June 6, 2025 • 41 mins
From the author of the New York Times bestseller horror cult classic The Sentinel comes a new historical novel covering decades of gang history from 1878 to 1955. Jeffrey Konvitz blends fact with fiction, incorporating lore from cities like New York, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis. Konvitz joined Dan tonight to discuss The Circus of Satan: Murder, Revenge, and the Rise of Organized Crime.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS. Constance me Vidio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Sorry, welcome back everyone, as we move into our ten
o'clock hour, I'm delighted to be joined by attorney Jeff Convicts.
Jeff practices law in the great state of California. He's
an active practicing attorney who is in and out of
federal court, in and out of the State Supreme Court
in California. But he's also an author, and he has
(00:30):
written a new book which is a historical novel. So,
without any further Ado, Jeff, welcome to Nightside. How are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Dan, Well delighted to have you. And you had a
very successful book which was called The Sentinel that sold.
I think it's about six million copies. Was that your
first effort at writing a book?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It was my first effort at writing a book. It
had Actually it was in the mid seventies after I
got met a law school at Columbia and I just
a friend of mine said why don't you write a book?
And I did. It was interesting because the first creative
(01:18):
writing paper I had at Cornell, I got a d
on and the professor said, you're illiterate. I guess I
turned along the way.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's true. And the interesting about thing about the book,
even though it was turned down by thirty companies in
a Rose, Simon and Schuster took it, and then Random
House took it. And in those days, math market paperback
was the business. Hardcover hardly existed. And they did a
television ad and the next day the book blew through
(01:52):
the roof everybody wherever I went in La New York,
wherever on airplanes, everyone was reading it and they would
get to a little after page one hundred when virtually
everyone would say what because I tricked everybody and that
got them locked in. So it was a huge hit.
And then I did a sequel called The Guardian, which
(02:14):
was a hit too, But now no one there is
a big.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So so you're a young lawyer at that point who
you have started to practice law. But but better than that,
you now become a highly successful author. I assumed The
Sentinel turned into a movie, and there there were there
(02:37):
were all sorts of a film adaptation, et cetera, and
it was a It was a smashing success. Did you
ever think at that point, well, gee, I've found my
real life, my real role in life. Here they if
I get to that point.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, it did become a movie at Universal. I wasn't
one hundred percent happy with it because the direct there
took shortcuts. But such a long story. The truth is,
when I got out of law school, I went right
into the entertainment business. I went to one of the
biggest talent agencies as a lawyer agent, and then I
went to MGM as a production executive, and I was
(03:15):
writing the book at night. And then when the book
came out and was a hit, Universal bought the movie
rights in a big bidding war. I made a lot
of money in nineteen seventy four, was shocking, and I
had no money in the bank, and suddenly I had
a million and a half dollars. So I wrote two
more books, The Centinel, The Guardian, and A Monster A
(03:38):
Tale of Lockness, which was more about politics and more
of a thriller about oil drilling. And then I said,
you know, I'm staying in the movie business. The book
business is very difficult. And I spent the next I
still am in the movie business, running running public public
(03:59):
distribution and production companies. We made a lot of movies.
I produced some movies, but kind of In nineteen ninety six,
I went back to my law practice full time. But
the seeds of this book, the new book, The Circus
of Satan, had already been planted.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Where where did those seeds spring from?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
It started in the late seventies with a book called
Against the Evidence, about a murder trial that took place
in New York. Basically, four Jewish gamblers hired three Jewish
killers and one Italian killer to kill a Jewish gambler
(04:43):
who was breaking the rules and had gone to the press.
And the reason it was so notorious is from nineteen
hundred to nineteen thirteen, politics in virtually every American city
with some little adjustments, were controlled by what I call
the Irish mobs. The Irish had come over the Seventh
in the sixth in the eighteen forties eighteen fifties from
(05:07):
the Potato famine, and a lot of them moved into
gangs in these major cities. They were like the bootle
Boys and the Roach Guards, and the Death House Gang
and the Tunnel Gang. And eventually they coalesced into one
big gang called the Wio Gang, which I begin my
(05:27):
book with in a bar fight. And then by nineteen
hundred they had basically moved out of gangdom and become
political powers. Like in New York, the Irish completely controlled
Tammany Hall, and through Tammany Hall they controlled the police department,
who were all grafters, and the police department would scour
(05:49):
the city grafting and grafting the opium dens and the
houses of prostitution and the gambling casinos, and the money
would be remitted to the eye Irish overlords at Tammany
Hall and then the student The overlords at Tammany Hall
would get people elected to major positions in the city
(06:10):
who had then kicked back money to Tammany Hall. In fact,
in nineteen ten, when Mayor Gamer was elected, he canceled
money going to Tammany Hall for a thousand Tammany executives,
all of whom were dead. So the money was just
pouring in. And this happened in almost every major city,
(06:31):
not so much in Boston because the Brahmins were there,
as you know you're from Boston. But in my book,
I do have Honey Fits and Patrick Kennedy and Kennedy's
son and Rose Fitzgerald there in there. There was a
heavy Irish presence in Chicago through Bath House, John Coglin
(06:51):
and Hinky Mike Kenna. Saint Louis was completely controlled by
Eddie the Rat Egan and his gang.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
But when you talk about when you talk about Chicago,
obviously you get to the Daily family of you know,
in the fifties, and they sort of handed it off
to Jane Byrne and then that was kind of the
end of the Irish control in Chicago. But there were
a lot of stories about what mayor Daily, you know,
(07:22):
the Richard Daily, the father, might have done to help
find a few extra votes in Chicago to swing Illinois
in the nineteen sixty presidential election. So those of us
in Boston are very familiar with the interplay between political
figures and gangs. So this is a book that I'm
(07:43):
sure a lot of my listeners are going to read,
and I want to, I want to expand our conversation
on it, but I got to take a quick commercial break.
My guest is attorney Jeff Convicts. John Jeff has had
tremendous success as an author, and despite all of that,
he remained a practicing, highly successful lawyer in California, And
(08:05):
he now has a new book that comes out actually
later this month called Circus of Satan.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
It is a historical novel.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
There's and we we will occasionally occasionally have authors of
historical novels that I think would be of interest to
my audience. We know a lot of the successions here
in Massachusetts. Matter of fact, more recently we had the
(08:37):
Senate President in Massachusetts, a Democrat by the name of
Bill Bulger, and his brother, the notorious Whitey Bulger, who
had been at one point a resident of Alcatraz. They
had a real rule of terror here in Boston from
the late sixties through the seventies and eighties and into
the nineties. And actually Bulger was the former cent of President,
(09:01):
was the president of the University of Massachusetts until then
Governor Mitt Romney convinced him to resign that post. So
even it comes up to the twentieth the twenty first century,
and we're going to talk with Jeff Convince. If you
have a question, you were more than welcome to join
the conversation if you're interested in the interrelationship between politicians
(09:22):
and gang activity, which dates from the earliest years of
the nineteen hundreds, actually a little bit into the eighteen eighties,
eighteen seventy eight onto eighteen eighties and nineties. That's the
era we're talking about. If you'd like to join the conversation,
feel free six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty
six one, seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty. If you're
(09:44):
familiar with any of Jeff's prior books, including The Sentinel,
I think he would admit is his best known book,
you can you can talk to him as well. We'll
be back on Night's Side right after a couple of
brief messages with my guest, California attorney, author successful in
two very interesting and arguably related realms, writing and the law.
