Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Were you involved in the Patterson-Johansson fight deals with Salerno? Did you introduce Salerno to William Rosensohn, who was supposed to be the promoter of that fight? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. And did you so testify before the New York grand jury? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Do you know Frank Erickson? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Did you have a meeting at a time when Frank Erickson, Rosensohn, and Salerno were together in your suite at the Hampshire House in the fall of 1958 or early 1959? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Is Tito Cabinci one of your men and works for you? Mr. BECKLEY, I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Do you know Lefty Rosenthal? Mr. BECKLEY. I respect fully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Did you talk to the policeman at the time that the policeman made the arrest of Mr. Rosenthal at his apartment? Were you in Cincinnati at that time? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. The CHAIRMAN. Are you the one who said, "You dumb so-and-so"? You are not the one. Let us proceed. Mr. ADLERMAN. I can see he is going to take the fifth amendment. I do not think there is any point in asking him any further questions. I would like to ask him one question. Do you control any of the gamblers around Fort Leonard Wood? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it would tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Do you have a handbook operation in that area? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Do you work with Dave Goldberg in St. Louis? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it may tend to incriminate me. Mr. ADLERMAN. Do you lay off between yourself and Dave Goldberg in St. Louis? Mr. BECKLEY. I did not understand. Mr. ADLERMAN. I say do you lay off any bets with Dave Goldberg or accept any bets from Dave Goldberg? Mr. BECKLEY. I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that I fear it would tend to incriminate me. The CHAIRMAN. You may stand aside. The Chair is filing at this time, and I will not take time to read it, a closing statement, a copy of which is being made available to the press and a copy of which has been submitted to my colleagues on the committee. As further information for the record, a check of the record reflects that during this series of hearings a total of 78 witnesses have appeared, other than members of the staff of the committee, and of the 78, 33 have taken the fifth amendment. Notwithstanding that, I think, in many instances their failure to testify has been almost as revealing, certainly in some aspects as if they had testified. But it just points up the difficulty that we are having in this country in enforcing the law. I am not complaining about the fifth amendment. It has its proper place. But when we have a line of fifth amendment witnesses like this in an area where we are now conducting this investigation, along with the other evidence that we have that is positive, and that which is circumstantial, it presents a pretty sordid picture of conditions in this field of activity and certainly indicates that legislation is needed wherever legislation might serve to remedy these conditions that have been revealed in the course of these hearings. The closing statement I referred to will be printed in the record at this point. I am not taking the time to read it. (The statement referred to is as follows:) During the last 3 weeks this subcommittee has heard convincing evidence that sports handicappers and horse race result operators are supplying an intelligence service that is indispensable to the professional gamblers, the fixers, and the bookmakers. Without this speedy flow of race and sports information the Nation's bookmakers are now receiving in a national telephonic network, it obviously would be most difficult, if not impossible, for these racketeers profitably to sustain their multibillion dollar betting operations. In turn, these information operators rely on the patronage of professional gamblers and bookmakers to exist. We have seen, in fact, how the handicappers of sports events often and finally set their odds on orders from big layoff gamblers and banking bookmakers. Many of these wire service operators and handicappers have claimed in the past they were simply honest businessmen selling their services to anyone who would buy. They said they did not even know the identity of their customers. Indeed, those few witnesses we have had from this so-called business who did not take the fifth amendment-and they were a small percentage tried to claim innocence. We now know, from the testimony, that this assertion of legitimacy and respectability is, in many instances, false and fraudulent. Instead of being legitimate businessmen there are strong indications that many of these wire service operators and handicappers are active participants in a network, a syndicate, an organization-call it what you will-of professional gamblers and racketeers. Some members of this network, moreover, are plainly seeking to corrupt, for their own self-enrichment, not only law enforcement officers but even the players on our college and university athletic teams. The testimony regarding the accused