May 22, 2025 • 47 mins
A cardsharp, a ladies man, a con artist extraordinaire. Nicky Arnstein skirted the law and lived the high life, even married the most famous woman in radio. A couple stretches of hard labor in the pen couldn't break him, but a film adaptation of his life almost did. Tough guy, thin skin.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zeren Zaren you get over here?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I'm listening.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You're really eager. Yeah yeah, yeah, you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Oh man, all right, what do you know? People like
they don't like cilantro. Yeah, they say it's like, yeah,
apparently there's another genetic cord where people can smell ants
really because they can smell the formic acid on the
outsid use, yeah, or the orlaic acid, either one that
(00:36):
they can smell, and apparently that's a chemical messenger for ants,
so they can smell the ant trail. So there's one
person on the reddit they were talking about how they
watched their boyfriend hunt down at a single ant using
his trail. Wow, all right, isn't that crazy? And then
so they asked, like, what what does it smell?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Like?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, you want to know blue cheese and gasoline?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh dear god?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Better? What Like then after it rains and the ants
come out, and they're just like pass out because the
smells so bad. That's crazy. Isn't there a similar thing
with like asparagus p that some people get it and
some people don't.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Oh yeah, I guess so I don't know the answer,
but yes, I think that basically, once again, it's it's
an expression of a gene.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So we are complex.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, just one letter here, one letter that exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (01:23):
Other than ants, smell trail, there's not a whole lot,
but suing someone over telling a true story.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Oh, I thought about doing that.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heiss and cons. It's always ninety nine murder free in
one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Damn right.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
I know.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The story I have for you today, Buddy. You listen
to a lot of old radio shows. I know you've
mentioned that, like as a way to escape the present. Yeah,
so I was looking into crimes that would be in
some way involved with old radio shows since I wanted
to tell you something entertaining that would make you happy.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And I need to atone for telling the George Santos story.
Maya culpa. So this is how I'm making it up
to you and everybody else. I searched around and I
found a radio adjacent crime, really and it wasn't on
the radio, but it was involved with someone who was
and this guy he traveled in some of your favorite
(02:50):
criminal underworld circles.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
What is my birthday?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I know I don't always treat you right, dizzy and
times is trying. So this is my gift to you.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Today I shall tell you the story of Julius Wilford Arnstein.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Ooh yeah a name.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Julius born July first, eighteen seventy nine in Berlin, Germany.
What a time. So he's born into this Jewish family. Now,
in eighteen seventy nine, the Jewish community in Berlin, they
had this like period of relative legal equality but like
growing tension. Yes, so Germany had unified.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, the German Empire has now become a thing.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, eighteen seventy one Jewish people were granted full civil
rights under this new German Empire. But by eighteen seventy
nine when he's born, anti Semitism is really on the rise.
In fact, it was in eighteen seventy nine that Wilhelm
Marr coined the term anti Semitism.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Really when he.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Was founding the League of Anti Semites. Wow, so he's
like he's like pro ye, so yeah, he's like this
is what we will be called.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
He named the people haters.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Call us the haters. So all that's going on Julius, right,
it's like, we're out of here. Immigrate to the United States,
and they settled in New Jersey, and then upon arriving
in the States, they made a big change. They decided
to become episcopalian, like the whole boiled wool set. It's
(04:24):
a big change. Sure, I'm guessing a survival method. Not
uncommon to do that kind of thing, but like what
a culture.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Shock in a dietary culture shock?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Oh my god, culture showhere? But yeah, just like we
show up for like a church event, You're.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Like, what is what?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
What even is this? So Julius Wilford Arnstein eventually became
Nicki Arnstein, a d out of the arned Stein. He
picked up the nickname Nicky because he was like riding
bikes in these professional bike races and was really good
at it, and he had nickel plated bicycle spokes on
(05:02):
his bike, so everyone started calling him Nikky. He's like,
he's all quicksilver and tweeds and an easy cap.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Are they riding like Penny far like the big wheel?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Let's say they were on Penny Farthings just haul and
tail and nickel plated spinners out of penny farthing. He
wasn't one for school, and you know he went to
the school hardnecks. He got his education on the streets.
By his early twenties he had drifted into like the
social circles of gamblers, swindlers, con men. Yeah, just like
(05:37):
we like him. He was a super smart guy. He
was like you could say it was brilliant, and he
could be very persuasive. So you take those two qualities
and you got the fixens for a good criminal, great
con artists. So by yeah, and he could by the
early nineteen hundreds, Nicky's in his twenties criming it up
(05:58):
first though, May nineteen oh six he married Carrie Greenthal
of New Jersey. That was not meant to be.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
He doesn't sound episcopalian, No, I do know.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
He bailed out on her a few years later, just
up and left. There's a reference to a Julius Earnstein
in the Saint Joseph Newspress out of Missouri in nineteen ten,
and I don't think it's Nicky, but please indulge me
while I read it to you, and we can muse
on how far We've come, slash gone, slash evolved, slash
(06:28):
devolved as a society. Oh please, so the headline spoke
coarsely to women.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Okay, this is the headline.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah. Justice nice finds Julius Earnstein for using rude language
in a wire conversation. It's a subhead. Here's the article
in Justice Nye's court this morning, Julius Earnstein, manager of
a dying and cleaning establishment, pleaded guilty to a charge
of peace disturbance and was fined three dollars and costs
(06:54):
thirteen dollars in all, which he paid. Earnstein disturbed the
piece of missus JF. Mc donald, an employee of the
Saint Joseph Gas Company, by using rough language to her
over the telephone. The language was quote you dirty old maid.
Luke H. Moss, assisting prosecuting attorney, was in court at
(07:15):
the time the plea was entered. He admitted to the
magistrate that Earnstein was not charged with having used profane language,
and that the words attributed to the defendant were merely
coarse and spoken in an angry manner.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
They've forgotten degrees of criminal language.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
He got. He got fine for saying you dirty old maid.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And like.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
You dirty old maid. Like I kind of wonder is
if you can write it in the paper. How course
is the language right?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Exactly? Well, it's not our Nikki, but they share a name.
And I just was and this guy, this is this
guy who owns the dry cleaners. He pops up in
all sorts of Midwestern there's a little bit of trouble anyway,
So confusion for you. I it's just horrible and amazing.
I love it and I hate it. Back to NICKI okay,
(08:04):
so he's busy. He came up with a bunch of aliases,
including Nick Arnold, Jewels Aren't and j w Arnold. He
had developed this reputation in high society circles both in
the US and in Europe because he was going around
posing as a gentleman gambler and.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
He was taking the steamer back and forth.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
There's that luxurious environment on the Transatlantic miners a.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Lot of gamblers. We just take it back and forth.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, and we've seen it on you know, we've talked
about it before. We got these like violently wealthy travelers.
They're looking for entertainment characters. Yeah, he Nicky rolls up.
He's this sophisticated gentleman. He's fluent in multiple languages, he
knows all the high society etiquette. Excellent smart guy, you know.
Observed he was able to just seamlessly integrate into the
(08:53):
social circles of his targets. And I think that there
was maybe a part of the people that kind of
liked the possibility of a gentleman thief in their midst.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
It's like you've stepped into a movie.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, and they're they're thinking, like they're not going to
get taken for all their worth.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, he's not gonna pull a gun.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And they're thinking it's probably not going to happen to me.
It happened to.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Another cast sucker at the table.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Oh, the intrigue, that's the entertainment. So his main cons
were high stakes card games, especially bridge and poker, and
he would rig the games. Sometimes he had accomplices with him,
who would you know, pose his fellow passengers and like
so NICKI would always come out on top. No one's
the wiser. He's just a darn good car player by jove.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
So.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But he had other scams. He was known for seducing
wealthy women like widows and debutantes, were his specialty, exactly
the mother Maiden Crone. He would feign romantic interest and
like gain their trust and affection, defraud them of their wealth.
Classic his charm sophistication made him really effective, like it,
(10:00):
and he would He's got this whole trail of just
like devastated victims behind him. But what does he carries, NIKKII.
He didn't just run these on ocean liners. He pulled
cons in European casinos like London, Paris, Monte Carlo, like
ooh la law, the fashion, the exits. Can you imagine
this is between nineteen oh nine and nineteen twelve.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It's a good year's run, right for a world world.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
In those times he got arrested a bunch of times,
but was never convicted. So his first documented arrest in
Europe was in nineteen oh nine.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Can you iagine just for a second, robbing the wealthy
in the last days of empire?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
In the Bella puck and jazz.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Exists, so there's like still some good music.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's fantastic in the fashion sit god. So he's nineteen
oh nine Monte Carlo, right, he's calling himself jewels, aren't
He gets arrested for swindling you know other gamblers, gets
released without formal charges. Next year, he's calling himself Arnold.
He gets pinched in London. He was doing con games,
(11:05):
you know, confidence games, a lot of forged checks and securities,
which seemed to be We've talked before about these kind
of things happening in London at that time. Yes, once again,
no conviction. Nineteen twelve, he gets busted in Paris. He
was calling himself Nicholas Arnoldstein then and he got questioned,
but they didn't have enough evidence, so they had to
(11:26):
love her. And then another thing happened in nineteen twelve,
something magical. He met a woman, Yes, Fanny Bryce whoa yeah,
Fanny Bryce, trailblazer, comedian, singer, actress, radio star. She spanned vaudeville, Broadway, film, radio,
ever life. Yeah. Known for her zany humor emotional depth
(11:47):
at the same time, and she was like an icon
of Jewish American entertainment and an inspiration for later female
performers dons. Yes, yeah, So. She was born in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
One, wreck lined to Ethel Murmay yes one.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Hundred percent as Fania Borok in New York City. She
was raised in Brooklyn, grew up in a working class household.
She left school in her teens, and then she changed
her name to Fanny Brice early on in her career
to sound more American and appealing to mainstream audiences. You
can remember it exactly. So when she was only sixteen
(12:24):
years old, she started singing in burlesque houses in vaudeville shows.
