January 17, 2025 • 50 mins
Welcome to the season 18 premiere! This week we discuss Lou Blonger (I hardly know 'er) who had a stranglehold on Denver during the times of the Wild West into the Roaring 20s. We will discuss how he figureheaded a group of conmen in an organized crime ring that later became known as the Million Dollar Bunco Ring, and how one young DA finally took him down.
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(00:02):
Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff has been arrested and
charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Congress wants to know what caused the Enron meltdown.
And while the collective rage currently is focused on low
comp, Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski was convicted of looting
hundreds of millions of dollars.This is one of the biggest fraud
cases ever. Their president's a crook.
(00:25):
Well, I'm not a crook. Find out more on this week's
episode of White Collars Red Hands.
Did you know that bunco is not just a dice game played by
elderly ladies? It is also a term for confidence
scam, supposedly derived from the Spanish word for bank,
(00:45):
bunco, that still goes on to this day and is synonymous with
swindle schemes or con games. Today, a bunco scheme might take
the form of a fake IRS agent calling you on the phone and
demanding that you pay back taxes which you don't actually
owe. Of course, these scams are
disproportionately targeted towards the elderly who are more
(01:07):
easily tricked by these schemes.Elderly individuals are more
susceptible to these schemes, insome part because they, I don't
know, bought their houses on wages that wouldn't buy a mid
sized sedan today and have some expendable cash, you know, they
could throw away, and in part because their generation is just
more socially trusting. They came from a boom time where
(01:31):
there was a higher level of social trust.
And at that time elderly people were just average aged people.
Today we talk about a bunker ring run out of Denver, Co in
the early 1900s that was headed by a man named Lou Blonger.
Lou Blonger had such a stranglehold in the city that he
(01:52):
was just known as The Boss and had everyone on his payroll from
the police to the mayor. At least until a young upstart,
David, decided to take on Goliath.
Come with us as we discuss how one moral District Attorney
plotted his way to the downfall of the $1,000,000 Bunco ring on
the Season 18 premiere of White Collar's Red Hands.
(02:16):
Man, season 18? Yep.
Long, long-awaited. Long-awaited.
All right, Yes. Hope you all had Happy holidays.
I don't. Wow.
I don't thank thank you for listening, but I hope you didn't
have a happy holiday. I hope that it was filled with
catharsis and learning and that you like you're a better person,
(02:38):
but that it wasn't. It wasn't easy.
That's what I hope. Pretty.
OK, just 'cause you had a bad holiday doesn't mean everybody
yells shut. Up.
No. Mine says you're pretty good.
So So mine I what I want is mineto be better than yours.
Actually, that's the kind of person.
I I guarantee you that it was. Mine was better.
Yeah. Thank you.
(02:59):
That makes you feel so good. Yeah.
And Speaking of, I'm Kashawn. And I'm Nina.
We're back season 18 of White Collars, Red Hands season 18.
Season 18, baby. We're back.
I don't even think. I mean, I, we talked about it a
little bit, but it's been what'sit, what month is it?
It's January. It was four years, four year
(03:20):
podiversary in October. It was this last year.
So crazy, crazy that this has been going on for so long that
there's, so, I mean, we joke about all the time that there's
so much of our voices out in theuniverse there.
Are there is? If you wanted to go make an AI
chat bot of either of us, you technically have more than
enough material to do so. Oh, that's terrifying.
(03:42):
So that I'm sure AI could just recreate this podcast if they
wanted. So sooner sooner, we'll be out
of jobs. So we might as well get one last
episode in on Lou Blonger beforebefore the.
Before AI takes over, yeah. Before the the computer
overlords can just do this for you instead of real humans.
I was born to be unemployed so. That that explains it.
(04:05):
That explains the drive. So yeah, let's let's get into
Lou Blonger. Lou Blonger actually was not
always Lou Blonger. He was born as Louis or Louis
Herbert Blonger in 1849 in the small town of Swanton, Vt to
(04:26):
quite a large family he was. Actually, well, you know, that
name change really hit his identity, so yeah.
Yeah, You know, it's just if youdrop a vowel, it's probably too
expensive. Maybe it was like, maybe it was.
Paper letter that you change it.Yeah, paper vowel per.
Can I buy a valve? Yeah, a la What the hell is that
show called? Wheel of Fortune?
(04:46):
Yeah, a la Wheel of Fortune. He's like, you know, I can't
afford it. Let's stick to more consonants.
But yeah, he was. He had a big family.
He was the 8th of 13 children that his father, Simon Belonger,
and mother, Judith Kennedy brought into the world.
I mean, probably normal for thistime.
I don't know how many of those survived.
That's fair. It was the mid 1800s so.
(05:08):
Yeah, infant mortality rate was high, so.
It still is, unfortunately, in America, we, we, we lead the
pack, which is not a good thing to be in, in the podium for
Simon. His dad was French Canadian and
Judith, his mother, was originally born in Ireland.
She grew up in an orphanage in Ireland, somehow made her way to
Swanton, Vt. Was it the potato famine that
(05:31):
brought her here? Believe it or not, there's not a
lot on 2 some fucking people from Vermont's in the history
books. I'm just.
I'm just. Saying the a lot of the stuff
about his family came from like writings and Bibles that that
his like family owned Oh, that'sweird that they were able to go
back and look at actually, you know they.
Couldn't afford a diary so they just added to scripture.
(05:54):
Well, it's like they would dedicated to people and they
would like list their family in them.
So that's how they track their lineage.
Which actually I should right now give a big shout out to one
of the most well curated blogs on a niche subject I've ever
seen. Blogger.
I think it's Blogger, bros.com or bloggerbrothers.com.
(06:15):
I'm sorry if I I'm sorry I'm notremembering it, but you'll find
it if you Google search it. Someone from like 10 years ago
created this website. Where they really did a deep
dive on all of the research on this and collected it all in one
place. Like someone was very passionate
about this story. So a lot of information you're
finding out today came from them.
The last update was in 2016. So thank you so much for for
(06:40):
doing this because yeah, withoutyou, there was not a lot on
this. You know, surprisingly there
have been like not a lot of people have covered this story.
So which is it? Which is.
Weird because it's. Crazy.
So yeah, you're getting it. You're getting, you're getting
it straight from the the secondary source horse's mouth
(07:01):
right now. The whole family, the whole
Blonger family or B Blonger family at this point, packed up
and moved from Vermont to Schulzburg, Wisconsin when Lou
was five years old. Most likely Sir Simon could work
at the local lead mine. It was a lead mining town, which
is a terrible type of mine. That's a good.
Place. Although it's said that he was a
(07:23):
stone Mason by trade, so I don'tknow if he was in the mine or
just doing something with stone in a lead mining town, but
either way, that's where they went.
Lu's mother died when he was 10,five years later, but not much
is really known about what happened to his father.
Lead poisoning, maybe, I don't know.
Or maybe he abandoned the familybecause when Lu moved in with
(07:44):
his older sister after Judith's death, he and his brothers all
dropped that E from their name and started and like the
bloggers became just the bloggers.
So I don't know if that was justlike they tried to sound cool or
if it was some actual decision they made.
Because it wasn't just him, it was like him and all of his
brothers. Oh yeah, that would that would
(08:06):
indicate that probably somethinghappened because why would you
just change your name for no reason?
Yeah, so I don't know. But when the Civil War started,
Lou's brothers joined the fight for the Union, and although he
was barely 15, Lou joined them as well in 1864.
But don't worry, you know, it was the Civil War.
(08:28):
But they didn't just have young boys on the front lines of the
bloodiest war in America. Oh, wait.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. There's actually more to that
sentence here. Let me try again.
Don't worry, they didn't have a young boy in the front lines of
the bloodiest war in America without him absolutely shredding
(08:49):
on a flute. All right, Lou Blogger was a
Pfeiffer in the war which they were young boys who would play a
Fife, which is like a tiny flute, a lot like a piccolo, and
they would relay signals for marching orders or formation
changes. When you said that, I was like,
I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure they had a kid
that would play the drums in thefront.
(09:11):
Yeah, they had a, they had drummers and they had Pfeiffers
and he was a Pfeiffer. Dang.
Just absolutely shred a Fife at the age of 15.
Very. That's me shredding the Fife.
Accurate representation According to his service pension
file though, Blonger only serveda few weeks of his 100 day
enlistment, which they had hundred day enlistments before
(09:34):
suffering some sort of leg injury which he claimed caused
varicose veins and ulcers in theleg for the rest of his life.
So. At the age of 10, he got
varicose veins. He was 15.
Oh. Oh, sorry, 15.
And it was injury related. I don't know.
Once again, these are documents from the 1860s that somehow
(09:54):
survived. Well, I think he filed the
service pension in 1880 like in the 1880s.
But it doesn't matter. They're old.
It's it's hard to find these. And that's all the documentation
there was. And he spent the rest of his
enlistment past that, in a hospital in Chicago.
Sounds cushy. Compared to being in the Civil
War, yeah, probably. Everything kind of sounds cushy.
(10:15):
I'd rather be in that house in Saw too, than on the front lines
of the Civil War. You know I'll jump into a pit of
hypodermic needles before running into a a pack of pack of
Confederates pointing them big old muskets at me.
Yeah, that's fair. You know, that's fair.
After the war ended the next year, in 1865, Blonger
reconnected with his brother Sam, who sent Lou to study at a
(10:37):
business College in Chicago, after which the two left for the
great Open West in 1870 and picked up side quests along the
way. They would stop in towns and Lou
would usually run a saloon in the town while his brother Sam,
he was like, he was a minor withan ER and would do some
prospected. Yeah, he's a miner with an ER,
(10:59):
unlike the Pfeiffer's in the Civil War, which were.
Miners with an OR. And he would do some prospecting
for gold. And because it's out there in
Themdar Hills, all right? And they first found themselves
in Colorado in 1879, when Lou was already 30 years old.
Old fuck. I know, right?
God, it's like over. 30 years? How old?
(11:21):
How grossly old are? In 1860s OH.
My God. Since he had provided
entertainment of sorts at his salons, Lou tried to open a
vaudeville theater in Georgetown, Co, and his brother
Sam actually ran for mayor in the nearby town of Leadville.
(11:43):
Both of those turned out the same way, though poorly for the
bloggers. So they packed up once again,
and they moved to New Albuquerque, which would later
just become Albuquerque. And after the war that destroys
humans is over, we'll likely just be called Old Albuquerque
if our alien overlords are stillpartial to English city names.
