Gangster Squad: Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles

by Paul Lieberman

  Ford: Now, immediately after the shooting didn’t you see Mr. LoCigno place a gun on the table?

  Cohen: I didn’t see any gun at all.

  Ford: At the time Mr. O’Hara came up to the table, did you have a gun on you?

  Cohen: I have never had a gun on me …

  Ford: That night, December 2, 1959, did you see a gun at any time?

  Cohen: I did not see any gun.

  Ford: Did you hear any discussion of guns?

  Cohen: There was absolutely no discussion of guns. It was a jovial party where people were supposed to go to another party.

  Ford: Mr. Cohen, I will show you People’s Exhibit No. 18, which is a long-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver … and might be further described as having an ivory handle to it. Will you examine that and tell us if you ever saw that gun before?

  Cohen: I don’t trust you. I wouldn’t put my hand on it for a million dollars. Are you kidding?

  Ford: I move to strike that, Your Honor.

  Judge Nye: Your motion to strike is granted.

  Cohen: He is asking me to put my hands on it, sir.

  Judge Nye: He is asking you, “Have you ever seen that gun before?”

  Cohen: I don’t know if I have … I have had many guns.

  Ford: It seems to me he can use a handkerchief if he is really afraid to touch it.

  Cohen: I don’t care to touch it.

  Judge Nye: You don’t know if you have ever seen that or not?

  Cohen: The only guns I have ever seen were the guns that were auctioned off at the time before I went away on my income tax case … There was a group of them. I understand that they were bought up by the police department. I was a gun collector before I went away and all of my home furnishings and all of my guns and everything were auctioned off.

  Ford: Have you owned numerous .38 caliber revolvers?

  Cohen: I don’t know the difference in the calibers. I just had a group of guns and I auctioned them …

  Ford: Did you ever own a short-barreled .38 caliber revolver, Smith & Wesson?

  Cohen: Well, I went away in 1950 … Every gun I possessed at that time was auctioned off …

  Ford: At any time since that auction have you sold any guns?

  Cohen: Absolutely not. I haven’t had no guns.

  Ford: At any time in the evening did you say the words, “Now, Sam, now”?

  Cohen: How can you ask a man that question when it is absolutely false?

  Ford: Mr. Cohen, what is your address?

  Cohen: 705 South Barrington.

  Ford: On December 2, 1959, did you have any place of business, any business address?

  Cohen: No.

  Ford: What is your occupation?

  Cohen: I’m an associate author.

  Ford: Are you engaged in bookmaking?

  Cohen: No, I am not.

  Ford: And you yourself have done some fighting, haven’t you. You are familiar with the art of fisticuffs?

  Cohen: I wasn’t too much of a fighter.

  Ford: Well, you have been a professional?

  Cohen: Listen, am I on trial here or who is on trial? What is it that you want?

  Judge Nye: Wait a minute, Mr. Cohen, there is no need of a voluntary statement of that kind.

  Ford: Prior to the time that the police arrived on the morning of December 3, 1959, did you take any property from your pocket and give it to anyone else?

  Cohen: I don’t know what you are talking about Mr. Fart.

  Judge Nye: Never mind the profanity Mr. Cohen. We can get along without that.

  Cohen: I’m not using profanity. I’m not going to surrender my rights as a citizen, I’ll tell you that right now, Judge Nye.

  Judge Nye: Read the question …

  Cohen: You mean did I loan somebody some money, or what are you talking about?

  Judge Nye: Did you take anything out of your pocket and give something to somebody?

  Cohen: I may have given somebody a five-dollar bill or ten-dollar bill or something.

  * * *

  SO THE STAR witness for the defense was an associate author who drove himself to Rondelli’s because the dog couldn’t drive and he didn’t see no gun and didn’t have no gun. They gave him a dozen opportunities to say something more about the three .38s sitting out on the table, but he passed each time. Mickey Cohen said, “I haven’t had no guns,” setting the stage for a pair of surprise rebuttal witnesses who would again draw the courtroom, and the city, back in time.