Nineteen ten she joined Zigfield Folly, Oh, Heck, Yeah Yeah, which,
as you know, lavish theatrical review, and that made her
a household name. So she's super talented. She could do
comedy parody. She also did these really heartbreaking torch songs.
(12:44):
My Man was a tragic ballad that became her signature song.
Second Hand Rose was a comic song that reflected her
working classroots. So she played this like funny self depreciating
Jewish woman, and a lot of her stuff challenged beauty
standards and high society because she would do like these
ugly duckling routines alongside all these really gorgeous, glamorous chorus
(13:09):
girls and the follies. Of course, audiences loved her, you know,
so relatable. In the nineteen thirties, she reinvented herself again
on the radio as baby Snooks. Yes, this bratty but
lovable child character. So the Baby Snooks Show became a
national hit ran from the late nineteen thirties until when
she died in nineteen fifty one. I should say that
(13:30):
I often refer to my dogs as baby snooks when
I'm telling them how precious they are, a thing I
realized I picked up from my grandma, who would call
the family dogs baby snooks when they did something dinging,
a little annoying, but cute. So when I was reading
about this, I was like, Babe, I just was saying
to the dogs and the baby that comes from Yeah.
So Nicki met Fanny and they fell in love.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Oh I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
In fact, that song my man she wrote about Nicky
What Yeah. NICKI told her he was a professional gambler
the night she met him. She later told her biographer
she thought, did I get born? Like this was new life?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
She's like, I'm show folks, I don't care that you're
a gambler.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, exactly. They met in nineteen twelve. They didn't reconnect
again until nineteen fifteen, and that's when they got together
officially and she moved in with him in New York.
He at that point had a reputation as a charming
gambler con artist. But like he's eleven years older than
she was. Okay, super cultured and confident. He had this
(14:32):
like European flair.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, very much, a sophistic hit exactly. He portrayed that
intelligent too.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
He made it look like he came from an aristocratic background. Yeah,
super super intelligent.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
This is the era of where you could gitimately meet
counts and dukes and yes, viceroys or whatnot.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And she people kind of warned her and she just
was ignoring that. She once reportedly said, quote, he may
be a crook, but he's the only man I've ever loved.
So you know, we can't forget about the crook part though,
that's still going on. So nineteen fifteen is the start
of their relationship. Nikki gets busted. Oh no, he'd been
involved in a wire tapping scheme to facilitate stock fraud
(15:12):
and at the time he was associated with the Gondorf Gang.
And if that sounds familiar, it's because they were portrayed
in the movie The Sting.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
So, yeah, you've been talking about we need to do
an episode.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, So Charlie Gondorf was originally from New York, but
in the twenties was working as a bartender in Atlantic
City and that was his con playground. So he and
his brother Fred, they were kings of the cons there.
They specialized in wire frauds. At the time, University of Louisville,
Kentucky linguistics professor David Maher he wrote a book called
(15:42):
The American Confidence Man, which was later republished as The
Big Con. And it's mainly about kind of the language
and lexicon of it all. So in it he wrote
before yeah, quote, training and experience are of course important,
but without grift, since they count for little. As can
be seen from the Gondorf family, two of the brothers,
(16:04):
Charlie and Fred, were rated at the top of their profession,
while brother George, who worked under the very best tutelage,
never succeeded. George was always a blank as a grifter,
said a former roper. For Charlie, his brothers were tops,
but he just didn't have the grifting sense. So we
see this of you've got to have all the elements
coming together.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
You got to know people just straight up. You got
to be charming so people like you, but also can
forget you and yeah, and just convinced its hard line
to walk with a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It really is. As an aside, when Gondorf was in
Atlantic City, Nuckie Johnson was in charge.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah you're bo.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I know you've been watching Boardwalk Empire with the Nucky
Thompson character. If I could get a kick out of that, Yeah,
for your recommendation, great show. So the Gondorf gang, they
had all these swindling activities and the scheme that Nicki
got wrapped up in was you know, this wiretapping to
get confidential information to exploit and manipulate stock transactions. So
(16:59):
Nicki gets tried, convicted, and then sentenced to serve three
years in sing sing And during his incarceration, though, Fanny
Brice visited him regularly like she was yeah, so ride
or I that she was able to secure him a
pardon a year before his release.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Whoa she leveraged her fame to him.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah. Well, remember, folks, there are two justice systems in
this country, one for the haves, one for the have not.
So she had and so did he.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
So he got justice exactly what we call it what.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We call it. On that note, let's take a break
and when we return more crime.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Zarin Elizabeth. Sorry, I was holding my breath the whole time.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I was good.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
That was really impressive. How are the ads?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I didn't hear.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
There were a lot. Do you remember Carrie Greenthal, Mickey Earnstein.
Oh yeah, yeah, they had the one he abandoned. Well,
he abandoned her without divorcing her. Oh this left right. Yeah.
So nineteen eighteen, she showed back up and she sued
Fanny Bryce for alienation of affection. Ooh, she wanted She
(18:28):
wanted one hundred thousand dollars in damages for causing Nicki
to desert her. So there's this really great wire story
in the San Francisco Chronicle August fourth, nineteen eighteen. The
headline actress is sued for one hundred thousand dollars balm okay.
So it talks about the suit, but it includes this gem.
(18:49):
In the same year, Miss Bryce, which really was only
her stage name, was plaintiff in a divorce suit against
Frank White, owner of the Mohawk Hotel in Senactadee, New York.
She explained at the time she married White quote to
kill time. What Fanny Bryce married her first husband killed
time showbiz baby.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, I was bored, he was.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
There whatever, you know. So anyway, wife number one divorces Niki.
Nikki's elated because now he can legally marry Fanny Bryce.
Nineteen nineteen, they had a kid, Francis, and something else
happened in nineteen nineteen. What happened Nikki came up with
a plan.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
What was his plan?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, he figured out that he could stage a series
of robberies targeting Wall Street messengers. The messengers were carrying
something very valuable, liberty bonds. Oh so these are war
bonds sold to support our efforts in World War one
w W one, the Great War. So buying the bonds
was seen as an act of patriotism, and it was
(19:49):
also the first time a lot of Americans understood or
had involvement in, you know, financial securities.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
So the liberty bond campaign was not an easy one.
The initial one was Captain five billion aggregate issued at
thirty years at three point five percent interest, and that
was redeemable by the government after fifteen years. So it's
like large scale, right. It pulled in two billion dollars
with five point five million people purchasing bonds, mostly like
(20:17):
large scale trades, major investors, so it's a lot of money.
But the problem was that the notes were trading consistently
below par. So the FEDS and the Stock Exchange they
started accusing these traders who went below par of being
German sympathizers not patriots.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Why sport They.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Some said the bonds weren't selling like they should because
the rich thought it would make them look like they
were tax dodging.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Since I get it, yeah, they has ever mattered, that's
you know, oh god.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So the government decided, okay, we're going to also log
go after individual citizen investors instead of the large volume.
So they went hard on selling the bonds to the public.
And they needed to raise money for the war, but
also they needed to keep inflation down and this is
how you do it. So they tapped into arts and
entertainment to get the message out. They were posters and rallies,
(21:15):
and like some of the celebrities who participated in Liberty
bond rallies, Al Jolson, Ethel Barrymore, Fatty Arbuckle, Mary Pickford,
Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin. Oh yeah, these are the big names.
I don't know if Fanny Brice promoted them for World
War One, but she did for World War Two, which
you'll find out is kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
So world fun No, I get it, Well.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Why not, so, Nikki. He figured he could intercept these
couriers and make off with the bonds totaling like five
million dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
He wants to go like full Hans Gruber. But on
the delivery.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Guys, Yes, exactly, bonds there, that's like ninety three million dollars.
That's exactly five million.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
That's a good amount.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Nicky planned this thing to the end. Agree Like, he
saw that the messengers were often unaccompanied, easy targets for
the boys, candy from a baby. He saw that a
lot of the messengers could be pulled into the fold
and become part of this.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Oh but he's other work guys.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, yeah, we'll be like, we'll cut you in on this.
But you got to be able to move the bonds.
You can't just like turn around resell them because there's
far too many.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, they're not worth anything if you can't move.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, so you need a fence, someone in a laundrum,
and that would take a network far larger and deeper
into the underworld than Nicky had, but he had a
plan for that too, Zaren close eyes. Yeah, I want
you to picture it. It's a late summer day in
nineteen nineteen. You are sitting in your office at forty
(22:44):
five West fifty seventh Street in Midtown Manhattan. You're meeting
some chums later for some cards and a bite to eat,
but for now you're tending to some paperwork and taking
a couple of meetings. You've got a guy coming in
soon right about now actually, who says he has a
business problem position for you. He comes with recommendations. People
vouch for him, so you'll at least hear him out.
(23:06):
You have a major project in the works, but you
figure if the offer looks good, you can move forward
on another one too. There's a knock at the door.
In walks a man in a sharp suit carrying an
impeccable Borselino hat. He's smooth debonair. He introduces himself. I'm
nicki Earnstein, he tells you. You stand and shake his hand,
offers him some coffee. He politely declines and takes a
(23:29):
seat across from your desk. You pour yourself some coffee
in a delicate china cup, splash a little cream and
take a seat at your desk and stir the breue
gently with a dematas spoon. Tell me what I can
do for you, mister Earnstein, you say. He tells you
all about his plan with the Liberty bonds, every minute detail,
all potential pitfalls in their avoidances. He runs down his
(23:50):
crew and their strengths. Aren't you married to Fanny Bryce,
you ask him. He tells you he is. She's a
lovely goal. You tell him, Oh, you don't know the
half of it. He smiles, and you're really taken with
his sincerity. It's obvious he really does love her. Many
men would be intimidated to be with a woman that successful.
They'd be weak or maybe try to exploit her. You've
(24:12):
met Fanny Brice in passing. She's not one to be exploited.
