The Elusive Purple Gang--Radio Free Flint Podcast

 The Elusive Purple Gang recounts Detroit's violent Prohibition gang and their meteoric rise and fall. 

This Radio Free Flint podcast is hosted by former Genesee County [Michigan] prosecutor Arthur Busch. His podcasts are committed to public service and social justice. 

Arthur Busch --Radio Free Flint

 

Busch shares the voices of America's rust belt, their blue collar values, and their way of life. Enjoy my interview with this skillful moderator. 

The Purple Gang's Rise and Fall

Myron "Mikey" Selik--Junior Purple Gang Alumnus

Myron "Mikey" Selik and Harry "H.F." Fleisher in Jackson Prison.

Myron "Mikey" Selik was born November 16, 1912. He reached adulthood the same year Prohibiton ended which threw the rackets into a state of confusion. Drug trafficking, gambling, and labor racketeering were the primary money earners for organized crime now, but Selik seems to have been most involved with burglary and extortion. He was mentored by Harry Fleisher--one of the original Purple Gang members.

In 1944, Republican party boss Frank McKay and some underworld Detroit gangsters wanted Michigan State Senator Warren G. Hooper killed. Hooper was scheduled to testify before a grand jury about graft payouts to legislators for voting against gambling reform in the horseracing industry. Organized crime stood to lose lots of money.

Senator Warren G. Hooper

 

 

Senator Hooper confessed under oath to Ingham County Prosecutors that he had accepted a $500 bribe to vote against a bill designed to protect against cheating in the horseracing industry. In exchange for immunity, he was willing to testify before a Michigan grand jury.

Only forty years old, Hooper was murdered at about 4:30 in the afternoon on January 11, 1945 when his car was run off the road on Highway 99 while he was driving home to Albion from the state capitol in Lansing. Hooper was shot in the head three times and his car was burning when the Michigan State Police arrived on the scene. A witness came forward saying he saw a small man looking into Hooper's car when he drove by. Selik was 5'/6.5" tall and 130 pounds.

Hooper's hat with bullet holes.

 

Hooper's body was taken from the car by two passing motorists who threw snow on his smoldering clothes and on the inside of the car to dampen the fire. From examining the crime scene and Hooper's wounds, investigators determined that Hooper was shot at close range by someone in the car with him. The car was not torched. The fire was started by a lit cigarette the senator was smoking when he was shot. Detectives noted small footprints in the snow.

Ingham County and Michigan State Police were clueless about who murdered Hooper until there was a break in the case. Sam "Sammy A" Abramowitz was out on parole for a robbery conviction. When he was implicated in the assassination plot, he plea bargained with the Ingham County prosecutor and turned informant.

Abramowitz did not know who pulled the trigger, but he did confess before a grand jury that four men tried to recruit him to participate in the hit for $500. The four men were Harry and Sammy Fleisher, original Purple Gang members; Pete Mahoney, an associate who just happened to be there; and Myron "Mikey" Selik, Junior Purple Gang member. The conversation took place at O'Larry's Bar on Dexter Avenue in Detroit--a known underworld hangout.

The men were convicted of conspiracy to murder Senator Hooper and sentenced to five years in prison. Mikey Selik and Harry Fleisher were also charged and convicted of armed robbery of the Aristocrat Club--a Pontiac, Michigan gambling resort they were shaking down for protection money. Both men were sentenced to 25 to 50 years on the robbery rap. After their appeal was denied, Harry Fleisher and Mikey Selik skipped town in 1947. They were at large for a couple of years.

Selik used the alias Max Green and went underground in New York City. Harry Fleisher traveled with a woman not his wife, under the assumed names of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Goldwyn of Toledo, Ohio. They were sunning themselves on the beach in Pompano, Florida when the FBI caught up with him on January 18, 1950. A year later on February 1, 1951, Max Green (38)--alias for Myron Selik--was arrested with three other men in an unsuccessful $20,000 fur and jewelry robbery in the Bronx, New York. Both Fleisher and Selik were extradited to Michigan to serve their prison sentences.

When released, Harry Fleisher went straight and became a foreman in a Detroit steel warehouse. Fleisher died in 1978 at the age of seventy-five. Myron Selik is believed to have returned to the gambling rackets and ran a bookmaking operation. Selik died on August 7, 1996 at the age of eighty-three.

More on Harry Fleisher 

The Fleisher Brothers--Harry and Sam: Crime Doesn't Pay (Part 2 of 2)

Harry Fleisher 1920 (seventeen years old)

Harry Fleisher started his professional criminal career in 1920 as a driver and strong-arm man for the Oakland Sugar House Gang. The leaders of the gang and twelve young thugs were rounded up and charged with extortion in the Cleaners and Dyers War in 1928. The young enforcers put the fear of God into their victims and witnesses against them. Key witnesses recanted their original statements to police or simply disappeared. The Sugar House Gang beat the rap but suffered from the public exposure.

