by Bruno, Joe
Soon, Howe recognized the brilliance of Hummel's mind, and he directed Hummel to start reading case reports. Howe called Hummel “Little Abey,” and Howe repeatedly told his associates how smart his “Little Abey” was.
Yet, instead of Howe being jealous of Hummel's superior intellect, Howe felt that Hummel's abilities were the perfect complement to Howe's brilliant courtroom histrionics. As a result, in 1870, Howe brought Hummel in as a full partner. At the time, Hummel was barely 20 years old and Howe was 21 years older.
With his reputation of being a sly fox before the jury, Howe handled all the criminal cases, while Hummel was the man behind the scenes, ingeniously figuring out loopholes in the law, which were described by Richard Rovere in his book Howe and Hummel, as “loopholes large enough for convicted murderers to walk through standing up.”
Howe was known for his dramatics in the courtroom and was said to be able to conjure up a crying spell whenever he felt it was necessary. Other criminal attorneys said these crying spells were instigated by Howe sniffing into a handkerchief filled with onions, which he conveniently had stuffed into his coat pockets. Howe's courtroom melodrama was so pronounced, he once gave a complete two-hour summation to the jury on his knees.
Howe's and Hummel's names were constantly in the newspapers. And considering their ingenuity in getting off the worst criminals, they were mostly front-page news. Whereas, in the newspapers Howe was called “Howe the Lawyer,” Hummel was always referred to as “Little Abe.” There were rumors that the two shyster lawyers had several newspapermen in their back pockets, and there was more than a little evidence to prove that to be true.
Howe's and Hummel's clients were as diverse as President Harrison, Queen Victoria, heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan, John Allen (called by the newspapers, “The Most Wicked Man in New York City”), P. T. Barnum, actor Edwin Booth, restaurateur Tony Pastor, actor John Barrymore, belly dancer Little Egypt, and singer and actress Lillian Russell. They also represented such murderers as Danny Driscoll, the ringleader of the street gang “The Whyos,” and Ella Nelson.
Howe's histrionics before the jury in Ms. Nelson's trial was so effective, he got the jury to believe that Ms. Nelson, who was on trial for shooting her married lover to death, had her finger slip on the trigger, not once, but four consecutive times.
Hey, accidents happen.
However, probably the most outrageous defense Howe had ever perpetrated in the courtroom was in the trial of Edward Unger. Unger had confessed he had killed a lodger in his home, cut up the body, thrown parts of the body into the East River, and then mailed the rest of the body in a box to Baltimore. Howe had the courtroom, including the judge, jurors, district attorney, and the assembled press aghast when he announced that Unger was not the murderer at all. But rather the true murderer was Unger's seven-year-old daughter, who at the time was sitting on Unger's lap in the courtroom. Howe, crocodile tears flowing down his chubby cheeks (onioned handkerchief?), said that Unger felt he had no choice but to dispose of the body to protect his poor little girl, who had committed the crime in the heat of passion. As a result, Unger was found innocent of murder, but convicted on a manslaughter charge instead.
Unger's little girl was never charged.
At the peak of their business, Howe and Hummel represented and received large retainers from most of the criminals in New York City. These criminals included murderers, thieves, brothel owners, and abortionists. In 1884, 74 madams were arrested in what was called a “purity drive.” All 74 madams were represented by Howe and Hummel.
Lawyer and legal crime writer Arthur Train claimed that Howe and Hummel were, during their time, the masterminds of organized crime in New York City. Train said Howe and Hummel trained their clients in the commission of crimes, and if their clients got caught doing these crimes, Howe and Hummel promised to represent them, at their standard high fees, of course.
In the case of Marm Mandelbaum, the most proficient fence of her time, Howe and Hummel were able to post bond for her while she was awaiting trial, using several properties Marm owned as collateral. Marm immediately jumped bail and settled in Canada. When the government tried to seize Marm's properties, they were aghast to discover that the properties had already been transferred to her daughter, by way of backdated checks, a scheme certainly devised by Abe Hummel, but a crime which could never be proven.