So Nicki's true devotion to his bride is admirable. It
increases your estimation of him. So what do you propose,
you asked Nicki. He tells you he'd like for you
to arrange to launder the bonds. He says he knows
you have the fences necessary. He just needs you to
make the connection for him. You'd get a cut and
(24:34):
wouldn't have to do anything with the operation, be totally
separated from it, never to be associated with it. You
and he haggle a little on the percentages, but you
see that this is easy money for you to make.
You refirm to one of your guys, take a cut,
go back to focusing on your big project. You agree
to the terms and tell Nikki that your guys will
be in touch. That'll get everything rolling. He stands as
(24:58):
to you and you shake hands. He looks down at
your desk at the copy of the Chicago Tribune, open
to the front of the sports section with a big
headline about the White Sox and their victory yesterday. Thank
you again, mister Rothstein, he tells you. Then he turns
and walks out the door. Yes, so, Nikki Earnstein had
visited none other than Arnold the Rothstein. Yeah, in search
(25:23):
of a connection to money launderers for the liberty bonds. Zarin,
I have now made you another of your criminal heroes.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Are you too good to me?
Speaker 8 (25:30):
I am?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I wish you had heroes and I can return the favor.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
So that fall of nineteen nineteen, a series of stick
ups on Wall Street wiped out five million dollars in
liberty bonds. And these weren't real stick ups though they're rigged,
because most of the time they actually were able to
get the messengers in on it. The messengers had been
stealing these things here and there since they were initially issued.
This was just on a huge scale, and the messengers
(25:56):
had covered they could say I've been robbed. Earnstein and
his crew passed the bonds along to the fence that
was organized by Arnold Rothstein and.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
This, but I guess it's guaranteed money.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Guaranteed money, and he thought yeah, and he thought all
these things out. He was so careful. So the bonds
aren't exactly traceable, but there are a lot of moving
parts and a lot of peripheral crew members, so pretty
soon the Feds were on the case. Don't forget all
as all of this is going on. Rothstein's embroiled in
(26:29):
the nineteen nineteen World series Scam.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Yeah, he's got problems, got a lot going on, Judge Kennison,
mountain Land is coming.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
From him exactly. So I won't go into the details
on that, since I think you should do an episode
about it. But why haven't I ever I don't know,
but let's just say there's a lot of heat. Rothstein
didn't need this. I will say though, that he was
never officially connected to the Liberty Bonds sets, at least
during his lifetime. Oh so, law enforcement they started picking
(26:58):
up members of the crew one by one, and these
are big dogs, like lawyers and stuff like that. This
is a high level operation. Nicki wasn't about to get pinched,
so he went into hiding. And for the most part,
it looks like he bounced around between Pittsburgh, Cleveland, various
Canadian cities. But like you know, it was getting too hot.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
He didn't He didn't choose to go back to like
London or Paris. Like he's like, I'll go to Pittsburgh. Yeah, exactly, Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Why not? So on May fifteenth, nineteen twenty, Nicki arrived
in New York on the nine am train from Pittsburgh.
He was driven up to ninetieth Street, where he picked
up Fanny Brice and his lawyer, William Fallon, who also
happened to be Arnold Rothstein's lawyer. Then they drove down
Fifth Avenue, passed through long lines of policemen who were
(27:43):
gathered for a parade and the car swung past Union Square.
Nicky tipped his hat to police officials that were gathered
on the grand stand that was set up so that
they could watch this parade. Sure, Nicky's like one of
the most wanted fugitives at this point.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, and he's like tip and his cap to the
the captains of them.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
They drove the car twice around the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Case anyone missed him.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Well, people still aren't recognizing them, right until the Clerk
of Courts finally sees them. News spreads rapidly that oh
my god, Nicki Earnstein's here. This large crowd gathers. Nicky
and Fanny get out of the car pose for photographs.
Then he and Fanny strolled into the DA's office and
he surrendered. Nicki refused to make any statement to the press.
(28:25):
I'll talk tomorrow, he said. Fanny said, I'm the happiest
woman in the world, and then stood their striking poses.
So Nicki was like, I said, he's one of the
most wanted fugitives in North America. At this point, authorities
had been tailing Fanny Brice, like searching her home. They
monitored all her activities, and eventually the Manhattan District attorney
(28:47):
offered Nicki a deal. If you surrender, we'll give you
a reduced sentence upon conviction. Wow, they said. His bail
at seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
By the way, I'm picturing this as like Elliott, young
Elliott Gould and young Barber STREISSH that's good.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I love it. I love this movie. So the trial
they moved it to Washington, d c. Where federal charges
carried a maximum two year sentence as opposed to the
harsher penalties under New York State. Despite the defense's efforts,
Arnstein's convicted of conspiracy to sell stolen securities. He gets
two years. On May sixteenth, nineteen twenty four, he started
(29:22):
serving his sentence at Leavenworth Federal Penitential. Fanny was supportive.
She visited him regularly. She was a ride or di remember,
and she'd had their second kid. Between his surrender and
when he actually had to ship off to prison. On
December twenty second, nineteen twenty five, NICKI got out a
(29:42):
little early, so time off for good behavior after eighteen
months of shoveling coal and ashes in the prison power plant.
Oh is that horrible? That's rough?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
On that air you're breathing.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah. So the headline in the Buffalo Courier read Nicki Arnstein,
given freedom is Christmas gift. Fanny Bryce believes in Santa Claus. Okay,
So he was supposed to get charged with defrauding a
guy in New Jersey out of eighty grand in a
horse race scheme like the moment he set foot outside
the prison. But those charges were dropped and that caused
(30:15):
all this uproar in the press. Let's stop here to
celebrate his release.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I'm rooting for these crazy kids.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I maybe listen to some ads, just see what happens.
Just keep it loose. Back in a flash, Nicki Arnstein,
(30:47):
Aaron Burnett, Arnold Rothstein. So Nicki fresh out of Leavenworth,
married to superstar Fanny Brice, two kids. Life is just
swimming along for the couple, but not for long. So
they were together for another two years after he got out,
but then Fanny filed for divorce in nineteen twenty. So well,
(31:09):
she'd caught him with another woman at a hotel in Chicago.
According to the Brooklyn Times Union newspaper quote, it was
Fanny Bryce's remodeled nose which awed her husband Nikki Earnstein
and induced him to turn to other women, she alleged
in filing for divorce. What the illustrious actress does not
regret the employment of plastic surgery, however, and she said
(31:32):
today because it quote improved my looks so much. Then
the article goes on, I know you're stun I am.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I'm trying. I'm like new nose, lose husband.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, the article goes on, quote, I still love him,
Miss Bryce explained, but my new nose caused him to
develop an inferiority complex. He used to be able to
joke about my features. When my face was altered, he said,
I wasn't his fanny. It was a case of plastic
surgery coming between us. So she's saying that when she
got her nose done, Yeah, he lost interest because other women.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
She became too hot and wasn't his fanny.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Funny face, Fanny, funny face fanny. Yeah, dude, World War.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
One, the plastic surgery that comes out of fixing those
guys getting blown to bits. I didn't realize like how
quickly you know it became an issue. Always think of
it as like more like something that happens in the
thirties but in the twenties when there when pop culture
blows up, that's when it would explode.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
And then so that's wild, right, Yeah, that's crazy blaming
your divorce on your plastic surgery.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Knows that you.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Got you what she thinks is an improvement. She likes
him and it drives him away.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
And then she doesn't blame him for cheating. She blames
the nose.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Nos, but she doesn't regret it. Yeah, it's a very strange.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Would have been a stronger claim.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I would go with that. You know what's wilder? That
is the this exchange in court, the judge asked her
how she planned to support her two kids without a
husband and the new nose and the new nose. He's like,
how how are you a single mother going to support
these kids? She's like, I work, is what she said.
And then quote, what is your business or profession? He asked.
So I think he's a little out of touch because
(33:13):
Fanny's taken aback. So all she says is actress. She's
singing like, don't you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
He's like, I don't know what the nose I don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I don't recommend He.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Says, how long have you been engaged in this profession
and he's asking one of the biggest celebrities at the time.
She said, oh, judge, about twenty years. And then he said,
do you contemplate any trouble getting engagements? So she said,
who can tell the fickle public?
Speaker 7 (33:40):
You know?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And she says it laughing, but apparently she was holding
back tears. The whole thing was just too much. I
love that the judge didn't care that her husband was
a convicted felon with no job.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Totally right, But how is she going to be how are.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
You going to do it?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Fantastic. So remember how I said that the liberty bonds
thing didn't come back on Rothstein while he was alive. Well,
the brain went to the Great Beyond rather violently in
nineteen twenty eight, very quickly. Guess it may have nineteen.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Couldn't even make it to the Wall Street crash. One
of the people who had.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, exactly so. May of nineteen twenty nine, Eugene McGhee,
who was a disbarred lawyer. He got charged with criminally
receiving those stolen liberty bonds. This is the offense. He
testified that the bonds were given to him by Arnold Rothstein,
whom so McGhee and this guy James Osborne, who was
(34:32):
the nephew of a former DA. They were on trial
in connection with the bonds at like one hundred and
forty thousand dollars worth of them stolen from a messenger
from this brokerage firm, Taylor, Bates and Company. So the
messenger got tried for the theft and was acquitted because
they realized like, no, he was, he was he was
a victim of a stick up. Lawyers for the brokers
(34:54):
asked Nikki Earnstein for help in their search for the
bonds the messenger that they sent to f and him
talked with Fanny Brice and she sent her lawyer McGee
to see what they wanted with Nicky, and McGee's like, yeah,
I can get you help you get the bonds back,
and then he sends his associate Osborne to go get him.
So Osborne gets a sixteen thousand dollars reward that he
(35:16):
turned over to McGhee, and he got five hundred dollars
for his part in this whole thing. The broker's lawyers,
after paying the reward, put the whole matter before the DA.
Osborne and McGee are indicted. So Fanny took the stand. Yeah,
she showed up with her current husband, Billy Rose, a songwriter.