Soon, the leaders of the Sugar House Gang were arrested on a Federal charge of violating the Volstead Act (the Prohibition law) by providing brewing supplies and equipment for the illegal manufacture of beer and whiskey, and for running several industrial-sized stills around the city. The gang disbanded with Charles Leiter and Harry Shorr under federal indictment. What hurt the organization more than anything else was the destruction of their equipment and massive supplies of distilled alcohol.

 ***

Joe Burnstein

Joe and Ray Burnstein were now free to form a spin-off gang of trusted neighborhood friends and former Sugar House members who soon became known as the Purple Gang. Harry Fleisher was part of the gang's inner circle; his brothers Louis and Sam became foot soldiers. Louis specialized in hijacking and labor racketeering, and Sam was a truck driver and strong-arm man for the organization.

Ray Burnstein

In a tactical move that threatened the Purple Gang's existence, Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, Irving Milberg, and Harry Fleisher laid in wait for several members of the Little Jewish Navy--a group affiliated with the Purples. Izzy Sutker owed Burnstein $1,300 dollars for a liquor purchase he was two weeks late paying back. But there were other issues. Sutker and his boys were interloping Chicago hoods nibbling away at Purple Gang territory by opening several speakeasies on their turf.

Believing the Burnsteins were phasing out of the liquor business and going legit, Izzy Sutker, Hymie Paul, and Joe Lebowitz showed up at an improvised meeting they thought would make them rich men. Burnstein childhood friend Solomon Levine--and business partner of Izzy Sutker--was duped into driving Sutker and his wing men to the Collingwood Manor Apartments on September 16, 1931 to discuss the deal. But the Purples were harboring another grudge which could not be forgiven or go unanswered. One of their men was murdered outside a Purple Gang protected gambling joint on their territory. Word on the street pointed the finger at Sutker as the trigger man.

Levine, Sutker, Paul, and Lebowitz were greeted at the front door of apartment 211 by Ray Burnstein and ushered-in to sit on the living room couch. After a brief conversation, Burnstein left the room sayin he had to make a phone call to the gang's business manager from the corner drugstore. Minutes later, Ray was behind the wheel of his Chrysler sedan honking the horn and revving the engine. That was the signal for his boys to stand up and torpedo the Little Jewish Navy where they sat.

The assassins left with Solly Levine in shock. He had no idea he was driving his associates to their deaths. The gunmen scurried down two flights of stairs, burst out the alley door, and jumped into the waiting car. "I let you live, Solly, because you're my friend," Ray told him before he hit the gas pedal and sped off squealing his tires.

Shortly after they fled, Levine was dropped off a few blocks away and given cab fare to return to his sports book (betting parlor). Detroit homicide detectives recognized the victims and knew where they lived. After questioning several residents of the boarding house, they discovered that Solomon Levine had driven off with the Sutker, Paul, and Lebovitz a couple of hours earlier. The police detectives were quick to arrest Levine, who turned state's evidence. Levine knew he was as good as dead if he didn't.

Burnstein and Keywell were captured later that evening, and Millberg was caught early the next morning while packing his bags in his apartment. Conspicuous by his absence was Harry Fleisher. He had the good sense to go home, hug his wife goodbye, grab his bug-out bag, and leave town immediately. For this, Fleisher earned the underworld nickname "Slick." After a highly publicized three-week trial, Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, and Irving Milberg were convicted and given life sentences at Marquette Prison dealing a staggering blow to the gang.

Fleisher remained at large for nine months. While "on the lam," the Detroit press corps missed no opportunity to drop Harry's name in the newspapers or on radio news broadcasts. Because of his alleged involvement in Detroit's "snatch racket" (kidnapping), Fleisher's name was implicated as a possible suspect in the Lindberg baby kidnapping. The FBI charge gave Harry national exposure as his face and description appeared on wanted posters hung in every police station and post office in the nation. Fleisher was being hunted coast-to-coast.

On June 9, 1932, Harry Fleisher surprised Detroit Prosecutor Harry S. Toy by showing up with his lawyer at the prosecutor's fifth-floor office in Detroit Police Headquarters. Fleisher was arrested and held without bond. Despite the prosecutor's best efforts to try Fleisher, Toy's star witness who could link Harry to the Collingwood Massacre was unable to be found. The case against Fleisher was dismissed. Twenty years later, missing witness Sol Levine reappeared in Detroit. Levine told a Detroit Free Press staff reporter that he had shipped out of New York on a tramp steamer to make himself scarce. "I made $135 a month--the first honest money I ever made. It felt good."

