My Sportsman of the Year: J.T. Barrett
December 5, 2014Tampa Bay Rays hire Indians coach Kevin Cash as new manager
December 5, 2014It was comical, the way some of the public testimony contrasted with the erudite proceedings.
Interrogator: “The Cincinnati newspapers run advertisements as to the gambling places open for business (just across the river) in Newport (Kentucky).”
Subject: “I never read them.”
Okay.
Interrogator: “(So: you are) the only man in that entire vicinity who didn’t know that any taxi driver could take you to a selection of five or six gambling joints.”
Subject: “I never ride in a cab.”
The scene was the committee hearings on organized crime, in 1950, spearheaded by U.S. senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. These were the result of several post-World War II newspaper and magazine articles that began to expose mob activity in the United States. This was when the mafia first entered the American consciousness. (Browns fans know that Mickey McBride, Cleveland business magnate and first owner of the Browns, was one of those called to testify. He would not be implicated in criminal activity.)
Of course, the mob and the U.S. government had collaborated- let alone coexisted- in the years prior to the hearings. An example was when notable mafia boss Lucky Luciano cooperated with the U.S. Navy during the war. Italian-American fishermen and dockworkers had been suspected of sabotaging shipping, perhaps in support of Italy’s Benito Mussolini. A case in point was the SS Normandie, which had been a French luxury liner before undergoing conversion to a troop ship in 1942 by the U.S. (It had recently been recommissioned as the USS Lafayette.) While being retrofitted, the liner caught fire and capsized in New York harbor.
The U.S. Navy appealed to Lucky Luciano, in prison at the time. Opinions vary on Luciano’s influence over the dock workers, but if sabotage had occurred, it apparently came to a stop. In return, Luciano was granted release from prison and deportation to Sicily.
Luciano and other mafia bosses, such as Vito Genovese, also provided crucial aid to the American invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) during the war. They furnished detailed topographical and coastal intelligence, as well as the assistance of interpreters.
In the states, organized crime also enjoyed cooperation with various local governments. The subject of the interrogation referred to above was Newport, Kentucky Police Chief George Gugel. His feigned ignorance dripped with the smug arrogance of the mid- twentieth century mob.
Newport’s history of vice had its origins with the Civil War, when the U.S. Army built a barracks there. Prostitution and gambling followed.
Cincinnati itself was once a hotbed for the mob activity of crime and corrupt public servants. Most of that got pushed across the river, to Newport, by the 1920s.
In the Kefauver hearings, Cleveland Director of Public Safety Alvin G. Sutton testified that ex-bootleggers such as Morris Kleinman, Lou Rothkopf, Moe Dalitz and Sam Tucker were driven out of Ohio in the 1940s by Ohio governor Frank Lausche and The Untouchables’ Eliot Ness. Driven from Cleveland, but just across the border, but still operating in Ohio’s back yard.
Known as “Little Mexico” since wanted criminals could walk the streets with impunity, even Newport’s stores and barber shops were populated with slot machines. Citizens assumed they were legal. Public figures sought to be seen by local voters in gambling and prostitution houses.
Northern Kentucky politicians wore the labels of “Liberals” and “Conservatives.” However, these monikers didn’t carry the same meaning that they held elsewhere. Rather than a holder of progressive opinions, a “Liberal” was a man who would not interfere with gambling and prostitution.
Public servants were also identified by whether they favored “bust-out joints” or “clean operations.” “Bust-out joints” were smaller, crooked, and usually run by locals. “Clean operations” were more likely run by out-of-state mobs.
The world of vice just across the river from Cincinnati was so hard-wired into the political structure of the region that it remained intact for more than ten years after the Kefauver Committee disbanded.
♦♦♦
Coach Frank Leahy once called backup quarterback George Ratterman “the greatest all-around athlete in the history of Notre Dame.” Ratterman was drafted into the NFL in 1948, and bounced around among several teams.
In 1952, Ratterman was acquired by Paul Brown as a backup to quarterback Otto Graham. Known at the time as the “highest paid bench warmer in the game,” Ratterman was heralded for a game he entered in 1954, when Graham was injured. In a rout that still boasts the team’s widest margin of victory, the Browns defeated the visiting Washington Redskins 62-3.
Otto Graham retired for good after the 1955 season, and the starting quarterback position fell to George Ratterman. 1956 was a tough year. The Browns finished at 5-7-0, after only losing 17 games over the entire previous ten seasons.