Oh yeah, yeah. So she said that she sent McGee
to the broker's lawyer on the instruction of Nicky, who
(35:39):
she had called by long distance to Chicago to say,
you know, lawyers are looking for you. I mean it
just gets all, you know, complicated of who owes who money.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Is she loyal and.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Tries to protect Nikki at this point or is she
kind of like a hurt and wants to just get
clear of the matter.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
She just says what she knows.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
She just says what she knows. Yeah, she's not really
turning it up to kind of get.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Him Busted's not doing that.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
But yeah, a few days so McGee, he's on the stand, right,
he says. Quote. A few days later, I went to
see Arnold Rothstein and asked him if he would try
to locate the securities. He replied he wouldn't touch the
business for a million dollars. He said the matter was
sure to come before the district attorney, and he said
he could see what he would do. A few days later,
he told me he thought he had a line on
(36:21):
the securities, So poor Rostin. So McGhee said that Rostein
finally let him know that he'd bought the bonds back.
McGee got them from Rothstein, gave him to Osmore and
blah blah blah goes back and forth. So had Rothstein
been alive, this would have been a very sticky bad situation.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh yeah, the country.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
But I also believe that if he'd still been alive,
these guys wouldn't have said a word. That's what my
thought is, Yeah, that they're only talking.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Because because he's yeah, you can pin it all on him.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So yeah, and around this time.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Right now to make him the mastermind.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, exactly. And he's the big bad in all of
these stories, like he hovered over as the big bath.
It's really interesting to see that that thread in all
the newspaper pieces. So what's Nikki up to right now?
God knows what. So he pops up in the papers,
but it's pretty much for always not being charged in
(37:15):
connection with some crime like all of his associates would be.
But he was throw his name into every piece. And
I'm not sure if he was like good at getting
out of jams or if he wasn't running with that
crowd anymore. Things changed in nineteen thirty. That's when it
came out that the year before, in nineteen twenty nine,
(37:35):
he had remarried. The Brooklyn Daily Times ran a story
proclaiming Nikki Earnstein, who combines all the tender arts of
love with the more practical art of winning huge stakes
in Transatlantic liner crooked poker games, has been married to
a two million dollar heiress since last fall, it was
reported today, Arenstein, one time husband of Fanny Brice, the
(37:59):
Broadway stage favorite, married Missus Isabelle McCullough, formerly the wife
of a Chicago promoter, in Quebec on August eighteenth, according
to The Daily News. At the time, the News said
he paid more than one thousand dollars to suppress reports
of the marriage. Now comes the word that the smiling
Nicky is married to Missus McCullough, whose father left her
(38:22):
two million dollars. They had met again in Florida, where
Nicky learned that Missus McCullough had divorced her husband, The
Coupler living in the exclusive Sutton Place district where Anne
Morgan and the Vanderbilts make their homes.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Okay, So he's still finessing widows.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Oh yeah, and he upgraded his circumstances. He took his
old skills.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah he still got it.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You know you don't he don't forget how.
Speaker 6 (38:45):
To ride a bike apparently not so backwards Penny Farthing
all during the thirties, like he tried to straighten up
and fly right. Okay, So he's got money now, why
he looked for legitimate work, Like he dried his hand
at advertising in Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
He tried to run an air conditioning business in La Okay,
but like you know, it's the depression.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, it's not the time, not the time.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
And he's like he's married to an heiress and they
live in a mansion in Pasadena. Like a man's got
to have something to do.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
All day, right, he gets bored.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So then in nineteen thirty nine a movie came out,
Rose of Washington Square.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Never heard of it, me neither.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
It starred Alice Fay. Oh I love her, Tyrone Power,
I know him and al Jolson.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Okay, no, nothing against that.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
I know there's all that the blackface, but yeah, he's
a back of an entertainer, I'll get So.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
It takes place nineteen twenties New York City, and it's
the story of a singer named Rose Sergeant and her
rocky relationship with a con artist named Barton DeWitt Clinton, Oh,
and his criming threatens her success in the Zigfield Follies. Yeah,
does that sound familiar?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Totally?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
So Rose. Also, Rose of Washington Square was one of
Fanny Bryce's signature songs.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Okay, so it's just Fanny Bryson.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, Nicky's story livid, livid, he sued twentieth Century Fox.
He said it was a violation of his right of privacy.
He wanted four hundred thousand dollars in damages. And he's like, yeah,
you know what, I have been convicted of crimes. I've
done two stints in prison. But at that point, he said,
(40:21):
he was leading quote an exemplary, honorable and righteous life,
remarried and established a home. And so he said that
with the production and the release of the movie, that
memories had been revived in the public mind and now
he didn't have the like quiet, secluded life that he
had really carefully crafted. He said it wasn't just that
the movie was based on his life, but then it
(40:43):
went out of its way to make him look like
quote a thief, a coward, a weekly, a confidence man,
and a swindler, and besides depicts him as a faithless
and deceitful husband, which I mean, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
I think he just didn't like the portrayal, but maybe not.
The details are the problem. He was like, I did
all that stuff. That's not how I.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Did tyrone powers.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
I did not harrow the whole time.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So he wanted one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for
violation of the right suprivacy, one hundred and fifty thousand
for libel, and one hundred thousand for use of material
from his life without permission.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Ten thousand dollars for the constant, sweaty face performance of
tyrone power.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
He also he also wanted an injunction to prevent the
further showing of the picture. He wanted an accounting to
figure out how much he was entitled to to recover profits.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Oh, he's smart, he knows Hollywood accounting. You've got to
break open.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
All that right, this huge suit he settled out of
court for twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Wow, he's like the job. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
So Fanny Brice, as I mentioned, she passed away in
nineteen fifty one, just Shy a sixty years old. She'd
been living in Holby Hills, LA. So they're not too
far from each other. Rows of Washington Square wasn't Nicky's
only depiction on the silver screen really. In nineteen sixty four,
the stage musical Funny Girl open non Broadway and it
was produced by Fanny and Nikki's son in law, Ray Stark.
(42:05):
He was married to their daughter Francis, so their other kid, William,
He went on to become this really well regarded abstract painter.
So anyway, Funny chirst ray Stark. Initially he set up
an authorized biography of Fanny Brice. She had recorded for
him all these anecdotes and stories that are like wow,
and it was written up, but she didn't like the
(42:25):
end result, so Stark he had to kill the project.
That cost him a ton of money. And then he
went through eleven different screenwriters. That's how it goes, trying
to find someone who could produce a screenplay that would
work for everyone involved.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Where is the magic?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yes, So they finally landed on one that worked. Columbia
Pictures offered him four hundred thousand dollars plus a percentage
of the gross for the script that's huge.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
But then Mary Martin, actress, singer, Rogers and hammerste news.
She suggested it could be done as a musical on
the stage, not a movie. So Stark goes to famous
composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim to compose the score. Someheim
apparently said, I don't want to do the Life of
Fanny Bryce with Mary Martin. She's not Jewish. You need
(43:12):
someone ethnic for the part. True, so Martin dipped out.
There was a lot of back and forth. Anne Bancroft
was attached to it for a while and that didn't
work out. They were going to go with Edie Gourmet,
but she wouldn't do it. She would involving. She would
only do it if Steve Lawrence was kind for real.
(43:32):
She was not.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
She was like, I won't do Steve. Steve's got to
be nicky Steve.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
They said, okay, absolutely not, And they tried Carol Burnette
and she said, I'd love to do it, but what
you need is a Jewish girl.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I'm not Jewish.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, So finally they called in the big guns. Before
she was the big Guns, Barbara Streish girl boom so
In the musical, Nicky is found guilty of embezzlement. He's
never been married to anyone but Fanny, and he serves
only one prison sentence.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
You No, they simplified the ner.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, but play is a huge success and then it
gets made into a movie in nineteen sixty eight with
Babs and then Omar Shariff as Nicky.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
You we will never know what Nicky thought about being
played by Omar Shariff. I would say it's a flattering honor.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, I would tell.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Because Nicky passed away October second, nineteen sixty five in
La Buried under the name Jules Arnold. Yeah, So'sariah's choice,
I'm assuming, Yeah, his choice. What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (44:32):
So this was somewhat responsible for barbar streith And becoming
a film star. Yes, I love that there's a direct
Fanny Bryce to Barbara Streisand.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Line funny girl.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, but I mean like that that she could propel
barbar Streisand's success after like, you know, how far?
Speaker 2 (44:47):
How about a direct line from Arnold Rothstein to Barbara
streisand Rothstein to Omar Sharif.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yes, there's the there's a lot of direct lines in
this one. We're connecting threadsdays. Normally I never can.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Nickle plated penny farthing to Steven's. Sometimes I can do
this all day. So good at this.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
What's your ridiculous take away, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
That I was so tickled to have stumbled upon something
that had all the things you love.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
I dude down to the nickel plated farthing.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
And I like that I got to tell you instead
of you telling me, so thank you. You know what.
I think we need those as a talkback, David.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah, oh my god, I.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Went gee.
Speaker 8 (45:41):
Dark Becka here, happy to report that I had a
week of light baca when I was beach camping in Malibu.
I still like being on the dark side, though, because
I think our dark sums are just angry about all
the bad stuff that's happening around us right now, and
I think we should be angry belong with dark Becca
and dark Elizabeth Zaren Producer Dave interns always for you.
(46:07):
How do I get mind to stop anxiety peeing in
the corner?