***

Harry Fleisher's arrest file was one of the thickest in the history of the Detroit Police Department coming in at 204 pages. He was arrested thirty times for charges ranging from receiving stolen property, grand larceny, violating the prohibition law, armed robbery, assault with intent to kill, kidnapping, possession of an unregistered gun, suspicion of murder, and a traffic violation. Convicted four times but serving no jail time, Fleisher paid fines totaling $715--chump change for him. What he paid in lawyer fees was much higher.

Despite Prohibition ending on December 5, 1933, there was still money to be made in trafficking illegal alcohol. Now that the state and federal governments were in the liquor business, the cost of legal booze with a federal tax stamp was costly. Harry and his youngest brother Sam were operators of a 4,000 gallon unregistered distillery that took up three stories of a warehouse building at 5620 Federal Avenue.

Sam Fleicher 1935 (twenty-four years old)

While under FBI surveillance, Sam drove a semi-truck loaded with 10,500 pounds of brown sugar--purchased from a wholesaler in Cleveland, Ohio--to the Guardian Transit Company warehouse at Sixteenth and Pine Streets in Detroit. The brown sugar was loaded into smaller vans and transported to the Fleisher brothers' distillery. On April 11, 1935, a Federal alcohol tax unit raided the operation and arrested former Purple Gang members Sam Fleisher, Jack Selbin, and Joe Stein. Once again, Harry managed to escape before he was arrested.

Harry Fleisher was named in the original warrant but remained at large until he surrendered himself to Federal authorities on October 29, 1935 when he was indicted, placed under a $2,500 bond, and held over for trial with the other men. All four men were convicted on April 11, 1936 of conspiracy to violate the Internal Revenue Service Act, given eight-year prison sentences and fined $20,000 each. Additionally, the Fleisher brothers had a federal tax lien of $14,028 levied against them for unpaid taxes on 2,275 gallons of alcohol.

The convicted men were transitioned into the federal penitentiary system in Leavenworth, Kansas. After a month of quarantine, they were taken by train to San Francisco, and from there were ferried across the bay to Alcatraz Island where they served four and a half years of their eight-year sentence. They were released early for good behavior. Again, the men were transitioned to Leavenworth before being released on June 28, 1940. In 1941, Harry Fleisher opened a florist shop on Twelfth Street. Sam went to work at his father's junkyard in Jackson, Michigan after his release.

***

Michigan State Senator Warren G. Hooper

Harry and Sam were habitual criminals determined to lead a life of crime. On January 11, 1945, State Senator Warren G. Hooper--while en route to his home in Albion, Michigan--was shot three times in the head at close range and found next to his burning car on U.S. Highway 99 near Springport in Jackson County. Passing drivers told state police they saw a maroon car blocking Hooper's sedan on the wrong side of the highway. Hooper was slated to be a key witness against Frank D. McKay--former Republican National Committeeman--in a state government race track bribery case.

Chief of the Michigan State Police Detective Harold Mulbar told the press that Senator Hooper had refused police protection. "The Hooper murder was definitely a paid gangster killing," Mulbar said. An intensive search for the killers kicked up several ex-cons who pointed the finger at four men who tried to hire them to assassinate the state senator. Fearing they would violate their paroles and be sent back to prison, the ex-cons turned state's evidence. The corroborated testimony of Henry Luks, Al Kurner, and Sam Abramowitz led to the convictions of Harry Fleisher, Sam Fleisher, Myron "Mikey" Selik, and Pete Mahoney for conspiracy to commit murder. 

The conspiracy was hatched at O'Larry's Bar located at Boston and Dexter Streets in Detroit. First, Henry Luks was asked if he knew how to wire dynamite to a car's ignition. Luks said he did. Several days later, he reconsidered and said he didn't have access to dynamite and refused the $3,000 job. Alfred Kurner was then asked and offered the same amount, but he also refused citing problems with the parole board. Then, Sam Abramowitz agreed, but after making several trips to Adrian in preparation for the hit, he dropped out of the plot when he saw Hopper at home with his wife and kids. Abramowitz didn't have the stomach for it. He returned to Flint, Michigan where he had worked as a barber since his parole from Jackson Prison in 1943. 

