Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen (35 page)

Blonger's longtime rivalry with Denver's other big swindling fish, Soapy Smith, came to a head one day in 1895. Soap and his brother, Bascomb, liquored up and frustrated with their own gang's eroding powers, bulled through a number of establishments along the Larimer Street saloon district. Soapy was on the warpath for Blonger and anyone else he perceived as a threat.

The men left behind a trail of wreckage, thrashed a saloonkeeper, and came seconds from receiving a shotgun blast by Lou Blonger himself, who'd crouched behind the bar when the Smith brothers stormed into his establishment. The police intervened just in time, and shortly thereafter Soapy and gang vacated Denver for good, leaving the town wide open to Blonger's operation.

Long before the Blonger brothers arrived in Denver, they had already led lives brimming with adventure and excitement. Lou had been in the Civil War, wounded as a fifteen-year-old fifer, before striking west from the family homestead in Wisconsin (where they'd moved from Vermont when Blonger was a lad of five).

From there he met up with Sam, who had spent years traversing the West as a guide, a miner, and a lawman. The two brothers threw in together and became saloonkeepers and lawmen, and they invested in mining ventures. For several years they were well-regarded lawmen, notably in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While there they helped Wyatt Earp and his fellow vendetta riders who were on the lam from the law in Tombstone after tracking down and killing men responsible for Earp's brother's death. All the while, the Blonger brothers kept up a lifelong interest in gambling, specifically in rigging games, a mercenary and satisfying method of padding their wallets.

So when they arrived in Denver in 1888, they did so with thick wallets and a passel of life experience. Their first order of business was to open a modest-size saloon, offering libation, all manner of gambling tables, and a number of women to ensure patrons' glasses stayed filled, among other duties.

From this lone initial venture, the Blonger boys parlayed their growing fortunes into a number of saloons that eventually gave way to the crown jewel of them all, the Elite Saloon, the fanciest such establishment in all of Denver. With mahogany fixtures, frescoed ceilings, marble floors, a cafe—and offering patrons a shot at every popular vice of the time—the Blongers struck gold with the Elite.

Despite his considerable wealth and power, Lou, the savvier of the two brothers, nonetheless suffered periodic business-related setbacks through the years. The most devastating came in 1897 with the foreclosure of the Elite. Such a blow would defeat lesser men, but not so with Lou Blonger. The setback only seemed to make him more determined and resilient.

Every time his bank accounts dipped into the red, he put more pressure on his network of con men and turned up a fresh crop of rubes. As famed swindler and showman P. T. Barnum is reputed to have said, “There's a sucker born every minute.” There couldn't be enough of them to satisfy Blonger's rapacious desires. Frequent newspaper reports told of a handful of his organization's victims. One such was the sad story of Harry B. Waldorf, who killed himself while visiting Denver after he'd been duped by Blonger's men out of $400, then forced to sign checks his account could not cover. Waldorf had been distressed over the thought that his predicament would bring disgrace to his family. The article pointed the finger squarely at Blonger.

Through the years the Blonger organization increased its influence on city politics and was eventually able to rig entire elections. One of his men voted for four candidates more than a dozen times each, all in the same election. Multiply such efforts by a couple of hundred employees and you have a recipe for a cooked election.

Blonger also used extensive lists of citizens, living and deceased, to rack up votes for whichever candidates he deemed worthy of holding office. It was not uncommon to see Denver policemen ushering people to polling places. As long as a vote was cast, it mattered little to anyone in Blonger's employ whether they were willing, qualified, or had already voted. Blonger's compensation was the knowledge that city hall remained in his back pocket, useful to a man who might require a favor at any time.

Blonger's prime years as a Denver crime boss were punctuated with episode after episode of blatant graft and corruption. From pick-pocketing summer tourists on a Denver street to shaking down city hall officials, crimes occurred with fast-paced regularity—and brought in big bucks. Enough cash rolled in that Lou was able to spend winters in Florida, soaking in the heat, while his minions performed admirably in his stead.