Speaker 7 (46:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Right, Intern, Anxiety p is like an ocean violation. They
are all sorts of problems and there's only so much
nature's miracle you can buy before you wind up on
a watch list. That's it for today. You can find
us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also Ridiculous
Crime on Blue Sky on Instagram, check us out on
(46:36):
YouTube a Ridiculous Crime pod, and then email us Ridiculous
Crime at gmail dot com. Most importantly, leave us a
talkback on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is
hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited
by funny Boy Dave Kusten, starring Anale Rutgers. Judith. Research
(47:01):
is by best actress in a musical, Marissa Brown. The
theme song is by Burgled Messenger Boys Thomas Lee and
Travis Stutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred
guests Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers
are the Leggiest Gals in the Zigfield Follies, Ben Bollen
and No.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
Browndous Crime Say It One More Timequious Crime.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zeren Zaren you get over here?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I'm listening.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You're really eager. Yeah yeah, yeah, you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Oh man, all right, what do you know? People like
they don't like cilantro. Yeah, they say it's like, yeah,
apparently there's another genetic cord where people can smell ants
really because they can smell the formic acid on the
outsid use, yeah, or the orlaic acid, either one that
(00:36):
they can smell, and apparently that's a chemical messenger for ants,
so they can smell the ant trail. So there's one
person on the reddit they were talking about how they
watched their boyfriend hunt down at a single ant using
his trail. Wow, all right, isn't that crazy? And then
so they asked, like, what what does it smell?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Like?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, you want to know blue cheese and gasoline?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Oh dear god?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Better? What Like then after it rains and the ants
come out, and they're just like pass out because the
smells so bad. That's crazy. Isn't there a similar thing
with like asparagus p that some people get it and
some people don't.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Oh yeah, I guess so I don't know the answer,
but yes, I think that basically, once again, it's it's
an expression of a gene.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So we are complex.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, just one letter here, one letter that exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (01:23):
Other than ants, smell trail, there's not a whole lot,
but suing someone over telling a true story.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Oh, I thought about doing that.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heiss and cons. It's always ninety nine murder free in
one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Damn right.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
I know.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The story I have for you today, Buddy. You listen
to a lot of old radio shows. I know you've
mentioned that, like as a way to escape the present. Yeah,
so I was looking into crimes that would be in
some way involved with old radio shows since I wanted
to tell you something entertaining that would make you happy.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And I need to atone for telling the George Santos story.
Maya culpa. So this is how I'm making it up
to you and everybody else. I searched around and I
found a radio adjacent crime, really and it wasn't on
the radio, but it was involved with someone who was
and this guy he traveled in some of your favorite
(02:50):
criminal underworld circles.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
What is my birthday?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I know I don't always treat you right, dizzy and
times is trying. So this is my gift to you.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Today I shall tell you the story of Julius Wilford Arnstein.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Ooh yeah a name.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Julius born July first, eighteen seventy nine in Berlin, Germany.
What a time. So he's born into this Jewish family. Now,
in eighteen seventy nine, the Jewish community in Berlin, they
had this like period of relative legal equality but like
growing tension. Yes, so Germany had unified.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, the German Empire has now become a thing.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, eighteen seventy one Jewish people were granted full civil
rights under this new German Empire. But by eighteen seventy
nine when he's born, anti Semitism is really on the rise.
In fact, it was in eighteen seventy nine that Wilhelm
Marr coined the term anti Semitism.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Really when he.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Was founding the League of Anti Semites. Wow, so he's
like he's like pro ye, so yeah, he's like this
is what we will be called.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
He named the people haters.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Call us the haters. So all that's going on Julius, right,
it's like, we're out of here. Immigrate to the United States,
and they settled in New Jersey, and then upon arriving
in the States, they made a big change. They decided
to become episcopalian, like the whole boiled wool set. It's
(04:24):
a big change. Sure, I'm guessing a survival method. Not
uncommon to do that kind of thing, but like what
a culture.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Shock in a dietary culture shock?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Oh my god, culture showhere? But yeah, just like we
show up for like a church event, You're.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Like, what is what?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
What even is this? So Julius Wilford Arnstein eventually became
Nicki Arnstein, a d out of the arned Stein. He
picked up the nickname Nicky because he was like riding
bikes in these professional bike races and was really good
at it, and he had nickel plated bicycle spokes on
(05:02):
his bike, so everyone started calling him Nikky. He's like,
he's all quicksilver and tweeds and an easy cap.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Are they riding like Penny far like the big wheel?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Let's say they were on Penny Farthings just haul and
tail and nickel plated spinners out of penny farthing. He
wasn't one for school, and you know he went to
the school hardnecks. He got his education on the streets.
By his early twenties he had drifted into like the
social circles of gamblers, swindlers, con men. Yeah, just like
(05:37):
we like him. He was a super smart guy. He
was like you could say it was brilliant, and he
could be very persuasive. So you take those two qualities
and you got the fixens for a good criminal, great
con artists. So by yeah, and he could by the
early nineteen hundreds, Nicky's in his twenties criming it up
(05:58):
first though, May nineteen oh six he married Carrie Greenthal
of New Jersey. That was not meant to be.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
He doesn't sound episcopalian, No, I do know.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
He bailed out on her a few years later, just
up and left. There's a reference to a Julius Earnstein
in the Saint Joseph Newspress out of Missouri in nineteen ten,
and I don't think it's Nicky, but please indulge me
while I read it to you, and we can muse
on how far We've come, slash gone, slash evolved, slash
(06:28):
devolved as a society. Oh please, so the headline spoke
coarsely to women.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Okay, this is the headline.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah. Justice nice finds Julius Earnstein for using rude language
in a wire conversation. It's a subhead. Here's the article
in Justice Nye's court this morning, Julius Earnstein, manager of
a dying and cleaning establishment, pleaded guilty to a charge
of peace disturbance and was fined three dollars and costs
(06:54):
thirteen dollars in all, which he paid. Earnstein disturbed the
piece of missus JF. Mc donald, an employee of the
Saint Joseph Gas Company, by using rough language to her
over the telephone. The language was quote you dirty old maid.
Luke H. Moss, assisting prosecuting attorney, was in court at
(07:15):
the time the plea was entered. He admitted to the
magistrate that Earnstein was not charged with having used profane language,
and that the words attributed to the defendant were merely
coarse and spoken in an angry manner.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
They've forgotten degrees of criminal language.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
He got. He got fine for saying you dirty old maid.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And like.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
You dirty old maid. Like I kind of wonder is
if you can write it in the paper. How course
is the language right?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Exactly? Well, it's not our Nikki, but they share a name.
And I just was and this guy, this is this
guy who owns the dry cleaners. He pops up in
all sorts of Midwestern there's a little bit of trouble anyway,
So confusion for you. I it's just horrible and amazing.
I love it and I hate it. Back to NICKI okay,
(08:04):
so he's busy. He came up with a bunch of aliases,
including Nick Arnold, Jewels Aren't and j w Arnold. He
had developed this reputation in high society circles both in
the US and in Europe because he was going around
posing as a gentleman gambler and.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
He was taking the steamer back and forth.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
There's that luxurious environment on the Transatlantic miners a.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Lot of gamblers. We just take it back and forth.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, and we've seen it on you know, we've talked
about it before. We got these like violently wealthy travelers.
They're looking for entertainment characters. Yeah, he Nicky rolls up.
He's this sophisticated gentleman. He's fluent in multiple languages, he
knows all the high society etiquette. Excellent smart guy, you know.
Observed he was able to just seamlessly integrate into the
(08:53):
social circles of his targets. And I think that there
was maybe a part of the people that kind of
liked the possibility of a gentleman thief in their midst.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
It's like you've stepped into a movie.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, and they're they're thinking, like they're not going to
get taken for all their worth.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, he's not gonna pull a gun.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And they're thinking it's probably not going to happen to me.
It happened to.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Another cast sucker at the table.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Oh, the intrigue, that's the entertainment. So his main cons
were high stakes card games, especially bridge and poker, and
he would rig the games. Sometimes he had accomplices with him,
who would you know, pose his fellow passengers and like
so NICKI would always come out on top. No one's
the wiser. He's just a darn good car player by jove.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
So.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But he had other scams. He was known for seducing
wealthy women like widows and debutantes, were his specialty, exactly
the mother Maiden Crone. He would feign romantic interest and
like gain their trust and affection, defraud them of their wealth.
Classic his charm sophistication made him really effective, like it,
(10:00):
and he would He's got this whole trail of just
like devastated victims behind him. But what does he carries, NIKKII.
He didn't just run these on ocean liners. He pulled
cons in European casinos like London, Paris, Monte Carlo, like
ooh la law, the fashion, the exits. Can you imagine
this is between nineteen oh nine and nineteen twelve.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It's a good year's run, right for a world world.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
In those times he got arrested a bunch of times,
but was never convicted. So his first documented arrest in
Europe was in nineteen oh nine.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Can you iagine just for a second, robbing the wealthy
in the last days of empire?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
In the Bella puck and jazz.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Exists, so there's like still some good music.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's fantastic in the fashion sit god. So he's nineteen
oh nine Monte Carlo, right, he's calling himself jewels, aren't
He gets arrested for swindling you know other gamblers, gets
released without formal charges. Next year, he's calling himself Arnold.
He gets pinched in London. He was doing con games,
(11:05):
you know, confidence games, a lot of forged checks and securities,
which seemed to be We've talked before about these kind
of things happening in London at that time. Yes, once again,
no conviction. Nineteen twelve, he gets busted in Paris. He
was calling himself Nicholas Arnoldstein then and he got questioned,
but they didn't have enough evidence, so they had to
(11:26):
love her. And then another thing happened in nineteen twelve,
something magical. He met a woman, Yes, Fanny Bryce whoa yeah,
Fanny Bryce, trailblazer, comedian, singer, actress, radio star. She spanned vaudeville, Broadway, film, radio,
ever life. Yeah. Known for her zany humor emotional depth
(11:47):
at the same time, and she was like an icon
of Jewish American entertainment and an inspiration for later female
performers dons. Yes, yeah, So. She was born in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
One, wreck lined to Ethel Murmay yes one.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Hundred percent as Fania Borok in New York City. She
was raised in Brooklyn, grew up in a working class household.
She left school in her teens, and then she changed
her name to Fanny Brice early on in her career
to sound more American and appealing to mainstream audiences. You
can remember it exactly. So when she was only sixteen
(12:24):
years old, she started singing in burlesque houses in vaudeville shows.
Nineteen ten she joined Zigfield Folly, Oh, Heck, Yeah Yeah, which,
as you know, lavish theatrical review, and that made her
a household name. So she's super talented. She could do
comedy parody. She also did these really heartbreaking torch songs.