On July 31, 1945--after a grand jury trial lasting two weeks--a jury of five women and seven men reached a guilty verdict after only two hours of deliberation. The grand jury was unable to determine who shot Hooper or who financed the $15,000 fund to murder him. The defendants were sentenced to serve four and one-half years in Jackson Prison. Pending an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court for a new trial, the men were released on $25,000 bonds on July 10, 1946. When their appeal was denied, Harry Fleisher and Mikey Selik jumped bail.

Fleisher dodged arrest for fifteen months. Acting on a phone tip, he was seized by FBI agents in Pompano Beach, Florida--thirty-five miles north of Miami. He and a woman companion Bernice Jackson were registered at a tourist court as Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Goldwyn of Toledo, Ohio. The couple left the cottage and drove to the beach in Fleisher's pickup truck. A squad of four agents dressed in sports shirts and slacks slowly closed in on the couple sunning themselves on the beach. When the agents were noticed fifteen feet away, they rushed on Fleisher and held his face down in the sand while they handcuffed him. Miss Jackson stood quietly with her hands up in the air. When their cottage was searched, a submachine gun was found with 400 rounds of Colt ammunition. Fleisher had $1,200 cash in his possession. He was arrested on a Federal fugitive warrant, and Miss Jackson was jailed as a material witness.

Fleisher was extradited to Michigan arriving at Willow Run Airport aboard a Capital Airlines plane in the custody of two U.S. Marshalls and a Federal guard. He was whisked away to Milan Federal Prison on January 22, 1950. Two days later, the beleaguered fugitive confessed to Detroit Free Press reporter Ralph Nelson that "I'm glad it's over. It hasn't been fun being hunted. I'm looking forward to seeing my wife Harriet. I expect to have a rough time with her. She knows about the other woman, but Hattie knows that a man travels practically unnoticed when he travels with a woman. She'll understand that. I've always tried to keep Hattie from being involved in any of my troubles."

Fleisher pleaded guilty on the Federal fugitive charge on February 1, 1950. On February 24, 1950, Bernice Jackson--a former Detroit prostitute--was sentenced to five months in the Miami City Jail for harboring an escaped criminal.

After Fleisher served his five-year sentence in Milan Prison as a Federal fugitive, he was shuttled back to Jackson State Prison to serve his five-year sentence for conspiracy to murder Senator Hooper. Because of a conviction for the armed robbery of the Aristocratic Club in Pontiac, Michigan in 1945, Fleisher had an additional 25 to 50 years to serve. Once again, Slick jumped bail while out on appeal.When Harry was released from Jackson Prison in the mid-sixties, he took a legitimate job as a warehouse manager for Ewald Steel Company.

Harry Fleisher died in 1978 at the age of seventy-five. He was preceded by Louis, who died in Jackson Prison on April 3, 1964 at the age of fifty-nine and Sam, who died on January 18, 1960 in Miami, Florida at the age of forty-nine. All three brothers succumbed to heart failure.

The Fleisher Brothers (Part 1) 

The Purple Gang Tied Up In Chains

Purple Gang perp walk.

A decisive federal arrest of Purple Gang members marked a change in the public attitude towards Detroit's most notorious Prohibition-era gang. Prior to their arrest on May 24, 1929, members of the Purple Gang were often arrested, arraigned, and released before beating whatever rap they were accused of. The public believed that the gang was prosecution proof. There was lots of evidence to support that belief.

But this time was different. The gang wasn't dealing with the Detroit or Wayne Country court system. Conspiring to violate the prohibition law was a federal offense and twelve known Purple gang members were rounded up. Federal Judge Charles C. Simons levied bail of $100,000 each against Eddie Fletcher, Abe Axler, Irving Milberg, and Harry Sutton--the four men caught in the act. The other eight "associates" were held on $50,000 bail apiece.

For the first time in the gang's history, the city's professional bail bondsmen couldn't post bail for that sum of money. The official blanket charge was that on May 10, 1929, the Purple Gang "entered into a conspiracy with Canadian liquor exporters to purchase and import beer and liquor. Known gang members delivered two cases of whiskey to the Lido Club, a cabaret on 3747 Woodward Avenue owned by Abe Burnstein said to be the leader of the Purple Gang."

A young Abe Burnstein.

Burnstein could not be reached for comment. Abe was attending a crime conference in Atlantic City--the first of its kind. Crime bosses from around the country attended and made decisions like a corporation would that affected the direction of organized crime in America. This was where the modern mob was born. But Abe's youngest brother Izzy was among the men arrested.

The boys had to cool their heels in the Wayne County Jail. Their faces fell when they saw the U.S. Marshall approach them with a length of chain with six pairs of handcuffs welded to it. The twelve men were cuffed together in tandem along either side of the chain leaving one hand free to hide their faces on their perp walk. Then, they were led to the Marshall's van for a ride to the Wayne County Jail.