Over time, however, Lou Blonger's meticulously crafted empire began to crack under the weight of its own bloated corruption. Still, Lou was able to maintain his grip on the city's throat—at least until 1920, when idealistic District Attorney Colonel Philip Van Cise assumed his new post.

Blonger should have known change was in the air when he tried to bribe Van Cise with campaign funds and votes while the man ran for the job. Van Cise refused Blonger's assistance, which he knew would lead to one very bad thing—a professional life stunted and filled with degrading bowing and scraping to the crime boss. When Blonger approached Van Cise with his proposition, Van Cise, a straight arrow, warned Blonger that he intended to pursue and prosecute him and his grimy pals to the fullest extent of the law. That was all the fair warning he would give. It was up to Blonger to heed it.

But of course he didn't. Why would he, especially when he held city hall in a grip of fear? But Blonger hadn't counted on the old truism, “You reap what you sow.” He had spent much of his life in Denver swindling money from people, many of whom were affluent enough to take the sting and lick their wounds, chastened and perhaps wiser. But a good many more of Blonger's victims were poor saps whose lives were made all the poorer after a run-in with his men.

It is true that Blonger and his henchmen never forced anyone to take the bets offered, never forced them to buy into a deal that seemed too good to be true. But once someone did, there was no quarter given. Take George Kanavuts, a Greek immigrant with a poor grasp of English. He was sucked in for much of his savings, $25,000, through a fixed stock-market scam run by Blonger's men. He complained to the police but was rebuffed because the police were on Blonger's payroll. Instead of giving up, Kanavuts turned to District Attorney Van Cise, and his case added welcome fuel to Van Cise's steadily growing bonfire.

Van Cise built up his case against Blonger and his boys in a methodical, studied manner. Since he was well aware that much of Denver's police force was beholden to Blonger in one way or another, Van Cise sought private donations to help fund a covert investigation of the criminal's empire. It took him a year, but he built a bullet-proof case against Blonger that included rummaging through the con man's trash, locating spies on street corners, and planting a Dictaphone, as hidden surveillance, in Blonger's office. Back in his own office, Van Cise fed false information to a corrupt police officer he had planted there—an ingenious way to directly mislead Blonger's gang.

Finally, by the summer of 1922, Van Cise used that corrupt policeman to leak something as seemingly mundane as his own vacation plans. The subtext of the news, however, was that Van Cise intended to lessen the heat on the gang while he was away. Soon, Blonger's con men roved Denver openly, bilking and fleecing and filching to their heart's content.

What they didn't know was that Van Cise was still on the case, ready to spring his biggest trap yet. And he used the fortuitous appearance of a Texas rancher named J. Frank Norfleet, who had been fleeced twice by gangsters affiliated in a roundabout way to the Blonger crowd. Norfleet, in Denver seeking information that might lead him to his own quarry, was only too happy to help DA Van Cise expose the nest of swindlers.

Van Cise planted this easy, out-of-town mark in the lobby of the now-famous Brown Palace Hotel and waited. And he didn't have to wait long. Norfleet, disguised and going by the name “Mullican,” was soon buttonholed by a pair of Blonger's men, who commenced to embroil him in a phony stock scam. Norfleet's involvement was enough to lure a number of Blonger's cronies out of the woodwork and the trap was tripped early the following day.

The first two people arrested at sunrise were Lou Blonger himself, and his right-hand man, Kid Duffy. Their offices were cleaned out and boxes of incriminating evidence were unearthed and hauled off—a boon to Van Cise's office. The rest of the day was a busy one for the DA's handpicked task force, which included a small selection of trustworthy Denver policemen, as well as a number of Colorado Rangers. By the end of that first day, they had rounded up thirty-two more gang members, and they treed more the following day. In an effort to tip off as few of Blonger's still-at-large cronies as possible, Van Cise imprisoned the gang in a church basement and not at the city jail.