(12:44):
My Man was a tragic ballad that became her signature song.
Second Hand Rose was a comic song that reflected her
working classroots. So she played this like funny self depreciating
Jewish woman, and a lot of her stuff challenged beauty
standards and high society because she would do like these
ugly duckling routines alongside all these really gorgeous, glamorous chorus
(13:09):
girls and the follies. Of course, audiences loved her, you know,
so relatable. In the nineteen thirties, she reinvented herself again
on the radio as baby Snooks. Yes, this bratty but
lovable child character. So the Baby Snooks Show became a
national hit ran from the late nineteen thirties until when
she died in nineteen fifty one. I should say that
(13:30):
I often refer to my dogs as baby snooks when
I'm telling them how precious they are, a thing I
realized I picked up from my grandma, who would call
the family dogs baby snooks when they did something dinging,
a little annoying, but cute. So when I was reading
about this, I was like, Babe, I just was saying
to the dogs and the baby that comes from Yeah.
So Nicki met Fanny and they fell in love.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Oh I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
In fact, that song my man she wrote about Nicky
What Yeah. NICKI told her he was a professional gambler
the night she met him. She later told her biographer
she thought, did I get born? Like this was new life?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
She's like, I'm show folks, I don't care that you're
a gambler.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, exactly. They met in nineteen twelve. They didn't reconnect
again until nineteen fifteen, and that's when they got together
officially and she moved in with him in New York.
He at that point had a reputation as a charming
gambler con artist. But like he's eleven years older than
she was. Okay, super cultured and confident. He had this
(14:32):
like European flair.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, very much, a sophistic hit exactly. He portrayed that
intelligent too.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
He made it look like he came from an aristocratic background. Yeah,
super super intelligent.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
This is the era of where you could gitimately meet
counts and dukes and yes, viceroys or whatnot.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And she people kind of warned her and she just
was ignoring that. She once reportedly said, quote, he may
be a crook, but he's the only man I've ever loved.
So you know, we can't forget about the crook part though,
that's still going on. So nineteen fifteen is the start
of their relationship. Nikki gets busted. Oh no, he'd been
involved in a wire tapping scheme to facilitate stock fraud
(15:12):
and at the time he was associated with the Gondorf Gang.
And if that sounds familiar, it's because they were portrayed
in the movie The Sting.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
So, yeah, you've been talking about we need to do
an episode.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, So Charlie Gondorf was originally from New York, but
in the twenties was working as a bartender in Atlantic
City and that was his con playground. So he and
his brother Fred, they were kings of the cons there.
They specialized in wire frauds. At the time, University of Louisville,
Kentucky linguistics professor David Maher he wrote a book called
(15:42):
The American Confidence Man, which was later republished as The
Big Con. And it's mainly about kind of the language
and lexicon of it all. So in it he wrote
before yeah, quote, training and experience are of course important,
but without grift, since they count for little. As can
be seen from the Gondorf family, two of the brothers,
(16:04):
Charlie and Fred, were rated at the top of their profession,
while brother George, who worked under the very best tutelage,
never succeeded. George was always a blank as a grifter,
said a former roper. For Charlie, his brothers were tops,
but he just didn't have the grifting sense. So we
see this of you've got to have all the elements
coming together.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
You got to know people just straight up. You got
to be charming so people like you, but also can
forget you and yeah, and just convinced its hard line
to walk with a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It really is. As an aside, when Gondorf was in
Atlantic City, Nuckie Johnson was in charge.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah you're bo.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I know you've been watching Boardwalk Empire with the Nucky
Thompson character. If I could get a kick out of that, Yeah,
for your recommendation, great show. So the Gondorf gang, they
had all these swindling activities and the scheme that Nicki
got wrapped up in was you know, this wiretapping to
get confidential information to exploit and manipulate stock transactions. So
(16:59):
Nicki gets tried, convicted, and then sentenced to serve three
years in sing sing And during his incarceration, though, Fanny
Brice visited him regularly like she was yeah, so ride
or I that she was able to secure him a
pardon a year before his release.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Whoa she leveraged her fame to him.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah. Well, remember, folks, there are two justice systems in
this country, one for the haves, one for the have not.
So she had and so did he.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
So he got justice exactly what we call it what.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We call it. On that note, let's take a break
and when we return more crime.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Zarin Elizabeth. Sorry, I was holding my breath the whole time.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I was good.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
That was really impressive. How are the ads?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I didn't hear.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
There were a lot. Do you remember Carrie Greenthal, Mickey Earnstein.
Oh yeah, yeah, they had the one he abandoned. Well,
he abandoned her without divorcing her. Oh this left right. Yeah.
So nineteen eighteen, she showed back up and she sued
Fanny Bryce for alienation of affection. Ooh, she wanted She
(18:28):
wanted one hundred thousand dollars in damages for causing Nicki
to desert her. So there's this really great wire story
in the San Francisco Chronicle August fourth, nineteen eighteen. The
headline actress is sued for one hundred thousand dollars balm okay.
So it talks about the suit, but it includes this gem.
(18:49):
In the same year, Miss Bryce, which really was only
her stage name, was plaintiff in a divorce suit against
Frank White, owner of the Mohawk Hotel in Senactadee, New York.
She explained at the time she married White quote to
kill time. What Fanny Bryce married her first husband killed
time showbiz baby.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, I was bored, he was.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
There whatever, you know. So anyway, wife number one divorces Niki.
Nikki's elated because now he can legally marry Fanny Bryce.
Nineteen nineteen, they had a kid, Francis, and something else
happened in nineteen nineteen. What happened Nikki came up with
a plan.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
What was his plan?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, he figured out that he could stage a series
of robberies targeting Wall Street messengers. The messengers were carrying
something very valuable, liberty bonds. Oh so these are war
bonds sold to support our efforts in World War one
w W one, the Great War. So buying the bonds
was seen as an act of patriotism, and it was
(19:49):
also the first time a lot of Americans understood or
had involvement in, you know, financial securities.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
So the liberty bond campaign was not an easy one.
The initial one was Captain five billion aggregate issued at
thirty years at three point five percent interest, and that
was redeemable by the government after fifteen years. So it's
like large scale, right. It pulled in two billion dollars
with five point five million people purchasing bonds, mostly like
(20:17):
large scale trades, major investors, so it's a lot of money.
But the problem was that the notes were trading consistently
below par. So the FEDS and the Stock Exchange they
started accusing these traders who went below par of being
German sympathizers not patriots.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Why sport They.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Some said the bonds weren't selling like they should because
the rich thought it would make them look like they
were tax dodging.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Since I get it, yeah, they has ever mattered, that's
you know, oh god.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So the government decided, okay, we're going to also log
go after individual citizen investors instead of the large volume.
So they went hard on selling the bonds to the public.
And they needed to raise money for the war, but
also they needed to keep inflation down and this is
how you do it. So they tapped into arts and
entertainment to get the message out. They were posters and rallies,
(21:15):
and like some of the celebrities who participated in Liberty
bond rallies, Al Jolson, Ethel Barrymore, Fatty Arbuckle, Mary Pickford,
Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin. Oh yeah, these are the big names.
I don't know if Fanny Brice promoted them for World
War One, but she did for World War Two, which
you'll find out is kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
So world fun No, I get it, Well.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Why not, so, Nikki. He figured he could intercept these
couriers and make off with the bonds totaling like five
million dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
He wants to go like full Hans Gruber. But on
the delivery.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Guys, Yes, exactly, bonds there, that's like ninety three million dollars.
That's exactly five million.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
That's a good amount.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Nicky planned this thing to the end. Agree Like, he
saw that the messengers were often unaccompanied, easy targets for
the boys, candy from a baby. He saw that a
lot of the messengers could be pulled into the fold
and become part of this.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Oh but he's other work guys.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, yeah, we'll be like, we'll cut you in on this.
But you got to be able to move the bonds.
You can't just like turn around resell them because there's
far too many.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, they're not worth anything if you can't move.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, so you need a fence, someone in a laundrum,
and that would take a network far larger and deeper
into the underworld than Nicky had, but he had a
plan for that too, Zaren close eyes. Yeah, I want
you to picture it. It's a late summer day in
nineteen nineteen. You are sitting in your office at forty
(22:44):
five West fifty seventh Street in Midtown Manhattan. You're meeting
some chums later for some cards and a bite to eat,
but for now you're tending to some paperwork and taking
a couple of meetings. You've got a guy coming in
soon right about now actually, who says he has a
business problem position for you. He comes with recommendations. People
vouch for him, so you'll at least hear him out.
(23:06):
You have a major project in the works, but you
figure if the offer looks good, you can move forward
on another one too. There's a knock at the door.
In walks a man in a sharp suit carrying an
impeccable Borselino hat. He's smooth debonair. He introduces himself. I'm
nicki Earnstein, he tells you. You stand and shake his hand,
offers him some coffee. He politely declines and takes a
(23:29):
seat across from your desk. You pour yourself some coffee
in a delicate china cup, splash a little cream and
take a seat at your desk and stir the breue
gently with a dematas spoon. Tell me what I can
do for you, mister Earnstein, you say. He tells you
all about his plan with the Liberty bonds, every minute detail,
all potential pitfalls in their avoidances. He runs down his
(23:50):
crew and their strengths. Aren't you married to Fanny Bryce,
you ask him. He tells you he is. She's a
lovely goal. You tell him, Oh, you don't know the
half of it. He smiles, and you're really taken with
his sincerity. It's obvious he really does love her. Many
men would be intimidated to be with a woman that successful.
They'd be weak or maybe try to exploit her. You've
(24:12):
met Fanny Brice in passing. She's not one to be exploited.
So Nicki's true devotion to his bride is admirable. It
increases your estimation of him. So what do you propose,
you asked Nicki. He tells you he'd like for you
to arrange to launder the bonds. He says he knows
you have the fences necessary. He just needs you to
make the connection for him. You'd get a cut and
(24:34):
wouldn't have to do anything with the operation, be totally
separated from it, never to be associated with it. You
and he haggle a little on the percentages, but you
see that this is easy money for you to make.