All but four of the men were released on writs of habeas corpus for lack of evidence. Fletcher, Axler, Milberg, and Sutton were held over for trial. Two months later, they reappeared in federal court each ten pounds trimmer. Apparently, county jail food didn't agree with them. All four were convicted and charged the maximum sentence--twenty-four months in federal prison and a $50,000 fine each. They were credited with two months for time served. Finally, the Purple Gang myth of immunity from prosecution was broken.

The Elusive Purple Gang 

Detroit's Numbers Racket

Today's state run lotteries are first cousins to the illegal policy rackets of the early twentieth century--known by players as the numbers game. Curious how things once illegal become legal when the government gets involved. The grass-roots game had much better odds but much lower payouts than today's state-run lotteries. To win, a player needed to match only three numbers rather than the six or seven used today with astronomical odds against winning. Then as now, some of the most avid players were the people who could least afford it.

Beginning in the 1920s, the Purple Gang-controlled numbers game in Detroit was a profitable money machine for the Bernstein Brothers and their associates who were many. Numbers runners, bag men, and accountants kept the money flowing. There was a fortune to be made from the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars of working-class immigrants--particularly Italians, Jews, and the Irish. Members of Detroit's black community developed into major players in the innercity numbers racket where the game was popular.

Many people made tax-free extra bucks running numbers. Seemed like everybody had a favorite number or several numbers they played daily if they had some small change. Playing was convenient, bets could be taken over the phone. People could also place more costly combination bets of any permutation of their three numbers. For example, 127 could win with 127, 172, 217, 271, 712, and 721. Every place where liquor or soda pop was consumed became a numbers drop. Every grocery store, barber shop, beauty shop, candy store, and virtually every business within a runners assigned territory was a potential numbers drop. The more money a numbers runner collected, the more money he or she made. 

The numbers game appealed to people who were not habitues of the “high-class” gambling establishments of Detroit’s high rollers, social climbers, and underworld figures that mingled nightly with unsettling familiarity. The urge to gamble was not limited to the well-heeled public and wealthy industrialists. Everyday people wanted to place bets. If they couldn’t afford to chase Dame Fortune, they were content to wink at Lady Luck.

Spare change and small bills made up the bulk of the daily take. The game was easy to play—pick three numbers ranging from 000 to 999 and wait for the daily winning number. Players placed bets with a numbers runner who collected the money and recorded the bets in a handbook with the bettor’s name and date written in. A receipt with a serial number printed at the bottom was given to the bettor to prove he or she placed the bet in the event they won. A more sophisticated version of the game we known as Keno had greater payouts but greater odds.

The odds for the basic game were one in a thousand. If you were the only person to hit that number that day, your payoff could be 600 to 1, otherwise the jackpot was split among the winners. Bagmen collected the money from the runners and took it to a central location called a numbers bank where a group of accountants processed the bets, counted the money, and passed it on to a central drop at a secret location.

At first, the numbers were drawn from numbered balls in a ball cage or three spins of a wheel of fortune. These methods could be manipulated and soon fell out of favor. Players wanted three numbers that were certified random. Bernstein’s game used the last three numbers of the United States Treasury Department balance which was printed daily in the business section of newspapers. When the Treasury Department began to round off their numbers—so they wouldn’t be a party to illegal gambling schemes—the three last digits of the number of shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange became the daily winning number. That number was found conveniently in the daily papers. Choosing today's lotto number picks have gone back to the numbered-ball drops which are televised to prevent fraud.

Accounting books seized by treasury agents in a 1940 raid of a Paradise Valley numbers drop revealed as many as 6,000 men and women were employed by Detroit numbers operators. The average payout was 16% of the take divided among the winners. The number runners who took the bets filled out the betting slips and got 25% of their daily take. The bagmen who collected the money and betting slips from the bookies took them to a secret central location. They made 10% of what they brought in. Finally, the promoters took 49% for themselves and their overhead. All of those accountants needed to be paid—not to mention the occasional bail bondsman.

Because of the large territories where the game was played, the profits were huge. But this scheme was not without its dark side. Anyone skimming money off the top, holding out on winners, compromising the operation, or attracting unwanted attention from the authorities would be quickly eliminated.

Link to the wine brick racket: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7073297057923413840#editor/target=post;postID=2979020335839039617;onPublishedMenu=postsstats;onClosedMenu=postsstats;postNum=5;src=postname

The Elusive Purple Gang

Purple Gang lineup in 13th Precinct--the Canfield Street station.