(10:07):
Back on Nightside after this.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w BEAZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
My guest is a writer and a lawyer and accomplished
in both of those fields. Jeff convicts. Jeff, let's talk
about the book that is about to come out again,
A book that you've worked on for some time. How
long would you say you've worked on this book? I
(10:37):
suspect it's been in the making for a long time.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Well, I did after reading this against the evidence. And
actually there are more books about the Becca Rosenthal murders.
In fact, a book called Satan Circus which is nonfiction,
and the whole book is about the murders. My book
just uses the Becha Rosenthal case in about twenty pages,
which triggers a whole bunch of plot issues that are
(11:01):
fictional but lead to the same place. So I started
writing it in the late seventies. Was I tried to
fictionalize it. It didn't work. I put it away. It
was sat in a closet for sixteen years. I got
married again and my wife, my new wife, found it Joe,
and she said, it's a great story. So I read
it again. It didn't work, and then I realized why
(11:24):
I was trying to fictionalize real events. So I turned
my attention to writing a fictional story. But virtually everything
in the book actually happened, from the Triangle shirtwaist fire
to the Beck and Rosemen bal murders, the sinking of
the Titanic, the murder of Stamford White, the nineteen oh
(11:45):
three World's Fair, the Great Dance Fight in Chicago, the
greatest dive in the history of boxing. All this stuff
was real, so I had a feather my real characters
through it. It took me twenty five years, fought and
on because I had a law practice, and I was
also producing movies. But it took twenty five years. And
(12:05):
what I realized at the end, which was which shocked me,
is about ten years after I started the book, there
was a movie called Gangs in New York with Leonardo
DiCaprio about the basically about the Irish and the Irish gangs.
And then there was a giant mini series hit called
Boardwalk Empire that started in nineteen twenty. My book basically
(12:27):
ends in nineteen twenty. It's the middle period. It connects
Gangs in New York the Boardwalk Empire and then explains
a period and events that almost nobody knows about. It's
a dead era when the Irish controlled everything, and then
in nineteen thirteen the Irish mob was destroyed.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Let me ask you a couple of questions here. I'm
more familiar with what has gone on in Boston, and
I suspect that's fairly a representative of some of the
other cities that you have in this book.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
But in Boston, for a long long time, as we.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Call them, the Brahmins of the Yankees, those who could
trace their roots to the Mayflower, ruled everything here. They
they were the bankers, Uh, the educators, they the the investors.
It was it was all uh, one class. And then
obviously you had, as you mentioned here, the UH the
(13:23):
the Irish landed and UH and things changed and the
Irish the way in was uh political. But at the
same time there was a lot of gang activity here.
There were other gangs that that came along. But the
Irish in Boston, UH, they didn't want their their children,
(13:44):
their kids to be involved in that sort of stuff. So,
for example, you'd have Joe Kennedy. Uh, the patriarch of
the Kennedy family was involved in bootlegging. Reportedly, I I
can never tell you that I bought bootleg whiskey from
Joe Kennedy, but I've seen enough to realize that's true.
He himself was involved, as you know, in the movie industry,
(14:05):
but his son went on to become the President of
the United States. As you know, your dad was active
in democratic politics. He had another son who ran for president. Both,
of course, sadly and tragically were assassinated. But the patriarch
wanted their children to be in what arguably was a
(14:26):
cleaner business. But I'm not sure that the politics was
any cleaner than the gang activity. If you get my drift.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Well, as a current example, there were museums all over
the country, and charitable institutions and a great creative art
centers around the nation named after the Annenbergs, well most
of them Max Adamberg with gangsters. In fact, they led
(14:57):
the newspaper hit squads and Chicago that would beat up
newspaper stand proprietors who had the wrong newspaper up front
and their stands, and then the other papers would send
gangs and beat them up. And then eventually at the
end of his life Moses Annenberger tried to get away
from it. Became the bigger criminal because he controlled the
(15:18):
betting wire and he had a NonStop war with Capone
and the Chicago organization and the Purple Gang. I mean,
he was deeply embedded and then went to jail. And
when he got out of jail, on his death bet
he said to his son Walter, I made millions. I'm
the richest man in the country. I was the most
powerful man in the country. It was all for nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
A lot of regret. There a lot of regret, And
of course anybody who knows journalism knows that there are
journalism schools Aninburg schools and awards and all that. So
I assume that the pattern that we see here in
Boston followed on in Chicago. And I don't know that
I'd want to be in the gang that was up
against al capoone. So there you had, I guess a
(16:03):
Jewish gang was in competition with an Italian gang.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
No.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
The interesting thing is the Irish had in in Chicago.
There were there was segregated vice district. The most famous
was the Levee and that was run by a man
by Big Jim Colosimo, who was assassinated in the first
episode of Boardwalk Empire. So that the Irish powers, the
Aldermans controlled the Levees and the other crime areas through
(16:33):
through Big Jim Colosmo and Johnny Torrio who he brought
in for New York, and then Johnny Toreo brought in Capone.
But there was there was a heavy Irish presence in
the gangs, the Obanion Bannons. You know that big Valentine's
Day massacre. Uh So it was a mixed bag. In
Saint Louis, it was all Irish, all Irish, okay.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And when you use the term levees in terms of Chicago,
we would be referring to it as the docks.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
It's the waterfront, well, it's called the Levy and it
was about as depraved as you can imagine. The people
in the people in Chicago loved the praved areas, but
they wanted to separate them away so that their conscience
could blossom as men of essex and morality that had none.
(17:20):
So it was a little different in every city. But
what happened was in the Becker Rosenthal murders, the connection
between the politicians at Tammany Hall and the police department,
which was totally corrupt, was broken, and once that was broken,
the control over the vote died. Socialists came in with
(17:41):
the Jews. The merchant bankers came in to rescue the
Jews from poverty. The Protestant churches went to war with
the Catholic Church, and before you know it, the Irish
mob had collapsed, and out of that rose the Jewish
organized crime families into labor rackets to hearing, followed by
(18:02):
Jewish crime families and Italian crime families into bootlegging and
then organized crime as we know today. But it wouldn't
have happened without the Becca Rosenthal murders. That did it.
It broke the chain that Herbert bays Swope, the great reporter,
who was at the Pulett, who was at Pulitt's World,
was trying to break. And this was the event that did.
(18:24):
It's not central to my book, but it's at the end,
and it allows part portions of the plot to unravel
with all the surprise endings. So I use it. But
there are whole books on that. There's a book, as
I said, called Satan's Circus is one against the evidence.
