February 19, 2024 • 45 mins
In the summer of 1936, New York watches with baited breath, as Lucky Luciano stands trial. He’s been charged alongside some of organized crime's most violent strongmen.
Their fate sits in the hands of Eunice’s witnesses: a handful of sex workers, many of whom are experiencing brutal heroin withdrawal as they sit on the witness stand.
This stand-off would become known as the trial of the century. So why isn’t Eunice Carter in court to see the results of all her painstaking work?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Novel. Before we begin, a content warning. The following episode
contains difficult themes and violence. The fourteenth floor of the
Woolworth Building is always full of people. All those men
(00:27):
in suits speaking in important loud voices. The ringing rotary
phones heavy enough to be weapons, secretaries typing, the ping
of typewriters, competing with elevator dings, and foul cabinet slams.
It's the usual office racket, but today there's even more
chaos than usual. Over eighty women, nearly all sex workers,
(00:52):
crowd the space. Curses, threats, prayers and appeals rise above
the usual office hum and perhaps even more unnerving, some
women remain stone silent. Eunice hunting Carter, once set off
in a distant office, away from all the action, stands
(01:13):
near a woman seated in a circle of a few
hovering prosecutors. These men are trying to get her to talk.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You can tell us something about Charlie, Lucky, right, sweetheart,
you can tell us about Charlie.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
These women are being held and Thomas Dewey's investigation into
organized crimes move into sex work. They've been kept for weeks,
cut off from all outside contact. Thomas Dewey Eunice Carter
and the whole team are working round the clock, interviewing, interrogating,
good cop, bad cop. They've got to get the women
(01:50):
to crack before the gangsters can slip through their fingers.
And in the hot seat right now, Nancy Presser.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
There's good reasons why people run away from small towns
to come to the big city with men they shouldn't trust,
and Nancy was one of those. You start as somebody's
mistress when you're young and fresh looking and new to
the city.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And we'll have a good time.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I'll put you up in an apartment, and then when
he dumps you, you find you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Don't have a lot of resources.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
You're not going to go back to your small town.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
When Nancy Presser ran away from her home in upstate
New York, she got caught up in the seatier side
of the Big Apple. By nineteen thirty six, she was
working at a brothel and addicted to opium.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
A drug that, by the nineteen thirties is used by
high class drug addicts, really high end drug addicts, because
it's considered exotic and it's used by hardened criminals, especially
if they've got enough money.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Nancy Presser's new boyfriend had enough money. Ralph Lawari was
also married and a mafia strong man. He was a
member of the Mott Street Boys. Ralph had dropped out
of school at age fifteen and worked He's a Brooklyn
butcher until he found his calling in the underworld. I
can't imagine what skills he brought to the table.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Ralph Legori's name was Ralph the pimp Legory.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
At first, Nancy works solo as a call girl. The
mafia doesn't really like call girls, they're too independent, that
is harder to intimidate. But Nancy gives up call girl
work and installs herself in a brothel house. And now
she's caught up in the grand sweep of Unice and
Dewey's raid. She's been plucked out of work in the
(03:35):
middle of the night. She's sleep deprived, she's confused and worried,
and she's being asked questions about Lucky Luciano. And on
top of all that, powerful withdrawal symptoms are kicking in.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
All of these women were, of course terrified. They knew
very well the code of the underworld is squealers don't
last fast to the authorities. You are very likely to
end up in the river.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Dewey and Unice are after a much bigger fish than
Nancy Presser and Ralph the pimp Lagory. They want info
on Charlie Lucky Luciano, so they apply more pressure. They
threatened Nancy with possession of a firearm.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Nancy Pressa was the girlfriend of a booker, so when
she was pinched, she was carrying his gun in her
purse so that her boyfriend couldn't be pinched for it.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Putting aside the whole snitches get stitches thing. Now Nancy
has a real reason to talk. She could be facing
a possession charge, which could lead to the best part
of a decade behind bars. Nancy slowly realizes that nobody
is going to show up to bail her out, not
Ralph the Pimp, and certainly not Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
They had been left to rot in jail, even though
they'd been regularly paying their ten bucks every week.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Nancy has no idea why this is all happening. All
she knows is that she's been left alone. What's the
point of paying for protection or even having a mom
boyfriend if she's being hung out to dry Eunice and
Dewey have Nancy presser exactly where they want her, vulnerable,
desperate and trapped, and when she finally does crack, what
(05:25):
she has to say surprises even them.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Nancy pressed the claim to be a girlfriend of Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Not Ralph the pimp, Lucky Luciano, the big man himself.
Nancy tells her interrogators, not only is she Lucky's girlfriend,
She's heard him talk about his involvement and vice with
her own ears. This is how Unice and Dewey make
their breakthroughs in tracking down witnesses who could link Charles
(05:54):
Lucky Luciano directly to prostitution. And if Dewey and Unice
are concerned with the inconsistencies like those in Nancy's stories
or in any of the witnesses reports, the historical record
doesn't show it. All it takes is one domino to
fall before they all do. After Nancy breaks down, other
(06:14):
women do too, often, sick from withdrawal, desperate for help,
they begin cracking under pressure and sitting there with them,
writing down every word in meticulous detail. Eunice hunting Carter
(06:35):
from the teams at iHeartRadio and novel I'm Nicole Perkins
and this is the Godmother, Episode sixth Trial of the Century.
(07:17):
May eleventh, nineteen thirty six. It's a suspiciously mild day
after a sudden scorcher. It's the kind of day where
you'd need only the lightest of jackets, and then the
sun warms you and all is right in the world.
A good day for a lover's picnic or to push
a child in a swing at the park, but not
(07:38):
everyone will get to have the sun on their skin today.
Lucky Luciano paces in a jail cale Thomas Dewey is
probably warming up his voice as he has breakfast, preparing
for the performance of a lifetime and Unice in the
pages of recorded history on May eleventh, nineteen thirty six.
(08:00):
She is nowhere to be found, but she has to
be thinking about one building opposite Foley Square in Manhattan,
the Courthouse. After months of painstaking work, today is the
day Lucky Luciano faces court. By ten am, members of
(08:22):
the press have all filed inside the Manhattan Courthouse and
taken their seats.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
In fact, there were no spectators allowed in the courtroom
except the press. Newspapers covered this case assiduously and may
publish multiple editions every day and.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
The lead up to the trial, Dewey keeps reporters and
editors close.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
In daily statements to the Daily News and the New
York Mira and the polls and all the rags that
were being read every day in New York City.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
He preps the news carefully. After dutch Schultz had died,
Dewey's message was focused on Lucky being America's most dangerous criminal,
and as the trial Will of the century approached, he
has honed that message more fully. Now inside the courtroom,
all the press turn their heads in unison.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Lucky Luciano is shuffled in with nine other defendants.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Three of the twelve originally charged with Lucky have pled out,
so now as they enter the courtroom, it's down to
Lucky and nine others, none of whom are wearing handcuffs
or a jumpsuit.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
In the nineteen thirties, in that New York courtroom, everyone
was dressed to the nines, two or three piece suits, ties, dress, shoes,
hair neatly done. There was an elegance to it in
a weird way. There was a respectability. Even though if
you were there and one of the defendants, you would
have found almost nothing respectable about it.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Appearance matters, especially in front of a jewelry. But as
the eyes of the courtroom focus in on those nine defendant,
it's clear that some of them aren't as refined as
their threads.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Nobody seems to have the noticeable demeanor of Luciano. Luciano's
co defendants look like a mishmash of would be thugs.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Especially those defendants who are used to doing their dirty
work in the shadows.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
That is exactly what the prosecution wanted.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Judge Philip McCook looms over the courtroom, imperious and intimidating.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
He was selected expressly for the purpose of prosecuting organized
crime and its corrupting influence on New York politics. Many
said that McCook actually acted more as a co prosecutor
than as a neutral judge in the case.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Just as Judge McCook has been specifically chosen, so has
the jury.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
It was a special jury called a blue ribbon jury
of experienced jurors, all.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Twelve white men in sit facing the.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Room, jurors who previously served and presumably who'd previously voted
to convict. So it was a bit of a stack
deck from the beginning against Luciano.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
But the defendants didn't just have their lawyers backing them
up in court. It's the mob. One hand washes the other,
and their colleagues in crime have done their own trial prep.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The mob was behind the defense as much as the
attorneys were. There was an incidence where someone was pought
trying to bribe a Durer, and then one Durer was
kicked off and an altonate put on, So there was
a lot going on with.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
At least one Durer caught taking a bribe. Dewey must
have been wondering who else had the mob approached, Who
else have they attempted to buy off in this corrupt city,
Who the hell knows? You get past all the obstacles
of finding a pattern, rounding up witnesses, getting them to crack,
finding the big boss and arresting him, and now you've
(12:02):
got to worry about jewelry tampering. The path to justice
is never smoothed, so despite a favorable judge and jury,
no one could predict how events would unfold. And Lucky
he is not giving anything away.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Lucciano's facial expression most of the time is complete stoicism.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
He's not going to let anyone in that court room
see any signs of weakness.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
But in his head he is still trying to figure
out how the hell am I on trial with nine guys?