You refirm to one of your guys, take a cut,
go back to focusing on your big project. You agree
to the terms and tell Nikki that your guys will
be in touch. That'll get everything rolling. He stands as
(24:58):
to you and you shake hands. He looks down at
your desk at the copy of the Chicago Tribune, open
to the front of the sports section with a big
headline about the White Sox and their victory yesterday. Thank
you again, mister Rothstein, he tells you. Then he turns
and walks out the door. Yes, so, Nikki Earnstein had
visited none other than Arnold the Rothstein. Yeah, in search
(25:23):
of a connection to money launderers for the liberty bonds. Zarin,
I have now made you another of your criminal heroes.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Are you too good to me?
Speaker 8 (25:30):
I am?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I wish you had heroes and I can return the favor.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
So that fall of nineteen nineteen, a series of stick
ups on Wall Street wiped out five million dollars in
liberty bonds. And these weren't real stick ups though they're rigged,
because most of the time they actually were able to
get the messengers in on it. The messengers had been
stealing these things here and there since they were initially issued.
This was just on a huge scale, and the messengers
(25:56):
had covered they could say I've been robbed. Earnstein and
his crew passed the bonds along to the fence that
was organized by Arnold Rothstein and.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
This, but I guess it's guaranteed money.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Guaranteed money, and he thought yeah, and he thought all
these things out. He was so careful. So the bonds
aren't exactly traceable, but there are a lot of moving
parts and a lot of peripheral crew members, so pretty
soon the Feds were on the case. Don't forget all
as all of this is going on. Rothstein's embroiled in
(26:29):
the nineteen nineteen World series Scam.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Yeah, he's got problems, got a lot going on, Judge Kennison,
mountain Land is coming.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
From him exactly. So I won't go into the details
on that, since I think you should do an episode
about it. But why haven't I ever I don't know,
but let's just say there's a lot of heat. Rothstein
didn't need this. I will say though, that he was
never officially connected to the Liberty Bonds sets, at least
during his lifetime. Oh so, law enforcement they started picking
(26:58):
up members of the crew one by one, and these
are big dogs, like lawyers and stuff like that. This
is a high level operation. Nicki wasn't about to get pinched,
so he went into hiding. And for the most part,
it looks like he bounced around between Pittsburgh, Cleveland, various
Canadian cities. But like you know, it was getting too hot.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
He didn't He didn't choose to go back to like
London or Paris. Like he's like, I'll go to Pittsburgh. Yeah, exactly, Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Why not? So on May fifteenth, nineteen twenty, Nicki arrived
in New York on the nine am train from Pittsburgh.
He was driven up to ninetieth Street, where he picked
up Fanny Brice and his lawyer, William Fallon, who also
happened to be Arnold Rothstein's lawyer. Then they drove down
Fifth Avenue, passed through long lines of policemen who were
(27:43):
gathered for a parade and the car swung past Union Square.
Nicky tipped his hat to police officials that were gathered
on the grand stand that was set up so that
they could watch this parade. Sure, Nicky's like one of
the most wanted fugitives at this point.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, and he's like tip and his cap to the
the captains of them.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
They drove the car twice around the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Case anyone missed him.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Well, people still aren't recognizing them, right until the Clerk
of Courts finally sees them. News spreads rapidly that oh
my god, Nicki Earnstein's here. This large crowd gathers. Nicky
and Fanny get out of the car pose for photographs.
Then he and Fanny strolled into the DA's office and
he surrendered. Nicki refused to make any statement to the press.
(28:25):
I'll talk tomorrow, he said. Fanny said, I'm the happiest
woman in the world, and then stood their striking poses.
So Nicki was like, I said, he's one of the
most wanted fugitives in North America. At this point, authorities
had been tailing Fanny Brice, like searching her home. They
monitored all her activities, and eventually the Manhattan District attorney
(28:47):
offered Nicki a deal. If you surrender, we'll give you
a reduced sentence upon conviction. Wow, they said. His bail
at seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
By the way, I'm picturing this as like Elliott, young
Elliott Gould and young Barber STREISSH that's good.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I love it. I love this movie. So the trial
they moved it to Washington, d c. Where federal charges
carried a maximum two year sentence as opposed to the
harsher penalties under New York State. Despite the defense's efforts,
Arnstein's convicted of conspiracy to sell stolen securities. He gets
two years. On May sixteenth, nineteen twenty four, he started
(29:22):
serving his sentence at Leavenworth Federal Penitential. Fanny was supportive.
She visited him regularly. She was a ride or di remember,
and she'd had their second kid. Between his surrender and
when he actually had to ship off to prison. On
December twenty second, nineteen twenty five, NICKI got out a
(29:42):
little early, so time off for good behavior after eighteen
months of shoveling coal and ashes in the prison power plant.
Oh is that horrible? That's rough?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
On that air you're breathing.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah. So the headline in the Buffalo Courier read Nicki Arnstein,
given freedom is Christmas gift. Fanny Bryce believes in Santa Claus. Okay,
So he was supposed to get charged with defrauding a
guy in New Jersey out of eighty grand in a
horse race scheme like the moment he set foot outside
the prison. But those charges were dropped and that caused
(30:15):
all this uproar in the press. Let's stop here to
celebrate his release.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I'm rooting for these crazy kids.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I maybe listen to some ads, just see what happens.
Just keep it loose. Back in a flash, Nicki Arnstein,
(30:47):
Aaron Burnett, Arnold Rothstein. So Nicki fresh out of Leavenworth,
married to superstar Fanny Brice, two kids. Life is just
swimming along for the couple, but not for long. So
they were together for another two years after he got out,
but then Fanny filed for divorce in nineteen twenty. So well,
(31:09):
she'd caught him with another woman at a hotel in Chicago.
According to the Brooklyn Times Union newspaper quote, it was
Fanny Bryce's remodeled nose which awed her husband Nikki Earnstein
and induced him to turn to other women, she alleged
in filing for divorce. What the illustrious actress does not
regret the employment of plastic surgery, however, and she said
(31:32):
today because it quote improved my looks so much. Then
the article goes on, I know you're stun I am.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I'm trying. I'm like new nose, lose husband.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, the article goes on, quote, I still love him,
Miss Bryce explained, but my new nose caused him to
develop an inferiority complex. He used to be able to
joke about my features. When my face was altered, he said,
I wasn't his fanny. It was a case of plastic
surgery coming between us. So she's saying that when she
got her nose done, Yeah, he lost interest because other women.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
She became too hot and wasn't his fanny.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Funny face, Fanny, funny face fanny. Yeah, dude, World War.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
One, the plastic surgery that comes out of fixing those
guys getting blown to bits. I didn't realize like how
quickly you know it became an issue. Always think of
it as like more like something that happens in the
thirties but in the twenties when there when pop culture
blows up, that's when it would explode.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
And then so that's wild, right, Yeah, that's crazy blaming
your divorce on your plastic surgery.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Knows that you.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Got you what she thinks is an improvement. She likes
him and it drives him away.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
And then she doesn't blame him for cheating. She blames
the nose.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Nos, but she doesn't regret it. Yeah, it's a very strange.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Would have been a stronger claim.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I would go with that. You know what's wilder? That
is the this exchange in court, the judge asked her
how she planned to support her two kids without a
husband and the new nose and the new nose. He's like,
how how are you a single mother going to support
these kids? She's like, I work, is what she said.
And then quote, what is your business or profession? He asked.
So I think he's a little out of touch because
(33:13):
Fanny's taken aback. So all she says is actress. She's
singing like, don't you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
He's like, I don't know what the nose I don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I don't recommend He.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Says, how long have you been engaged in this profession
and he's asking one of the biggest celebrities at the time.
She said, oh, judge, about twenty years. And then he said,
do you contemplate any trouble getting engagements? So she said,
who can tell the fickle public?
Speaker 7 (33:40):
You know?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And she says it laughing, but apparently she was holding
back tears. The whole thing was just too much. I
love that the judge didn't care that her husband was
a convicted felon with no job.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Totally right, But how is she going to be how are.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
You going to do it?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Fantastic. So remember how I said that the liberty bonds
thing didn't come back on Rothstein while he was alive. Well,
the brain went to the Great Beyond rather violently in
nineteen twenty eight, very quickly. Guess it may have nineteen.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Couldn't even make it to the Wall Street crash. One
of the people who had.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, exactly so. May of nineteen twenty nine, Eugene McGhee,
who was a disbarred lawyer. He got charged with criminally
receiving those stolen liberty bonds. This is the offense. He
testified that the bonds were given to him by Arnold Rothstein,
whom so McGhee and this guy James Osborne, who was
(34:32):
the nephew of a former DA. They were on trial
in connection with the bonds at like one hundred and
forty thousand dollars worth of them stolen from a messenger
from this brokerage firm, Taylor, Bates and Company. So the
messenger got tried for the theft and was acquitted because
they realized like, no, he was, he was he was
a victim of a stick up. Lawyers for the brokers
(34:54):
asked Nikki Earnstein for help in their search for the
bonds the messenger that they sent to f and him
talked with Fanny Brice and she sent her lawyer McGee
to see what they wanted with Nicky, and McGee's like, yeah,
I can get you help you get the bonds back,
and then he sends his associate Osborne to go get him.
So Osborne gets a sixteen thousand dollars reward that he
(35:16):
turned over to McGhee, and he got five hundred dollars
for his part in this whole thing. The broker's lawyers,
after paying the reward, put the whole matter before the DA.
Osborne and McGee are indicted. So Fanny took the stand. Yeah,
she showed up with her current husband, Billy Rose, a songwriter.