It's a very famous case.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And so you take the title Satan's Circus and you
flip it around here. Circus of Satan. Is that the
genesis of your title?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Two reasons. Number one, The ten Underloin district on the
West Side was the upper level of crime and corruption.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It was called the Tenderloin by a cop who said,
I've been on the East Side getting chuck steak. Now
I'm going to cross town to get some tenderloin. And
San Francisco picked up the name.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yes, right, The tenderloin district in San Francisco was not
a place you want to spend a lot of time.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
It's a.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
But the The Protestant clergy referred to the Tenderloin as
Satan's Circus because it was so different, and I took
the title for two reasons. Number one, there's a nonfiction
book called Satan's Circus about the Becca Rosenthal murders. I
didn't want to clash for that. But my hero, my
(19:44):
my anti hero, is not exactly an altar boy. When
he looks back on his life. Some of the things
he did, he regrets it led to awful things. Even
though the resolution might have worked out. He left the
trail of bodies, pain and tears behind. And until the
end of the book he admits, from the time he
(20:06):
was a child until the end, he could never cry
because so many bad things that happened. So he compares
his life to a circus of Satan, and he has
this metaphorical presence of Satanic clowns juggling and Satanic lion
Tamer's taming at the end of each chapter, so it
(20:28):
has a double meaning. It's his life and it's the place.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Gotcha all right? We got to take a break. News
at the bottom of the hour. My guest is attorney
and author Jeff Convicts. If you you would have known
him from the book The Sentinel and other books along
the way. The new book, which is coming out on
June seventeenth, the publication date. Who's the circus of Satan
(20:54):
being published by you? Back with Simon and Schuster are
a different publisher No, My.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
First three books were published by Simon and Schuster Random
House in Bantam. This one, I decided it's going to
be my own publishing company. I want complete control. I
designed the cover, I had designed the inside, I designed
all the marketing campaigns. My partner and I put up
all the money. We hired the pr people, the marketing people,
we have ads and publishers weekly in variety. We're going
(21:21):
all out. It's very difficult because the major publishers have powers.
In fact, it's almost impossible to get an indie book
into a bookstore because of the discount rate for hardcovers.
So the way you buy this book is you go
on Amazon and it's actually in pre order. Now you
go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or other online booksellers,
(21:42):
just press order, give your address, won't pay for it,
and it comes the next day, two days later. So
it's a different thing. I had to learn how to
do this.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Okay, that's the lawyer, and you're figure it out then, Jeff,
we'll be back in a couple of a couple of
minutes after the newscast. Folks, if you want to jump
on board, you have a knowledge of these these these
sordid histories in most major American cities throughout most of
the twentieth century, and you want to either add to
(22:13):
the conversation or ask a question, You're more than welcome
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or six
one seven, nine three, one ten thirty back with attorney
and author Jeff Convicts right after the news break at
the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We're talking with a gentleman who has combined two areas
of expertise literature writing and also the law. Jeff Convicts
is a very successful California lawyer who hit it big
with a book called The Sentinel in the nineteen sixties.
That nineteen seventies. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm not that I.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Was looking you know what I was doing, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I was looking at the number of sold six million,
and I defaulted to the sixties, the seventies. You and
I graduated from law school the same year. If you
get out in seventy four.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
By the way, just now, I got out in seventies, So.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Okay, fair enough. Well you don't sound it, that's that
is for sure. And the book that he's written now
is is available for pre order Circus of Satan, highly
recommended to me by someone, which is why I have
Jeff on tonight. I want to follow up because I'm
(23:33):
not sure that you responded as fully as I think
you could to the to the whole question of out
of at least in Boston, and maybe Boston is the
exception of the rule out of the the the Irish gangs.
And and not that Joe Kennedy led a street gang,
(23:55):
because that wasn't what he did, but he wanted to
make sure that his sons were we're in a more
legitimate field politics. And and ultimately, Bobby Kennedy went after
organized crime. And as a matter of fact, some people
believe that his pursuit of organized crime, UH and his
(24:19):
tenacious pursuit of organized crime may have laid laid the
foundation for both his and his brother's assassination. Do you
have a thought on that theory, you know, because nobody
knows the real story as far as I'm concerned, behind
the Kennedy assassination. But I see the hands of organized
(24:40):
crime much more clearly than I do of Fidel Castro,
or the Soviet Union, or or or any sort of
you know, crazy right wing plot does. Does your experience
and your knowledge in this area, has that helped? Have
you thought about that the implications of both of those assassinations.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
The easiest answer is I'm a political animal. I know
that I read nonfiction. I read NonStop. I'm up on
current events, and I've always been. I have my opinions
on the Kennedy assassination. I feel strongly. I guess maybe
(25:25):
our new head of Health and Welfare, mister Kennedy, feels
the same. I suspect that Alan Dulles and the CIA
had a hand in it. I can't prove it. There's
no thorough proof of that, but they were as duplicitous
a group of characters as I've ever come across. Now,
(25:49):
all the derivations of that, I probably could talk for
hours on it, but I don't believe there was a
single gunman, and I don't believe the CIA wasn't involved.
But you can paper the walls with my beliefs. That's
from my analysis of what I've read, And I.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Could be wrong, But by the way, not only could
you be right, but your theory could possibly The Blaky
Commission in the late seventies and the House of Representatives
I thought, did the deepest dive on whatever was available
in seventy nine and at that point had not been
(26:31):
lost to antiquity, basically came to the conclusion that organized
crime was more likely than not involved. But that is
not necessarily inconsistent with your saying the CIA might have
covered the attracts by using the Jack Rubys of the
world and some of the Chicago gangsters who had very
(26:53):
close relationships with a couple of women that President Kennedy
allegedly was involved in.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
You don't as you're referring to Sam g and Conn
and I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, of course, Yeah, that's well, that was what the
Blaky Commission, and I am influenced greatly by the Blaki
Commission and spent a lot of time looking at that
as a reporter in seventy eight and in the eighty three.
The fifteenth and the twentieth anniversary of the assassination and
had a chance to interview lots of the people who
(27:28):
were on the scene. Literally from interviewed John Conley, interviewed
Senator Ralph Yarboro, who was you know along in years
by nineteen eighty three. Interviewed the Texas ranger who was
holding Oswald's arm as Oswald was being shot by Jack Ruby,
(27:49):
fascinating guy who only died a few years ago. Interviewed
some of the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital. It
was just it was a very you know, very interesting
and again it shows that, you know, there is this
relationship between organized crime and politics, or organized crime and government.
(28:11):
There it's not as clear a demarcations as we should
have in a society. Comment on that if you would,
and then I want to get to some phone.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Well, people sometimes ask me, how did the violence back then?
And it was very violent. My book doesn't sugarcoate it.
How is it different from the violence today? Well, the
truth of the matter is whether it was the Irish
mob or the Jewish organized crime that rose after the
Irish Mob was destroyed, or even the Italian mob or gangsters,
(28:43):
and whether they were original immigrants or the sons. They
all wanted to be Americans. That's the difference. They wanted
to be Americans. They just happened to want to be gangsters,
but they wanted to be Americans.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
The path they chose.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
In fact, what's happening here today with the trend Agua,
MS thirteen and others, they don't want to be Americans.
It's the last thing they want. They want to use
America for their own means. So I guess the difference
is you have criminals who wanted to be Americans to
(29:17):
be criminals, and today you have criminals who wouldn't care
less about being Americans. And the other interesting thing is
my story in my book is so intricate, and there
are so many steps involved. If something goes wrong, everything
goes wrong and you have to recalibrate. It could never
happen today because you have cell phones, you have internets.
(29:37):
You pick up the phone, you call someone else, and
the plot would be broken today. Organized crime, other than
these immigrant gangs are really like medicare frauds and SBA FORUD.
It's all over the place. I see you have a
lot of friends with criminal lawyers like Robert Shapiro, is
a close friend of mine. It's all over the place,
and it's more technological fraud, technological crime rather than the
(30:05):
crime that existed back then.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Well, the crime that's coming across the border, which involves
fentanyl and things like that, which are really are scary.
They they are selling that junk here because Americans will
pay for it. Yes, there may be people in their
home countries who would play, who would try that junk,
but they can't make the same amount of money. There's
(30:28):
no there's no return and investment selling it to people
who are in poverty in Central America or South America.