Since May 2018, I've been researching Detroit's Prohibition-era kingpins--the Purple Gang--for an untitled book I'm writing. As helpful as the Midtown Detroit Public Library Burton Historical Collection and the Walter Reuther Library were to my early research, a couple of trips to the Windsor, Ontario Library, Biblioasis bookstore, and landmarks where the liquor trade flourished were information-rich finds. Seems like the Canadians have done a better job documenting their Prohibition history than Americans have.

One thing I've learned is that Al Capone had more to do with smuggling on both sides of the international border than most people realize. He was the larger than life figure who defined the Big City gang boss. Capone ruled from Chicago and his organization financed affiliates in Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Cleveland.

Rather than muscle in on the Purple Gang's Detroit territory, Capone cut a fat deal with the gang to take all the uncut liquor they could hijack or smuggle across the Detroit River. The Purples were not the only gang in the liquor acquisition business. They competed with the Italian Dago Mob to the east and the Italian Moustache Pete's to the west for control of the illegal booze business. The Jewish Purple Gang worked with anybody who could help them make money. They worked with members of both gangs and acted as a buffer between them until the 1931s.

Some background reading.

In addition to reading books on the various aspects of the liquor trade and scouring the Internet for information, my most fertile area for details on the gang is coming from Newspapers.com. The site carries Detroit Free Press archives dating to the nineteenth-century. Patient navigating brings up the original headlines and articles. The gang's bloody history reported on by the yellow press of the time is well-known--their arrest records, acquittals, convictions, murders, and assaults. What isn't known is much about their personal lives.

Tommy's Bar 1928 Purple Gang roundup at the height of their power.

I'm struggling to find out some factual information about gang members families. Obtaining death certificates should be routine, but these are proving difficult to get. Purple Gang members I'd like to know more about are the Bernstein brothers Abe, Ray, Joe, and Isadore; the Keywells Harry and Phil; Harry Millman; Irving Milberg; Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher. If any of these wise guys have relatives with some basic information, contact me at www.gregoryafournier@gmail.com. I want to portray them as accurately as possible.

Right now, I'm most interested in Joe Bernstein's wife. One source says she was Marguerite Ball--a dancer with the George White Follies based in Chicago. Ancestry.com disputes this. She may be the Yoko Ono of this story. After her husband took a slug in the spleen in 1930, she gave him an ultimatum, "Either the gang or me." I know there is more to that story than is readily apparent.

The Purple Gang members were real people beyond the headlines but little documentation is available. I have two theories why so little personal information is available about these "well-known" underworld figures. The first and most obvious reason is they fiercely protected their wives and kids and kept them out of the public eye. Reporters who harassed or threatened the security of family members soon felt the wrath of a gang inspired beating. My other theory is that their Jewish families were ashamed and embarrassed by their hoodlum sons. Photos and other memorabilia must exist, but they are surely closely guarded family artifacts. After eighty years, it would be wonderful if some of that history were preserved and shared.

Tough street kids with a rifle.

Many immigrant children from Detroit's lower east side worked as hard as their parents to rise above poverty and squalor to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, rabbis, priests, policemen, firemen, and tradesmen. But others were too smart for that. These boys saw how tough life was for their struggling immigrant parents. They wanted to short-circuit the system and snatch the American Dream rather than work a real job. The Purple Gang developed into one of the most feared, wealthy, and successful crime organizations in the country. They were the only Jewish gang in the country who dominated a large American city. But in time, most of the gang members pushed their luck and ended up in either prison or the cemetery. By the mid-thirties--after a bloody Italian mob war--the Mafia consolidated and took over the Detroit underworld. The Purple Gang was finished as an organization.

I'm surprised how many Detroiters have never heard of the Purple Gang. There are some people who maintain there never was a Purple Gang--that they were only a media creation of the yellow press looking for headlines. Back in the day, whenever alleged Purples were questioned by police about the gang, their answer was always the same, "The Purple Gang? Never heard of them." One thing is for certain, every one of them broke their mother's heart.


The Las Vegas Mob Museum: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/11/las-vegas-mob-museum.html

Prohibition Loophole--Wine Bricks

Wine Brick

Once Prohibition became law on January 16, 1920, many wine producers in California got out of the wine business and converted their vineyards to orchards or sold their land. A constitutional amendment had never been repealed before, so the drastic move seemed like a reasonable way to cut their losses.

But other vintners began to promote and sell grape juice and other non-alcoholic products. Some enterprising vintners began producing non-alcoholic wine bricks. The compressed and concentrated brick was to be rehydrated with one gallon of water to make reconstituted grape juice.