(12:07):
Here are the bloggers finally got a taste of real power in
society, which they had obviously been seeking.
Sam Blonner, still trying to getinto a political office,
actually got himself appointed as the Marshall of the town in
1882, and he made his little brother his first deputy.
Sounds like nepotism. It was they went on some great
brotherly crime fighting inventors, having shootouts with
(12:29):
ruffians and throwing them in the pen.
But you know they were not perfect specimens themselves,
because on the side they made their money in the business of
vice, running horse racing, books and managing a town
brothel. You know what I was going to say
when you were talking about the salons.
I was wondering if he had anything to do with sex work in
(12:50):
the salons. I was when I was in fifth grade,
we watched this. We watched this, like, little
documentary for kids about the gold rush.
But they were like talking aboutthe salons and how the gold
miners would go to the salons atnight.
And then they were, they were like, there were saloon girls
that would keep the men company.And at the time, I didn't
understand what was happening. And then in like, like 15 years
(13:13):
later, after I watched this documentary, like, I was, you
know, reminiscing, I guess. And I was like, Oh my God, they
were, they were sex workers. And they added that in the
documentary for 11 year olds. Yes, there, that was around and
it was around specifically in his salons.
They were referred to as paintedladies.
(13:34):
Why were they painted? I got makeup on.
Oh, OK, that's fair. Painted Ladies, which just
reminds me of cabaret. Yeah.
So they did not, it wasn't all of them, you know, just running
brothels and being, being shittylawmen.
They did not just sentence in history during their Marshall
days as they happened to be the muscle in town when famous
(13:55):
American lawman Wyatt Earp made his ride through New Mexico
chasing the Cowboys he believed had murdered his brother Morgan
and attempted murder of his brother Virgil in response to
the killing of three Cowboys, which was the that was the
crew's name were the Cowboys. So before they were before they
(14:16):
were America's team, they shot some lawmen.
And that was at the the shootoutat OK Corral, the most famous
shootout of the Old West. I don't know much about that.
I, well, I read a little bit about it.
I don't know. I've listened to a podcast on it
actually too, like a deep dive into the shootout at OK Corral.
It lasted like 30 seconds. But like, people talk about it
(14:36):
all the time, people who are interested.
In well, was it super bloody? Like I think like 5 people died
so just as many people as the Boston Massacre so take it for
what you will. Lou and Samblanger were likely
part of the posse that protectedthe IRP crew when they passed
(14:56):
through New Albuquerque. Interesting SO.
You know, whatever that's something that would be on a
plaque in New Albuquerque probably exist.
Well, what else do they have That's.
All they got going for them. That being said, the Marshall
appointment only lasted 5 monthsand after that ended and over
the next six years, the bloggerskept on the move and stuck
(15:17):
mostly to running gambling hallsand prospecting.
Kind of around the South, the Southwest, before finally
settling back down in the main backdrop for today's story.
Denver, Co. Beautiful town.
I have not been. Me neither, but I hear it's
beautiful. You can't just say what are you,
(15:37):
a politician? Sound a beautiful place.
Beautiful place. Beautiful place, I love it here.
They have mountains. There.
I've never been there but I loveit.
I love it. I love the beautiful people of
Denver. Go Broncos.
Yeah, Denver was a big town, boasting a population of just
over 100 and or just under 107,000 people in 1890.
(15:58):
And that was just 14 years afterColorado gained statehood in
1876. And Lublonger got to doing what
he did best. He started running gambling
houses. And he, with Sam, opened up the
Blonger Bros gambling house on Larimer St. and eventually a
saloon, the Elite Saloon on Stout St. in 1889.
(16:23):
That latter one, I guess was famous for a very long time.
I, I don't think it's still standing, but I guess it had
like a really ornate like frescoed ceiling and was kind of
like a like a landmark for quitesome time in the gambling house.
Primarily they were running poker, which was developed here
in America, is very popular in in the the Wild West.
(16:45):
And they also were running some other card games like the French
game called Pharaoh, which I don't really know anything
about, as well as some dice games.
But they also started branching into some more illegal realms.
Believe it or not, since that's they're on the podcast, right,
they're running an illegal lottery dubbed as the policy
(17:06):
racket or numbers game that paidout on a daily basis.
And they at first, besides running gambling, which was
illegal, they also started separating suckers from their
money at first just by fixing the games they already had,
something that casinos can stillbe found doing to this day.
(17:29):
I mean, there's always a house edge, but they can find ways to
cheat you as well. But they also moved into the
realm of bunco games or big cons, which would become a
favorite of Lou Blonger. And at first when they were
operating these like gambling halls and salons, Lou was
actually working under a kingpinthat ran kind of the gambling
(17:50):
scene in Denver at the time by the name of Big Ed Chase, who
ran a place called the Palace Theatre, which was a vaudeville
theatre that also had like gambling, had a gambling hall
inside of it, kind of like Las Vegas.
Actually. They got like in theaters
combined with with a gambling area.
Ed Chase 3 decades prior it actually been on the Denver City
(18:12):
Council and saw to it that Denver stopped finding gambling
halls. And oh, they were fining them.
Yeah. OK.
So I mean, this is the 1800s. So like gambling is still widely
seen as kind of like immoral. So, and I talk about this later,
but it's like a lot of the timesit is illegal, but just like not
(18:35):
enforced. So and and it is the Wild West.
So it's just not as like governed at the time.
So like you. Had your local law, but like
government wasn't really a thingat that time out there so.
Yeah. So like it is illegal, but like
if the town council says like no, it's chill, then it's kind
(18:57):
of chill. They'll look away.
Yeah, it's just much more fluid.And he and he was, he saw to it,
he was on the council and he sawto it that they stopped finding
gambling calls. And then he started getting a
vice grip on the gambling in thecity, of course.
He was like, Oh well, once I start making money off of it,
that's right. Well, yeah, he had a he had a he
(19:17):
was biased. He had a vested interest in them
producing fines on gambling halls.
Not to mention he also had a hefty list of people on his
payroll to keep prying eyes off of his business anyway,
including many police officers and even the mayor of Denver who
received a huge 20% cut of theirhall to just like, not care
(19:38):
about it. It's good to see that some
things never change. Some.
Things just always stay the same.
And the corruption in Denver surrounding this was crazy and
stays crazy so. I believe that.
Lou did not originally do much work with Ed on the gambling
side. He was like involved in their
(19:59):
gambling hall. But primarily, what Lou did was
actually work. In order to keep the government
out of his business even more, he worked to help ensure that
elections went his way. And Lou was a vote fixer where
on election days they would kindof scrape up anyone they could
(20:20):
find. Drunks at the bars, people
sleeping on the street, general men of disrepute and transported
them to a polling station and then using bribery or
intimidation or both, they convinced these men to vote for
the candidates that were willingto look the other way on Blonger
(20:40):
and Chase's dealings and sway elections.
Fun fact this this is a a likelyway that Edgar Allan Poe died.
He was found just like in different clothes in a ditch and
then died. And they think that he was like,
forced to vote and like, beat upin Baltimore.
(21:00):
That I did not know that actually.
Fun random fact that I had hiding out when the blockers
opened their gambling hall. Originally they paid Chase a
part of their take and everything was kind of in
balance. But soon a fit of law and order
seized the city of Denver. The chief of police was replaced
with a man named Hamilton Armstrong.
(21:21):
Sounds like a just sounds like arule follower.
Yeah. And he was, he was not
interested in the bribes offeredto him to look the other way.
He was interested in enforcing the law.
There was like I think this is probably myth but there was a
story that someone was running like an illegal gambling hall in
their house and he broke in to to it while it was running and
(21:44):
without saying a word. Just like took an axe and
chopped up a roulette table. Called the Jesus at the at the
at the church where he started flipping the tables.
Yeah, That's that, like the market of Damascus.
Yeah. Or something flipping over.
Yeah. He came in and he axed up a
roulette table, supposedly. And like I, like I was
mentioning earlier, as far as I can tell, gambling wasn't really
(22:05):
legal per SE until much later inColorado's history.
Or like the town could make it legal but like it wasn't legal
in Colorado and it was I think it was more assumed it was
illegal until someone said it wasn't kind of thing ask for.
Forgiveness, not permission. A lot.
Of Bible references. That's not a Bible.
(22:25):
Reference, whatever. I even read the book.
I don't know what's in it. It was often looked away from
because what was the Wild West? And there was looked away from
because in what was the Wild West, there was a a deficit,
inadequate law enforcement. I mean longer like Sam and Lou
Blunger were literally lawmen. Like none.
(22:47):
They were the. Law enforcement six years.
Ago at this point just cause someone said like we need
someone you guys are good with. A gun, right?
They're like you'll do it. You guys can do it.
Great, you enforce laws. Now, wouldn't it be cool if
you're in your? You and your brother actually
played policeman for real and they're like fuck yeah.
Like hell yeah. And that's.
How you became the cops and it'sfunny 'cause they.
(23:08):
Actually, I didn't even mention it.
They had two more of their brothers joined them too.
They were like, see, they were like a whole brother.
Possible of of sheriffs and in in most places where the
gambling was good, the law enforcement could just get paid
off like because the people running it would have enough
money to give them good price. And at this time, there was a
big gold and silver mining boom that brought a lot of people the
(23:31):
area, some of which did get wealthy pretty quick and were
prime marks for these rigged gambling establishments.
And this new police chief just really believed in enforcing
these laws like I mentioned. And the Blonger Bros gambling
house was one of those that he actually shut down in 1892, just
(23:52):
a few years after it opened. Although they were allowed to
keep the elite saloon since it was, you know, just a saloon,
even though they also ran gambling games out of it.
I guess they were just did it more in secret.
And Armstrong also decided to target Big Ed Chase, and when
(24:13):
Chase tried to bribe him with a $13,000 bribe, a not
insignificant amount of money inthe late 19th century, you could
probably bribe. Me with $13,000 in the 20th
cent. 21st century like at this.Time it's got to be that's like
multiple year salary for sure, if not more.
It's a lot of money. But Armstrong was like, Nah, I'm
(24:35):
not taking that bribe and instead threw him in jail.
So with now this like big kingpin behind bars, there was
an open spot. Who's gonna be the new?