That's why they are basically bringing that stuff across the border,
because there's a marketplace for it. Let me let me
get us a call or two in here. I'm gonna
go first off to Lola in San Diego, California. Lola,
(30:50):
you are next on night Side with my guest who
also is in California, Jeff Convits tonight. Go ahead, Lola.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Hi, Jeff, thank you for troking my call. I just
want you to know that your release date to your
book is on my birthday, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
By the way, birthday. When I set the date, it's.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Also I have a bridge in Brooklyn. I'd like to
show you.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
Well, you know, Dan, there's no coincidences. Bunker Hill Day
is also my birthday. And I'm glad to see you
keeping the radar up on corruption and what's going on,
because we allegedly have some stuff going on in Massachusetts.
(31:42):
So you might want to put your radar on that
state for your next book.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I think in San Francisco is talking about.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Francisco. I'm not in San Francisco. I'm in San Dieo.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
I'm misspoke.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I know that, I know that.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
But my daughter's in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, okay, Uh, she's doing fine actually today she uh
Lola is referring to the Karen Reed trial. I don't know,
Jeff that you have followed that trial. It's uh, it's
it's not a it's not a classic organized crime trial.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Uh, but there is.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
There is a lot of allegations of police abuse and misconduct,
and it's actually being used by the defensive attorneys, including
a guy from California named Alan Jackson, who you might
have be aware of.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Well, I am following it, but not quite as much
as I follow other things.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
So when you do, when you do get a moment.
Look at the the YouTube videos because allegedly there's a
judge there on the case and she's throwing signals like
she's a baseball coach.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Yah, you know what all I'm gonna I well, I
gotta again.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
I think that that the jalre some rus here.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
But I want to get back to the topic that
you know, I don't.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Great to talk with you say and singing something is
two different things.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
So just okay, time times out, Thanks much, We'll talk soon. Okay,
have a great night if any of you would like
to talk about the issue at hand, which is the
book of my guest, Circus of Satan, which talks about
organized crime activity in this country really from about the
end of the nineteenth century, throughout the twentieth century, throughout
(33:39):
much of the twentieth century. Attorney Jeff convicts. The book
is called Circus of Satan. It's a historical novel. We
do not do novels per se historical novels. I make
exceptions for including the historical novels of our good friend
Bill Martin William Martin, who has written so many great
books which are New England based. This is a different
(34:01):
type genre of book, and I want wanted people to
be aware of it. We'll take a very quick break
if you'd like to follow in Lola's footsteps and perhaps
talk about this book or the theories that my guest
has talked about. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten
thirty six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. Coming
right back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
We're talking with Jeff Convits, a very successful attorney. It
has been involved in the entertainment industry for a long time.
But I had a breakthrough novel back in the mid
nineteen seventies called The Sentinel UH and has spent the
last I don't know a couple of decades with a
(34:48):
book that had been buried away which he has brought
to life. And it's called Circus of Satan, and it
basically talks about ethics, morality.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Judgment, revenge.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
UH.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
A very violent time. And and I think, Jeff, what's
important one of the things that's that are important with
your book is to make people understand really how violent
America was in this period of time, and somehow we
survived it as a nation. Can you imagine if there
(35:21):
was an internet and and and spot news, breaking news
stories back at the turn of the nineteenth century the
twentieth century, I should say, uh, how that would have
been covered? You know, the Valentine's Day massacre, these this's
just this, you know, carnage that's that's that littered the
(35:44):
streets of America for decades.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I think I noted the fact that my book, which
is fiction and as a page turn to, every chapter
has a has a cliffhanger or a giant event that
leads you to the next till the very end. None
of that could have happened if you had the Internet
and you had cell phones. The only place you got
news in those days was through the newspapers, and the
(36:12):
reporters controlled the message, probably more legitimately than some today.
They were very accurate, but they all had their agendas.
I mean Herbert Bateswolpe, who was the most famous appearances world.
His agenda was women, protecting the workers in the garman
places from abuse, and of course, when the Triangle shirtwaist
(36:35):
fire broke out, one hundred and twenty five, one hundred
and twenty eight women jumped to their deaths. He was
the lead rabble rouser against the garment business. That was
controlled by the Irish mob and so what happened then
couldn't happen if we had the technology then technology now
(36:59):
back then couldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
No, I do understand that, but I'm just saying we today,
at least speaking for Boston, if there's a shooting, a
single shooting, sometimes there's an injury, sometimes there's not shots
fired somewhere, that will lead the newscast with breaking news.
And I'm sure it's the same in every major American city.
(37:24):
I'm sure it's the same in Los Angeles, San Diego,
where Lola is, San Francisco, every major city, because the
newscasts they if they don't lead the newscast with the
weather crisis, and if you watch it, the TV consultants
are telling everybody the only issue the subject that everyone
(37:45):
is interested in his weather. It's only about twenty five
percent of the people care about sports, other people care
about this, care about that, but everybody wants weather. I
just can't imagine, and it's impossible, maybe, as you say,
for in the type of world we live now, for
these gangs who have coalesced and survived and actually done
(38:10):
well financially, et cetera. It just would have been so shocking,
and I think it's important for us to remember that
as bad as things are today, they were worse in
this country in the past. I feel like I'm preaching here,
but it's what I really do believe.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Well, take for example, the Bowery. It was the most
populated place on earth. In ten square blocks, there were
five hundred thousand people. There were one hundred synagogues, there
were two hundred gangs, there were one thousand selza plants.
Everything was on top of each other, and everything was
(38:51):
to get the vote. Control the vote. The Jewish, Jews
and the Italians. Give them whatever they want as long
as they vote the Tammany slate. Yeah, it was. It
was very different today. A dead body lying in the
street was no big deal. Now at dead body lying
in the street, it's the news right away, top story.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Breaking breaking news, that's for sure. Jeff again, how can
folks pre order the book? And it comes out on
June seventh, But people tonight can can just go.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
On to Amazon dot com? Is that how it works?
Speaker 3 (39:23):
As simple as that, you can go onto Amazon dot
com or Barnes and Noble or any other online bookseller.
It'll pop up, it'll say pre order. You just got
to click it and put it, you know, pay for it,
and they'll deliver it to you on June seventeenth, which
is the publication date, or a day after, or you
(39:43):
can order it an ebook if you're an e book reader,
it's available. We're going to have a sale on the ebook,
so you'll be able to get in for a week
and get it very cheaply, but no sale on the hardcover.
If you're gonna read a book, you're gonna pay for it,
which is what I hope they do. It's a it's
a big book. It's five hundred and thirty one pages.
I believe once you start reading it, you will not
(40:04):
be able to put it down. And not only that,
you will learn a lot about ideas of justice, ethics, morality,
history that most people don't know. You'll learn a lot
from this book. And all the reviews have said so
the reviews are sensational.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
That's great. Well, congratulations on both of your successes as
a practitioner of the law and also as a practitioner.
I would say typewriter, but typewriters are out a I'm
sure you were dealing with the word processor or a computer.
Maybe when you started you had a typewriter on this book,
because this book has been a long time in the making.
(40:40):
Jeff Convits, I really appreciated your time. I've enjoyed the
conversation both this afternoon and particularly tonight as well. Thank
you so much. Hope at some point to meet you.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
As a side comment, Dan, my first typewriter, a Remington Electric,
is sitting next to my desk on a pedestal. I
wrote this sentinel on that.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Would I would be sentimental about the sentinel if I
had been fortunate enough to have written it.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Thanks so much, Jeff, we'll talk again. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
You're very welcome. Here comes the eleven o'clock news, and
after that it's the twentieth hour of the week, and
I have an idea what I'm going to talk about,
but I hope that you'll be willing to participate. Coming
back on night's side,
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS. Constance me Vidio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Sorry, welcome back everyone, as we move into our ten
o'clock hour, I'm delighted to be joined by attorney Jeff Convicts.