I don't know for vice. He's visibly not pleased, although
he tries to be stoic. He does not like Dewey.
He does not like that this trial has happened. Lucky
(12:56):
knows he is a criminal, knows he has good lawy,
but he knows they're going to bring up his criminal history,
and he almost seems prepared to handle that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
As Lucky sits there in his tailored suit, resting bitch
face firmly in place, he has to have been wondering
how would it come to this and who was responsible?
If it were me, I'd definitely be looking for someone
to take my frustrations out on. But if he did
scan the room for faces to clare at, he would
(13:28):
not have spotted the woman who'd brought him there.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Eunice Carter was not given the opportunity to try the case.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
She was not in the courtroom. No do we had
twenty assistant prosecutors, only about five or six. I'm Ashley
participated in the trial itself.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
Whether it was because she was a woman, whether it
was because she was black, whether it was because it
was both of those things. This is certainly my opinion,
but there's no way to look at it other than
that it was a calculated and discriminatory decision not to
allow her to try the case.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
If Eunice had wanted to attend the trial, she may
have been permitted, but not as a participant. She would
not have been given the chance to sit alongside doing
Eunice would have had to watch with the crowds from
the audience. Maybe this is all out of an abundance
of caution for her own safety, but it's such a
(14:22):
common story for many black women in the workplace. Your
contribution isn't valued until a man co signs it, and
when it becomes the key element to success, you're left
out of seeing it through. You're supposed to be content
with the thumbs up while someone else leaves his fingerprints
all over your work, with or without her. The trial
(14:50):
Unice had helped orchestrate was now in motion. Judge Philip
McCook addresses the packed room to read out the charges
against the defendants.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Ninety counts of pulsory prostitution.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Compulsory prostitution.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
What even was that compulsory prostitution ends up being designed
as a charge to try to rope in all the
people around the women who are doing the work. So
it is really a catch all term to try to
say you're the apparatus around this woman who is selling sex.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The rest of the defendants are accused of intimidating women
to become sex workers.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Unlucky's behalf and the reason Unice Carter sees that as
possibly the way in to bringing down this kingpin of
the crime syndicate is because it shows conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
All the defendants are tried together in this conspiracy thanks
to that Dewey law which he lobbied for and won
conveniently just before the trial. Normally, in mob trials, the
big boss is protected while the low level players become
the fall guy. This new law means people charged with
two or more separate crimes could be tried under a
(16:04):
single indictment and that Dewey wouldn't have to spend taxpayer
money on several separate, expensive cases. Plus, the jury could
see the big picture of how all these crimes were connected,
and ultimately the ringleader can be held directly accountable. As
the judge finishes reading out the charges, Lucky has a
(16:25):
view directly across the courtroom.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
At the other table stands Thomas Dewey. Smug and confident.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Dewey starts his opening statement. He says that Lucky Luciano
is a prostitution overlord, a menace to society, and then
he turns to what he must know will be his
most vulnerable area to attack during the trial, his witnesses. Frankly,
(16:59):
my witness a prostitutes madam's heels, pimps, and ex convicts.
Many of them have been in jail, Others are about
to go to jail. Some were told that they would
be prosecuted if they did not tell the truth. I
wish to call to your attention that these are the
only witnesses we could possibly have brought here. We can't
(17:23):
get bishops to testify in a case involving prostitution, and
this combination was not run under arc lights in Madison
Square Garden. We have to use the testimony of bad
men to convict other bad men, and with that it's
the defense's turn.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
They had some pretty high level criminal lawyers working for the.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Lucky's lawyer is a prominent Long Island criminal defense attorney
George Martin Levy, who hasn't had the same kind of
preparation Dewey's team has enjoyed.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
On the front day before the trial began on Monday,
Moses Polakoff, who was Luciano's lawyer, called George Martin Levy
and said, would you take it on? We need a
trial lawyer of umpeccable reputation? And Levy said how long
would I have to prepare? And Polakoff said the trial
starts Monday, and Levy took it anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
In his opening statement, Levy argues that the government's tactics
are underhanded, their evidence is shaky, and the link to
his client, Lucky Luciano it's even shakier. By the time
George Martin Levy finishes speaking, the battle lines for the
trial are clear. Could Lucky be directly linked to Wes?
(18:50):
As Lucky looks across at the other co defendants, he
must have been a little worried.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Clearly his co defend Dance. The people who were running
this prostitution bonding racket were guilty.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Lucky's presence in court alongside them is one of the
most damaging weapons The prosecution.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Has the bookers, the bondsmen, the middle management types, the
hold up men, the strong arm men. The evidence against
them was.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Overwhelming, but this association alone isn't enough to sink Lucky.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Question was, could they prove that Lucky Luciano personally was
profiting from the earnings of prostitutes.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
The prosecution needs evidence of that connection, and what they
have are their witnesses.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
Many of these women were drug addicts, had other mental
or emotional challenges. A lot of that was so looked
down upon in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Fortunately for the prosecution, the judge is going to help
them out a bit there.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Judge McCook made a big point at the beginning of
the trial to tell the jury, some of the witnesses
that you were going to be hearing from are from
the very different circumstances than you. Because some of these
women did sign deals of immunity if they were willing
to testify against Luciano. There was for the general public
(20:13):
this belief on the part of many that you know, well,
these women will just make any kind of deal to
get out of whatever they're trying to get out of.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Whether the prosecution could prove that Lucky himself is the
big dog of this whole racket. Would come down to
witnesses testimony. Unice Carter herself has spent hours interrogating and
preparing women like Nancy Presser.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
There was this grave concern that even if their stories
were airtight, even if they stood up to hours of
cross examination, could you really take their word for it?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
But once again, Judge McCook comes to the aid of
the prosecution. At the start of the trial, he makes
an extraordinary ruling.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Ruling that hearsay testimony was admissible.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Hearsay testimony when someone in the legal case tries to
prove a fact by repeating what someone else said outside
of the courtroom, rather than providing direct evidence of what
they personally saw or experienced.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That was how all of these women were able to testify.