Kingpin to lead all the. Gambling in the city and and
Lube loner's right here. So he slot, he slotted it and he
just started taking over everything.
(24:57):
A few years later in 1895, gambling was made legal in
Denver, pushed by the City Council as a means to bring
money into the town. They basically said like this
brings money into Denver, so like allow gambling to happen.
And the gambling done at Lublanger's Elite became above
board once again. Well, except for the marked
(25:19):
cards and the load of dice they were using and their bunco
games. So let's finally get into what?
A bunco. Yeah, I have no.
Idea what this is, you did get the.
Reference about the dice game, right?
Like Bunco was a dice game I think I've heard of.
It, but I don't really know whatit is.
Yeah, you just like you. Take turns like rolling 3 dice
and like you want to get three of a set of the same kind like
(25:41):
on the round you're on. I don't know, it's something I
played as a kid. Sounds like Yahtzee.
It's a. Lot like Yahtzee.
Actually I played Yahtzee. So it it's.
Basically that but with three dice instead of 6.
But a bunco in this instance is when a mark is targeted and they
are persuaded to purchase something that's basically
(26:01):
completely worthless. And one of Blanner's favorite
fake things to sell were stocks.He would have people
eavesdropping throughout the city and these people were known
as ropers. These ropers would look for
wealthy tourists and even look through hotel registries for
anyone visiting Denver that theycould con.
(26:23):
They didn't want to con local people because one it kept the
police off their back because the police were more OK like the
the corrupt cops were more OK with them getting out of towners
than they were people from the town.
Just causes less headache and also like they just weren't
around to find you later. They they would have to leave at
some point so you could like steal their money and they would
leave. So after these ropers would find
(26:43):
these wealthy out of towners, they would then strike up a
conversation with them and lead them to the area of an office
that they had set up by kind of whatever means necessary.
And someone inside the office would then send out someone
called a spieler. And the spieler would do exactly
what their name suggests, talk alot.
(27:05):
Spielers were like the true con men.
They were like quick talking andthey were skilled in the arts of
persuasion. They would usually in this
instance, pretend to be like a famous stock analyst or just
like someone who has done reallywell, has made themselves really
wealthy in the stock market. And they would convince this
mark that they knew of a stock that was going to go up soon and
(27:26):
kind of be like, oh, well, you know, I know we just met, but
I'll be nice to you. Like this stock's going to going
to pop off. Like if you can invest, I would
invest now. And actually, there's a place
that sells stock right here in this office.
Oh, right here. That's right next door to us the
the building. Crazy almost came out of so the
mark would enter the office where a fake secretary would
(27:48):
sell them the fake stock that they had talked about, and then
by the time the mark realized that they'd that they'd been
had, the entire office would have been moved a pop up.
Shop really, and they'd be. Out there, hundreds or thousands
of dollars, and if they went to the police, the police were so
crooked that they would, that they would do like a fake
(28:09):
investigation, walk around town everywhere except for where the
office actually was 'cause they knew where it was and be like,
Oh, well, I guess they're gone just like not.
And then eventually they'd have to go back to wherever they're
from. Yeah, they'd just be.
Shit out of luck and they're just out all their.
Money. And from each scam, Blonger and
his representative at the scam, often his right hand man, a man
(28:30):
known as Kid Duffy, who was kindof like the muscle behind
Blonger's brains, would each get10%.
The Spieler would get 15%, and then the Roper and the secretary
would each get 5%. And then the rest would go to
cover expenses, including the $50 per week that Blonger paid
to many police officers on the force to look the other way.
(28:52):
No matter what the hall was, they got their 50 bucks a week.
This is just one example of manybunco games that were being run
all across Denver, and Lublangerended up being involved with
almost all of them. He rose to the top of an
organization of con men that ranthese bunco scams and their
ranks were supposedly 600 strong.
(29:13):
They had 600 con men running these kind of scams all
throughout the city and they allpaid a in just.
In Denver, this is just in. Denver.
That's crazy. And they all paid.
A town of only A. 107 thousand you have 600 running a scam
supposed. Not supposedly.
They did have they had, like, sister organizations in some
(29:36):
other cities, but this was, yeah, just 600 in, in Denver
alone. Crazy.
Lublanger also found other, morelegitimate sources of income.
In 1892, he and his brother finally had their prospecting
payoff when they found a gold mine, later to be known as the
Forest Queen, that provided themwith a steady income and also
(30:02):
provided a good cover for Blonger for all of his illicit
gains. You could just say, well, I'm
rich because of my gold mine. Even if the gold mine was like,
you know, it, it was providing them good money, but nowhere
near the money that he was actually making.
And he also, he just had this outward personality of like a
well to do mining magnet, which he lived up to perfectly.
And he put on a really good likepublic face.
(30:24):
I mean, he would donate to charities he owned, like a
cherry orchard, would donate like boxes of cherries to
charities. He would hand out like $20 bills
on the street to people around Christmas time.
Well, and $20. Back then, that's a lot of
money. No, it's good.
And he would hand deliver turkeys to poor families like
Scrooge. Like Scrooge at the end of the
(30:45):
movie. Spoiler.
Sorry, yeah, if you. If you ever got you haven't seen
a Christmas. Carol took Christmas Carol in.
Like the 100 years it's been around.
Sorry, but yes, he he does buy the Turkey at the end for that,
that that guy who works with himand and his, his little, his
little crippled Tiny Tim. Yes.
So crippled. Craig So that is.
(31:07):
Not his name. And it.
Shouldn't be? No, It's tiny.
Tim, but really most. Of his money was not coming from
the the gold mine, it was comingfrom the this bunker ring later
dubbed the $1,000,000 bunker ring.
But the name is actually a bit of an understatement, as the
schemes were raking in an estimated 1 to $3,000,000 per
(31:29):
year, which is 20 to $60 millionper year in today's money in
total. And despite these appearances,
he was a vicious criminal who had beaten and robbed many in
his earlier years under Ed Chase.
Like Kid Duffy was doing all like the beatings now, but he
(31:50):
was not. He wasn't a good guy.
Yeah, Lou Bloner was. Not a good He is a.
He is a long history of being anorganized criminal, and longer.
He had wrapped a chokehold on the city to the point that no
one dare challenge his authoritybecause everyone was on his
payroll and elected officials atboth the city and state level
were there partially because he had stuffed the ballots with
(32:13):
their names. They all owed fealty to the true
boss of Denver. And this went on for a good long
time. Decades, to be exact.
And when the Roaring 20s swept through Denver, Lublanger was
still king. That is, until Phillip Van Sis
(32:34):
came along. Phillip Van Sis.
Was a lawyer, World War 1 veteran, and an all around
incorruptible gentleman. Supposedly a lot of the
information about this comes from his book, so of course he
was an incorruptible gentleman. After practicing law for 11
years, he decided that he wantedto run for District Attorney in
(32:57):
Denver in 1920. His candidates in the primary
were backed by 1 by the Blonger gang and the other by a state
senator, which actually divided the vote so much that Seiss came
out as an underdog. As an.
Underdog winner in that primary,and after his victory, Seiss was
(33:17):
approached by the Inspector of Police saying that he can
introduce him to a man that heldat least 1500 votes that could
go Seiss's way in the race. And at first, Seiss didn't care
as he would get these offers kind of all the time.
Like oh talk to this person, he has influence, blah blah blah
blah blah. And he wasn't really much for
political schmoozing. But eventually he decided to
(33:37):
meet this person, and he was only mildly surprised that the
man who could get him the votes that was in his office for the
meeting was none other than Lou Blunger himself, now in his 70s,
getting up there. Blunger.
Had stated he would be happy to give the SEIS campaign $25,000
because Blunger was a veteran himself.
(34:00):
Sort of He, he. Played the fucking.
Fife, I'm sorry, that's kind of.Crazy that he looped through the
Civil War and World War One. I I know that they.
Weren't that far apart, but in my like, you don't really think
of them being that close together.
No, but. They were.
That's crazy. Yep.
But but yeah, veteran, once again, a little bit of a
(34:21):
stretch. You don't know.
What he saw on those battlefields Kashawn 3 weeks
with. His Fife.
He only had his Fife for protection.
It was 3. Weeks, I guess, to be fair,
Philip Van Sis was also. He was in like the National
Guard, he did. He was.
The National Guard is not a realbranch of the US military.
I'm saying that is. Often seen as, as a, they don't
(34:44):
see as much active combat as theother branches of the military.
And I think that's, that's a pretty fair thing to say.
But that being said, he actuallydid work as an intelligence
officer in France. Like he wasn't just like here in
America. He was actually over there, like
doing stuff. But Blahner said because he was
(35:05):
a veteran himself, he made the case that he wanted to support
the only veteran on the ballot. Seitz, however, knew who Blahner
was, obviously, and didn't want to take his money.
So he basically just said like, yeah, I mean, like, maybe, but
like, I want to pay for it myself 1st.
And then if, if I need it, I, it's nice to know that I can
reach out like basically like, fuck off, bro.
(35:26):
Then after some more small talk,longer went in for the hard sell
and said that, you know, sometimes, right, his business
associates that sell stocks, right?
They get misrepresented by some tourist who runs down to the
police station and the police just like they're like, uh, this
is, I got too much of my plate. Just put out an arrest warrant,
(35:46):
you know, So they'd get arrestedand get up and get put up on
bond and he'd have to go down tothe courthouse and pay all this
bond to get him out. And they never got convicted
anyway, right? So hey, Mr. Van Sice, if that
happens, can you just tell me that you'll just always give
them a bond of a flat $1000 and just call it done?
And Van Sice was like, well, I know that when these people are
(36:09):
scamming people out of money, it's like multiple thousands of
dollars, like into the 10s of thousands of dollars maybe.
So if you just had to come down and pay $1000 to get your boy
out, if he actually got caught, that doesn't really cut too much
into your bottom line. So you told him No, He said, I
(36:30):
think it's, I think it'd actually be nicer if just all
bond is set at twice whatever they're accused of stealing
'cause then you 'cause then, youknow, they they couldn't just,
like, use the money they got to get out.
Yeah. Oh, I'm sure he.
Did not. He did not.
Like that answer and and he quickly made an excuse to leave
the meeting and then started doing everything he could to
(36:53):
sway the election to the other side against him.