During the mad 1870's-80's, when the city was in the death grip of numerous street gangs, including the vicious Whyos, Howe and Hummel represented 23 out of the 25 prisoners awaiting trial for murder in the Tombs Prison.
One of these murderers was Whyos leader “Dandy” Johnny Dolan, who was imprisoned for killing a shopkeeper and robbing his store. Dolan had invented an item he called, “an eye gouger.” After he had killed the shopkeeper, a Mr. Noe, Dolan gouged out both of Noe's eyes and kept them as trophies to show his pals. When Dolan was arrested a few days later, Noe's eyes were found in the pockets of Dolan's jacket.
Even the great William Howe could not prevent Dolan from being hung in the Tombs Prison, on April 21, 1876.
However, before Dolan was executed, he escaped from The Tombs Prison by beating up a guard. After his breakout, Dolan dashed across the street to the law offices of Howe and Hummel. The police, following a trail of Dolan's blood, found Dolan hiding in a closet in a back office of Howe and Hummel. Of course, both Howe and Hummel denied any knowledge of how Dolan wound up in their closet, but the police were sure Howe and Hummel were in some way involved in Dolan's escape. However, since there was no concrete evidence, and also because Dolan dummied up under police questioning, Howe and Hummel were never charged.
While Howe was an expert in criminal cases, Hummel was the mastermind in “breach of promise” cases; some of which Hummel developed himself. Hummel's methods as a divorce lawyer and as a petty blackmailer were an open secret in New York City. Whenever Lillian Russell needed a divorce, and that was often (she was married four times), it was “Little Abey” who came to her rescue.
No doubt, Hummel's blackmailing/breach-of-promise schemes were a thing of beauty; as long as you weren't the rich sap whom Hummel was scamming. It was estimated between 1885 and 1905, Hummel handled two to five hundred breach-of-promise suits. Amazingly, Hummel was so good at his job, just the threat of him bringing a breach-of-promise case to court was enough for the rich gentleman, or more correctly, the rich gentleman's lawyer, to bargain with Hummel over the price of the settlement, behind closed doors, of course, at 89 Centre Street. Because of Hummel's discretion, not one of the victims' names was ever made public, or entered into any court record.
However, Abe Hummel wasn't a man to sit idly by and wait for “breach-of-promises” cases to fall into his lap. When things got a little slow, Hummel sent two of his employees, Lewis Allen and Abraham Kaffenberg (Hummel's nephew), to walk along Broadway and the Bowery looking for potential female customers, who had been wronged in the past and didn't realize they could make a bundle as a result of a past dalliance. Allen and Kaffenberg would explain to young actresses, chorus girls, waitresses, and even prostitutes, that if they could remember a rich man whom they had relations with in the past one-three years, that their boss Abe Hummel would be able to extract a sizable settlement from Mr. Moneybags. From this settlement, the girls would get half and the law firm of Howe and Hummel would get the other half.
Sometimes these young “ladies” would tell the truth about their liaisons with rich men. However, sometimes the affidavits drawn up by Hummel were pure fiction. Yet the rich mark, who was probably married in the first place, would pay and pay handsomely just to have the case disappear, whether he was guilty or not. Most of the time, Hummel never even met the rich mark, whose life Hummel was making miserable. Lawyer George Gordon Battle sparred with “Little Abey” many times in these matters.
Battle said, “He (Hummel) was always pleasant enough to deal with. He'd tell you right off the bat how much he wanted. Then you'd tell him how much your client was fixe
d. Then the two of us would argue it out from there. He wasn't backward about pressing his advantage, but he wasn't ungentlemanly either.”
To show he was a good old sport about these sorts of things, when the bargaining was done and the payment made, always in cash, Hummel would provide his legal adversary with fine liquor and the best Cuban cigars. Then Hummel, in plain view of the other attorney, would make a big show of going to his desk, where he removed all copies of the affidavits and handed them to the victim's lawyer, so that the lawyer could verify them as the proper documents. After the verification was done, the victim's lawyer had a choice of bringing the documents to his client, or have them burned in the stove right in the middle of Hummel's office. Almost always the latter course of action was chosen. After the affidavits were destroyed, Hummel and the other attorney would kick back their feet, toast themselves with the finest liquor and spend the next hour or so laughing about their lawyerly schemes.