So it was a real stretch.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Stretch or not, the prosecution still has precious few witnesses
who are prepared to point the finger at Lucky. So
even with hearsay testimony permitted, as the court broke for
that first day, the prosecution of Lucky Luciano is on
thin ice. As the trial of the Century progresses, Lucky's
(21:54):
resting bitch face deepens and begins to crack. Lucky sits
in the dock alongside defendants and hears witness after witness
link him to the charges of compulsory prostitution with hearsay,
and now it's time for Nancy Presser to get on
(22:16):
the witness stand.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Nancy pressed his testimony and raged Lucky Luciano because she
claims she was his girlfriend and that she had spent
time with him in the Woldorf Astoria.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Nancy tells the courtroom she's known Lucky for the past
three years. She links him directly to the vice rackets,
and she claims to have heard him say things like
madams will have to bond and if they refuse, wreck
their joints. But the problem for Nancy comes when she's
cross examined. Unsurprisingly, the recollections of a sleep deprived woman
(22:51):
with a heroin addiction and withdrawal are a little inconsistent,
and Levy is quick to put Nancy under more pressure,
like surely a man of Lucky's alleged criminal stature would
choose to hook up with a more glamorous type of woman.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
He liked show girls, he liked beautiful women, he liked
women of stature, and he didn't like being associated with
somebody who was a drug addict and a girlfriend of
Ralph the pimp.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Then Levy goes in for the kill. He starts asking
Nancy for the kind of details someone would know about
a former boyfriend. What sort of bed do you sleep
in together? What's the layout of that luxury apartment? Does
Lucky have any distinguishing marks? Nancy stumbled she doesn't seem
(23:49):
to know. Backed into a corner, she responds with stories
of how Lucky is impotent and that's why she can't
provide more intimate details. Nancy Presser has ovaries of steel.
I cannot imagine one testifying against the alleged boss of
(24:09):
all mob bosses, and two putting into public record in
front of other mob guys that he can't even get
it up och. Her cross examination lasts well into the evening.
Nancy pleads to the judge that she's feeling ill she
needs to step aside, but even that doesn't stop Levy's interrogation. Eventually,
(24:35):
her cross examination does come to an end, but only
after the defense introduces into evidence the floor plans of
the Waldorf Astoria, which clearly contradicts Nancy's descriptions of her
supposed boyfriend's crib. If she'd been able to participate that day,
I imagine Eunus herself might have admired that very specific,
(24:58):
detail oriented attack. Despite Nancy's disastrous testimony, Dewey's team still
has a number of other witnesses.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Some of these women held pretty high positions in vice ring.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
But as these women come and go, there wasn't very
much evidence at all against Luciano directly.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
With the exception of Nancy presso all of these women
were able to testify that they heard someone discussing Lucky
discussing it.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Is the case against Lucky falling apart. A few days
into the trial and across town from the courthouse, a
woman sits in a Manhattan prison, the Women's House of Detention.
If you took a stroll down Greenwich Avenue, you'd be
forgiven for confusing the Women's House of Detention for a
(25:54):
block of apartments opened to nineteen thirty two. It's twelve
stories high, with reddish brown brick on the lower floors
and fading yellow brick at the top. It's not immediately
obvious that the stylish Art Deco building is at that
very moment, housing hundreds of the city's most criminalized women.
(26:15):
But if you pay close attention, you'll begin to see
this is no high class apartment building. You can't see
in through any of the many windows, and they're designs
is such a way that makes them impossible to climb through.
There's a roof garden where the inmates supposedly play minishure tennis,
but it's caged in by wire mesh. When it first opened,
(26:37):
the Women's House of Detention was an experiment with a
new kind of prison system, one that prides itself on
referring to its residents as inmates, not prisoners. The women
had complete physical and psychological exams on arrival, and they're
given uniforms of bright colors instead of the usual drab gray,
and on Sunday mornings they receive another change of clothes.
(27:01):
I can appreciate the attempt at remembering that the people
inside those walls are still human beings who should be
treated as such, even if on the wrong side of
the law. But some of the treatments sound pretty brutal,
and that includes those for addiction. Probably one of the
main reasons women found themselves there in the first place.
(27:21):
The prison hospital occupies the upper floor of the Women's
House of Detention, and a few days after the Trial
of the Century begins, one woman is facing an ordeal.
Her name is Florence Brown, but you might remember her
better by one of her aliases, Kochie Flow.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
She was smart and she was a heroin addict. Back
in those days, if you were an addict and you
were arrested, you went through what they called the five
day cure. They administered smaller and smaller doses of heroin
to you or methadone over the course of five days,
and that was it. It was an agonizing process of
going through drug withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
After Koki left her family home and fell in with
the mob in Chicago, she moved to New York and
then into sex work.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Kochi Flow, She's in a category all her own.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
But that night in February, when Unice and Dewey's meticulously
executed raids shook the city.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Koki Flow was not arrested. She went into hiding. Basically,
she attempted to get clean. She went through rehab, but a.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Little over three months later, in May of nineteen thirty six, she.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Either wanted the money or she got bored or she
went back on heroin, whatever it was. For whatever reason.
She then got arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer.
And so she was arrested for prostitution while the trial
was going on, and she was thrown into the women's
House of detention.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And while she's there going through the pain of withdrawal,
someone points out to her that there was this trial
all over the news. Maybe it can be her ticket out.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
And she was in the throes of that five day
process when girls whom she knew who were being held
in the women's House of detention basically said, flo, you
were Jimmy Frederick's girlfriend, Dewey's people would love to talk
to you and you could probably make yourself a nice deal.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Jimmy Fredericks is a mob enforcer and an associate of Lucky's.
He's also one of Lucky's co defendants, which means Cokei
has been spending quite a bit of time in the
company of the mobsters at the heart of the trial.
And now Cochi realizes she has a get out of
jail free card up her sleeve.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Did she make a deal for her testimony?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You bet? Maybe it isn't quite a get out of
jail free card. She still has to testify an open
chord against a bunch of mobsters. But even that comes
with some perks.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
If you cooperated with Dewey, you went to a hotel
and got wined in Nune, taken out for drinks, taken
to the movies. If you wouldn't cooperate, you stayed in
the women's house at detention.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Rooftop, miniature tennis, and a change of outfit. On Sunday's side,
I know which one I use. So in the middle
of Heroin Withdrawal, Cochi Flow agrees to testify, and when
she does, it causes quite the sensation.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Cochi Flow was considered a material witness, so witness whose
testimony is crucial to the case.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
On Friday, May twenty second, Kochi arrives in court. Her
testimony is tough to witness. She's still recovering from her
five day cure and experiencing brutal withdrawal symptoms.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Her testimony was pretty rugged and they would drag her
off the witness stand. Can we take five minutes uran
a sure? And then they would ply her with brandy
or whiskey.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
This was the.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Idea of a cure, and then she was right back
on the witness stand.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I'm no lawyer, but is that ethical or even moral
to allow such an incapacitated person and to testify.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
A standard question in any legal proceeding in the United
States is the following, are you under the influence of
any drugs or alcohol that would influence your testimony today?
Another question is have you taken any drugs or alcohol
within the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
It's up to Judge McCook to determine if Cookie Flow's
testimony is admissible, and after hearing from doctors from the
defense and the prosecution on whether she is fit to
stand trial, maybe unsurprisingly, he decides she is.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Judge McCook made some rather interesting decisions. He allowed things
that should not have been allowed. Her medical condition was
not questioned, nor was the fact that she was being
laced up on breaks. If McCook had wanted to challenge that,
(31:58):
he could have ruled right then and there.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Koki's testimony changes everything.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
She claimed that she could attest to five different meetings
that she attended with her boyfriend Jimmy Frederick's with Lucky Luciano,
where they discussed the prostitution, so she was the key
witness in the case. She was the one person who
could testify to the fact that Luciano was the head
of this prostitution bonding combination.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
And it isn't just the jewelry whose minds are changed
by the testimony.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It wasn't until Koki Flow really put Luciano in the
frame that he felt he had to go on the
stand to defend himself.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Lucky is about to have his say. When Lucky finally
takes the stand on June nineteen thirty six, there can
(33:02):
be no denying he's undergone some kind of major transformation
from street urchin to a Waldorf Astoria address. Even in
court as he sits through testimony that could change his life,
yet again, he projects luxury and comfort. He is the
gangster version of the American dream. He traded in his
(33:23):
hand me down bootstraps for fine Italian leather loafers. But
Dewey wants jurors to see the flex of blood on
those custom made tassels. Dewey hopes that when Lucky opens
his mouth, everyone will see past the silk suits and
remember how he got them. Wants a hoodlum, always a hoodlum.