And 1st it. Looked as if the the same old
poll fixing tactics were workingon election night, but Seiss was
actually bolstered from a heavy turn out from the Denver suburbs
and went on to win the election and become District Attorney.
Afterwards. He quickly set about tearing
down the $1,000,000 Bunco ring. He couldn't really do it like
(37:16):
above board though because he couldn't mount a case using like
the police to investigate or with funding doled out by the
mayor. Because both the mayor and the
police, except for Armstrong whois still the chief of police at
this time, were on Blogger's payroll.
So he had to be a little bit more like creative.
(37:38):
About it. And actually, right, not too
long after his election, Armstrong also died of a heart
attack. So like his one, like the one
person the Police Department that probably wouldn't have
sided with. Him was gone.
So firstly, Seiss gathered information himself and made an
index of all the con men operating under Blonner, even an
(38:01):
index of of 600 people. Oh my God.
That's in the city that were. Connected to Blonner and he even
hired undercover detectives to infiltrate the ring and to pose
as like swindlers and con men themselves to send back data on
how the ring was running and Seiss was even known to root
through Blogger's trash regularly looking for evidence.
(38:23):
Did he have a? Warrant for that I mean.
So he he had talked to the governor and the governor did
back the investigation. He said go, he said go do it,
but he just couldn't do anythingwith like the municipal
government. So yes and no.
(38:45):
But I don't know what he found in the trash.
Maybe something the the most information he got though was
actually because he he found a way to plant an old timey bug in
Blogger's office. This thing called a dictaphone.
A Dictaphone. Dictaphone.
In his office so that he could listen in on his conversations.
Isn't that kind of like when youget an unsolicited Dick pic?
(39:07):
Dictaphone. It's the Dick to the phone.
Yeah, there was a. Joke in there somewhere.
You didn't find it, but there isthere is one in there somewhere.
I'm rusty, it's been 3 weeks. Everything falls apart in three
weeks. It's true.
This of course would not get approval from the mayor, right?
(39:30):
Because the mayor also doesn't want to get caught with
corruption charges. So instead, Seiss went around to
raise the money necessary for all this chicanery from the
wealthy philanthropist of Denverwho wanted to see their town
cleaned up from all of this bullshit that was going on.
And in the end, 31 of them decided to fund the cause.
(39:50):
So this was like crowdfunded he did.
The OG GoFundMe, yeah, which is crazy.
Meanwhile, Seitz disguised the money incoming from the mayor
and Blogger by pretending that it was money that he raised from
pious people to fund raids on brothels in the town, but
instead it was to take them down.
(40:11):
He also pulled a bunch of tactics to keep like head games
to keep longer thinking that he wasn't a threat.
Like he would purposely arrest con men that were in the ring
and then like accusing them of conning people and then pretend
that they fooled him into thinking that they were upright
citizens and then release them. Like just like, you know what?
You. Are a nice guy.
(40:32):
I'm so sorry. Yeah.
And then he would listen on the fucking on the recording phone
on the dictaphone being like to Blogger being like, this guy's
an idiot. He doesn't know what he's doing.
Like he literally arrested someone to just let him go and
he's just sitting there going like this is hilarious.
And also at the same time caughtBlogger being like these are
confident that he arrested. Then after gathering enough
(40:55):
evidence, Van Sis publicly announced that he was going on
an extended vacation into the mountains.
But in actuality, he never went anywhere and Blonger and his
gang thought that the only man in their way was out of town for
a month and they could just do whatever they wanted.
They let their guard down and that is when Van Sis pounced.
(41:17):
They had arranged for a previousvictim of one of these scams, a
man named Frank Norfleet, to parade around a hotel in town.
And since he was seen as an easymark because he had already fell
for another scam, he was quicklyreapproached by someone on the
Blogger gang. And when he was taken to the
stock office, the gang was arrested by 16 state troopers
(41:38):
that were given to Van Seis by the governor, including Kid
Duffy himself was arrested quickly.
They also arrested Lou Blonger as well as many others.
And by the end of it, 33 men satin a makeshift or in a makeshift
prison in the basement of a local church because they
couldn't have taken them to the police station cause the crooked
(41:59):
cops would tip off others in town.
This so they could skip and run away.
So they just took her to a basement.
To a church basement. In the trial that followed,
Longer was represented by a famous lawyer who argued cases
in front of the Supreme Court and even had a few, let's just
say sympathetic judges on his payroll.
(42:20):
So Lou was confident they soughtto interrupt the process by
filing as many motions as they could to delay the trial.
But eventually, the day came foropening statements.
And then day after day, the prosecution filled the witness
stand with the victims who told the story of how they were
(42:41):
conned out of their life savings.
In some, in some instances. I mean, there where were
multiple instances of people losing so much money that they,
like, committed suicide. Like, like, there was a lot of
bad fallout from this. And in the end, they had 100
victims shipped in to tell theirstories.
And their ace in the hole was a man named Len Rimi who worked as
(43:05):
a bookmaker for the Bunco Games and could identify directly how
Blonger LED up the ring of Cons and testified to that that all
of them were involved. What they did.
These testimonies went on for weeks.
I think 7 weeks of testimony is crazy.
And the defense mostly just usedthis time to name call and
(43:26):
assassinate the character of these people that were providing
evidence. But there was a lot of them.
And when the prosecution rested,the defense didn't call 11
witness. They just, they just, they just
closed. And I was like, OK, so it it
(43:47):
looked like a guilty verdict, like was inevitable, right?
And as it turns out, the defensethought that the trial was kind
of a mere formality because theyhad approached and bribed 4 of
the jurors to not convict him at$500 apiece, which is a lot for
just normal people. And one of the jurors, though,
(44:07):
he heard the pitch, he took the money, but then he immediately
informed the judge of the attempt and gave them the
$500.00. So good on that guy.
And then after deliberating for a long time, the jury still had
three holdouts who didn't want to submit a guilty verdict.
Wonder who those were or why they held out, huh?
And that is when that one juror who didn't take the bribe
(44:29):
publicly called them out on their shit in front of all the
jurors and said, like, somethingalong the lines of like, you
know what the difference is between you and me is that I
gave my $500 to the judge and you still got yours.
And they were like, oh, exactly.He said what?
And then after a little bit longer and a total of 102 hours
(44:49):
of deliberation, because at first the like the other people
after the bribe came out, the other jurors refused to call it
as a deadlock. They're like, no, we're staying
here until you decide to change to guilty.
And it took forever, 102 hours. And the jury handed out a big
old guilty verdict to the now 73year old Lublanger.
(45:13):
At sentencing, The Maine men, including Blonger, got handed 7
to 10 years while the others gotthree to 10.
Blonger, however, would not needall of those seven to 10 years
as just five months into a sentence at the the Colorado
State Penitentiary, he succumbedto old age.
And I think that the story and ramifications of what Lou
(45:36):
Blonger did is best summed up ina quote supposedly to Blonger
from Van Seis after Blonger was pleading to him for leniency in
sentencing because he would certainly die in prison.
Van Seis showed that Blonger's actions ruin people's ruin
people and even LED some to suicide when he said what
(45:59):
leniency have you shown to others?
What God have you worshipped except the almighty dollar says
something? And God you trust on it when
you. Stole Preacher Mana's trust
funds? Did you hesitate when,
overwhelmed with shame he committed suicide?
Did you give any aid to his family?
When you took the life earnings of Old Man Donovan of New
(46:21):
Orleans and reduced him from comfort to penury, what did you
do to ease the last months of his life?
You have been a criminal from the time of your youth.
You have been the fixer of the town.
You have prostituted justice. You have bribed judges and
jurors, state, city and police officials.
(46:42):
You have ruined hundreds of men.With that record, tell me why a
death sentence is not your due. And with that, I leave you on
the case of Lou Blonger and the downfall of the $1,000,000 Bunco
ring in Denver, Co in the early 1900s.
(47:04):
Been spending a lot of time around the early 1900s recently
you have. It was.
Freaking the Whiskey Ring This the murder of Henry of Harry
Cathaw or Harry Cathaw's murder of Sanford White?
I think we're out of that time period though now as far as I.
Know yes so it's been all it's been a lot of very historical
(47:28):
stuff recently, but I hope you guys have liked it if you did
like it right, you know there's ways you can show it normal
spiel man you can you can go to Spotify.
You can leave a rating, you can leave us a rating on Apple
Podcasts, whatever you can do toplease show us some love.
You can buy merch if you go to our website,
(47:51):
whitecollarsredhands.com. You can buy a sweatshirt.
They have hats now. You can buy a hat.
Yeah, a bag, a mouse pad, a bunch of shit, and I don't know,
go there, buy something if you want.
It's money. You know what merch is?
I'm not going to. I'm not going to keep telling
you. You can also interact with us on
our socials for while it's stillaround.
You can go to TikTok. White collars, redhead.
(48:12):
It's like what, 6? More days, a a little peek
behind. The curtain here, we're
recording this on the 14th. Yeah, five more it.
Goes up on. Friday, so by the time you're
hearing this, it's quite possible that TikTok is only
with us for two more days. So we're on there white collars
red hands. You want to go watch a video
before that's gone forever, but if you want to watch them
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(48:35):
white collars, under score red hands, Twitter or X at white
collars pod. We are also, am I forgetting
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facebook.com/white Collars, Red Hands.
You also just go to our our website.
Like I said, you can message us through there.
There is a little contact us page that goes straight to our
(48:56):
e-mail White collars, Red hands@gmail.com.
You can contact us there. Submit an episode request for
the for this season or our our upcoming season.
Yeah, feel free to submit an episode for this season.
We try to do a fan submitted episode every season and we
could be doing yours as our nextone.
(49:17):
You can also just help us for free by telling a friend, you
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People always listen to podcastsand they're always looking for
more. So why don't, why don't you
throw our hat in the ring? White collars, red hands.
Let them know. You know what I think that's it.
I think that's it. It's been 3 weeks.
I'm forgetting how to do everything.
I was like Oh my God, how do I? How do I?
I guess I'll just stumble through this outfit.
(49:38):
It's not like learning. It's not like riding a bike.
It's not you. Do kind of forget.
Yeah, I'm bad at. Riding bikes too, so that
doesn't help. He did get a.
Concussion. Once I was on a scooter.
Though on a scooter, not on a bike.
OK, I'm yet to get a concussion on a bike.