The Volstead Act made it against the law to produce, distribute, or sell alcohol products. But the law had a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. Under Section 29 of Volstead Act, consumption of alcohol was not expressly prohibited. Up to 200 gallons could be produced privately for consumption at home.

To protect themselves from breaking federal Prohibition laws, vintners printed a disclaimer on their packaging. They warned consumers not to place their grape juice in a cool, dark spot for twenty-one days, or add yeast lest it convert to wine. That the products were labeled Claret, Port, Muscatel, Burgundy, and Riesling underscored the intended use of the product.

Wine was culturally the drink of choice for many Italian and French Americans and wine bricks became a legitimate business opportunity for Chicago and Detroit racketeers acting as distributors. They cornered the market. The underworld began buying the bricks by the ton and distributing them nationwide by rail. The pre-Prohibition price was $9.50 per ton; by 1924, the price was $375.

The wine brick trade became big business and was one of the Detroit's Purple Gang controlled rackets. It was a factor that played into the Collingwood Manor Massacre of 1931. Three leaders of the Little Jewish Navy gang were lured to an apartment with the promise that the Purple Gang would give them the wine brick concession for the customary kickbacks. Instead, Izzy Sutker, Joe Leibowitz, and Hymie Paul got paid off in lead for trying to muscle in on Purple Gang territory. 

In 1933, the Volstead Act was repealed and America went wet. The bottom fell out of the bootlegging business and the thirteen-year-long nightmare of gang warfare on America's streets ended. Those winery owners who weathered the storm and supplied organized crime with their raw material became rich, increased their landholdings, and saved America's wine industry.

The Rise and Fall of Detroit's Purple Gang

Purple Gang roundup by Detroit police: Sam Axler, Eddie Fletcher, Sam Goldfarb, Phil Keywell, Abe Zussman, Willie Lake, Harry Fleisher, Jack Stein, and Abe Axler (seated)

There is an oft-repeated story about how the Purple Gang got their name. When an Eastern Market butcher was assaulted and his shop vandalized, he reported to police that "These boys are not like other children, they're off-color. They're rotten purple like tainted meat. They're the Purple Gang." Whether the anecdote is accurate or not, the street thugs made their presence known to merchants and street peddlers from Paradise Valley to the Eastern Market--anybody they could squeeze a buck from was a target.

Ray Bernstein

The Bernstein brothers--Raymond, Abe, Joe and Isadore "Izzy"--were young teens who ran with the gang of street toughs in their Hastings Street neighborhood on Detroit's lower East Side. The gang started off as petty thieves and skakedown artists. By 1919, they branched out to armed robbery, extortion, protection, hijacking, and murder under the tutelage of more experienced neighborhood gangsters from the Sugar House Gang. As their reputation for ruthless savagery grew, so did their power and grip over Detroit's underworld.

In 1927, Frank Wright, a Chicago-based jewel thief, along with Joseph Bloom and George Cohen, New York based burglars, began to kidnap Detroit gamblers for ransom. Among the gamblers snatched were some Purple Gang members. The Purples plotted against the interlopers. One of Wright's men--Meyer "Fish" Bloomfield--was kidnapped by the Purples to lure Wright into the open. The ploy worked. A ransom was agreed upon and a hostage exchange for money was to take place at the Milaflores Apartment on 106 East Alexandrine Ave.

At 4:30 am on March 28th, 1927, Wright showed up with Bloom and Cohen and knocked on the door of room 308 as prearranged. Three men at the end of the hallway opened the stairwell door and fired at point-blank range with pistols and a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun. The first known use of the Tommy Gun in Detroit. The trigger men escaped down the back stairway.

Fred "Killer" Burke finally convicted

Evidence was found in the apartment connecting it with Purple Gang members Eddie Fletcher and the Axler brothers--Abe and Simon. The next day, Purples Abe Axler and Fred "Killer" Burke were pulled over on Woodward Avenue. Although they were suspects in the Milaflores slaughter, nobody was ever charged. It was commonly believed that Fred Burke wielded the Tommy Gun and Abe Axler and Ed Fletcher--known as the Siamese Twins--used hand guns. 

Charles Givens, a reporter for the Detroit Times wrote, "In nine out of ten unsolved cases, investigators are virtually certain who the murderer is. Proof is another thing. Ask detectives who handle these cases and you get the same answer: 'We knew who the murderer was, but there were no eyewitnesses or evidence'."

The Milaflores Apartment murders did result in a Michigan ban on hardware stores and other retail outlets selling submachine guns and multi-round magazines to private citizens. Only police and the military could legally buy them.

