamblers, “two of the most contemptuous witnesses who appeared before our committee,” not having answered questions (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 31, 1952). “It is a great disappointment and very discouraging that they were acquitted of the contempt charge.”

How About Nevada?

Six months after winning their contempt case, Pechart and Kessel tried to enter gaming in Reno, when they applied for a gambling license to run the Palace Club. They claimed to have given up all of their Northern California clubs in 1950. The Nevada Tax Commission, which then granted such permits, denied the men one due to their criminal background.

Sources

Teletypewriters

1940-1941

In a series of raids in December 1940, Washoe County deputy sheriffs confiscated gambling-related paraphernalia from three Reno, Nevada locations:

1) Bank Club casino

2) Washoe Publishing Company (WPC) (room 311 in the Lyons Building)

3) Western News Company (WNC) (room 15 in the Fordonia Building).

The equipment taken included teletypewriters,* Teleflash** units, telephones, switch boxes, typewriters and a radio. Documents seized were racing forms and sheets, forms for recording wagers, client phone numbers and account records, and more.

Unlawful Business Segment

These three enterprises received and distributed horse racing information — entries, betting odds, parimutuel prices, results and the like — to western United States locales.

The problem was that bookmaking, pool selling (the selling or distribution of chances in a betting pool) and dissemination of horse race data were against Nevada law. All gross misdemeanors, each carried a penalty of a $500 to $1,000 fine ($9,000 to $18,000 today), imprisonment of one to six months or both. Betting on horse races held in Nevada, however, was legal.

Two information streams involving the Reno businesses occurred regularly:

1) Data from the East Coast were teletyped to the Bank Club, which then phoned them to the WPC. From there, they were forwarded to 900 bookmaking/pool selling places in Nevada, California and Washington.

2) Data from the West Coast were teletyped to the WNC, which passed them on to the Bank Club and Reno’s Palace Club. The flow then continued from the Bank Club as with the East Coast info.

Steps To Eradication

Washoe County District Attorney (D.A) Ernest S. Brown filed a charge of illegal distribution of horse racing info against Bank Club Inc. and eight people, including Jack Sullivan and Raymond J. Poncia.

Sullivan (né John D. Scarlett) was the Bank Club manager and co-owner with mobsters William “Bill/Curly” J. Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” C. McKay, who were serving time in the U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth in Kansas at the time for conspiracy and using the U.S. mail to perpetrate fraud. Poncia was the casino’s book operator. The other defendants were linked to the WPC and WNC.

Brown also had phone service to the three entities disconnected and ordered the Bank and Palace Clubs to cease bookmaking immediately due to it being a public nuisance. The gambling houses complied.

The D.A. clarified that the county’s efforts in this regard were to “‘clean up’ a condition which gave Reno a bad name throughout the West,” not to quell horse race wagering, reported the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 2, 1940).

Ultimately, Sullivan and Poncia were arrested but released on $1,000 bail ($18,000 today) apiece.

Gambling Law Revisions

Roughly a year later, in April 1941, the Nevada Legislature legalized both bookmaking and betting on horse races occurring outside of the state. Once that occurred, the Bank and Palace Clubs restarted their bookmaking operations. Distributing horse race information, however, remained illegal.

The Defendants’ Fate

Later in the month, a hearing took place on the demurrer and motion to dismiss the charges against Sullivan and Poncia filed by their attorneys, George B. Thatcher and William Forman. (A demurrer is a response in a court proceeding in which the defendant acknowledges the truth of the allegation but claims it isn’t sufficient as a cause of legal action.)

Before Judge Benjamin F. Curler Jr. in district court, Forman asserted:

• the facts didn’t constitute a public offense
• the alleged offense fell outside the jurisdiction of Nevada’s Second Judicial District Court
• the horse race info law was unconstitutional in that it encompassed a topic not in the title
• the same law interfered with the freedoms of speech and the press.

Brown countered all of the defense’s points. He requested the judge overrule the demurrer and a preliminary hearing scheduled. Forman then responded to Brown’s arguments.

Six days later, Curler delivered his ruling. He ordered the charge against the two men and Bank Club Inc. be dismissed and the bond they’d paid returned.

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* A teletypewriter, teletype for short, was a character printer connected to a telegraph. Teletype also was a brand of teletypewriter.

** Teleflash was the brand name for a system that provided radio-type broadcast programming to commercial entities via telephone lines versus airwaves.

Sources

1935

Avoiding darkness, they only emerged amid brightness, real or artificial. They congregated outside of every Reno, Nevada gambling club at the beginning of June, pestering the guests as they entered and exited. One night they even went so far as to invade the Palace Club casino.

They, Feltia annexa (Treitschske), or Feltia subterranea, or the granulated cutworm, infested the city by the millions!

Due to a short lifespan, they were expected to die (by natural causes, that is) within a week’s time.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Adult Feltia annexa by Donald Hobern