Yet Hummel, in certain ways, was a man of principle. Hummel made sure that none of his blackmail victims were ever troubled again by the same girl who had scammed them in the past. Hummel once explained how he did this to George Alger, a partner in the law firm of Alger, Peck, Andrew, & Rohlfs.
“Before I hand over the girls share,” Hummel told Alger, “the girl and I have a little talk. She listens to me dictate an affidavit saying that she has deceived me, as a lawyer, into believing that a criminal conversation (what they called an act of adultery in those days) had taken place, that in fact nothing at all between her and the man involved ever took place, that she was thoroughly repentant over her conduct in the case, and that but for the fact that the money had already been spent, she would wish to return it. Then I'd make her sign this affidavit; then I gave her the money. Whenever they'd start up something a second time, I just called them and read them the affidavit. That always did the trick.”
So much money was coming into the law firm of Howe and Hummel, it is extraordinary that neither of the two lawyers kept any financial records at all. At the end of each day, both lawyers and their junior associates would meet in Hummel's office. There they would all empty their pockets of cash onto the table. When the money was finished being counted, each man would take out his share of the money in accordance with the proportion of his shares in the business. As time went on, this procedure was changed to take place on Friday nights only.
In 1900, Howe and Hummel were forced from their offices at 89 Center Street (the city needed the site for a public building). They relocated to the basement of New York Life Insurance Building at 346 Broadway.
Soon after they moved, Howe became sick; and then incapacitated. Howe stopped coming into the office, and instead he stood feebly at his home on Boston Post Road in the Bronx. Howe was said to have been a heavy drinker, and this had affected his liver. Howe suffered several heart attacks, before he died in his sleep on September 2, 1902.
After Howe's death, Hummel muddled on as he had before, handling all the civil cases and an occasional criminal case. However, the bulk of the trial work Hummel designated to two of his former assistants: David May and Isaac Jacobson.
Hummel was 53 years old at the time of Howe's death. He must have figured he had a good 10 to 15 more years to accumulate more wealth. However, New York City District Attorney William Travers Jerome had other ideas.
It was the Dodge-Morse divorce case that was Hummel's undoing. For years, Hummel had skirted around the law, and sometimes, in fact, broke the law. But there was never enough evidence to indict him.
However, this time Hummel had gone too far.
The Dodge-Morse divorce case dragged out for almost 5 years (Hummel was able to finagle delay after delay, using his thorough understanding of the procedures of the law). But in the end, District Attorney Jerome was able to get an indictment against Hummel for conspiracy and suborning perjury.
Hummel went on trial in January 1905. The trial lasted only two days, and Hummel was found guilty as charged. Still, Hummel was able to avoid jail for another two years. He hired the best lawyers available, hoping they could find some loophole in the law, or some technicality, that would keep Hummel from going to prison. But nothing could be done, and on March 8, 1907, Abraham Hummel was imprisoned on Blackwell's Island, the same island, where in 1872 Hummel was able to have 240 prisoners released on a technicality.
Hummel left prison after serving only one year of his two-year sentence. Upon his release, Hummel traveled to Europe, and he spent the rest of his life there, mostly living in France. Hummel, as far as it can be determined, never returned to his former stomping grounds in New York City.
After Hummel's conviction, he was also disbarred. Furthermore, in 1908, the law firm of Howe and Hummel was enjoined by law from further practice, thus ending an era of lawless lawyering that has never been duplicated.
Howe and Hummel are accurately portrayed in the annals of American crime as the most law-breaking law firm of all time.
Jewett, Helen, The Murder of
She was a beautiful prostitute; he was a handsome clerk. They seemed destined to live together, happily ever after. Yet, when the disfigured and charred body of 23-year-old Helen Jewett was found smoldering on April, 10, 1836, in a brothel bed at 41 Thomas Street in downtown Manhattan, the prime and only suspect in her murder was her boyfriend, 19-year-old Richard Robinson.