  CHAPTER 37

  O’Mara’s Turn

  They were People’s Exhibits 18, 19, and 20 and prosecutors kept them on display for the jury, next to the plastic bag in which they were found. But a Hollywood courtroom drama would have tweaked some details about the guns from the trash, making one the actual murder weapon. A Hollywood script might have had that gun be discovered with its barrel still hot and the last chamber conspicuously empty—zoom in on the empty chamber while the music swells.

  In real life, the two bullets fired at Rondelli’s had been found quickly, one embedded between the ceiling’s acoustical tiles and the attic after it tore through the fake philodendron, and the other in the back of Whalen’s skull. But by the time Sam LoCigno went to trial the gun that fired the bullets was nowhere to be seen, someone having tossed it who-knows-where. “It’s one of those fuzzy things,” LoCigno had said.

  Still, the prosecution could show that Mickey and his crew were heavily armed liars, arguably heavily armed liars lying in wait, if they could tie the .38s in the trash to him.

  They knew almost right away that two of the three had been his—they were among the batch of handguns that O’Mara’s mole had snuck out of Mickey Cohen’s house in June 1950. The serial numbers alone revealed as much. O’Mara and his man Neal Hawkins had recorded them on the envelopes that also contained the test bullets fired from each gun. Ten years later, those envelopes were still in the LAPD’s safe, but not the bullets.

  Only a few members of the department—Chief Parker, Captain Hamilton, and a couple of lieutenants—knew originally of O’Mara’s secret files. But he heard that one of the lieutenants might have inadvertently allowed Homicide to take the test bullets when it was desperate one time to tie a killing to Mickey. “The Homicide detectives came in because we had all the files. And some goddamned dipshit opens up the secret files and they get access to my report. Some of those guys didn’t have too much allegiance to the police department.” Or else it happened when the crime lab moved to the LAPD’s new Glass House headquarters and his hidden cache was a victim of housekeeping. “They had all this old shit in there, ballistics, and they threw out my goddamned bullets.” More infuriating to O’Mara was that word had leaked to Mickey over the years that his former security guard had been a police informant. Mickey might not have known exactly what Neal Hawkins had done at his house but Hawkins had to hide out after his cover was blown and then get the hell out of town. Now O’Mara had to find him.

  So Joe Busch, he was the district attorney, and I knew Busch real well. So when they had the guns recovered and I told the Cap they could be the guns I took, Busch wanted Mickey the worst way. We wanted to get him. Joe called me over to meet him at the office and he says, “We’ve got to have our chain of evidence. Now we got to get a hold of Hawkins. Where’s Hawkins?”

  Shit, he disappeared years before, see. He no longer was an informant of mine. So we got to get him. Finally found he was in the desert, married with two kids, in the Lancaster area, working as an aircraft mechanic. I went up and did a lot of bird-dogging. I finally got an address and I went there about nine at night. I knock on the door. He opens the door. “Christ, O’Mara, where did you come from?”

  “Neal, look-it, you and I gotta have a talk.”

  “What’s it about, the Cohen deal? Oh, shit, no way.”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “Christ, they had a contract out on me, Mickey’s boys.”

  “Is there somewhere we can go get
a beer?”

  They had a few and toasted the war, when O’Mara had it easy up in Alaska, intercepting Japanese communications, while Hawkins had been one of the risk takers, setting explosives on bridges behind enemy lines. Then they laughed about the time Mickey got his supposedly bombproof front door in Brentwood—the bottom was reinforced, but not the top with the porthole window. One of Hawkins’s chores had been to go to the door when someone rang the bell so Mickey wasn’t exposed. If Dragna’s boys left another stack of dynamite he wouldn’t have had his ass blown off, only his head.

  O’Mara reassured Hawkins that if he came down to Los Angeles his testimony would be short and sweet, sticking to the basics—they wouldn’t even say explicitly that he had been paid by the police to snitch on Mickey Cohen. O’Mara had to be careful not to sound too eager with his former informant, though, given what was at stake. This was a chance, at last, to get someone by the book. For thirteen years he had been operating far outside the police manual, as a shadow cop. Now there was hard evidence, a witness, a chain of custody, public testimony, and perhaps a suspect led off in handcuffs in the end, real cop stuff like they taught it in civics class. Still, he had to be straight with the man.