(33:43):
Dewey wants Lucky on the stand, and Lucky he's pretty
confident he can convince folks he's just as respectable as
the rest of them, which is probably why he ignores
his lawyers, please not to get on the stand.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
George Martin Leevy, his lawyer, strenuously told him not to
do it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
A slip of the tongue and the heat of the
moment is all it takes.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Luciano insisted his attitude was I have nothing to be
ashamed of in connection with this prostitution case. I had
nothing to do with prostitution. It's all a big setup.
The witnesses are lying. I want to go on the
stand and tell him the truth.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Luciano had that wow factor when he walked into a room.
He was one of those types of people that everybody goes, wow,
who is that guy? They're drawn to him. But if
you were trying to pick the best witness, he is
not it.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
He never should have taken the stand. Over the course
of two days, Dewey viciously crossed examined him.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Dewey throws as much gangster spaghetti at the wall as
he can.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
He crossed, examined, him about having lied to get a
gun permit, income tax fraud. He'd committed various mob connections.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
He had and Luciano would usually respond the proper of no, no,
or yes, which frustrated Dewey.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
The testimony stretches into the next day, with Dewey trying
his best to get under Lucky's skin.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
There was a moment of levity when Dewey was cross
examining him about the time he'd been arrested with a
shotgun and some handguns and a bunch of ammunition in
the trunk of.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
His car, and the policeman says, what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (35:29):
And Luciano tried to say, come back from a hunting
trip upstate New York.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
The policeman asks what were you hunting, and Luciano.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Says, peasants. He meant to say pheasants, but he said peasants.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Dewey reads the transcript of this mistake aloud while Lucky
sits stone faced in the witness box and the courtroom
erupted in laughter.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
What was the point of it? To make Luciano even
more upset and look like an uneducated Italian immigrant. That's
what the prosecution needed was to make these guys look
like dregs of humanity, a parasite on society.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Dewey needs this moment not only to shake Lucky by
having people laugh at him, but to highlight that no
matter how many gold watches he has, Lucky is still
an ignorant thug who needs to take advantage of others
to get ahead. And Dewey knows this kind of anecdote
can go well beyond the courtroom.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
This becomes fodder for every newspaper covering this trial.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Dewey the showman, always keeping the press entertained. The reporters
make sure the public knows this gang busting crusader is
landing his punches in court against America's so called most
dangerous gangster. Dewey lays the trap for Lucky, and Lucky
walks right on.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
In as cool and collected as loo Giano is in
the mob world, Dewey has his number. He ends up
incriminating himself, stumbles over words, makes himself look dare I say, uneducated,
because he's led into verbal traps that Dewey sets for him.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
There was something about his arrogance and his attitude on
the witness stand that didn't fly well, and it was
reported in the tabloids for what it was, you know,
back talk.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Lucky may look refined, with all the obvious markers of wealth,
but it isn't enough. He thinks he knows the rules,
make the money, wear the right clothes, live in the
right places, and you'll be accepted. He ignores the most
important part. It's how you make the money. You have
to earn it the right way. You have to be
(37:57):
born with it. Watches are fine, but they're looking for
the silver spoon in your mouth. By the time Lucky
steps down from the stand, it's June fourth and the
trial is near its conclusion. Lucky's testimony has been a disaster.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
What they are able to do is get into the
jury's mind the fact that he clearly knows every single
one of his twelve co defendants who they have actively
connected to prostitution.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
But still those witnesses.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
It's possible that the spectators and the jewelry had really
been prejudiced beyond belief by seeing the condition of some
of these prostitutes and how vulnerable they appeared on the
witness stand.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
And the fact remains that Dewey has failed to produce
the one crucial bit of evidence against Lucky.
Speaker 6 (39:01):
In all of his hours of questioning and cross examination,
they are never able to actively concretely connect him to
the prostitution racket.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
By the time Dewey finishes his closing argument at a
little after six fifteen in the evening of June sixth,
the verdict against Lucky he still seems up in the air,
and now the jury has to decide. The judge spends
a full three hours with a jury before they file
out of the courtroom. Over one thousand people have turned
(39:33):
up to wait outside the courthouse. Spectators crowd the street.
They've probably consumed weeks of relentless reporting. They're waiting to
hear what the verdict will be. And what about Dewey.
You might think that he'd heads straight back to the
Woolworth Building to give an update to Unis and the
rest of the team. Right wrong. He goes up to
(39:57):
the deserted judges dining area in the courthouse, takes off
his tie, his jacket and his waistcoat, stretches out on
a sofa and sleeps peacefully for five hours. What a
team player. The following day, early morning on June seventh,
(40:19):
things outside the courthouse reach a fever pitch. The jury
has reached its decision. The court clerk addresses the jury
and asks, gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon
a verdict? Do you find the defendant Luciano guilty or
not guilty?
Speaker 5 (40:40):
The jurors agree all defendants are guilty.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Shock ripples out from the courtroom and across America.
Speaker 6 (40:53):
Luciano is convicted on sixty two charges of compulsory prostitution.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
But for Unice Carter, Thomas Dewey would not have been
able to convict Lucky Luciano of compulsory prostitution. Eunice Carter's
idea and her ability to persuade Thomas Dwey to pursue
this route. I don't know that Luciano wouldever have been
convicted of anything.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Does Dewey even think of Unis at all during the conviction?
I doubt it. He's probably thinking about his next move,
which is exactly what Lucky's defense team is doing. They're
already preparing for an appeal.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
It was a rickety case that Dewey built against Luciano.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
And it turns out they had pretty good grounds for
reevaluating the story they'd heard in court, and not just
about the witnesses, but about Lucky himself. Is he even
really the boss of bosses?
Speaker 7 (41:54):
The narrative was good guys verus bad guys. That doesn't
come describing organized crime. The idea that organized crime was
centralized and hierarchical doesn't stand up to scrutiny. There's a
better story to be told, a more complex story.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
If Lucky isn't the big bad wolf do he made
him out to be? Then who is is the case
Eunice Carter built about to crumble under close scrutiny That's
coming up in episode seven of The Godmother you've been
(42:39):
listening to.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I'm Debbie Applegate. I'm a historian and biographer, and i
am the author of Madam, The Biography of Polyadler, Icon
of the Jazz Age.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
My name is Christian Sippolini, and I am an organized
crime historian and author.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
My name is Chuck Greeves. Before becoming a writer, I
spent twenty five years as a Los Angeles trial lawyer.
My fourth novel was basically a fictionalization of the famous
nineteen thirty six vice trial, in which Luky Luciana was
prosecuted by Thomas Dewey.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Hi, my name is Ellen Paulson. I research and I
write books about women who were involved with notorious gangsters
and desperadoes.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
I am Claire White and I am the director of
Education at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.
Speaker 7 (43:32):
I'm Mike Woodtowis, author of Organized Crime in American Power,
a teacher at University of West of England.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The Godmother is hosted
and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hammy.
Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior and Ziana Yusuff.
(44:05):
Our editor is Ajua Jima Broumpong. Additional story editing from
Max O'Brien and Mitha Lee Raw and Our researcher is
Zianna Yusuf. Additional research from Mohammed Ahmed. David Waters is
our executive producer. Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw.
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempsen.
(44:27):
Our score was written, performed and recorded by Jeff Parker.
Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Production management
and Endless Patients from Sharie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe.