Blonger spent the months leading up to the trial working his minions from every angle, threatening to kill men who might turn state's evidence, splashing out with lavish payoffs to bribe others to stay away. His logic was simple and sound: If DA Van Cise couldn't get anyone to testify, he couldn't land that all-important conviction. But it didn't work that way. Blonger's long and wormy reputation caught up with him. Victims came to Denver from all over the United States—one man even made the trip from England. They rejected Blonger's blood money, his threats and bribes, and his foot stamping. And they testified.

Blonger even tried to implicate Van Cise himself in a scam by importing a fetching lady from New York City to entrap the DA in a compromising position in a hotel room. Van Cise refused to rise to the bait. And the woman, who'd been set up in plush digs and paid $2,000, took the money and skipped town.

The trial proved to be a huge affair that garnered national press coverage. It involved tight prosecution and defense teams, heated debates, and fistfights in the courtroom. Van Cise himself engaged in fisticuffs from the bench, and after being barred from court, merely orchestrated his case from the more-useful location of his office.

Backed into a corner, Lou Blonger, the old grifter, resorted to the only thing that had ever worked for him. He did his unlevel best to buy off the jury. All he needed was one juror in his pocket to disrupt the unanimous vote required. Blonger's luck, it seemed, was about to change. Of the twelve jurors approached, he managed to buy off three. But a fourth, an Irishman named Herman Okuly, took the money he was given—$500—and turned it over to the judge, then told the DA's office about the bribe. Oddly enough, he was allowed to remain a member of the jury.

In court, Van Cise revealed how, between the years of 1919 and 1921, the Blonger organization made several million dollars through scams large and small. His case was helped mightily by Blonger's bookmaker, fourth-in-command Len Reamey, who spilled a whole lot of beans on the stand. He explained the intricate details behind the organization's systematic bilking of hundreds of victims.

The testimony portion of the trial lasted seven weeks, during which Blonger's attorneys shocked the assemblage by refusing to present a single witness. They also offered a proposition to the prosecution—send the case straight to the jury without either side offering a closing argument. Though this was unheard of, Blonger's attorneys were gambling on the fact that, as far as they knew, they had three jurors in their pocket. The prosecution, confident in its case, agreed to the odd terms and the case was handed to the jury.

For five long days the twelve men deliberated. Time and again, when a vote was held, they came up with nine for conviction, three for acquittal—the same three who had been paid off. The fourth, Okuly the Irishman, finally admitted his attempted bribe to the other jurors and told them: “The difference between me and you three . . . is that I got my $500 but turned it over to the judge, and you've still got yours.”

That meant that nine of the jurors, Okuly included, were honest, and three were bent by bribe. The nine worked day after day on wearing down the three corrupted jurors. And one by one, they turned. The last, a man named Andrew Frank, took the most convincing. And even back in the courtroom, when each jury member was polled, Frank dragged his feet until finally the judge nailed him down to a commitment of guilty.

As with all the victims whose pathetic stories bubbled to the surface, Lou Blonger himself begged DA Van Cise at the eleventh hour to abstain from sending him to prison. Have a heart, have leniency, he said. I'm old and unwell. To which Van Cise, ever the straight arrow, offered his now famous reply:

What leniency have you shown to others? What God have you worshipped except the Almighty Dollar? When you stole Preacher Menagh'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 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. You have ruined hundreds of men. With that record, tell me why a death sentence is not your due?

And with that, the seventy-four-year-old Lou “The Fixer” Blonger, already in fragile health, arrived at the Colorado State Penitentiary on October 18, 1923. He served just six months of his seven-year sentence for conspiracy and fraud, dying of organ failure on April 20, 1924.

INCURABLE CON MAN

Big Ed Burns's life story reads like a bad joke. Surely no one could get himself arrested as many times as he! Yet throughout his roughly seventy-six years, Edward “Big Ed” Burns was a train wreck of a man, arrested and incarcerated numerous times on all manner of charges, in states north to south, east to west. At times he was in the chips, boss of his own roving gang of con artists, at other times he was penniless and alone.