Abe Bernstein

Abe Bernstein was essentially the gang's behind the scenes business manager. In 1925, Bernstein and corrupt American Federation of Labor president Francis X. Martell went into a business partnership to control prices in the cleaner and dyers industry. The Cleaners and Dyers Association was formed and the city's independently owned cleaners were forced to join or pay the consequences. Shops were dynamited or burned down. Laundry plants were destroyed, owners and employees were beat up, and some people were gunned down.

A brave businessman stood up and filed a complaint in 1928 with the Wayne County prosecutor. In all, nine Purple Gang members (Raymond Bernstein, Irving Milberg, Eddie Fletcher, Joe Miller, Irving Shapiro, Abe Kaminski, Abe Axler, and Simon Axler) were indicted for extortion. Several days later, Abe Bernstein surrendered and paid a $500 appearance bond. All the Purples were acquitted. The gang was at the height of its power with a feeling of invincibility. The huge amount of money the Purples skimmed from this labor racket allowed the gang to dominate the city's underworld until 1931.

The Collingwood Manor Massacre on September 16th, 1931 marked the beginning of the end of the Purple Gang's stranglehold over Detroit's underworld. An inter-gang dispute erupted when three Purple Gang members violated the underworld code of poaching outside their operating territory. Herman "Hymie" Paul, Isodore "Izzy" Sutker, and Joseph Leibowitz were members of a Purple Gang faction called The Little Jewish Navy (LJN). They owned and operated boats transporting liquor across the Detroit River. The trio wanted to break away from the gang and establish their own organization and territory.

Collingwood Manor at 1740 Collingwood Avenue

A bookie go-between named Sol Levine brokered a meeting between gang factions and transported the LJN men to the apartment on Collingwood Avenue. The LJN, thinking they were going to cut a deal with the gang's leaders. Ray Bernstein ordered the hit and stayed outside in the car acting as the wheel man. After a brief discussion with Purple Gang members Harry Fleisher, Irving Milberg and Harry Keywell, Fleisher stood up and brutally shot the three unarmed men to death. Fleisher dropped his gun into an open can of green paint as he and his men ran down the stairs and out a back entrance to the alley where Bernstein was waiting in the get-away car.

In the heat of the moment, Sol Levine was left behind in shock and was arrested when the police arrived. In fear of his life because he was the only eyewitness to the murder, he turned state's evidence placing himself under police protection. Milberg, Keywell, and Bernstein were arrested and convicted of first-degree murder and sent to Michigan's maximum security prison in Marquette. The trigger man Harry Fleisher left town and was never convicted of the crime. In those days, criminals had a much larger and less-documented world to move around in. It was still possible to simply vanish.

Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler--"The Siamese Twins"

The Sicilian Mafia--called the "Moustache Pete's" in Detroit--began to fight the Purples over territory they could no longer control. The bodies of Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher were found shot to death on November 27, 1933 around 2:00 am in the back seat of a brand new Chrysler at the corner of Telegraph and Quarton roads in Bloomfield Hills. The bullet-ridden bodies of the so-called "Siamese Twins" were placed side-by-side, their hands intertwined as a sign of disrespect.

Harry Millman

Purple Gang gunman and loose cannon Harry Millman was brutally shot to death on Thanksgiving Day, November 24th, 1937. Radio crime reporter Walter Winchell described the hit this way:
  
In a big Midwest metropolis yesterday, another gang member met justice at the end of a gun. Prominent Detroit Purple Gang member Harry Millman was enjoying a drink in the bar of Boesky's Restaurant, on 12th Street (and Hazelwood), when four men entered brandishing guns and shot the hoodlum ten times. His body was still warm on the floor when the Detroit Police arrived. His killers were rumored to be members of Brooklyn's notorious Murder, Incorporated. Millman's death signaled the end of the Purples as a force in organized crime in the Motor City. Because of his repeated escapes from convictions for kidnapping, robbery, and extortion, Millman earned the nickname "Lucky." Yesterday, his luck ran out. This is Walter Winchell reporting.

Millman was whacked for feuding with the Detroit Mafia and extorting money from their brothels and gambling operations. The predecessors of Detroit's modern day Mafia simply stepped in to fill the void once the Purple Gang was neutralized.

Abe Bernstein was spared because he had friends in high places--namely New York gangsters Meyer Lansky and Joe Adonis--with whom he co-owned several Miami gambling casinos. Abe Bernstein was allowed to live out his life bookmaking from his suite at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit until his death from a stroke in 1968.

Detroit Police Chief of Detectives James E. McCarthy credited the Collingwood Massacre for "(breaking) the back of the once powerful Purple Gang, writing the end to more than five years of arrogance and terrorism."

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Part One: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/02/kosher-nostra-detroits-purple-gang.html