Jeff practices law in the great state of California. He's
an active practicing attorney who is in and out of
federal court, in and out of the State Supreme Court
in California. But he's also an author, and he has
(00:30):
written a new book which is a historical novel. So,
without any further Ado, Jeff, welcome to Nightside. How are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Dan, Well delighted to have you. And you had a
very successful book which was called The Sentinel that sold.
I think it's about six million copies. Was that your
first effort at writing a book?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It was my first effort at writing a book. It
had Actually it was in the mid seventies after I
got met a law school at Columbia and I just
a friend of mine said why don't you write a book?
And I did. It was interesting because the first creative
(01:18):
writing paper I had at Cornell, I got a d
on and the professor said, you're illiterate. I guess I
turned along the way.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's true. And the interesting about thing about the book,
even though it was turned down by thirty companies in
a Rose, Simon and Schuster took it, and then Random
House took it. And in those days, math market paperback
was the business. Hardcover hardly existed. And they did a
television ad and the next day the book blew through
(01:52):
the roof everybody wherever I went in La New York,
wherever on airplanes, everyone was reading it and they would
get to a little after page one hundred when virtually
everyone would say what because I tricked everybody and that
got them locked in. So it was a huge hit.
And then I did a sequel called The Guardian, which
(02:14):
was a hit too, But now no one there is
a big.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So so you're a young lawyer at that point who
you have started to practice law. But but better than that,
you now become a highly successful author. I assumed The
Sentinel turned into a movie, and there there were there
(02:37):
were all sorts of a film adaptation, et cetera, and
it was a It was a smashing success. Did you
ever think at that point, well, gee, I've found my
real life, my real role in life. Here they if
I get to that point.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, it did become a movie at Universal. I wasn't
one hundred percent happy with it because the direct there
took shortcuts. But such a long story. The truth is,
when I got out of law school, I went right
into the entertainment business. I went to one of the
biggest talent agencies as a lawyer agent, and then I
went to MGM as a production executive, and I was
(03:15):
writing the book at night. And then when the book
came out and was a hit, Universal bought the movie
rights in a big bidding war. I made a lot
of money in nineteen seventy four, was shocking, and I
had no money in the bank, and suddenly I had
a million and a half dollars. So I wrote two
more books, The Centinel, The Guardian, and A Monster A
(03:38):
Tale of Lockness, which was more about politics and more
of a thriller about oil drilling. And then I said,
you know, I'm staying in the movie business. The book
business is very difficult. And I spent the next I
still am in the movie business, running running public public
(03:59):
distribution and production companies. We made a lot of movies.
I produced some movies, but kind of In nineteen ninety six,
I went back to my law practice full time. But
the seeds of this book, the new book, The Circus
of Satan, had already been planted.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Where where did those seeds spring from?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
It started in the late seventies with a book called
Against the Evidence, about a murder trial that took place
in New York. Basically, four Jewish gamblers hired three Jewish
killers and one Italian killer to kill a Jewish gambler
(04:43):
who was breaking the rules and had gone to the press.
And the reason it was so notorious is from nineteen
hundred to nineteen thirteen, politics in virtually every American city
with some little adjustments, were controlled by what I call
the Irish mobs. The Irish had come over the Seventh
in the sixth in the eighteen forties eighteen fifties from
(05:07):
the Potato famine, and a lot of them moved into
gangs in these major cities. They were like the bootle
Boys and the Roach Guards, and the Death House Gang
and the Tunnel Gang. And eventually they coalesced into one
big gang called the Wio Gang, which I begin my
(05:27):
book with in a bar fight. And then by nineteen
hundred they had basically moved out of gangdom and become
political powers. Like in New York, the Irish completely controlled
Tammany Hall, and through Tammany Hall they controlled the police department,
who were all grafters, and the police department would scour
(05:49):
the city grafting and grafting the opium dens and the
houses of prostitution and the gambling casinos, and the money
would be remitted to the eye Irish overlords at Tammany
Hall and then the student The overlords at Tammany Hall
would get people elected to major positions in the city
(06:10):
who had then kicked back money to Tammany Hall. In fact,
in nineteen ten, when Mayor Gamer was elected, he canceled
money going to Tammany Hall for a thousand Tammany executives,
all of whom were dead. So the money was just
pouring in. And this happened in almost every major city,
(06:31):
not so much in Boston because the Brahmins were there,
as you know you're from Boston. But in my book,
I do have Honey Fits and Patrick Kennedy and Kennedy's
son and Rose Fitzgerald there in there. There was a
heavy Irish presence in Chicago through Bath House, John Coglin
(06:51):
and Hinky Mike Kenna. Saint Louis was completely controlled by
Eddie the Rat Egan and his gang.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
But when you talk about when you talk about Chicago,
obviously you get to the Daily family of you know,
in the fifties, and they sort of handed it off
to Jane Byrne and then that was kind of the
end of the Irish control in Chicago. But there were
a lot of stories about what mayor Daily, you know,
(07:22):
the Richard Daily, the father, might have done to help
find a few extra votes in Chicago to swing Illinois
in the nineteen sixty presidential election. So those of us
in Boston are very familiar with the interplay between political
figures and gangs. So this is a book that I'm
(07:43):
sure a lot of my listeners are going to read,
and I want to, I want to expand our conversation
on it, but I got to take a quick commercial break.
My guest is attorney Jeff Convicts. John Jeff has had
tremendous success as an author, and despite all of that,
he remained a practicing, highly successful lawyer in California, And
(08:05):
he now has a new book that comes out actually
later this month called Circus of Satan.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
It is a historical novel.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
There's and we we will occasionally occasionally have authors of
historical novels that I think would be of interest to
my audience. We know a lot of the successions here
in Massachusetts. Matter of fact, more recently we had the
(08:37):
Senate President in Massachusetts, a Democrat by the name of
Bill Bulger, and his brother, the notorious Whitey Bulger, who
had been at one point a resident of Alcatraz. They
had a real rule of terror here in Boston from
the late sixties through the seventies and eighties and into
the nineties. And actually Bulger was the former cent of President,
(09:01):
was the president of the University of Massachusetts until then
Governor Mitt Romney convinced him to resign that post. So
even it comes up to the twentieth the twenty first century,
and we're going to talk with Jeff Convince. If you
have a question, you were more than welcome to join
the conversation if you're interested in the interrelationship between politicians
(09:22):
and gang activity, which dates from the earliest years of
the nineteen hundreds, actually a little bit into the eighteen eighties,
eighteen seventy eight onto eighteen eighties and nineties. That's the
era we're talking about. If you'd like to join the conversation,
feel free six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty
six one, seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty. If you're
(09:44):
familiar with any of Jeff's prior books, including The Sentinel,
I think he would admit is his best known book,
you can you can talk to him as well. We'll
be back on Night's Side right after a couple of
brief messages with my guest, California attorney, author successful in
two very interesting and arguably related realms, writing and the law.