One of these days, one of these days, I'll make him wreck stick
in the spokes. So thank you so much for
(50:00):
listening. And we'll see you next week on
another episode of White Collars, Red Hands.
Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff has been arrested and
charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Congress wants to know what caused the Enron meltdown.
And while the collective rage currently is focused on low
comp, Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski was convicted of looting
hundreds of millions of dollars.This is one of the biggest fraud
cases ever. Their president's a crook.
(00:25):
Well, I'm not a crook. Find out more on this week's
episode of White Collars Red Hands.
Did you know that bunco is not just a dice game played by
elderly ladies? It is also a term for confidence
scam, supposedly derived from the Spanish word for bank,
(00:45):
bunco, that still goes on to this day and is synonymous with
swindle schemes or con games. Today, a bunco scheme might take
the form of a fake IRS agent calling you on the phone and
demanding that you pay back taxes which you don't actually
owe. Of course, these scams are
disproportionately targeted towards the elderly who are more
(01:07):
easily tricked by these schemes.Elderly individuals are more
susceptible to these schemes, insome part because they, I don't
know, bought their houses on wages that wouldn't buy a mid
sized sedan today and have some expendable cash, you know, they
could throw away, and in part because their generation is just
more socially trusting. They came from a boom time where
(01:31):
there was a higher level of social trust.
And at that time elderly people were just average aged people.
Today we talk about a bunker ring run out of Denver, Co in
the early 1900s that was headed by a man named Lou Blonger.
Lou Blonger had such a stranglehold in the city that he
(01:52):
was just known as The Boss and had everyone on his payroll from
the police to the mayor. At least until a young upstart,
David, decided to take on Goliath.
Come with us as we discuss how one moral District Attorney
plotted his way to the downfall of the $1,000,000 Bunco ring on
the Season 18 premiere of White Collar's Red Hands.
(02:16):
Man, season 18? Yep.
Long, long-awaited. Long-awaited.
All right, Yes. Hope you all had Happy holidays.
I don't. Wow.
I don't thank thank you for listening, but I hope you didn't
have a happy holiday. I hope that it was filled with
catharsis and learning and that you like you're a better person,
(02:38):
but that it wasn't. It wasn't easy.
That's what I hope. Pretty.
OK, just 'cause you had a bad holiday doesn't mean everybody
yells shut. Up.
No. Mine says you're pretty good.
So So mine I what I want is mineto be better than yours.
Actually, that's the kind of person.
I I guarantee you that it was. Mine was better.
Yeah. Thank you.
(02:59):
That makes you feel so good. Yeah.
And Speaking of, I'm Kashawn. And I'm Nina.
We're back season 18 of White Collars, Red Hands season 18.
Season 18, baby. We're back.
I don't even think. I mean, I, we talked about it a
little bit, but it's been what'sit, what month is it?
It's January. It was four years, four year
(03:20):
podiversary in October. It was this last year.
So crazy, crazy that this has been going on for so long that
there's, so, I mean, we joke about all the time that there's
so much of our voices out in theuniverse there.
Are there is? If you wanted to go make an AI
chat bot of either of us, you technically have more than
enough material to do so. Oh, that's terrifying.
(03:42):
So that I'm sure AI could just recreate this podcast if they
wanted. So sooner sooner, we'll be out
of jobs. So we might as well get one last
episode in on Lou Blonger beforebefore the.
Before AI takes over, yeah. Before the the computer
overlords can just do this for you instead of real humans.
I was born to be unemployed so. That that explains it.
(04:05):
That explains the drive. So yeah, let's let's get into
Lou Blonger. Lou Blonger actually was not
always Lou Blonger. He was born as Louis or Louis
Herbert Blonger in 1849 in the small town of Swanton, Vt to
(04:26):
quite a large family he was. Actually, well, you know, that
name change really hit his identity, so yeah.
Yeah, You know, it's just if youdrop a vowel, it's probably too
expensive. Maybe it was like, maybe it was.
Paper letter that you change it.Yeah, paper vowel per.
Can I buy a valve? Yeah, a la What the hell is that
show called? Wheel of Fortune?
(04:46):
Yeah, a la Wheel of Fortune. He's like, you know, I can't
afford it. Let's stick to more consonants.
But yeah, he was. He had a big family.
He was the 8th of 13 children that his father, Simon Belonger,
and mother, Judith Kennedy brought into the world.
I mean, probably normal for thistime.
I don't know how many of those survived.
That's fair. It was the mid 1800s so.
(05:08):
Yeah, infant mortality rate was high, so.
It still is, unfortunately, in America, we, we, we lead the
pack, which is not a good thing to be in, in the podium for
Simon. His dad was French Canadian and
Judith, his mother, was originally born in Ireland.
She grew up in an orphanage in Ireland, somehow made her way to
Swanton, Vt. Was it the potato famine that
(05:31):
brought her here? Believe it or not, there's not a
lot on 2 some fucking people from Vermont's in the history
books. I'm just.
I'm just. Saying the a lot of the stuff
about his family came from like writings and Bibles that that
his like family owned Oh, that'sweird that they were able to go
back and look at actually, you know they.
Couldn't afford a diary so they just added to scripture.
(05:54):
Well, it's like they would dedicated to people and they
would like list their family in them.
So that's how they track their lineage.
Which actually I should right now give a big shout out to one
of the most well curated blogs on a niche subject I've ever
seen. Blogger.
I think it's Blogger, bros.com or bloggerbrothers.com.
(06:15):
I'm sorry if I I'm sorry I'm notremembering it, but you'll find
it if you Google search it. Someone from like 10 years ago
created this website. Where they really did a deep
dive on all of the research on this and collected it all in one
place. Like someone was very passionate
about this story. So a lot of information you're
finding out today came from them.
The last update was in 2016. So thank you so much for for
(06:40):
doing this because yeah, withoutyou, there was not a lot on
this. You know, surprisingly there
have been like not a lot of people have covered this story.
So which is it? Which is.
Weird because it's. Crazy.
So yeah, you're getting it. You're getting, you're getting
it straight from the the secondary source horse's mouth
(07:01):
right now. The whole family, the whole
Blonger family or B Blonger family at this point, packed up
and moved from Vermont to Schulzburg, Wisconsin when Lou
was five years old. Most likely Sir Simon could work
at the local lead mine. It was a lead mining town, which
is a terrible type of mine. That's a good.
Place. Although it's said that he was a
(07:23):
stone Mason by trade, so I don'tknow if he was in the mine or
just doing something with stone in a lead mining town, but
either way, that's where they went.
Lu's mother died when he was 10,five years later, but not much
is really known about what happened to his father.
Lead poisoning, maybe, I don't know.
Or maybe he abandoned the familybecause when Lu moved in with
(07:44):
his older sister after Judith's death, he and his brothers all
dropped that E from their name and started and like the
bloggers became just the bloggers.
So I don't know if that was justlike they tried to sound cool or
if it was some actual decision they made.
Because it wasn't just him, it was like him and all of his
brothers. Oh yeah, that would that would
(08:06):
indicate that probably somethinghappened because why would you
just change your name for no reason?
Yeah, so I don't know. But when the Civil War started,
Lou's brothers joined the fight for the Union, and although he
was barely 15, Lou joined them as well in 1864.
But don't worry, you know, it was the Civil War.
(08:28):
But they didn't just have young boys on the front lines of the
bloodiest war in America. Oh, wait.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. There's actually more to that
sentence here. Let me try again.
Don't worry, they didn't have a young boy in the front lines of
the bloodiest war in America without him absolutely shredding
(08:49):
on a flute. All right, Lou Blogger was a
Pfeiffer in the war which they were young boys who would play a
Fife, which is like a tiny flute, a lot like a piccolo, and
they would relay signals for marching orders or formation
changes. When you said that, I was like,
I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure they had a kid
that would play the drums in thefront.
(09:11):
Yeah, they had a, they had drummers and they had Pfeiffers
and he was a Pfeiffer. Dang.
Just absolutely shred a Fife at the age of 15.
Very. That's me shredding the Fife.
Accurate representation According to his service pension
file though, Blonger only serveda few weeks of his 100 day
enlistment, which they had hundred day enlistments before
(09:34):
suffering some sort of leg injury which he claimed caused
varicose veins and ulcers in theleg for the rest of his life.
So. At the age of 10, he got
varicose veins. He was 15.
Oh. Oh, sorry, 15.
And it was injury related. I don't know.
Once again, these are documents from the 1860s that somehow
(09:54):
survived. Well, I think he filed the
service pension in 1880 like in the 1880s.
But it doesn't matter. They're old.
It's it's hard to find these. And that's all the documentation
there was. And he spent the rest of his
enlistment past that, in a hospital in Chicago.
Sounds cushy. Compared to being in the Civil
War, yeah, probably. Everything kind of sounds cushy.
(10:15):
I'd rather be in that house in Saw too, than on the front lines
of the Civil War. You know I'll jump into a pit of
hypodermic needles before running into a a pack of pack of
Confederates pointing them big old muskets at me.
Yeah, that's fair. You know, that's fair.
After the war ended the next year, in 1865, Blonger
reconnected with his brother Sam, who sent Lou to study at a
(10:37):
business College in Chicago, after which the two left for the
great Open West in 1870 and picked up side quests along the
way. They would stop in towns and Lou
would usually run a saloon in the town while his brother Sam,
he was like, he was a minor withan ER and would do some
prospected. Yeah, he's a miner with an ER,
(10:59):
unlike the Pfeiffer's in the Civil War, which were.
Miners with an OR. And he would do some prospecting
for gold. And because it's out there in
Themdar Hills, all right? And they first found themselves
in Colorado in 1879, when Lou was already 30 years old.
Old fuck. I know, right?
God, it's like over. 30 years? How old?
(11:21):
How grossly old are? In 1860s OH.
My God. Since he had provided
entertainment of sorts at his salons, Lou tried to open a
vaudeville theater in Georgetown, Co, and his brother
Sam actually ran for mayor in the nearby town of Leadville.
(11:43):
Both of those turned out the same way, though poorly for the
bloggers. So they packed up once again,
and they moved to New Albuquerque, which would later
just become Albuquerque. And after the war that destroys
humans is over, we'll likely just be called Old Albuquerque
if our alien overlords are stillpartial to English city names.
(12:07):
Here are the bloggers finally got a taste of real power in
society, which they had obviously been seeking.