Fact checking by Fendel Fulton and Dania Suleiman. Story development
by Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne and Ziana Yusuff. Willard Foxen
(44:51):
is our Creative Director of Development. Special thanks to Leah Carter,
Stephen Carter, Angela J. Davis, Andrew Fernleigh, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebedy,
Katherine Godfrey, Nadia Maidie, Amalia Sortland, Shawn Glenn, Neil Krishnan,
Julia Bromberg, Katrina Norvelle, Carly Frankel, and all the team
(45:16):
at w Emmy Novel
Novel. Before we begin, a content warning. The following episode
contains difficult themes and violence. The fourteenth floor of the
Woolworth Building is always full of people. All those men
(00:27):
in suits speaking in important loud voices. The ringing rotary
phones heavy enough to be weapons, secretaries typing, the ping
of typewriters, competing with elevator dings, and foul cabinet slams.
It's the usual office racket, but today there's even more
chaos than usual. Over eighty women, nearly all sex workers,
(00:52):
crowd the space. Curses, threats, prayers and appeals rise above
the usual office hum and perhaps even more unnerving, some
women remain stone silent. Eunice hunting Carter, once set off
in a distant office, away from all the action, stands
(01:13):
near a woman seated in a circle of a few
hovering prosecutors. These men are trying to get her to talk.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
You can tell us something about Charlie, Lucky, right, sweetheart,
you can tell us about Charlie.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
These women are being held and Thomas Dewey's investigation into
organized crimes move into sex work. They've been kept for weeks,
cut off from all outside contact. Thomas Dewey Eunice Carter
and the whole team are working round the clock, interviewing, interrogating,
good cop, bad cop. They've got to get the women
(01:50):
to crack before the gangsters can slip through their fingers.
And in the hot seat right now, Nancy Presser.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
There's good reasons why people run away from small towns
to come to the big city with men they shouldn't trust,
and Nancy was one of those. You start as somebody's
mistress when you're young and fresh looking and new to
the city.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And we'll have a good time.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I'll put you up in an apartment, and then when
he dumps you, you find you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Don't have a lot of resources.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
You're not going to go back to your small town.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
When Nancy Presser ran away from her home in upstate
New York, she got caught up in the seatier side
of the Big Apple. By nineteen thirty six, she was
working at a brothel and addicted to opium.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
A drug that, by the nineteen thirties is used by
high class drug addicts, really high end drug addicts, because
it's considered exotic and it's used by hardened criminals, especially
if they've got enough money.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Nancy Presser's new boyfriend had enough money. Ralph Lawari was
also married and a mafia strong man. He was a
member of the Mott Street Boys. Ralph had dropped out
of school at age fifteen and worked He's a Brooklyn
butcher until he found his calling in the underworld. I
can't imagine what skills he brought to the table.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Ralph Legori's name was Ralph the pimp Legory.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
At first, Nancy works solo as a call girl. The
mafia doesn't really like call girls, they're too independent, that
is harder to intimidate. But Nancy gives up call girl
work and installs herself in a brothel house. And now
she's caught up in the grand sweep of Unice and
Dewey's raid. She's been plucked out of work in the
(03:35):
middle of the night. She's sleep deprived, she's confused and worried,
and she's being asked questions about Lucky Luciano. And on
top of all that, powerful withdrawal symptoms are kicking in.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
All of these women were, of course terrified. They knew
very well the code of the underworld is squealers don't
last fast to the authorities. You are very likely to
end up in the river.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Dewey and Unice are after a much bigger fish than
Nancy Presser and Ralph the pimp Lagory. They want info
on Charlie Lucky Luciano, so they apply more pressure. They
threatened Nancy with possession of a firearm.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Nancy Pressa was the girlfriend of a booker, so when
she was pinched, she was carrying his gun in her
purse so that her boyfriend couldn't be pinched for it.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Putting aside the whole snitches get stitches thing. Now Nancy
has a real reason to talk. She could be facing
a possession charge, which could lead to the best part
of a decade behind bars. Nancy slowly realizes that nobody
is going to show up to bail her out, not
Ralph the Pimp, and certainly not Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
They had been left to rot in jail, even though
they'd been regularly paying their ten bucks every week.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Nancy has no idea why this is all happening. All
she knows is that she's been left alone. What's the
point of paying for protection or even having a mom
boyfriend if she's being hung out to dry Eunice and
Dewey have Nancy presser exactly where they want her, vulnerable,
desperate and trapped, and when she finally does crack, what
(05:25):
she has to say surprises even them.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Nancy pressed the claim to be a girlfriend of Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Not Ralph the pimp, Lucky Luciano, the big man himself.
Nancy tells her interrogators, not only is she Lucky's girlfriend,
She's heard him talk about his involvement and vice with
her own ears. This is how Unice and Dewey make
their breakthroughs in tracking down witnesses who could link Charles
(05:54):
Lucky Luciano directly to prostitution. And if Dewey and Unice
are concerned with the inconsistencies like those in Nancy's stories
or in any of the witnesses reports, the historical record
doesn't show it. All it takes is one domino to
fall before they all do. After Nancy breaks down, other
(06:14):
women do too, often, sick from withdrawal, desperate for help,
they begin cracking under pressure and sitting there with them,
writing down every word in meticulous detail. Eunice hunting Carter
(06:35):
from the teams at iHeartRadio and novel I'm Nicole Perkins
and this is the Godmother, Episode sixth Trial of the Century.
(07:17):
May eleventh, nineteen thirty six. It's a suspiciously mild day
after a sudden scorcher. It's the kind of day where
you'd need only the lightest of jackets, and then the
sun warms you and all is right in the world.
A good day for a lover's picnic or to push
a child in a swing at the park, but not
(07:38):
everyone will get to have the sun on their skin today.
Lucky Luciano paces in a jail cale Thomas Dewey is
probably warming up his voice as he has breakfast, preparing
for the performance of a lifetime and Unice in the
pages of recorded history on May eleventh, nineteen thirty six.
(08:00):
She is nowhere to be found, but she has to
be thinking about one building opposite Foley Square in Manhattan,
the Courthouse. After months of painstaking work, today is the
day Lucky Luciano faces court. By ten am, members of
(08:22):
the press have all filed inside the Manhattan Courthouse and
taken their seats.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
In fact, there were no spectators allowed in the courtroom
except the press. Newspapers covered this case assiduously and may
publish multiple editions every day and.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
The lead up to the trial, Dewey keeps reporters and
editors close.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
In daily statements to the Daily News and the New
York Mira and the polls and all the rags that
were being read every day in New York City.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
He preps the news carefully. After dutch Schultz had died,
Dewey's message was focused on Lucky being America's most dangerous criminal,
and as the trial Will of the century approached, he
has honed that message more fully. Now inside the courtroom,
all the press turn their heads in unison.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Lucky Luciano is shuffled in with nine other defendants.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Three of the twelve originally charged with Lucky have pled out,
so now as they enter the courtroom, it's down to
Lucky and nine others, none of whom are wearing handcuffs
or a jumpsuit.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
In the nineteen thirties, in that New York courtroom, everyone
was dressed to the nines, two or three piece suits, ties, dress, shoes,
hair neatly done. There was an elegance to it in
a weird way. There was a respectability. Even though if
you were there and one of the defendants, you would
have found almost nothing respectable about it.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Appearance matters, especially in front of a jewelry. But as
the eyes of the courtroom focus in on those nine defendant,
it's clear that some of them aren't as refined as
their threads.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Nobody seems to have the noticeable demeanor of Luciano. Luciano's
co defendants look like a mishmash of would be thugs.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Especially those defendants who are used to doing their dirty
work in the shadows.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
That is exactly what the prosecution wanted.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Judge Philip McCook looms over the courtroom, imperious and intimidating.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
He was selected expressly for the purpose of prosecuting organized
crime and its corrupting influence on New York politics. Many
said that McCook actually acted more as a co prosecutor
than as a neutral judge in the case.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Just as Judge McCook has been specifically chosen, so has
the jury.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
It was a special jury called a blue ribbon jury
of experienced jurors, all.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Twelve white men in sit facing the.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Room, jurors who previously served and presumably who'd previously voted
to convict. So it was a bit of a stack
deck from the beginning against Luciano.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
But the defendants didn't just have their lawyers backing them
up in court. It's the mob. One hand washes the other,
and their colleagues in crime have done their own trial prep.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The mob was behind the defense as much as the
attorneys were. There was an incidence where someone was pought
trying to bribe a Durer, and then one Durer was
kicked off and an altonate put on, So there was
a lot going on with.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
At least one Durer caught taking a bribe. Dewey must
have been wondering who else had the mob approached, Who
else have they attempted to buy off in this corrupt city,
Who the hell knows? You get past all the obstacles
of finding a pattern, rounding up witnesses, getting them to crack,
finding the big boss and arresting him, and now you've
(12:02):
got to worry about jewelry tampering. The path to justice
is never smoothed, so despite a favorable judge and jury,
no one could predict how events would unfold. And Lucky
he is not giving anything away.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Lucciano's facial expression most of the time is complete stoicism.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
He's not going to let anyone in that court room
see any signs of weakness.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
But in his head he is still trying to figure
out how the hell am I on trial with nine guys?