(10:07):
Back on Nightside after this.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w BEAZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
My guest is a writer and a lawyer and accomplished
in both of those fields. Jeff convicts. Jeff, let's talk
about the book that is about to come out again,
A book that you've worked on for some time. How
long would you say you've worked on this book? I
(10:37):
suspect it's been in the making for a long time.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Well, I did after reading this against the evidence. And
actually there are more books about the Becca Rosenthal murders.
In fact, a book called Satan Circus which is nonfiction,
and the whole book is about the murders. My book
just uses the Becha Rosenthal case in about twenty pages,
which triggers a whole bunch of plot issues that are
(11:01):
fictional but lead to the same place. So I started
writing it in the late seventies. Was I tried to
fictionalize it. It didn't work. I put it away. It
was sat in a closet for sixteen years. I got
married again and my wife, my new wife, found it Joe,
and she said, it's a great story. So I read
it again. It didn't work, and then I realized why
(11:24):
I was trying to fictionalize real events. So I turned
my attention to writing a fictional story. But virtually everything
in the book actually happened, from the Triangle shirtwaist fire
to the Beck and Rosemen bal murders, the sinking of
the Titanic, the murder of Stamford White, the nineteen oh
(11:45):
three World's Fair, the Great Dance Fight in Chicago, the
greatest dive in the history of boxing. All this stuff
was real, so I had a feather my real characters
through it. It took me twenty five years, fought and
on because I had a law practice, and I was
also producing movies. But it took twenty five years. And
(12:05):
what I realized at the end, which was which shocked me,
is about ten years after I started the book, there
was a movie called Gangs in New York with Leonardo
DiCaprio about the basically about the Irish and the Irish gangs.
And then there was a giant mini series hit called
Boardwalk Empire that started in nineteen twenty. My book basically
(12:27):
ends in nineteen twenty. It's the middle period. It connects
Gangs in New York the Boardwalk Empire and then explains
a period and events that almost nobody knows about. It's
a dead era when the Irish controlled everything, and then
in nineteen thirteen the Irish mob was destroyed.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Let me ask you a couple of questions here. I'm
more familiar with what has gone on in Boston, and
I suspect that's fairly a representative of some of the
other cities that you have in this book.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
But in Boston, for a long long time, as we.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Call them, the Brahmins of the Yankees, those who could
trace their roots to the Mayflower, ruled everything here. They
they were the bankers, Uh, the educators, they the the investors.
It was it was all uh, one class. And then
obviously you had, as you mentioned here, the UH the
(13:23):
the Irish landed and UH and things changed and the
Irish the way in was uh political. But at the
same time there was a lot of gang activity here.
There were other gangs that that came along. But the
Irish in Boston, UH, they didn't want their their children,
(13:44):
their kids to be involved in that sort of stuff. So,
for example, you'd have Joe Kennedy. Uh, the patriarch of
the Kennedy family was involved in bootlegging. Reportedly, I I
can never tell you that I bought bootleg whiskey from
Joe Kennedy, but I've seen enough to realize that's true.
He himself was involved, as you know, in the movie industry,
(14:05):
but his son went on to become the President of
the United States. As you know, your dad was active
in democratic politics. He had another son who ran for president. Both,
of course, sadly and tragically were assassinated. But the patriarch
wanted their children to be in what arguably was a
(14:26):
cleaner business. But I'm not sure that the politics was
any cleaner than the gang activity. If you get my drift.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Well, as a current example, there were museums all over
the country, and charitable institutions and a great creative art
centers around the nation named after the Annenbergs, well most
of them Max Adamberg with gangsters. In fact, they led
(14:57):
the newspaper hit squads and Chicago that would beat up
newspaper stand proprietors who had the wrong newspaper up front
and their stands, and then the other papers would send
gangs and beat them up. And then eventually at the
end of his life Moses Annenberger tried to get away
from it. Became the bigger criminal because he controlled the
(15:18):
betting wire and he had a NonStop war with Capone
and the Chicago organization and the Purple Gang. I mean,
he was deeply embedded and then went to jail. And
when he got out of jail, on his death bet
he said to his son Walter, I made millions. I'm
the richest man in the country. I was the most
powerful man in the country. It was all for nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
A lot of regret. There a lot of regret, And
of course anybody who knows journalism knows that there are
journalism schools Aninburg schools and awards and all that. So
I assume that the pattern that we see here in
Boston followed on in Chicago. And I don't know that
I'd want to be in the gang that was up
against al capoone. So there you had, I guess a
(16:03):
Jewish gang was in competition with an Italian gang.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
No.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
The interesting thing is the Irish had in in Chicago.
There were there was segregated vice district. The most famous
was the Levee and that was run by a man
by Big Jim Colosimo, who was assassinated in the first
episode of Boardwalk Empire. So that the Irish powers, the
Aldermans controlled the Levees and the other crime areas through
(16:33):
through Big Jim Colosmo and Johnny Torrio who he brought
in for New York, and then Johnny Toreo brought in Capone.
But there was there was a heavy Irish presence in
the gangs, the Obanion Bannons. You know that big Valentine's
Day massacre. Uh So it was a mixed bag. In
Saint Louis, it was all Irish, all Irish, okay.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And when you use the term levees in terms of Chicago,
we would be referring to it as the docks.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
It's the waterfront, well, it's called the Levy and it
was about as depraved as you can imagine. The people
in the people in Chicago loved the praved areas, but
they wanted to separate them away so that their conscience
could blossom as men of essex and morality that had none.
(17:20):
So it was a little different in every city. But
what happened was in the Becker Rosenthal murders, the connection
between the politicians at Tammany Hall and the police department,
which was totally corrupt, was broken, and once that was broken,
the control over the vote died. Socialists came in with
(17:41):
the Jews. The merchant bankers came in to rescue the
Jews from poverty. The Protestant churches went to war with
the Catholic Church, and before you know it, the Irish
mob had collapsed, and out of that rose the Jewish
organized crime families into labor rackets to hearing, followed by
(18:02):
Jewish crime families and Italian crime families into bootlegging and
then organized crime as we know today. But it wouldn't
have happened without the Becca Rosenthal murders. That did it.
It broke the chain that Herbert bays Swope, the great reporter,
who was at the Pulett, who was at Pulitt's World,
was trying to break. And this was the event that did.
(18:24):
It's not central to my book, but it's at the end,
and it allows part portions of the plot to unravel
with all the surprise endings. So I use it. But
there are whole books on that. There's a book, as
I said, called Satan's Circus is one against the evidence.
It's a very famous case.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And so you take the title Satan's Circus and you
flip it around here. Circus of Satan. Is that the
genesis of your title?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Two reasons. Number one, The ten Underloin district on the
West Side was the upper level of crime and corruption.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It was called the Tenderloin by a cop who said,
I've been on the East Side getting chuck steak. Now
I'm going to cross town to get some tenderloin. And
San Francisco picked up the name.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yes, right, The tenderloin district in San Francisco was not
a place you want to spend a lot of time.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
It's a.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
But the The Protestant clergy referred to the Tenderloin as
Satan's Circus because it was so different, and I took
the title for two reasons. Number one, there's a nonfiction
book called Satan's Circus about the Becca Rosenthal murders. I
didn't want to clash for that. But my hero, my
(19:44):
my anti hero, is not exactly an altar boy. When
he looks back on his life. Some of the things
he did, he regrets it led to awful things. Even
though the resolution might have worked out. He left the
trail of bodies, pain and tears behind. And until the
end of the book he admits, from the time he
(20:06):
was a child until the end, he could never cry
because so many bad things that happened. So he compares
his life to a circus of Satan, and he has
this metaphorical presence of Satanic clowns juggling and Satanic lion
Tamer's taming at the end of each chapter, so it
(20:28):
has a double meaning. It's his life and it's the place.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Gotcha all right? We got to take a break. News
at the bottom of the hour. My guest is attorney
and author Jeff Convicts. If you you would have known
him from the book The Sentinel and other books along
the way. The new book, which is coming out on
June seventeenth, the publication date. Who's the circus of Satan
(20:54):
being published by you? Back with Simon and Schuster are
a different publisher No, My.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
First three books were published by Simon and Schuster Random
House in Bantam. This one, I decided it's going to
be my own publishing company. I want complete control. I
designed the cover, I had designed the inside, I designed
all the marketing campaigns. My partner and I put up
all the money. We hired the pr people, the marketing people,
we have ads and publishers weekly in variety. We're going
(21:21):
all out. It's very difficult because the major publishers have powers.