Sam Blonner, still trying to getinto a political office,
actually got himself appointed as the Marshall of the town in
1882, and he made his little brother his first deputy.
Sounds like nepotism. It was they went on some great
brotherly crime fighting inventors, having shootouts with
(12:29):
ruffians and throwing them in the pen.
But you know they were not perfect specimens themselves,
because on the side they made their money in the business of
vice, running horse racing, books and managing a town
brothel. You know what I was going to say
when you were talking about the salons.
I was wondering if he had anything to do with sex work in
(12:50):
the salons. I was when I was in fifth grade,
we watched this. We watched this, like, little
documentary for kids about the gold rush.
But they were like talking aboutthe salons and how the gold
miners would go to the salons atnight.
And then they were, they were like, there were saloon girls
that would keep the men company.And at the time, I didn't
understand what was happening. And then in like, like 15 years
(13:13):
later, after I watched this documentary, like, I was, you
know, reminiscing, I guess. And I was like, Oh my God, they
were, they were sex workers. And they added that in the
documentary for 11 year olds. Yes, there, that was around and
it was around specifically in his salons.
They were referred to as paintedladies.
(13:34):
Why were they painted? I got makeup on.
Oh, OK, that's fair. Painted Ladies, which just
reminds me of cabaret. Yeah.
So they did not, it wasn't all of them, you know, just running
brothels and being, being shittylawmen.
They did not just sentence in history during their Marshall
days as they happened to be the muscle in town when famous
(13:55):
American lawman Wyatt Earp made his ride through New Mexico
chasing the Cowboys he believed had murdered his brother Morgan
and attempted murder of his brother Virgil in response to
the killing of three Cowboys, which was the that was the
crew's name were the Cowboys. So before they were before they
(14:16):
were America's team, they shot some lawmen.
And that was at the the shootoutat OK Corral, the most famous
shootout of the Old West. I don't know much about that.
I, well, I read a little bit about it.
I don't know. I've listened to a podcast on it
actually too, like a deep dive into the shootout at OK Corral.
It lasted like 30 seconds. But like, people talk about it
(14:36):
all the time, people who are interested.
In well, was it super bloody? Like I think like 5 people died
so just as many people as the Boston Massacre so take it for
what you will. Lou and Samblanger were likely
part of the posse that protectedthe IRP crew when they passed
(14:56):
through New Albuquerque. Interesting SO.
You know, whatever that's something that would be on a
plaque in New Albuquerque probably exist.
Well, what else do they have That's.
All they got going for them. That being said, the Marshall
appointment only lasted 5 monthsand after that ended and over
the next six years, the bloggerskept on the move and stuck
(15:17):
mostly to running gambling hallsand prospecting.
Kind of around the South, the Southwest, before finally
settling back down in the main backdrop for today's story.
Denver, Co. Beautiful town.
I have not been. Me neither, but I hear it's
beautiful. You can't just say what are you,
(15:37):
a politician? Sound a beautiful place.
Beautiful place. Beautiful place, I love it here.
They have mountains. There.
I've never been there but I loveit.
I love it. I love the beautiful people of
Denver. Go Broncos.
Yeah, Denver was a big town, boasting a population of just
over 100 and or just under 107,000 people in 1890.
(15:58):
And that was just 14 years afterColorado gained statehood in
1876. And Lublonger got to doing what
he did best. He started running gambling
houses. And he, with Sam, opened up the
Blonger Bros gambling house on Larimer St. and eventually a
saloon, the Elite Saloon on Stout St. in 1889.
(16:23):
That latter one, I guess was famous for a very long time.
I, I don't think it's still standing, but I guess it had
like a really ornate like frescoed ceiling and was kind of
like a like a landmark for quitesome time in the gambling house.
Primarily they were running poker, which was developed here
in America, is very popular in in the the Wild West.
(16:45):
And they also were running some other card games like the French
game called Pharaoh, which I don't really know anything
about, as well as some dice games.
But they also started branching into some more illegal realms.
Believe it or not, since that's they're on the podcast, right,
they're running an illegal lottery dubbed as the policy
(17:06):
racket or numbers game that paidout on a daily basis.
And they at first, besides running gambling, which was
illegal, they also started separating suckers from their
money at first just by fixing the games they already had,
something that casinos can stillbe found doing to this day.
(17:29):
I mean, there's always a house edge, but they can find ways to
cheat you as well. But they also moved into the
realm of bunco games or big cons, which would become a
favorite of Lou Blonger. And at first when they were
operating these like gambling halls and salons, Lou was
actually working under a kingpinthat ran kind of the gambling
(17:50):
scene in Denver at the time by the name of Big Ed Chase, who
ran a place called the Palace Theatre, which was a vaudeville
theatre that also had like gambling, had a gambling hall
inside of it, kind of like Las Vegas.
Actually. They got like in theaters
combined with with a gambling area.
Ed Chase 3 decades prior it actually been on the Denver City
(18:12):
Council and saw to it that Denver stopped finding gambling
halls. And oh, they were fining them.
Yeah. OK.
So I mean, this is the 1800s. So like gambling is still widely
seen as kind of like immoral. So, and I talk about this later,
but it's like a lot of the timesit is illegal, but just like not
(18:35):
enforced. So and and it is the Wild West.
So it's just not as like governed at the time.
So like you. Had your local law, but like
government wasn't really a thingat that time out there so.
Yeah. So like it is illegal, but like
if the town council says like no, it's chill, then it's kind
(18:57):
of chill. They'll look away.
Yeah, it's just much more fluid.And he and he was, he saw to it,
he was on the council and he sawto it that they stopped finding
gambling calls. And then he started getting a
vice grip on the gambling in thecity, of course.
He was like, Oh well, once I start making money off of it,
that's right. Well, yeah, he had a he had a he
(19:17):
was biased. He had a vested interest in them
producing fines on gambling halls.
Not to mention he also had a hefty list of people on his
payroll to keep prying eyes off of his business anyway,
including many police officers and even the mayor of Denver who
received a huge 20% cut of theirhall to just like, not care
(19:38):
about it. It's good to see that some
things never change. Some.
Things just always stay the same.
And the corruption in Denver surrounding this was crazy and
stays crazy so. I believe that.
Lou did not originally do much work with Ed on the gambling
side. He was like involved in their
(19:59):
gambling hall. But primarily, what Lou did was
actually work. In order to keep the government
out of his business even more, he worked to help ensure that
elections went his way. And Lou was a vote fixer where
on election days they would kindof scrape up anyone they could
(20:20):
find. Drunks at the bars, people
sleeping on the street, general men of disrepute and transported
them to a polling station and then using bribery or
intimidation or both, they convinced these men to vote for
the candidates that were willingto look the other way on Blonger
(20:40):
and Chase's dealings and sway elections.
Fun fact this this is a a likelyway that Edgar Allan Poe died.
He was found just like in different clothes in a ditch and
then died. And they think that he was like,
forced to vote and like, beat upin Baltimore.
(21:00):
That I did not know that actually.
Fun random fact that I had hiding out when the blockers
opened their gambling hall. Originally they paid Chase a
part of their take and everything was kind of in
balance. But soon a fit of law and order
seized the city of Denver. The chief of police was replaced
with a man named Hamilton Armstrong.
(21:21):
Sounds like a just sounds like arule follower.
Yeah. And he was, he was not
interested in the bribes offeredto him to look the other way.
He was interested in enforcing the law.
There was like I think this is probably myth but there was a
story that someone was running like an illegal gambling hall in
their house and he broke in to to it while it was running and
(21:44):
without saying a word. Just like took an axe and
chopped up a roulette table. Called the Jesus at the at the
at the church where he started flipping the tables.
Yeah, That's that, like the market of Damascus.
Yeah. Or something flipping over.
Yeah. He came in and he axed up a
roulette table, supposedly. And like I, like I was
mentioning earlier, as far as I can tell, gambling wasn't really
(22:05):
legal per SE until much later inColorado's history.
Or like the town could make it legal but like it wasn't legal
in Colorado and it was I think it was more assumed it was
illegal until someone said it wasn't kind of thing ask for.
Forgiveness, not permission. A lot.
Of Bible references. That's not a Bible.
(22:25):
Reference, whatever. I even read the book.
I don't know what's in it. It was often looked away from
because what was the Wild West? And there was looked away from
because in what was the Wild West, there was a a deficit,
inadequate law enforcement. I mean longer like Sam and Lou
Blunger were literally lawmen. Like none.
(22:47):
They were the. Law enforcement six years.
Ago at this point just cause someone said like we need
someone you guys are good with. A gun, right?
They're like you'll do it. You guys can do it.
Great, you enforce laws. Now, wouldn't it be cool if
you're in your? You and your brother actually
played policeman for real and they're like fuck yeah.
Like hell yeah. And that's.
How you became the cops and it'sfunny 'cause they.
(23:08):
Actually, I didn't even mention it.
They had two more of their brothers joined them too.
They were like, see, they were like a whole brother.
Possible of of sheriffs and in in most places where the
gambling was good, the law enforcement could just get paid
off like because the people running it would have enough
money to give them good price. And at this time, there was a
big gold and silver mining boom that brought a lot of people the
(23:31):
area, some of which did get wealthy pretty quick and were
prime marks for these rigged gambling establishments.
And this new police chief just really believed in enforcing
these laws like I mentioned. And the Blonger Bros gambling
house was one of those that he actually shut down in 1892, just
(23:52):
a few years after it opened. Although they were allowed to
keep the elite saloon since it was, you know, just a saloon,
even though they also ran gambling games out of it.
I guess they were just did it more in secret.
And Armstrong also decided to target Big Ed Chase, and when
(24:13):
Chase tried to bribe him with a $13,000 bribe, a not
insignificant amount of money inthe late 19th century, you could
probably bribe. Me with $13,000 in the 20th
cent. 21st century like at this.Time it's got to be that's like
multiple year salary for sure, if not more.
It's a lot of money. But Armstrong was like, Nah, I'm
(24:35):
not taking that bribe and instead threw him in jail.
So with now this like big kingpin behind bars, there was
an open spot. Who's gonna be the new?
Kingpin to lead all the. Gambling in the city and and
Lube loner's right here. So he slot, he slotted it and he
just started taking over everything.
(24:57):
A few years later in 1895, gambling was made legal in
Denver, pushed by the City Council as a means to bring
money into the town. They basically said like this
brings money into Denver, so like allow gambling to happen.