  Without you, we got no case.

  I’ve got to ask my wife.

  * * *

  JOE BUSCH HANDLED the final questioning for the government after the defense rested and the prosecution got its chance to rebut the “seen no guns” fairy tale. Mickey’s business about selling all his weapons at auction was poppycock too. He had sold some with his other possessions in 1951 but they were antiques, mostly old Colts. Los Angeles police hadn’t bought any of them, but they had gotten the serial numbers—those weren’t the guns found outside Rondelli’s. As for the trio that were in the trash, the prosecution sprung that part of its rebuttal case March 21, the second day of spring, and it did go short and sweet for Mickey Cohen’s former security man, often over the objections of a second lawyer for the defense, William Strong.

  Deputy D.A. Busch: Mr. Hawkins, are you acquainted with a man by the name of Michael Cohen?

  Hawkins: Yes, I am.

  Busch: And in 1950 were you ever in his employ?

  Defense attorney Strong: I object …

  Judge Nye: Well, I presume it will be connected up.

  Hawkins: I was employed as a guard.… at his home.

  Busch: And in that capacity, sir, did you ever do any work on some guns for Mr. Cohen?

  Strong: Objection to that as irrelevant, immaterial, and not within the issues of this case.

  Judge Nye: The objection is overruled.

  Strong: The mere fact that Mr. Cohen had these guns in 1950 has nothing to do with 1960, as to his credibility.

  Judge Nye: Yes, it does.

  Busch: Did you have more than two guns with you that night?

  Hawkins: Yes. We had seven.

  Busch: Where did you take them to?

  Hawkins: To the West Los Angeles police range.

  Busch: Upon arriving at that place did you meet Mr. O’Mara of the Los Angeles Police Department?

  Hawkins: Yes I did …

  Busch: Now what did you do with the guns, sir, after meeting with Mr. O’Mara?

  Hawkins: I took them back with me and returned them to Mr. Cohen.

  Busch: Did you hand them to him personally?

  Hawkins: Yes, I did.

  Strong: Have you seen any of these guns since?

  Hawkins: No, I haven’t.

  Strong: You didn’t put any guns in the trash barrel outside Rondelli’s, did you?

  Hawkins: No.

  Strong: You don’t know who did, either, do you?

  Hawkins: No.

  Strong: Just two more questions. You are talking about O’Mara? You are not talking about O’Hara?

  Hawkins: Mr. O’Mara. Sergeant O’Mara.

  * * *

  JACK O’MARA PICKED out his own clothes when he had a public event. He wasn’t one of those men who let their wives lay out their suit and tie or buy their clothing in the first place. He might joke about getting suits from J. C. Penney but he didn’t—he was a faithful customer of Richards, a top men’s shop in the San Gabriel Valley. Connie could look on from a distance while he dressed and he might ask, “OK, boss?” but that was it. He knew what made him look best, gray or blue, the colors that accentuated his piercing eyes. For a social occasion he might add a decorative handkerchief in the breast pocket, but not for an appearance on the witness stand. He went with the gray suit that second day of spring 1960, well aware that the city’s most notorious clotheshorse might be eyeing him in court. He knew that Fred Whalen would be sitting in the courtroom for sure.

  From day one, the rule for the foot soldiers had been to lay low, to remain as invisible as possible. If the bosses wanted to boast to the mayor (or a reporter) about how they had hidden a bug in Mickey’s TV that was their prerogative, not yours. O’Mara had a healthy ego and would have loved to shout out how he did that … and how he had been able to plant a snitch inside Mickey’s home at the peak of his power. But the rules of the job, and of the courtroom, said not to—like Hawkins before him he had to stick to the basics of the guns, specifically the two he could tie to that preening little punk. The pearl-handled .38 with dum-dum bullets had been registered to Johnny Stompanato before he was stabbed to death in Lana Turner’s house. The .38 with the two-inch barrel had been sold originally in Nashville, Tennessee, and may once have been owned by a cop there. But Mickey had them in June 1950. They could show that most simply through the serial numbers. But there was a better way to convince the jury, far more theatrical, and that form of showing off just might be allowed.

