led by Jimmy Hines, who in May 1938 was arrested and indicted, with eight other defendants, on thirteen counts of conspiracy to run and promote Schultz’s numbers racket. Hines’s eight co-defendants included George Weinberg, Schultz’s business manager and brother of the gang’s chief hit man Bo, whose disappearance Schultz had engineered several years earlier. An eerie presence hovered, like Banquo’s ghost, throughout the proceedings: it was Dutch Schultz.
Dew ey and his team had built an impressively solid case against Jimmy Hines, who was by then aged 62 and an unlikely looking villain with his white hair and genial yet unassuming manner. George Weinberg, the principal go-between for the Schultz organisation and Hines, told the court he had first met Hines in 1932 when he was ordered one night to pick up the politician and take him to a conference in Schultz’s apartment. There Schultz told Hines he wanted protection, in particular an assurance there would be no arrests of the top men in his policy operations and a guarantee that any cases involving his men would be dismissed if they reached the magistrates’ courts. When Hines assured Schultz he would take care of all that, the gangster handed $1000 to Hines, and then instructed Weinberg to pay Hines $500 a week and “any other reasonable amounts up $1000.” These weekly payments continued from 1932 until the end of 1935 and were recorded on the policy’s payroll as expenses, entered either under “J.H”, “Pop” or “the old man”.
From the outset, Hines delivered without fail. If ever a Schultz employee faced criminal charges, his case was adjourned until Hines arranged for it to be heard by one of his two “tame” magistrates, Judge Francis Erwin and Judge Hulon Capshaw, who would dismiss the cases or issue a modest fine. On one occasion Weinberg was in a restaurant with Hines when they bumped into Judge Capshaw. When Hines mentioned that he had “a very important policy case” coming up in front of him, asking Capshaw “would you be able to handle it for me?” The magistrate promptly nodded, saying: “I have never failed you yet. I will take care of it.”
Only a word was needed from Hines for heads to roll, especially in the New York police department. When “Boss” John Curry, the retired former leader of Tammany Hall gave evidence, he revealed a standard procedure for dealing with police who cautioned or arrested too many of Schultz’s associates. First, George Weinberg would call Hines, complaining about those policemen’s behaviour. Then, Hines phoned Curry, identifying the troublesome officers. Curry rang the Police Commissioner asking for those men to be taken off their beat, and the commissioner forwarded the message to their commanding officers. Even senior detectives, some with distinguished arrest records, were demoted and transferred to a “safe” beat. As the weeks progressed, it became clear that Hines was the orchestrator of the whole conspiracy. After Hines went onto Schultz’s payroll, the arrest record in one police division which had been as high as about twenty per day, dropped instantly to eight, and sometimes only four a day. By the end of 1932, arrests were few and far between.
The extent of Hines’s power was also clear during the 1933 election of Thomas Dewey’s predecessor, former New York district attorney, William Dodge. That year, when it seemed possible the next New York mayor might be Fiorello La Guardia, enemy of all organised crime, Dutch Schultz began to fret about not having “the right kind of guys in high office in town.” Weinberg recalled Schultz saying to him: “we have to concentrate on the D.A more than anything else.” Again, Hines proved to be Schultz’s saviour, assuring him that William Dodge, a former magistrate, was the man for the job. As Hines reportedly told George Weinberg: “I want William Dodge because he is stupid, respectable and my man.” At the trial, Dixie Davis
Dew ey and his team had built an impressively solid case against Jimmy Hines, who was by then aged 62 and an unlikely looking villain with his white hair and genial yet unassuming manner. George Weinberg, the principal go-between for the Schultz organisation and Hines, told the court he had first met Hines in 1932 when he was ordered one night to pick up the politician and take him to a conference in Schultz’s apartment. There Schultz told Hines he wanted protection, in particular an assurance there would be no arrests of the top men in his policy operations and a guarantee that any cases involving his men would be dismissed if they reached the magistrates’ courts. When Hines assured Schultz he would take care of all that, the gangster handed $1000 to Hines, and then instructed Weinberg to pay Hines $500 a week and “any other reasonable amounts up $1000.” These weekly payments continued from 1932 until the end of 1935 and were recorded on the policy’s payroll as expenses, entered either under “J.H”, “Pop” or “the old man”.
From the outset, Hines delivered without fail. If ever a Schultz employee faced criminal charges, his case was adjourned until Hines arranged for it to be heard by one of his two “tame” magistrates, Judge Francis Erwin and Judge Hulon Capshaw, who would dismiss the cases or issue a modest fine. On one occasion Weinberg was in a restaurant with Hines when they bumped into Judge Capshaw. When Hines mentioned that he had “a very important policy case” coming up in front of him, asking Capshaw “would you be able to handle it for me?” The magistrate promptly nodded, saying: “I have never failed you yet. I will take care of it.”
Only a word was needed from Hines for heads to roll, especially in the New York police department. When “Boss” John Curry, the retired former leader of Tammany Hall gave evidence, he revealed a standard procedure for dealing with police who cautioned or arrested too many of Schultz’s associates. First, George Weinberg would call Hines, complaining about those policemen’s behaviour. Then, Hines phoned Curry, identifying the troublesome officers. Curry rang the Police Commissioner asking for those men to be taken off their beat, and the commissioner forwarded the message to their commanding officers. Even senior detectives, some with distinguished arrest records, were demoted and transferred to a “safe” beat. As the weeks progressed, it became clear that Hines was the orchestrator of the whole conspiracy. After Hines went onto Schultz’s payroll, the arrest record in one police division which had been as high as about twenty per day, dropped instantly to eight, and sometimes only four a day. By the end of 1932, arrests were few and far between.
The extent of Hines’s power was also clear during the 1933 election of Thomas Dewey’s predecessor, former New York district attorney, William Dodge. That year, when it seemed possible the next New York mayor might be Fiorello La Guardia, enemy of all organised crime, Dutch Schultz began to fret about not having “the right kind of guys in high office in town.” Weinberg recalled Schultz saying to him: “we have to concentrate on the D.A more than anything else.” Again, Hines proved to be Schultz’s saviour, assuring him that William Dodge, a former magistrate, was the man for the job. As Hines reportedly told George Weinberg: “I want William Dodge because he is stupid, respectable and my man.” At the trial, Dixie Davis
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