Oh yeah, yeah. So she said that she sent McGee
to the broker's lawyer on the instruction of Nicky, who
(35:39):
she had called by long distance to Chicago to say,
you know, lawyers are looking for you. I mean it
just gets all, you know, complicated of who owes who money.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Is she loyal and.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Tries to protect Nikki at this point or is she
kind of like a hurt and wants to just get
clear of the matter.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
She just says what she knows.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
She just says what she knows. Yeah, she's not really
turning it up to kind of get.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Him Busted's not doing that.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
But yeah, a few days so McGee, he's on the stand, right,
he says. Quote. A few days later, I went to
see Arnold Rothstein and asked him if he would try
to locate the securities. He replied he wouldn't touch the
business for a million dollars. He said the matter was
sure to come before the district attorney, and he said
he could see what he would do. A few days later,
he told me he thought he had a line on
(36:21):
the securities, So poor Rostin. So McGhee said that Rostein
finally let him know that he'd bought the bonds back.
McGee got them from Rothstein, gave him to Osmore and
blah blah blah goes back and forth. So had Rothstein
been alive, this would have been a very sticky bad situation.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh yeah, the country.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
But I also believe that if he'd still been alive,
these guys wouldn't have said a word. That's what my
thought is, Yeah, that they're only talking.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Because because he's yeah, you can pin it all on him.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So yeah, and around this time.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Right now to make him the mastermind.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, exactly. And he's the big bad in all of
these stories, like he hovered over as the big bath.
It's really interesting to see that that thread in all
the newspaper pieces. So what's Nikki up to right now?
God knows what. So he pops up in the papers,
but it's pretty much for always not being charged in
(37:15):
connection with some crime like all of his associates would be.
But he was throw his name into every piece. And
I'm not sure if he was like good at getting
out of jams or if he wasn't running with that
crowd anymore. Things changed in nineteen thirty. That's when it
came out that the year before, in nineteen twenty nine,
(37:35):
he had remarried. The Brooklyn Daily Times ran a story
proclaiming Nikki Earnstein, who combines all the tender arts of
love with the more practical art of winning huge stakes
in Transatlantic liner crooked poker games, has been married to
a two million dollar heiress since last fall, it was
reported today, Arenstein, one time husband of Fanny Brice, the
(37:59):
Broadway stage favorite, married Missus Isabelle McCullough, formerly the wife
of a Chicago promoter, in Quebec on August eighteenth, according
to The Daily News. At the time, the News said
he paid more than one thousand dollars to suppress reports
of the marriage. Now comes the word that the smiling
Nicky is married to Missus McCullough, whose father left her
(38:22):
two million dollars. They had met again in Florida, where
Nicky learned that Missus McCullough had divorced her husband, The
Coupler living in the exclusive Sutton Place district where Anne
Morgan and the Vanderbilts make their homes.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Okay, So he's still finessing widows.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Oh yeah, and he upgraded his circumstances. He took his
old skills.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah he still got it.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You know you don't he don't forget how.
Speaker 6 (38:45):
To ride a bike apparently not so backwards Penny Farthing
all during the thirties, like he tried to straighten up
and fly right. Okay, So he's got money now, why
he looked for legitimate work, Like he dried his hand
at advertising in Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
He tried to run an air conditioning business in La Okay,
but like you know, it's the depression.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, it's not the time, not the time.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
And he's like he's married to an heiress and they
live in a mansion in Pasadena. Like a man's got
to have something to do.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
All day, right, he gets bored.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So then in nineteen thirty nine a movie came out,
Rose of Washington Square.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Never heard of it, me neither.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
It starred Alice Fay. Oh I love her, Tyrone Power,
I know him and al Jolson.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Okay, no, nothing against that.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
I know there's all that the blackface, but yeah, he's
a back of an entertainer, I'll get So.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
It takes place nineteen twenties New York City, and it's
the story of a singer named Rose Sergeant and her
rocky relationship with a con artist named Barton DeWitt Clinton, Oh,
and his criming threatens her success in the Zigfield Follies. Yeah,
does that sound familiar?
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Totally?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
So Rose. Also, Rose of Washington Square was one of
Fanny Bryce's signature songs.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Okay, so it's just Fanny Bryson.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, Nicky's story livid, livid, he sued twentieth Century Fox.
He said it was a violation of his right of privacy.
He wanted four hundred thousand dollars in damages. And he's like, yeah,
you know what, I have been convicted of crimes. I've
done two stints in prison. But at that point, he said,
(40:21):
he was leading quote an exemplary, honorable and righteous life,
remarried and established a home. And so he said that
with the production and the release of the movie, that
memories had been revived in the public mind and now
he didn't have the like quiet, secluded life that he
had really carefully crafted. He said it wasn't just that
the movie was based on his life, but then it
(40:43):
went out of its way to make him look like
quote a thief, a coward, a weekly, a confidence man,
and a swindler, and besides depicts him as a faithless
and deceitful husband, which I mean, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
I think he just didn't like the portrayal, but maybe not.
The details are the problem. He was like, I did
all that stuff. That's not how I.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Did tyrone powers.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
I did not harrow the whole time.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
So he wanted one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for
violation of the right suprivacy, one hundred and fifty thousand
for libel, and one hundred thousand for use of material
from his life without permission.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Ten thousand dollars for the constant, sweaty face performance of
tyrone power.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
He also he also wanted an injunction to prevent the
further showing of the picture. He wanted an accounting to
figure out how much he was entitled to to recover profits.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Oh, he's smart, he knows Hollywood accounting. You've got to
break open.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
All that right, this huge suit he settled out of
court for twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Wow, he's like the job. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
So Fanny Brice, as I mentioned, she passed away in
nineteen fifty one, just Shy a sixty years old. She'd
been living in Holby Hills, LA. So they're not too
far from each other. Rows of Washington Square wasn't Nicky's
only depiction on the silver screen really. In nineteen sixty four,
the stage musical Funny Girl open non Broadway and it
was produced by Fanny and Nikki's son in law, Ray Stark.
(42:05):
He was married to their daughter Francis, so their other kid, William,
He went on to become this really well regarded abstract painter.
So anyway, Funny chirst ray Stark. Initially he set up
an authorized biography of Fanny Brice. She had recorded for
him all these anecdotes and stories that are like wow,
and it was written up, but she didn't like the
(42:25):
end result, so Stark he had to kill the project.
That cost him a ton of money. And then he
went through eleven different screenwriters. That's how it goes, trying
to find someone who could produce a screenplay that would
work for everyone involved.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Where is the magic?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yes, So they finally landed on one that worked. Columbia
Pictures offered him four hundred thousand dollars plus a percentage
of the gross for the script that's huge.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
But then Mary Martin, actress, singer, Rogers and hammerste news.
She suggested it could be done as a musical on
the stage, not a movie. So Stark goes to famous
composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim to compose the score. Someheim
apparently said, I don't want to do the Life of
Fanny Bryce with Mary Martin. She's not Jewish. You need
(43:12):
someone ethnic for the part. True, so Martin dipped out.
There was a lot of back and forth. Anne Bancroft
was attached to it for a while and that didn't
work out. They were going to go with Edie Gourmet,
but she wouldn't do it. She would involving. She would
only do it if Steve Lawrence was kind for real.
(43:32):
She was not.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
She was like, I won't do Steve. Steve's got to
be nicky Steve.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
They said, okay, absolutely not, And they tried Carol Burnette
and she said, I'd love to do it, but what
you need is a Jewish girl.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I'm not Jewish.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, So finally they called in the big guns. Before
she was the big Guns, Barbara Streish girl boom so
In the musical, Nicky is found guilty of embezzlement. He's
never been married to anyone but Fanny, and he serves
only one prison sentence.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
You No, they simplified the ner.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, but play is a huge success and then it
gets made into a movie in nineteen sixty eight with
Babs and then Omar Shariff as Nicky.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
You we will never know what Nicky thought about being
played by Omar Shariff. I would say it's a flattering honor.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, I would tell.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Because Nicky passed away October second, nineteen sixty five in
La Buried under the name Jules Arnold. Yeah, So'sariah's choice,
I'm assuming, Yeah, his choice. What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (44:32):
So this was somewhat responsible for barbar streith And becoming
a film star. Yes, I love that there's a direct
Fanny Bryce to Barbara Streisand.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Line funny girl.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, but I mean like that that she could propel
barbar Streisand's success after like, you know, how far?
Speaker 2 (44:47):
How about a direct line from Arnold Rothstein to Barbara
streisand Rothstein to Omar Sharif.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yes, there's the there's a lot of direct lines in
this one. We're connecting threadsdays. Normally I never can.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Nickle plated penny farthing to Steven's. Sometimes I can do
this all day. So good at this.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
What's your ridiculous take away, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (45:09):
That I was so tickled to have stumbled upon something
that had all the things you love.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
I dude down to the nickel plated farthing.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
And I like that I got to tell you instead
of you telling me, so thank you. You know what.
I think we need those as a talkback, David.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah, oh my god, I.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Went gee.
Speaker 8 (45:41):
Dark Becka here, happy to report that I had a
week of light baca when I was beach camping in Malibu.
I still like being on the dark side, though, because
I think our dark sums are just angry about all
the bad stuff that's happening around us right now, and
I think we should be angry belong with dark Becca
and dark Elizabeth Zaren Producer Dave interns always for you.
(46:07):
How do I get mind to stop anxiety peeing in
the corner?
Speaker 7 (46:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Right, Intern, Anxiety p is like an ocean violation. They
are all sorts of problems and there's only so much
nature's miracle you can buy before you wind up on
a watch list. That's it for today. You can find
us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also Ridiculous
Crime on Blue Sky on Instagram, check us out on
(46:36):
YouTube a Ridiculous Crime pod, and then email us Ridiculous
Crime at gmail dot com. Most importantly, leave us a
talkback on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is
hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited
by funny Boy Dave Kusten, starring Anale Rutgers. Judith. Research
(47:01):
is by best actress in a musical, Marissa Brown. The
theme song is by Burgled Messenger Boys Thomas Lee and
Travis Stutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred
guests Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers
are the Leggiest Gals in the Zigfield Follies, Ben Bollen
and No.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
Browndous Crime Say It One More Timequious Crime.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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