And the gambling done at Lublanger's Elite became above
board once again. Well, except for the marked
(25:19):
cards and the load of dice they were using and their bunco
games. So let's finally get into what?
A bunco. Yeah, I have no.
Idea what this is, you did get the.
Reference about the dice game, right?
Like Bunco was a dice game I think I've heard of.
It, but I don't really know whatit is.
Yeah, you just like you. Take turns like rolling 3 dice
and like you want to get three of a set of the same kind like
(25:41):
on the round you're on. I don't know, it's something I
played as a kid. Sounds like Yahtzee.
It's a. Lot like Yahtzee.
Actually I played Yahtzee. So it it's.
Basically that but with three dice instead of 6.
But a bunco in this instance is when a mark is targeted and they
are persuaded to purchase something that's basically
(26:01):
completely worthless. And one of Blanner's favorite
fake things to sell were stocks.He would have people
eavesdropping throughout the city and these people were known
as ropers. These ropers would look for
wealthy tourists and even look through hotel registries for
anyone visiting Denver that theycould con.
(26:23):
They didn't want to con local people because one it kept the
police off their back because the police were more OK like the
the corrupt cops were more OK with them getting out of towners
than they were people from the town.
Just causes less headache and also like they just weren't
around to find you later. They they would have to leave at
some point so you could like steal their money and they would
leave. So after these ropers would find
(26:43):
these wealthy out of towners, they would then strike up a
conversation with them and lead them to the area of an office
that they had set up by kind of whatever means necessary.
And someone inside the office would then send out someone
called a spieler. And the spieler would do exactly
what their name suggests, talk alot.
(27:05):
Spielers were like the true con men.
They were like quick talking andthey were skilled in the arts of
persuasion. They would usually in this
instance, pretend to be like a famous stock analyst or just
like someone who has done reallywell, has made themselves really
wealthy in the stock market. And they would convince this
mark that they knew of a stock that was going to go up soon and
(27:26):
kind of be like, oh, well, you know, I know we just met, but
I'll be nice to you. Like this stock's going to going
to pop off. Like if you can invest, I would
invest now. And actually, there's a place
that sells stock right here in this office.
Oh, right here. That's right next door to us the
the building. Crazy almost came out of so the
mark would enter the office where a fake secretary would
(27:48):
sell them the fake stock that they had talked about, and then
by the time the mark realized that they'd that they'd been
had, the entire office would have been moved a pop up.
Shop really, and they'd be. Out there, hundreds or thousands
of dollars, and if they went to the police, the police were so
crooked that they would, that they would do like a fake
(28:09):
investigation, walk around town everywhere except for where the
office actually was 'cause they knew where it was and be like,
Oh, well, I guess they're gone just like not.
And then eventually they'd have to go back to wherever they're
from. Yeah, they'd just be.
Shit out of luck and they're just out all their.
Money. And from each scam, Blonger and
his representative at the scam, often his right hand man, a man
(28:30):
known as Kid Duffy, who was kindof like the muscle behind
Blonger's brains, would each get10%.
The Spieler would get 15%, and then the Roper and the secretary
would each get 5%. And then the rest would go to
cover expenses, including the $50 per week that Blonger paid
to many police officers on the force to look the other way.
(28:52):
No matter what the hall was, they got their 50 bucks a week.
This is just one example of manybunco games that were being run
all across Denver, and Lublangerended up being involved with
almost all of them. He rose to the top of an
organization of con men that ranthese bunco scams and their
ranks were supposedly 600 strong.
(29:13):
They had 600 con men running these kind of scams all
throughout the city and they allpaid a in just.
In Denver, this is just in. Denver.
That's crazy. And they all paid.
A town of only A. 107 thousand you have 600 running a scam
supposed. Not supposedly.
They did have they had, like, sister organizations in some
(29:36):
other cities, but this was, yeah, just 600 in, in Denver
alone. Crazy.
Lublanger also found other, morelegitimate sources of income.
In 1892, he and his brother finally had their prospecting
payoff when they found a gold mine, later to be known as the
Forest Queen, that provided themwith a steady income and also
(30:02):
provided a good cover for Blonger for all of his illicit
gains. You could just say, well, I'm
rich because of my gold mine. Even if the gold mine was like,
you know, it, it was providing them good money, but nowhere
near the money that he was actually making.
And he also, he just had this outward personality of like a
well to do mining magnet, which he lived up to perfectly.
And he put on a really good likepublic face.
(30:24):
I mean, he would donate to charities he owned, like a
cherry orchard, would donate like boxes of cherries to
charities. He would hand out like $20 bills
on the street to people around Christmas time.
Well, and $20. Back then, that's a lot of
money. No, it's good.
And he would hand deliver turkeys to poor families like
Scrooge. Like Scrooge at the end of the
(30:45):
movie. Spoiler.
Sorry, yeah, if you. If you ever got you haven't seen
a Christmas. Carol took Christmas Carol in.
Like the 100 years it's been around.
Sorry, but yes, he he does buy the Turkey at the end for that,
that that guy who works with himand and his, his little, his
little crippled Tiny Tim. Yes.
So crippled. Craig So that is.
(31:07):
Not his name. And it.
Shouldn't be? No, It's tiny.
Tim, but really most. Of his money was not coming from
the the gold mine, it was comingfrom the this bunker ring later
dubbed the $1,000,000 bunker ring.
But the name is actually a bit of an understatement, as the
schemes were raking in an estimated 1 to $3,000,000 per
(31:29):
year, which is 20 to $60 millionper year in today's money in
total. And despite these appearances,
he was a vicious criminal who had beaten and robbed many in
his earlier years under Ed Chase.
Like Kid Duffy was doing all like the beatings now, but he
(31:50):
was not. He wasn't a good guy.
Yeah, Lou Bloner was. Not a good He is a.
He is a long history of being anorganized criminal, and longer.
He had wrapped a chokehold on the city to the point that no
one dare challenge his authoritybecause everyone was on his
payroll and elected officials atboth the city and state level
were there partially because he had stuffed the ballots with
(32:13):
their names. They all owed fealty to the true
boss of Denver. And this went on for a good long
time. Decades, to be exact.
And when the Roaring 20s swept through Denver, Lublanger was
still king. That is, until Phillip Van Sis
(32:34):
came along. Phillip Van Sis.
Was a lawyer, World War 1 veteran, and an all around
incorruptible gentleman. Supposedly a lot of the
information about this comes from his book, so of course he
was an incorruptible gentleman. After practicing law for 11
years, he decided that he wantedto run for District Attorney in
(32:57):
Denver in 1920. His candidates in the primary
were backed by 1 by the Blonger gang and the other by a state
senator, which actually divided the vote so much that Seiss came
out as an underdog. As an.
Underdog winner in that primary,and after his victory, Seiss was
(33:17):
approached by the Inspector of Police saying that he can
introduce him to a man that heldat least 1500 votes that could
go Seiss's way in the race. And at first, Seiss didn't care
as he would get these offers kind of all the time.
Like oh talk to this person, he has influence, blah blah blah
blah blah. And he wasn't really much for
political schmoozing. But eventually he decided to
(33:37):
meet this person, and he was only mildly surprised that the
man who could get him the votes that was in his office for the
meeting was none other than Lou Blunger himself, now in his 70s,
getting up there. Blunger.
Had stated he would be happy to give the SEIS campaign $25,000
because Blunger was a veteran himself.
(34:00):
Sort of He, he. Played the fucking.
Fife, I'm sorry, that's kind of.Crazy that he looped through the
Civil War and World War One. I I know that they.
Weren't that far apart, but in my like, you don't really think
of them being that close together.
No, but. They were.
That's crazy. Yep.
But but yeah, veteran, once again, a little bit of a
(34:21):
stretch. You don't know.
What he saw on those battlefields Kashawn 3 weeks
with. His Fife.
He only had his Fife for protection.
It was 3. Weeks, I guess, to be fair,
Philip Van Sis was also. He was in like the National
Guard, he did. He was.
The National Guard is not a realbranch of the US military.
I'm saying that is. Often seen as, as a, they don't
(34:44):
see as much active combat as theother branches of the military.
And I think that's, that's a pretty fair thing to say.
But that being said, he actuallydid work as an intelligence
officer in France. Like he wasn't just like here in
America. He was actually over there, like
doing stuff. But Blahner said because he was
(35:05):
a veteran himself, he made the case that he wanted to support
the only veteran on the ballot. Seitz, however, knew who Blahner
was, obviously, and didn't want to take his money.
So he basically just said like, yeah, I mean, like, maybe, but
like, I want to pay for it myself 1st.
And then if, if I need it, I, it's nice to know that I can
reach out like basically like, fuck off, bro.
(35:26):
Then after some more small talk,longer went in for the hard sell
and said that, you know, sometimes, right, his business
associates that sell stocks, right?
They get misrepresented by some tourist who runs down to the
police station and the police just like they're like, uh, this
is, I got too much of my plate. Just put out an arrest warrant,
(35:46):
you know, So they'd get arrestedand get up and get put up on
bond and he'd have to go down tothe courthouse and pay all this
bond to get him out. And they never got convicted
anyway, right? So hey, Mr. Van Sice, if that
happens, can you just tell me that you'll just always give
them a bond of a flat $1000 and just call it done?
And Van Sice was like, well, I know that when these people are
(36:09):
scamming people out of money, it's like multiple thousands of
dollars, like into the 10s of thousands of dollars maybe.
So if you just had to come down and pay $1000 to get your boy
out, if he actually got caught, that doesn't really cut too much
into your bottom line. So you told him No, He said, I
(36:30):
think it's, I think it'd actually be nicer if just all
bond is set at twice whatever they're accused of stealing
'cause then you 'cause then, youknow, they they couldn't just,
like, use the money they got to get out.
Yeah. Oh, I'm sure he.
Did not. He did not.
Like that answer and and he quickly made an excuse to leave
the meeting and then started doing everything he could to
(36:53):
sway the election to the other side against him.
And 1st it. Looked as if the the same old
poll fixing tactics were workingon election night, but Seiss was
actually bolstered from a heavy turn out from the Denver suburbs
and went on to win the election and become District Attorney.