  Deputy D.A. Busch: How long have you been a police officer?

  O’Mara: Over 19 years.

  Busch: … did you know Mr. Neal Hawkins?

  O’Mara: I did.

  Busch: And sometime in 1950 … did he have any guns in his possession?

  O’Mara: He did. Seven.

  Busch: Now, did you do anything with the guns?

  O’Mara: I myself marked these guns.

  Busch: And where did you mark them?

  O’Mara: I marked them inside the butt plate.

  Busch: I will direct you attention to People’s Exhibit 18 … would you have to take this gun apart to see the marks you put in it?

  O’Mara: I would.

  Defense attorney Strong: Did Mr. Hawkins say whose guns they were?

  O’Mara: He told me they were Mickey Cohen’s guns.

  Strong: Did you ever see them after that?

  O’Mara: Yes … the twenty-first of January up in the county clerk’s office.

  Strong: Ten years later?

  O’Mara: That’s correct.

  Strong: Was there a particular reason you made a marking inside it?

  O’Mara: Well, in checking these guns, none of these guns were registered to Mr. Cohen, and under these circumstances we believed that …

  Strong: Not what you believed.

  O’Mara: … these guns may be used in a future homicide or be thrown away and we could then check on them and trace the ownership back.

  They went through that preliminary sparring right up to the noon hour, when everyone went to lunch and O’Mara went to find a screwdriver. When court resumed, the attorneys argued in chambers whether the jury should hear (or see) any more.

  Prosecutor Busch: Now, we think that this evidence goes to shed light, which is the test of relevancy, to determine whether or not Sam LoCigno truly acted in self defense or whether there was a concert of action up to and including an idea of conspiracy on the part of all the persons there that they should be armed and that Mr. O’Hara would be shot.

  Prosecutor Ford: These guns were found in an ashcan at the rear of Rondelli’s in the parking lot … Two of the three guns are shown to have belonged at one time to Mr. Cohen … Now that raises the inference that there were at least four guns at the table … It is a terrific coincidence for four men t
o be armed at the same table where a killing results and it being a surprise to each …

  Defense lawyer Strong: Let’s talk about reasonableness the way Mr. Ford does. Does Mr. Ford really think that Mr. Cohen, if he had been armed, would have put those guns in the trash can behind Rondelli’s?

  The police are always meticulous in their search. They obviously searched on the inside and the outside, but for some reason or the other they don’t find the guns for five or six hours after the shooting. I just think it is just as reasonable to assume that somebody trying to create a case planted the guns.

  I will say it would be a reasonable inference that the guns were planted there by the police.

  With that, the policeman under oath returned to the stand for the prosecution.

  Busch: Did you get a screwdriver of some kind during the lunch hour, Mr. O’Mara?

  O’Mara: Yes.

  Busch: Would you examine 18 and 19 for those marks you mentioned…? For the record, he has removed the grips off People’s Exhibit No. 18, Your Honor.

  O’Mara: It is marked “K.”

  Judge Nye: Just “K”?

  O’Mara: K.

  Judge Nye: Is that your marking that you put there?

  O’Mara: Yes, it is scratched in the middle of the surface of the gun.

  Busch: Now would you take People’s 19 apart and would you examine the gun, sir, please? What do you see there Mr. O’Mara?

  O’Mara: CX.

  Judge Nye: CX?

  Strong: And “CX”for Cohen?

  O’Mara: Pardon?

  Strong: Was “CX” for Cohen?

  O’Mara couldn’t remember. He knew he had written his own initials JOM in the first of the guns taken from Mickey’s house, but that .38 had never been found. Had the K been for Keeler? Or Jumbo Kennard? Was the CX for Connie, adding a kiss? After ten years, O’Mara couldn’t remember. But he had to say something.

  O’Mara: No, CX was just a random number.

  * * *

  THERE HAD BEEN little attempt to humanize Jack Whalen during the trial. The closest may have been a deputy medical examiner’s discussion of the wrinkles he noticed in the skin around the dead man’s eyes, suggesting he may have clenched them for an instant after hearing the first shot that missed him. For that moment, at least, the jury was invited to stand in The Enforcer’s shoes.