In fact, it's almost impossible to get an indie book
into a bookstore because of the discount rate for hardcovers.
So the way you buy this book is you go
on Amazon and it's actually in pre order. Now you
go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or other online booksellers,
(21:42):
just press order, give your address, won't pay for it,
and it comes the next day, two days later. So
it's a different thing. I had to learn how to
do this.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Okay, that's the lawyer, and you're figure it out then, Jeff,
we'll be back in a couple of a couple of
minutes after the newscast. Folks, if you want to jump
on board, you have a knowledge of these these these
sordid histories in most major American cities throughout most of
the twentieth century, and you want to either add to
(22:13):
the conversation or ask a question, You're more than welcome
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or six
one seven, nine three, one ten thirty back with attorney
and author Jeff Convicts right after the news break at
the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We're talking with a gentleman who has combined two areas
of expertise literature writing and also the law. Jeff Convicts
is a very successful California lawyer who hit it big
with a book called The Sentinel in the nineteen sixties.
That nineteen seventies. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm not that I.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Was looking you know what I was doing, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I was looking at the number of sold six million,
and I defaulted to the sixties, the seventies. You and
I graduated from law school the same year. If you
get out in seventy four.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
By the way, just now, I got out in seventies, So.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Okay, fair enough. Well you don't sound it, that's that
is for sure. And the book that he's written now
is is available for pre order Circus of Satan, highly
recommended to me by someone, which is why I have
Jeff on tonight. I want to follow up because I'm
(23:33):
not sure that you responded as fully as I think
you could to the to the whole question of out
of at least in Boston, and maybe Boston is the
exception of the rule out of the the the Irish gangs.
And and not that Joe Kennedy led a street gang,
(23:55):
because that wasn't what he did, but he wanted to
make sure that his sons were we're in a more
legitimate field politics. And and ultimately, Bobby Kennedy went after
organized crime. And as a matter of fact, some people
believe that his pursuit of organized crime, UH and his
(24:19):
tenacious pursuit of organized crime may have laid laid the
foundation for both his and his brother's assassination. Do you
have a thought on that theory, you know, because nobody
knows the real story as far as I'm concerned, behind
the Kennedy assassination. But I see the hands of organized
(24:40):
crime much more clearly than I do of Fidel Castro,
or the Soviet Union, or or or any sort of
you know, crazy right wing plot does. Does your experience
and your knowledge in this area, has that helped? Have
you thought about that the implications of both of those assassinations.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
The easiest answer is I'm a political animal. I know
that I read nonfiction. I read NonStop. I'm up on
current events, and I've always been. I have my opinions
on the Kennedy assassination. I feel strongly. I guess maybe
(25:25):
our new head of Health and Welfare, mister Kennedy, feels
the same. I suspect that Alan Dulles and the CIA
had a hand in it. I can't prove it. There's
no thorough proof of that, but they were as duplicitous
a group of characters as I've ever come across. Now,
(25:49):
all the derivations of that, I probably could talk for
hours on it, but I don't believe there was a
single gunman, and I don't believe the CIA wasn't involved.
But you can paper the walls with my beliefs. That's
from my analysis of what I've read, And I.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Could be wrong, But by the way, not only could
you be right, but your theory could possibly The Blaky
Commission in the late seventies and the House of Representatives
I thought, did the deepest dive on whatever was available
in seventy nine and at that point had not been
(26:31):
lost to antiquity, basically came to the conclusion that organized
crime was more likely than not involved. But that is
not necessarily inconsistent with your saying the CIA might have
covered the attracts by using the Jack Rubys of the
world and some of the Chicago gangsters who had very
(26:53):
close relationships with a couple of women that President Kennedy
allegedly was involved in.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
You don't as you're referring to Sam g and Conn
and I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, of course, Yeah, that's well, that was what the
Blaky Commission, and I am influenced greatly by the Blaki
Commission and spent a lot of time looking at that
as a reporter in seventy eight and in the eighty three.
The fifteenth and the twentieth anniversary of the assassination and
had a chance to interview lots of the people who
(27:28):
were on the scene. Literally from interviewed John Conley, interviewed
Senator Ralph Yarboro, who was you know along in years
by nineteen eighty three. Interviewed the Texas ranger who was
holding Oswald's arm as Oswald was being shot by Jack Ruby,
(27:49):
fascinating guy who only died a few years ago. Interviewed
some of the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital. It
was just it was a very you know, very interesting
and again it shows that, you know, there is this
relationship between organized crime and politics, or organized crime and government.
(28:11):
There it's not as clear a demarcations as we should
have in a society. Comment on that if you would,
and then I want to get to some phone.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Well, people sometimes ask me, how did the violence back then?
And it was very violent. My book doesn't sugarcoate it.
How is it different from the violence today? Well, the
truth of the matter is whether it was the Irish
mob or the Jewish organized crime that rose after the
Irish Mob was destroyed, or even the Italian mob or gangsters,
(28:43):
and whether they were original immigrants or the sons. They
all wanted to be Americans. That's the difference. They wanted
to be Americans. They just happened to want to be gangsters,
but they wanted to be Americans.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
The path they chose.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
In fact, what's happening here today with the trend Agua,
MS thirteen and others, they don't want to be Americans.
It's the last thing they want. They want to use
America for their own means. So I guess the difference
is you have criminals who wanted to be Americans to
(29:17):
be criminals, and today you have criminals who wouldn't care
less about being Americans. And the other interesting thing is
my story in my book is so intricate, and there
are so many steps involved. If something goes wrong, everything
goes wrong and you have to recalibrate. It could never
happen today because you have cell phones, you have internets.
(29:37):
You pick up the phone, you call someone else, and
the plot would be broken today. Organized crime, other than
these immigrant gangs are really like medicare frauds and SBA FORUD.
It's all over the place. I see you have a
lot of friends with criminal lawyers like Robert Shapiro, is
a close friend of mine. It's all over the place,
and it's more technological fraud, technological crime rather than the
(30:05):
crime that existed back then.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Well, the crime that's coming across the border, which involves
fentanyl and things like that, which are really are scary.
They they are selling that junk here because Americans will
pay for it. Yes, there may be people in their
home countries who would play, who would try that junk,
but they can't make the same amount of money. There's
(30:28):
no there's no return and investment selling it to people
who are in poverty in Central America or South America.