I don't know for vice. He's visibly not pleased, although
he tries to be stoic. He does not like Dewey.
He does not like that this trial has happened. Lucky
(12:56):
knows he is a criminal, knows he has good lawy,
but he knows they're going to bring up his criminal history,
and he almost seems prepared to handle that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
As Lucky sits there in his tailored suit, resting bitch
face firmly in place, he has to have been wondering
how would it come to this and who was responsible?
If it were me, I'd definitely be looking for someone
to take my frustrations out on. But if he did
scan the room for faces to clare at, he would
(13:28):
not have spotted the woman who'd brought him there.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Eunice Carter was not given the opportunity to try the case.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
She was not in the courtroom. No do we had
twenty assistant prosecutors, only about five or six. I'm Ashley
participated in the trial itself.
Speaker 6 (13:42):
Whether it was because she was a woman, whether it
was because she was black, whether it was because it
was both of those things. This is certainly my opinion,
but there's no way to look at it other than
that it was a calculated and discriminatory decision not to
allow her to try the case.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
If Eunice had wanted to attend the trial, she may
have been permitted, but not as a participant. She would
not have been given the chance to sit alongside doing
Eunice would have had to watch with the crowds from
the audience. Maybe this is all out of an abundance
of caution for her own safety, but it's such a
(14:22):
common story for many black women in the workplace. Your
contribution isn't valued until a man co signs it, and
when it becomes the key element to success, you're left
out of seeing it through. You're supposed to be content
with the thumbs up while someone else leaves his fingerprints
all over your work, with or without her. The trial
(14:50):
Unice had helped orchestrate was now in motion. Judge Philip
McCook addresses the packed room to read out the charges
against the defendants.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Ninety counts of pulsory prostitution.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Compulsory prostitution.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
What even was that compulsory prostitution ends up being designed
as a charge to try to rope in all the
people around the women who are doing the work. So
it is really a catch all term to try to
say you're the apparatus around this woman who is selling sex.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The rest of the defendants are accused of intimidating women
to become sex workers.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Unlucky's behalf and the reason Unice Carter sees that as
possibly the way in to bringing down this kingpin of
the crime syndicate is because it shows conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
All the defendants are tried together in this conspiracy thanks
to that Dewey law which he lobbied for and won
conveniently just before the trial. Normally, in mob trials, the
big boss is protected while the low level players become
the fall guy. This new law means people charged with
two or more separate crimes could be tried under a
(16:04):
single indictment and that Dewey wouldn't have to spend taxpayer
money on several separate, expensive cases. Plus, the jury could
see the big picture of how all these crimes were connected,
and ultimately the ringleader can be held directly accountable. As
the judge finishes reading out the charges, Lucky has a
(16:25):
view directly across the courtroom.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
At the other table stands Thomas Dewey. Smug and confident.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Dewey starts his opening statement. He says that Lucky Luciano
is a prostitution overlord, a menace to society, and then
he turns to what he must know will be his
most vulnerable area to attack during the trial, his witnesses. Frankly,
(16:59):
my witness a prostitutes madam's heels, pimps, and ex convicts.
Many of them have been in jail, Others are about
to go to jail. Some were told that they would
be prosecuted if they did not tell the truth. I
wish to call to your attention that these are the
only witnesses we could possibly have brought here. We can't
(17:23):
get bishops to testify in a case involving prostitution, and
this combination was not run under arc lights in Madison
Square Garden. We have to use the testimony of bad
men to convict other bad men, and with that it's
the defense's turn.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
They had some pretty high level criminal lawyers working for the.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Lucky's lawyer is a prominent Long Island criminal defense attorney
George Martin Levy, who hasn't had the same kind of
preparation Dewey's team has enjoyed.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
On the front day before the trial began on Monday,
Moses Polakoff, who was Luciano's lawyer, called George Martin Levy
and said, would you take it on? We need a
trial lawyer of umpeccable reputation? And Levy said how long
would I have to prepare? And Polakoff said the trial
starts Monday, and Levy took it anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
In his opening statement, Levy argues that the government's tactics
are underhanded, their evidence is shaky, and the link to
his client, Lucky Luciano it's even shakier. By the time
George Martin Levy finishes speaking, the battle lines for the
trial are clear. Could Lucky be directly linked to Wes?
(18:50):
As Lucky looks across at the other co defendants, he
must have been a little worried.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Clearly his co defend Dance. The people who were running
this prostitution bonding racket were guilty.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Lucky's presence in court alongside them is one of the
most damaging weapons The prosecution.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Has the bookers, the bondsmen, the middle management types, the
hold up men, the strong arm men. The evidence against
them was.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Overwhelming, but this association alone isn't enough to sink Lucky.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Question was, could they prove that Lucky Luciano personally was
profiting from the earnings of prostitutes.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
The prosecution needs evidence of that connection, and what they
have are their witnesses.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
Many of these women were drug addicts, had other mental
or emotional challenges. A lot of that was so looked
down upon in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Fortunately for the prosecution, the judge is going to help
them out a bit there.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Judge McCook made a big point at the beginning of
the trial to tell the jury, some of the witnesses
that you were going to be hearing from are from
the very different circumstances than you. Because some of these
women did sign deals of immunity if they were willing
to testify against Luciano. There was for the general public
(20:13):
this belief on the part of many that you know, well,
these women will just make any kind of deal to
get out of whatever they're trying to get out of.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Whether the prosecution could prove that Lucky himself is the
big dog of this whole racket. Would come down to
witnesses testimony. Unice Carter herself has spent hours interrogating and
preparing women like Nancy Presser.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
There was this grave concern that even if their stories
were airtight, even if they stood up to hours of
cross examination, could you really take their word for it?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
But once again, Judge McCook comes to the aid of
the prosecution. At the start of the trial, he makes
an extraordinary ruling.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Ruling that hearsay testimony was admissible.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Hearsay testimony when someone in the legal case tries to
prove a fact by repeating what someone else said outside
of the courtroom, rather than providing direct evidence of what
they personally saw or experienced.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That was how all of these women were able to testify.