fixer, gambler, and handicapper, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, provides us with a sordid example of the crooked and contemptible operations in which some of these characters engage. Mr. Rosenthal, accused in this hearing of offering a $5,000 bribe to a University of Oregon player to throw the Oregon-Michigan football game last year, clearly is not a lone operator. He has national ties with handicappers, bookmakers, and professional gamblers. We have had testimony, for example, that Mr. Rosenthal, Gilbert Beckley, Maurice Dodson, K. Barney Levine-all big layoff operators from various sections of the country-communicated with Athletic Publications, the handicapping service run primarily for bookmakers by Leo Hirshfield of Minneapolis. Mr. Rosenthal, moreover, is an intimate and former handicapper of Bill Kaplan, operator of another handicapping service, the Angel & Kaplan Co. Mr. Rosenthal is extremely close to Gil Beckley of Miami Beach and Newport, Ky., reputed to be one of the Nation's biggest layoff bookies. Obviously, the Congress has a duty to study thoroughly the nature and extent of the activities which the testimony in these hearings has disclosed. It has the further duty of legislating in this field within the limitations of its constitutional responsibilities. Also, new legislation is needed to strengthen the law regarding excise taxes on the gross bets of bookmakers, who now are defrauding this Government of billions of dollars in taxes. The entire field of organized crime and gambling involving interstate activities calls for adequate laws that will rid us of the racketeers, corrupters, bribers, and other criminal elements that infest our society. Senator MUNDT. I would like to express the hope that the concealment of criminal activities by the fifth amendment witnesses should be due notice to the law-abiding people in the communities from which these people come, and the law enforcement officers generally, that these characters would bear watching, and that if the law enforcement officials, supported by an alerted public opinion, exercise due diligence, there is no question in my mind that most, if not all, of them can be found guilty of illegal practices and can be brought into courts of law, where they can be punished despite their refusal to testify. These hearings would be pretty futile if all we would do is to listen to a lot of people conceal their iniquities behind the fifth amendment. But they can be most productive, provided an alerted public opinion and an aggressive and diligent corps of law enforcement officials take this docket of fifth amendment characters, shadow them, watch their activities, move against them and catch them redhanded in their corrupt procedures, which it certainly would be relatively easy to do. All they need to do is to consult the replete evidence in our records to know the operations going on in these various communities, and certainly they can find a way then to bring before the bar of justice these people trying to corrupt the morals of America. I think our committee in this connection has fulfilled its obligations, and the public and the public officials involved must carry on from here. The CHAIRMAN. To my colleagues on the committee, who also have cooperated with me and have made quorums and participated in this hearing, I want to express my personal thanks on behalf of the committee. I want to express the thanks to the members of the staff who have participated in this investigation, a number of whom have testified here today. I submit the list for the record of the staff members and also we wish to acknowledge the cooperation and express our appreciation to a list of agencies and individuals who have cooperated with us in these hearings and made it possible for us to secure much of the information that we have been able to produce. These will be inserted in the record: The Office of the Attorney General of the United States. Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Treasury Department, particularly the Internal Revenue Service and its Intelligence Division. The Attorney General of the State of Florida and through his cooperation, Assistant Attorney General Leonard Mellon and Chief Investigator Martin Dardis. Florida State's Attorney for Dade County Richard E. Gerstein. Daniel P. Sullivan, director of the Miami Crime Commission. Dade County Department of Safety, particularly Lt. Frank Kappel of the intelligence division. New York Police Commissioner Michael Murphy, who made available to the staff the assistance of Detectives Cyril Jordan, Thomas O'Brien, and Joseph Corrigan. New York District Attorney Frank Hogan and his chief assistant, Al Scotti. New York State Commission of Investigation and Commissioners Goodman Sarachan, Jacob Grumet, and Myles Lane, who appeared before this subcommittee. Virgil Peterson, director of the Chicago Crime Commission. Capt. Arthur Newton, Rhode Island State Police. Deputy Commissioner John J. Slattery, Boston Police Depart ment. The CHAIRMAN. I may say there will be further hearings, I am confident, at some future time. We are approaching the close of the session of Congress, and I cannot now fix any date when hearings may be resumed. The committee stands adjourned until further notice. (Whereupon, at 5:53 p.m., the hearing in the above entitled matter was adjourned.) |