That's why they are basically bringing that stuff across the border,
because there's a marketplace for it. Let me let me
get us a call or two in here. I'm gonna
go first off to Lola in San Diego, California. Lola,
(30:50):
you are next on night Side with my guest who
also is in California, Jeff Convits tonight. Go ahead, Lola.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Hi, Jeff, thank you for troking my call. I just
want you to know that your release date to your
book is on my birthday, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
By the way, birthday. When I set the date, it's.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Also I have a bridge in Brooklyn. I'd like to
show you.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
Well, you know, Dan, there's no coincidences. Bunker Hill Day
is also my birthday. And I'm glad to see you
keeping the radar up on corruption and what's going on,
because we allegedly have some stuff going on in Massachusetts.
(31:42):
So you might want to put your radar on that
state for your next book.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I think in San Francisco is talking about.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Francisco. I'm not in San Francisco. I'm in San Dieo.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
I'm misspoke.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I know that, I know that.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
But my daughter's in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, okay, Uh, she's doing fine actually today she uh
Lola is referring to the Karen Reed trial. I don't know,
Jeff that you have followed that trial. It's uh, it's
it's not a it's not a classic organized crime trial.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Uh, but there is.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
There is a lot of allegations of police abuse and misconduct,
and it's actually being used by the defensive attorneys, including
a guy from California named Alan Jackson, who you might
have be aware of.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Well, I am following it, but not quite as much
as I follow other things.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
So when you do, when you do get a moment.
Look at the the YouTube videos because allegedly there's a
judge there on the case and she's throwing signals like
she's a baseball coach.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Yah, you know what all I'm gonna I well, I
gotta again.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
I think that that the jalre some rus here.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
But I want to get back to the topic that
you know, I don't.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Great to talk with you say and singing something is
two different things.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
So just okay, time times out, Thanks much, We'll talk soon. Okay,
have a great night if any of you would like
to talk about the issue at hand, which is the
book of my guest, Circus of Satan, which talks about
organized crime activity in this country really from about the
end of the nineteenth century, throughout the twentieth century, throughout
(33:39):
much of the twentieth century. Attorney Jeff convicts. The book
is called Circus of Satan. It's a historical novel. We
do not do novels per se historical novels. I make
exceptions for including the historical novels of our good friend
Bill Martin William Martin, who has written so many great
books which are New England based. This is a different
(34:01):
type genre of book, and I want wanted people to
be aware of it. We'll take a very quick break
if you'd like to follow in Lola's footsteps and perhaps
talk about this book or the theories that my guest
has talked about. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten
thirty six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. Coming
right back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
We're talking with Jeff Convits, a very successful attorney. It
has been involved in the entertainment industry for a long time.
But I had a breakthrough novel back in the mid
nineteen seventies called The Sentinel UH and has spent the
last I don't know a couple of decades with a
(34:48):
book that had been buried away which he has brought
to life. And it's called Circus of Satan, and it
basically talks about ethics, morality.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Judgment, revenge.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
UH.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
A very violent time. And and I think, Jeff, what's
important one of the things that's that are important with
your book is to make people understand really how violent
America was in this period of time, and somehow we
survived it as a nation. Can you imagine if there
(35:21):
was an internet and and and spot news, breaking news
stories back at the turn of the nineteenth century the
twentieth century, I should say, uh, how that would have
been covered? You know, the Valentine's Day massacre, these this's
just this, you know, carnage that's that's that littered the
(35:44):
streets of America for decades.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I think I noted the fact that my book, which
is fiction and as a page turn to, every chapter
has a has a cliffhanger or a giant event that
leads you to the next till the very end. None
of that could have happened if you had the Internet
and you had cell phones. The only place you got
news in those days was through the newspapers, and the
(36:12):
reporters controlled the message, probably more legitimately than some today.
They were very accurate, but they all had their agendas.
I mean Herbert Bateswolpe, who was the most famous appearances world.
His agenda was women, protecting the workers in the garman
places from abuse, and of course, when the Triangle shirtwaist
(36:35):
fire broke out, one hundred and twenty five, one hundred
and twenty eight women jumped to their deaths. He was
the lead rabble rouser against the garment business. That was
controlled by the Irish mob and so what happened then
couldn't happen if we had the technology then technology now
(36:59):
back then couldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
No, I do understand that, but I'm just saying we today,
at least speaking for Boston, if there's a shooting, a
single shooting, sometimes there's an injury, sometimes there's not shots
fired somewhere, that will lead the newscast with breaking news.
And I'm sure it's the same in every major American city.
(37:24):
I'm sure it's the same in Los Angeles, San Diego,
where Lola is, San Francisco, every major city, because the
newscasts they if they don't lead the newscast with the
weather crisis, and if you watch it, the TV consultants
are telling everybody the only issue the subject that everyone
(37:45):
is interested in his weather. It's only about twenty five
percent of the people care about sports, other people care
about this, care about that, but everybody wants weather. I
just can't imagine, and it's impossible, maybe, as you say,
for in the type of world we live now, for
these gangs who have coalesced and survived and actually done
(38:10):
well financially, et cetera. It just would have been so shocking,
and I think it's important for us to remember that
as bad as things are today, they were worse in
this country in the past. I feel like I'm preaching here,
but it's what I really do believe.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Well, take for example, the Bowery. It was the most
populated place on earth. In ten square blocks, there were
five hundred thousand people. There were one hundred synagogues, there
were two hundred gangs, there were one thousand selza plants.
Everything was on top of each other, and everything was
(38:51):
to get the vote. Control the vote. The Jewish, Jews
and the Italians. Give them whatever they want as long
as they vote the Tammany slate. Yeah, it was. It
was very different today. A dead body lying in the
street was no big deal. Now at dead body lying
in the street, it's the news right away, top story.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Breaking breaking news, that's for sure. Jeff again, how can
folks pre order the book? And it comes out on
June seventh, But people tonight can can just go.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
On to Amazon dot com? Is that how it works?
Speaker 3 (39:23):
As simple as that, you can go onto Amazon dot
com or Barnes and Noble or any other online bookseller.
It'll pop up, it'll say pre order. You just got
to click it and put it, you know, pay for it,
and they'll deliver it to you on June seventeenth, which
is the publication date, or a day after, or you
(39:43):
can order it an ebook if you're an e book reader,
it's available. We're going to have a sale on the ebook,
so you'll be able to get in for a week
and get it very cheaply, but no sale on the hardcover.
If you're gonna read a book, you're gonna pay for it,
which is what I hope they do. It's a it's
a big book. It's five hundred and thirty one pages.
I believe once you start reading it, you will not
(40:04):
be able to put it down. And not only that,
you will learn a lot about ideas of justice, ethics, morality,
history that most people don't know. You'll learn a lot
from this book. And all the reviews have said so
the reviews are sensational.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
That's great. Well, congratulations on both of your successes as
a practitioner of the law and also as a practitioner.
I would say typewriter, but typewriters are out a I'm
sure you were dealing with the word processor or a computer.
Maybe when you started you had a typewriter on this book,
because this book has been a long time in the making.
(40:40):
Jeff Convits, I really appreciated your time. I've enjoyed the
conversation both this afternoon and particularly tonight as well. Thank
you so much. Hope at some point to meet you.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
As a side comment, Dan, my first typewriter, a Remington Electric,
is sitting next to my desk on a pedestal. I
wrote this sentinel on that.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Would I would be sentimental about the sentinel if I
had been fortunate enough to have written it.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Thanks so much, Jeff, we'll talk again. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
You're very welcome. Here comes the eleven o'clock news, and
after that it's the twentieth hour of the week, and
I have an idea what I'm going to talk about,
but I hope that you'll be willing to participate. Coming
back on night's side,
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