So it was a real stretch.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Stretch or not, the prosecution still has precious few witnesses
who are prepared to point the finger at Lucky. So
even with hearsay testimony permitted, as the court broke for
that first day, the prosecution of Lucky Luciano is on
thin ice. As the trial of the Century progresses, Lucky's
(21:54):
resting bitch face deepens and begins to crack. Lucky sits
in the dock alongside defendants and hears witness after witness
link him to the charges of compulsory prostitution with hearsay,
and now it's time for Nancy Presser to get on
(22:16):
the witness stand.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Nancy pressed his testimony and raged Lucky Luciano because she
claims she was his girlfriend and that she had spent
time with him in the Woldorf Astoria.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Nancy tells the courtroom she's known Lucky for the past
three years. She links him directly to the vice rackets,
and she claims to have heard him say things like
madams will have to bond and if they refuse, wreck
their joints. But the problem for Nancy comes when she's
cross examined. Unsurprisingly, the recollections of a sleep deprived woman
(22:51):
with a heroin addiction and withdrawal are a little inconsistent,
and Levy is quick to put Nancy under more pressure,
like surely a man of Lucky's alleged criminal stature would
choose to hook up with a more glamorous type of woman.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
He liked show girls, he liked beautiful women, he liked
women of stature, and he didn't like being associated with
somebody who was a drug addict and a girlfriend of
Ralph the pimp.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Then Levy goes in for the kill. He starts asking
Nancy for the kind of details someone would know about
a former boyfriend. What sort of bed do you sleep
in together? What's the layout of that luxury apartment? Does
Lucky have any distinguishing marks? Nancy stumbled she doesn't seem
(23:49):
to know. Backed into a corner, she responds with stories
of how Lucky is impotent and that's why she can't
provide more intimate details. Nancy Presser has ovaries of steel.
I cannot imagine one testifying against the alleged boss of
(24:09):
all mob bosses, and two putting into public record in
front of other mob guys that he can't even get
it up och. Her cross examination lasts well into the evening.
Nancy pleads to the judge that she's feeling ill she
needs to step aside, but even that doesn't stop Levy's interrogation. Eventually,
(24:35):
her cross examination does come to an end, but only
after the defense introduces into evidence the floor plans of
the Waldorf Astoria, which clearly contradicts Nancy's descriptions of her
supposed boyfriend's crib. If she'd been able to participate that day,
I imagine Eunus herself might have admired that very specific,
(24:58):
detail oriented attack. Despite Nancy's disastrous testimony, Dewey's team still
has a number of other witnesses.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Some of these women held pretty high positions in vice ring.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
But as these women come and go, there wasn't very
much evidence at all against Luciano directly.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
With the exception of Nancy presso all of these women
were able to testify that they heard someone discussing Lucky
discussing it.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Is the case against Lucky falling apart. A few days
into the trial and across town from the courthouse, a
woman sits in a Manhattan prison, the Women's House of Detention.
If you took a stroll down Greenwich Avenue, you'd be
forgiven for confusing the Women's House of Detention for a
(25:54):
block of apartments opened to nineteen thirty two. It's twelve
stories high, with reddish brown brick on the lower floors
and fading yellow brick at the top. It's not immediately
obvious that the stylish Art Deco building is at that
very moment, housing hundreds of the city's most criminalized women.
(26:15):
But if you pay close attention, you'll begin to see
this is no high class apartment building. You can't see
in through any of the many windows, and they're designs
is such a way that makes them impossible to climb through.
There's a roof garden where the inmates supposedly play minishure tennis,
but it's caged in by wire mesh. When it first opened,
(26:37):
the Women's House of Detention was an experiment with a
new kind of prison system, one that prides itself on
referring to its residents as inmates, not prisoners. The women
had complete physical and psychological exams on arrival, and they're
given uniforms of bright colors instead of the usual drab gray,
and on Sunday mornings they receive another change of clothes.
(27:01):
I can appreciate the attempt at remembering that the people
inside those walls are still human beings who should be
treated as such, even if on the wrong side of
the law. But some of the treatments sound pretty brutal,
and that includes those for addiction. Probably one of the
main reasons women found themselves there in the first place.
(27:21):
The prison hospital occupies the upper floor of the Women's
House of Detention, and a few days after the Trial
of the Century begins, one woman is facing an ordeal.
Her name is Florence Brown, but you might remember her
better by one of her aliases, Kochie Flow.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
She was smart and she was a heroin addict. Back
in those days, if you were an addict and you
were arrested, you went through what they called the five
day cure. They administered smaller and smaller doses of heroin
to you or methadone over the course of five days,
and that was it. It was an agonizing process of
going through drug withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
After Koki left her family home and fell in with
the mob in Chicago, she moved to New York and
then into sex work.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Kochi Flow, She's in a category all her own.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
But that night in February, when Unice and Dewey's meticulously
executed raids shook the city.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Koki Flow was not arrested. She went into hiding. Basically,
she attempted to get clean. She went through rehab, but a.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Little over three months later, in May of nineteen thirty six, she.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Either wanted the money or she got bored or she
went back on heroin, whatever it was. For whatever reason.
She then got arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer.
And so she was arrested for prostitution while the trial
was going on, and she was thrown into the women's
House of detention.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And while she's there going through the pain of withdrawal,
someone points out to her that there was this trial
all over the news. Maybe it can be her ticket out.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
And she was in the throes of that five day
process when girls whom she knew who were being held
in the women's House of detention basically said, flo, you
were Jimmy Frederick's girlfriend, Dewey's people would love to talk
to you and you could probably make yourself a nice deal.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Jimmy Fredericks is a mob enforcer and an associate of Lucky's.
He's also one of Lucky's co defendants, which means Cokei
has been spending quite a bit of time in the
company of the mobsters at the heart of the trial.
And now Cochi realizes she has a get out of
jail free card up her sleeve.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Did she make a deal for her testimony?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You bet? Maybe it isn't quite a get out of
jail free card. She still has to testify an open
chord against a bunch of mobsters. But even that comes
with some perks.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
If you cooperated with Dewey, you went to a hotel
and got wined in Nune, taken out for drinks, taken
to the movies. If you wouldn't cooperate, you stayed in
the women's house at detention.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Rooftop, miniature tennis, and a change of outfit. On Sunday's side,
I know which one I use. So in the middle
of Heroin Withdrawal, Cochi Flow agrees to testify, and when
she does, it causes quite the sensation.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Cochi Flow was considered a material witness, so witness whose
testimony is crucial to the case.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
On Friday, May twenty second, Kochi arrives in court. Her
testimony is tough to witness. She's still recovering from her
five day cure and experiencing brutal withdrawal symptoms.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Her testimony was pretty rugged and they would drag her
off the witness stand. Can we take five minutes uran
a sure? And then they would ply her with brandy
or whiskey.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
This was the.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Idea of a cure, and then she was right back
on the witness stand.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I'm no lawyer, but is that ethical or even moral
to allow such an incapacitated person and to testify.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
A standard question in any legal proceeding in the United
States is the following, are you under the influence of
any drugs or alcohol that would influence your testimony today?
Another question is have you taken any drugs or alcohol
within the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
It's up to Judge McCook to determine if Cookie Flow's
testimony is admissible, and after hearing from doctors from the
defense and the prosecution on whether she is fit to
stand trial, maybe unsurprisingly, he decides she is.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Judge McCook made some rather interesting decisions. He allowed things
that should not have been allowed. Her medical condition was
not questioned, nor was the fact that she was being
laced up on breaks. If McCook had wanted to challenge that,
(31:58):
he could have ruled right then and there.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Koki's testimony changes everything.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
She claimed that she could attest to five different meetings
that she attended with her boyfriend Jimmy Frederick's with Lucky Luciano,
where they discussed the prostitution, so she was the key
witness in the case. She was the one person who
could testify to the fact that Luciano was the head
of this prostitution bonding combination.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
And it isn't just the jewelry whose minds are changed
by the testimony.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It wasn't until Koki Flow really put Luciano in the
frame that he felt he had to go on the
stand to defend himself.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Lucky is about to have his say. When Lucky finally
takes the stand on June nineteen thirty six, there can
(33:02):
be no denying he's undergone some kind of major transformation
from street urchin to a Waldorf Astoria address. Even in
court as he sits through testimony that could change his life,
yet again, he projects luxury and comfort. He is the
gangster version of the American dream. He traded in his
(33:23):
hand me down bootstraps for fine Italian leather loafers. But
Dewey wants jurors to see the flex of blood on
those custom made tassels. Dewey hopes that when Lucky opens
his mouth, everyone will see past the silk suits and
remember how he got them. Wants a hoodlum, always a hoodlum.