Afterwards. He quickly set about tearing
down the $1,000,000 Bunco ring. He couldn't really do it like
(37:16):
above board though because he couldn't mount a case using like
the police to investigate or with funding doled out by the
mayor. Because both the mayor and the
police, except for Armstrong whois still the chief of police at
this time, were on Blogger's payroll.
So he had to be a little bit more like creative.
(37:38):
About it. And actually, right, not too
long after his election, Armstrong also died of a heart
attack. So like his one, like the one
person the Police Department that probably wouldn't have
sided with. Him was gone.
So firstly, Seiss gathered information himself and made an
index of all the con men operating under Blonner, even an
(38:01):
index of of 600 people. Oh my God.
That's in the city that were. Connected to Blonner and he even
hired undercover detectives to infiltrate the ring and to pose
as like swindlers and con men themselves to send back data on
how the ring was running and Seiss was even known to root
through Blogger's trash regularly looking for evidence.
(38:23):
Did he have a? Warrant for that I mean.
So he he had talked to the governor and the governor did
back the investigation. He said go, he said go do it,
but he just couldn't do anythingwith like the municipal
government. So yes and no.
(38:45):
But I don't know what he found in the trash.
Maybe something the the most information he got though was
actually because he he found a way to plant an old timey bug in
Blogger's office. This thing called a dictaphone.
A Dictaphone. Dictaphone.
In his office so that he could listen in on his conversations.
Isn't that kind of like when youget an unsolicited Dick pic?
(39:07):
Dictaphone. It's the Dick to the phone.
Yeah, there was a. Joke in there somewhere.
You didn't find it, but there isthere is one in there somewhere.
I'm rusty, it's been 3 weeks. Everything falls apart in three
weeks. It's true.
This of course would not get approval from the mayor, right?
(39:30):
Because the mayor also doesn't want to get caught with
corruption charges. So instead, Seiss went around to
raise the money necessary for all this chicanery from the
wealthy philanthropist of Denverwho wanted to see their town
cleaned up from all of this bullshit that was going on.
And in the end, 31 of them decided to fund the cause.
(39:50):
So this was like crowdfunded he did.
The OG GoFundMe, yeah, which is crazy.
Meanwhile, Seitz disguised the money incoming from the mayor
and Blogger by pretending that it was money that he raised from
pious people to fund raids on brothels in the town, but
instead it was to take them down.
(40:11):
He also pulled a bunch of tactics to keep like head games
to keep longer thinking that he wasn't a threat.
Like he would purposely arrest con men that were in the ring
and then like accusing them of conning people and then pretend
that they fooled him into thinking that they were upright
citizens and then release them. Like just like, you know what?
You. Are a nice guy.
(40:32):
I'm so sorry. Yeah.
And then he would listen on the fucking on the recording phone
on the dictaphone being like to Blogger being like, this guy's
an idiot. He doesn't know what he's doing.
Like he literally arrested someone to just let him go and
he's just sitting there going like this is hilarious.
And also at the same time caughtBlogger being like these are
confident that he arrested. Then after gathering enough
(40:55):
evidence, Van Sis publicly announced that he was going on
an extended vacation into the mountains.
But in actuality, he never went anywhere and Blonger and his
gang thought that the only man in their way was out of town for
a month and they could just do whatever they wanted.
They let their guard down and that is when Van Sis pounced.
(41:17):
They had arranged for a previousvictim of one of these scams, a
man named Frank Norfleet, to parade around a hotel in town.
And since he was seen as an easymark because he had already fell
for another scam, he was quicklyreapproached by someone on the
Blogger gang. And when he was taken to the
stock office, the gang was arrested by 16 state troopers
(41:38):
that were given to Van Seis by the governor, including Kid
Duffy himself was arrested quickly.
They also arrested Lou Blonger as well as many others.
And by the end of it, 33 men satin a makeshift or in a makeshift
prison in the basement of a local church because they
couldn't have taken them to the police station cause the crooked
(41:59):
cops would tip off others in town.
This so they could skip and run away.
So they just took her to a basement.
To a church basement. In the trial that followed,
Longer was represented by a famous lawyer who argued cases
in front of the Supreme Court and even had a few, let's just
say sympathetic judges on his payroll.
(42:20):
So Lou was confident they soughtto interrupt the process by
filing as many motions as they could to delay the trial.
But eventually, the day came foropening statements.
And then day after day, the prosecution filled the witness
stand with the victims who told the story of how they were
(42:41):
conned out of their life savings.
In some, in some instances. I mean, there where were
multiple instances of people losing so much money that they,
like, committed suicide. Like, like, there was a lot of
bad fallout from this. And in the end, they had 100
victims shipped in to tell theirstories.
And their ace in the hole was a man named Len Rimi who worked as
(43:05):
a bookmaker for the Bunco Games and could identify directly how
Blonger LED up the ring of Cons and testified to that that all
of them were involved. What they did.
These testimonies went on for weeks.
I think 7 weeks of testimony is crazy.
And the defense mostly just usedthis time to name call and
(43:26):
assassinate the character of these people that were providing
evidence. But there was a lot of them.
And when the prosecution rested,the defense didn't call 11
witness. They just, they just, they just
closed. And I was like, OK, so it it
(43:47):
looked like a guilty verdict, like was inevitable, right?
And as it turns out, the defensethought that the trial was kind
of a mere formality because theyhad approached and bribed 4 of
the jurors to not convict him at$500 apiece, which is a lot for
just normal people. And one of the jurors, though,
(44:07):
he heard the pitch, he took the money, but then he immediately
informed the judge of the attempt and gave them the
$500.00. So good on that guy.
And then after deliberating for a long time, the jury still had
three holdouts who didn't want to submit a guilty verdict.
Wonder who those were or why they held out, huh?
And that is when that one juror who didn't take the bribe
(44:29):
publicly called them out on their shit in front of all the
jurors and said, like, somethingalong the lines of like, you
know what the difference is between you and me is that I
gave my $500 to the judge and you still got yours.
And they were like, oh, exactly.He said what?
And then after a little bit longer and a total of 102 hours
(44:49):
of deliberation, because at first the like the other people
after the bribe came out, the other jurors refused to call it
as a deadlock. They're like, no, we're staying
here until you decide to change to guilty.
And it took forever, 102 hours. And the jury handed out a big
old guilty verdict to the now 73year old Lublanger.
(45:13):
At sentencing, The Maine men, including Blonger, got handed 7
to 10 years while the others gotthree to 10.
Blonger, however, would not needall of those seven to 10 years
as just five months into a sentence at the the Colorado
State Penitentiary, he succumbedto old age.
And I think that the story and ramifications of what Lou
(45:36):
Blonger did is best summed up ina quote supposedly to Blonger
from Van Seis after Blonger was pleading to him for leniency in
sentencing because he would certainly die in prison.
Van Seis showed that Blonger's actions ruin people's ruin
people and even LED some to suicide when he said what
(45:59):
leniency have you shown to others?
What God have you worshipped except the almighty dollar says
something? And God you trust on it when
you. Stole Preacher Mana's trust
funds? Did you hesitate when,
overwhelmed with shame he committed suicide?
Did you give any aid to his family?
When you took the life earnings of Old Man Donovan of New
(46:21):
Orleans and reduced him from comfort to penury, what did you
do to ease the last months of his life?
You have been a criminal from the time of your youth.
You have been the fixer of the town.
You have prostituted justice. You have bribed judges and
jurors, state, city and police officials.
(46:42):
You have ruined hundreds of men.With that record, tell me why a
death sentence is not your due. And with that, I leave you on
the case of Lou Blonger and the downfall of the $1,000,000 Bunco
ring in Denver, Co in the early 1900s.
(47:04):
Been spending a lot of time around the early 1900s recently
you have. It was.
Freaking the Whiskey Ring This the murder of Henry of Harry
Cathaw or Harry Cathaw's murder of Sanford White?
I think we're out of that time period though now as far as I.
Know yes so it's been all it's been a lot of very historical
(47:28):
stuff recently, but I hope you guys have liked it if you did
like it right, you know there's ways you can show it normal
spiel man you can you can go to Spotify.
You can leave a rating, you can leave us a rating on Apple
Podcasts, whatever you can do toplease show us some love.
You can buy merch if you go to our website,
(47:51):
whitecollarsredhands.com. You can buy a sweatshirt.
They have hats now. You can buy a hat.
Yeah, a bag, a mouse pad, a bunch of shit, and I don't know,
go there, buy something if you want.
It's money. You know what merch is?
I'm not going to. I'm not going to keep telling
you. You can also interact with us on
our socials for while it's stillaround.
You can go to TikTok. White collars, redhead.
(48:12):
It's like what, 6? More days, a a little peek
behind. The curtain here, we're
recording this on the 14th. Yeah, five more it.
Goes up on. Friday, so by the time you're
hearing this, it's quite possible that TikTok is only
with us for two more days. So we're on there white collars
red hands. You want to go watch a video
before that's gone forever, but if you want to watch them
elsewhere or interact with us elsewhere, we're on Instagram at
(48:35):
white collars, under score red hands, Twitter or X at white
collars pod. We are also, am I forgetting
one? No Facebook that one
facebook.com/white Collars, Red Hands.
You also just go to our our website.
Like I said, you can message us through there.
There is a little contact us page that goes straight to our
(48:56):
e-mail White collars, Red hands@gmail.com.
You can contact us there. Submit an episode request for
the for this season or our our upcoming season.
Yeah, feel free to submit an episode for this season.
We try to do a fan submitted episode every season and we
could be doing yours as our nextone.
(49:17):
You can also just help us for free by telling a friend, you
know, people, the people that are listening to podcasts.
People always listen to podcastsand they're always looking for
more. So why don't, why don't you
throw our hat in the ring? White collars, red hands.
Let them know. You know what I think that's it.
I think that's it. It's been 3 weeks.
I'm forgetting how to do everything.
I was like Oh my God, how do I? How do I?
I guess I'll just stumble through this outfit.
(49:38):
It's not like learning. It's not like riding a bike.
It's not you. Do kind of forget.
Yeah, I'm bad at. Riding bikes too, so that
doesn't help. He did get a.
Concussion. Once I was on a scooter.
Though on a scooter, not on a bike.
OK, I'm yet to get a concussion on a bike.
One of these days, one of these days, I'll make him wreck stick
in the spokes. So thank you so much for
(50:00):
listening. And we'll see you next week on
another episode of White Collars, Red Hands.
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