Helen Jewett was born Doras Doyen in Augusta, Maine in 1813. Her father died when she was 13, but a local judge, smitten by her remarkable beauty, took her under his wing. This judge spent a small fortune on Doras' education, and he provided her with all the tools she needed to attain a successful status in life.
Like a wild stallion needing to run free, Doras, at the age of 17, abandoned her benefactor and took off with a prosperous young banker from Portland, Maine. In Portland, the banker provided Doras with every luxury. They lived in a palatial mansion, where swanky parties and flowing champagne were the order of the day and especially of the night.
It was apparently during this period of time that Doras first became a prostitute. Yet, Doras was an impetuous person. She and the banker quarreled often, and finally, Doras left him flat. She traveled to New York City, and she changed her name to Helen Jewett.
In New York City, Helen Jewett threw herself eagerly into the profession of prostitution; working in the most luxurious brothels in town. To increase her business, Helen used to stroll invitingly down Broadway searching for old flames or for new men to seduce. Helen always dressed entirely in shades of green, which matched the color of her captivating eyes. As a result, Helen became known as “The Girl in Green.” In time, Helen was the most sought-after prostitute in New York City. It was said Helen had a voracious sexual appetite, and she enjoyed the company of several wealthy men each night, sometimes in groups or two or more.
Helen's beauty was such, Warden Charles Sutton wrote in his book, The History of the New York Tombs, “She was beautifully formed; had large green eyes which snapped with mischievousness and one of the most fascinating faces that ever imperiled a susceptible observer. Her disposition was as beautiful as her face and figure, and she was charitable to a fault with all who required assistance.”
Richard Robinson was born in Durham, Connecticut in 1818. His parents had considerable means, and they spared no expense in raising and educating their young boy. Richard grew up to be a very handsome young man, tall and broad, and always immaculately dressed. Yet Richard, like Helen, was a free spirit, and when he reached the age of 17, he ran away from his parents’ home and absconded to New York City.
Richard, due to the fine education he had received through the good grace of his parents, was immediately hired at a dry goods store on Maiden Lane owned by Joseph Hoxie. Richard soon became what the people of those times called a "roisterer," or someone who was part of the "jet set," motoring about from one fine event to another with nary a care in the world. Richard made a fine appearance, resplendent with dark curly hair and dressed in his usual rich Spanish cloak.
As fate would have it, Richard was entering a downtown theater when he saw a thug attack a beautiful young woman, who was also about to enter the same theater. Richard, by far the bigger man, was able to easily throttle the ruffian, thereby thrusting himself as a hero in the young woman's eyes. This young woman was none other than Helen Jewett.
Immediately enthralled with the handsome young man, Helen handed Robinson a business card that read, “Helen Jewett, Palais de la Duchesse Berri.” This was Helen way of telling Robinson that she was a high-class prostitute, who only serviced the upper crust of society.
The place where Helen worked at that time was what was called, “a furnished resort,” owned by Mme. Berri on Duane Street. Soon, Robinson became a frequent visitor of Helen at Mme. Berri's. Instead of using his real name, Robinson introduced himself to Mme. Berri as “Frank Rivers.” This was a common practice at the time, since men who had respectable jobs didn't want people working in not–so–respectable places, like brothels, to know their real names.
Within a few weeks, Helen, although she was four years older than Robinson, was obviously more infatuated with Robinson than he was with her. Sensing something was wrong, Helen was obsessed by the idea that Robinson was possibly sharing his affections with another woman. One night, Helen disguised herself as a boy, and she followed Robinson around Lower Manhattan. After he had made the rounds of several bars, Helen spotted Robinson entering a brothel on Broome Street. Helen somehow gained admission to the brothel, and she found Robinson in bed in the embrace of another woman. Incensed, Helen attacked the woman, striking her repeatedly, with blow after blow on the woman's face. Helen's gaudy diamond rings slashed several bloody tears in the woman's cheeks, forehead, and nose.