Getting a "button" by doing the "unthinkable"

[Villain]

Whats up fellas?! This week i have another interesting anecdote for yall regarding one fella who allegedly received his "button" in a different way, meaning he did some things which caught the eye of one of the most notorious criminal bosses at the time, and was quickly brought in the organization.

In 1927, Chicago received one of the most corrupt mayors in the history of the United States, who went by the name of William "Big Bill" Thompson. He served as Mayor for the next four years and became the real face of corruption by being publicly connected to some of the most notorious local gang leaders at the time, especially Al Capone, thus giving him unlimited power both in the upper world and underworld.

Besides all the power, on October 6, 1930 the wife of the Mayor of Chicago, Mary Thompson, went to see a show downtown together with her sister. Mary always dressed very well and also wore many expensive jewels on her neck and wrists that worth thousands of dollars.

When the show ended at around 11:00 pm Mrs. Thompson's driver, a known Chicago police officer, picked her up outside the theater and drove her home. When the driver pulled up at the apartment building, at 3100 N. Sheridan, Mrs. Thompson got out of car and started walking towards the building's front door.

Suddenly three men stepped out of a Nash automobile, pulled out their pistols and attacked the driver. They kicked him several times and one of the attackers kept the him on the ground with a pistol on his head, while the other two forced the Mayor’s wife into the building, pressed their guns against her forehead and told her to give them all her jewels.

The criminals took off in their car and got away with 6.5-carat blue diamond ring, a 40-diamond bracelet, and a diamond brooch set.

Mrs Thompson obviously became a nervous wreck and when the police came and asked her about the robbers, she gave the description of a tall handsome and good looking youth with blue eyes and brown hair. In no time, the street cops suddenly realized that the person involved in the robbery was alleged 42 gang member Sam Battaglia.

Mayor Thompson quickly called the chief of police and demanded immediate action. Later the cops arrested Battaglia together with one of his close associates William Carr, who in turn was also an alleged member of the 42’s and was allegedly involved in many robberies and murders. Also arrested were John “Red” Carr, who was William’s brother, Maurice and Richard O’Connor, Sam Mesi and Joe Catrina.

The trial for Battaglia was quickly set that same month but there was a problem. The court bailiffs were unable to obtain service on Mrs. Thompson, who was wanted as a main witness. Mrs Thompson told the bailiffs that she was allegedly very ill and could not make it to the trial.

With or without her positive identification, Sam Battaglia still appeared in court on October 10, 1930. There were numerous newspaper headlines before the trial and also pictures showing Battaglia’s face. So when Mrs. Lottle Brenner, the wife of the fake “count” Von Buelow, saw Battaglia’s face she immediately called the detectives and told them that she was robbed for $50,000 in gems some months ago and that Battaglia was the one who did it.

Mrs. Brenner also insisted that her case should take precedence over Mrs. Thompson’s case because the loss was larger. But Mrs. Thompson was the Mayor’s wife so Mrs. Bremmer’s case was placed on halt.

During the trial Mrs. Thompson did not testify, but her driver Policeman Peter O’Malley did. But the problem was that his testimony was challenged by Battaglia’s lawyer Julius Reznik. Reznik said that first O’Malley reorted that he wasn’t quite positive about Battaglia being one of the robbers but later changed his mind that he was not.

Reznik accused O’Malley that he was just a puppet for Police Commissioner John Alcock and was forcibly influenced to make the identification. Reznik also said that he’s going to bring 6 witnesses to the bench on behalf of Battaglia just to prove that he wasn’t at the crime scene.

Than Judge John Lyle turned to O’Malley and told him “I appreciate your position but I don’t want you to get in any trouble. I don’t want you to identify anyone for your chief in order that he can just clean a robbery”. The witness and the prosecutor protested but it was too late. Whether he was telling the truth or not, O’Malley has been compromised.

Also, maybe Battaglia had some backing or maybe he really had a good lawyer, because in the end he was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and the missing $17,000 jewels were never recovered.

Now, the next "unthikable" situation occurred just few weeks after his acquittal, when Battaglia was riding in a car together with Joe Catrina, Phillip Epstein, Daniel Clementi and Joseph Pupeel, and this wasn’t some ordinary ride down the streets of Chicago because the boys had a plan to do a robbery on a restaurant at W. Randolph St.

In fact the boys knew that at the back of the restaurant there was a high stakes card game made of some "important" politicians and government commission men. The problem was, according to reports, some “stool pigeons” previously overheard their plans about robbing the restaurant and already relayed them to the police.

So before they arrived, the cops were already in the joint and waited for the robbers to appear. When the gangsters arrived in front of the restaurant, Battaglia remained at the wheel and all of his four associates got out and went in the place with their guns on point.

Suddenly all hell broke loose with the sounds of a wild revolver battle with the police. When the smoke cleared one innocent pedestrian was killed. It was 55 year old Leonard Sanor, a wholesale egg dealer of Los Angeles, who happened to be at the wrong place in the wrong time.

Battaglia allegedly rode off in panic, crashed the car through a display window and ran out on foot. All four of his associates were arrested and taken into custody. On December 1, 1930, Battaglia was also taken to custody and was kept for over a month on suspicion that he was involved in the murder. After that Battaglia was released from custody on the lack of evidences and there were also reports for possible police corruption.

Because of the Battaglia cases, Mayor Thompson started receiving “hits” from his opponents that this was utter disregard for the political structure in Chicago.

Legend goes that after all of this trouble, Al Capone sent some of his henchmen to locate Battaglia and to bring him alive. So the guys allegedly brought Battaglia in front of Capone, who instead of killing the young hoodlum, he allegedly took him into the organization by making him a made member of national Cosa Nostra organization.

It seems that Capone always had the likes for indivuduals who had the balls to do something unthinkable or something which no hardcore member of the organization wouldve ever done it, especially without the approval of his boss.

Another example previous of Battaglia's was Murray Humphreys, who during the late 1920s allegedly hijacked some of Capone's trucks on his own will, and so he also ended up before Capone and was absorbed in the organization. As a matter fact, during the early 1960s, the feds picked up one convo between Battaglia and Humphreys in which they used to remember on how it was during the so-called Capone days.