(33:43):
Dewey wants Lucky on the stand, and Lucky he's pretty
confident he can convince folks he's just as respectable as
the rest of them, which is probably why he ignores
his lawyers, please not to get on the stand.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
George Martin Leevy, his lawyer, strenuously told him not to
do it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
A slip of the tongue and the heat of the
moment is all it takes.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Luciano insisted his attitude was I have nothing to be
ashamed of in connection with this prostitution case. I had
nothing to do with prostitution. It's all a big setup.
The witnesses are lying. I want to go on the
stand and tell him the truth.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Luciano had that wow factor when he walked into a room.
He was one of those types of people that everybody goes, wow,
who is that guy? They're drawn to him. But if
you were trying to pick the best witness, he is
not it.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
He never should have taken the stand. Over the course
of two days, Dewey viciously crossed examined him.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Dewey throws as much gangster spaghetti at the wall as
he can.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
He crossed, examined, him about having lied to get a
gun permit, income tax fraud. He'd committed various mob connections.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
He had and Luciano would usually respond the proper of no, no,
or yes, which frustrated Dewey.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
The testimony stretches into the next day, with Dewey trying
his best to get under Lucky's skin.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
There was a moment of levity when Dewey was cross
examining him about the time he'd been arrested with a
shotgun and some handguns and a bunch of ammunition in
the trunk of.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
His car, and the policeman says, what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (35:29):
And Luciano tried to say, come back from a hunting
trip upstate New York.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
The policeman asks what were you hunting, and Luciano.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Says, peasants. He meant to say pheasants, but he said peasants.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Dewey reads the transcript of this mistake aloud while Lucky
sits stone faced in the witness box and the courtroom
erupted in laughter.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
What was the point of it? To make Luciano even
more upset and look like an uneducated Italian immigrant. That's
what the prosecution needed was to make these guys look
like dregs of humanity, a parasite on society.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Dewey needs this moment not only to shake Lucky by
having people laugh at him, but to highlight that no
matter how many gold watches he has, Lucky is still
an ignorant thug who needs to take advantage of others
to get ahead. And Dewey knows this kind of anecdote
can go well beyond the courtroom.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
This becomes fodder for every newspaper covering this trial.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Dewey the showman, always keeping the press entertained. The reporters
make sure the public knows this gang busting crusader is
landing his punches in court against America's so called most
dangerous gangster. Dewey lays the trap for Lucky, and Lucky
walks right on.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
In as cool and collected as loo Giano is in
the mob world, Dewey has his number. He ends up
incriminating himself, stumbles over words, makes himself look dare I say, uneducated,
because he's led into verbal traps that Dewey sets for him.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
There was something about his arrogance and his attitude on
the witness stand that didn't fly well, and it was
reported in the tabloids for what it was, you know,
back talk.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Lucky may look refined, with all the obvious markers of wealth,
but it isn't enough. He thinks he knows the rules,
make the money, wear the right clothes, live in the
right places, and you'll be accepted. He ignores the most
important part. It's how you make the money. You have
to earn it the right way. You have to be
(37:57):
born with it. Watches are fine, but they're looking for
the silver spoon in your mouth. By the time Lucky
steps down from the stand, it's June fourth and the
trial is near its conclusion. Lucky's testimony has been a disaster.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
What they are able to do is get into the
jury's mind the fact that he clearly knows every single
one of his twelve co defendants who they have actively
connected to prostitution.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
But still those witnesses.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
It's possible that the spectators and the jewelry had really
been prejudiced beyond belief by seeing the condition of some
of these prostitutes and how vulnerable they appeared on the
witness stand.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
And the fact remains that Dewey has failed to produce
the one crucial bit of evidence against Lucky.
Speaker 6 (39:01):
In all of his hours of questioning and cross examination,
they are never able to actively concretely connect him to
the prostitution racket.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
By the time Dewey finishes his closing argument at a
little after six fifteen in the evening of June sixth,
the verdict against Lucky he still seems up in the air,
and now the jury has to decide. The judge spends
a full three hours with a jury before they file
out of the courtroom. Over one thousand people have turned
(39:33):
up to wait outside the courthouse. Spectators crowd the street.
They've probably consumed weeks of relentless reporting. They're waiting to
hear what the verdict will be. And what about Dewey.
You might think that he'd heads straight back to the
Woolworth Building to give an update to Unis and the
rest of the team. Right wrong. He goes up to
(39:57):
the deserted judges dining area in the courthouse, takes off
his tie, his jacket and his waistcoat, stretches out on
a sofa and sleeps peacefully for five hours. What a
team player. The following day, early morning on June seventh,
(40:19):
things outside the courthouse reach a fever pitch. The jury
has reached its decision. The court clerk addresses the jury
and asks, gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon
a verdict? Do you find the defendant Luciano guilty or
not guilty?
Speaker 5 (40:40):
The jurors agree all defendants are guilty.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Shock ripples out from the courtroom and across America.
Speaker 6 (40:53):
Luciano is convicted on sixty two charges of compulsory prostitution.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
But for Unice Carter, Thomas Dewey would not have been
able to convict Lucky Luciano of compulsory prostitution. Eunice Carter's
idea and her ability to persuade Thomas Dwey to pursue
this route. I don't know that Luciano wouldever have been
convicted of anything.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Does Dewey even think of Unis at all during the conviction?
I doubt it. He's probably thinking about his next move,
which is exactly what Lucky's defense team is doing. They're
already preparing for an appeal.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
It was a rickety case that Dewey built against Luciano.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
And it turns out they had pretty good grounds for
reevaluating the story they'd heard in court, and not just
about the witnesses, but about Lucky himself. Is he even
really the boss of bosses?
Speaker 7 (41:54):
The narrative was good guys verus bad guys. That doesn't
come describing organized crime. The idea that organized crime was
centralized and hierarchical doesn't stand up to scrutiny. There's a
better story to be told, a more complex story.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
If Lucky isn't the big bad wolf do he made
him out to be? Then who is is the case
Eunice Carter built about to crumble under close scrutiny That's
coming up in episode seven of The Godmother you've been
(42:39):
listening to.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I'm Debbie Applegate. I'm a historian and biographer, and i
am the author of Madam, The Biography of Polyadler, Icon
of the Jazz Age.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
My name is Christian Sippolini, and I am an organized
crime historian and author.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
My name is Chuck Greeves. Before becoming a writer, I
spent twenty five years as a Los Angeles trial lawyer.
My fourth novel was basically a fictionalization of the famous
nineteen thirty six vice trial, in which Luky Luciana was
prosecuted by Thomas Dewey.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Hi, my name is Ellen Paulson. I research and I
write books about women who were involved with notorious gangsters
and desperadoes.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
I am Claire White and I am the director of
Education at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.
Speaker 7 (43:32):
I'm Mike Woodtowis, author of Organized Crime in American Power,
a teacher at University of West of England.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The Godmother is hosted
and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hammy.
Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior and Ziana Yusuff.
(44:05):
Our editor is Ajua Jima Broumpong. Additional story editing from
Max O'Brien and Mitha Lee Raw and Our researcher is
Zianna Yusuf. Additional research from Mohammed Ahmed. David Waters is
our executive producer. Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw.
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempsen.
(44:27):
Our score was written, performed and recorded by Jeff Parker.
Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Production management
and Endless Patients from Sharie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe.
Fact checking by Fendel Fulton and Dania Suleiman. Story development
by Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne and Ziana Yusuff. Willard Foxen
(44:51):
is our Creative Director of Development. Special thanks to Leah Carter,
Stephen Carter, Angela J. Davis, Andrew Fernleigh, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebedy,
Katherine Godfrey, Nadia Maidie, Amalia Sortland, Shawn Glenn, Neil Krishnan,
Julia Bromberg, Katrina Norvelle, Carly Frankel, and all the team
(45:16):
at w Emmy Novel
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