The 1956 season was notable for the Browns’ experimentation with the use of a radio in the quarterback’s helmet. Paul Brown enjoyed varying levels of success through the exhibition season, and broke it out in the regular season against the New York Giants. His plans were foiled as the Giants monitored the coach’s transmissions and ran them by reserve player Gene Filipski, who translated the play calls (Filipski had recently been with the Browns). The Giants were ready for anything the Browns ran, and the experiment was shelved. The NFL outlawed the use of the helmet radio – for 38 years.
When the Cincinnati native retired from football, George Ratterman joined a local investment firm. Meanwhile, his in-laws were involved in a grass-roots effort to clean up organized crime in Northern Kentucky.
Previous attempts at reform had been unsuccessful. One tactic that law enforcement used was when reformers insisted on a gambling house bust, police would also raid a bingo event at a local Catholic church. This turned public sentiment against the reformers, since much of Newport was Catholic.
Other tactics included the element of shame. Once, Police Chief Gugel was being tried for some charge related to his being complicit with the local climate of vice. A well-known stripper interrupted proceedings and spoke as an old friend to the reform leader pushing for the discipline. Another time, a minister voiced his support for reform. He was eventually drugged, and photographed with a barely-clothed woman sitting on his lap. These tactics worked, and foreshadowed a highly public, future showdown.
In 1960, George Ratterman joined his in-laws as a member of the reform group Committee of 500, which had started as a fund raising organization in support of ministers who fought organized crime in the wake of the 1950-1951 Kefauver Committee. The group convinced the high-profile Ratterman to run as an independent candidate for sheriff. It was a big deal at the time: local Protestant clergymen swung their support to a Catholic candidate for the first time ever.
Ratterman’s wife was against him running. He publicly acknowledged that he would be a target of attacks and abuse as he jumped into the race.
The day after he declared himself a candidate for sheriff, a past football teammate of Ratterman’s at Xavier University contacted the former quarterback. Tito Carinci had consulted with Ratterman on stocks and bonds purchases in the past, and he wanted to meet with him again. A mutual business acquaintance facilitated the meeting; they shared drinks at the Terrace Hilton Hotel in downtown Cincinnati. Ratterman remembered having one drink there, before “everything became a blur.”
Ratterman remembered being in an apartment, and being so weak that he couldn’t help but lie down on a bed. He was aware of some commotion, and the presence of a woman in a red dress. Someone pulled at his clothes…
The apartment was Carinci’s. It was at the Glenn Hotel, in the same building as the Tropicana Hotel in Newport. The Tropicana was one of the more notable strip clubs.
At 2:30 a.m., the Newport police department received a phone call, asking for Detective Pat Ciafardini. Ciafardini was not on duty, but hey – he indeed was there at headquarters. Ciafardini spoke briefly on the phone, hung up, and announced that he’d just received a report of prostitution. “Ratterman involved.” Ciafardini joined the detectives.
The police report stated that Carinci tried to keep the detectives from boarding the elevator at the hotel. When they arrived at the room, they found George Ratterman and a woman together in bed, partially undressed. They took the sheriff candidate to the station and booked him. Also booked was the woman, known “professionally” as “April Flowers.”
Ratterman was released on bail by his attorney, and driven home. The next morning, his wife remained concerned over his lingering groggy state. She was also highly suspicious of her husband’s arrest. She called their doctor, who had him brought to the hospital to get blood and urine samples. The results of the lab tests were that Ratterman had chloral hydrate in his system: “knockout drops;” it was the key ingredient in a classic “Mickey Finn” drink used to incapacitate victims.
The trials for Ratterman and Juanita Hodges (April Flowers) were so crowded that they were moved to a larger venue. The detectives provoked laughter when they testified that they had never seen gambling at the Tropicana. Their case fell apart when Ratterman’s doctor described his finding chloral hydrate in his blood the next day – not to mention the testimony of the photographer who was hired to record the bust. The case was dismissed.
Ratterman still suffered efforts to discredit him. Rumors were spread that Mrs. Ratterman’s sisters were Newport prostitutes. There were overt hints that the lives of the Rattermans and their children were in danger. The public profile of the ex-professional athlete helped to ensure their survival.
George Ratterman was elected sheriff of Campbell County, Kentucky. Almost immediately, virtually all of the gambling operations in Newport, Kentucky vanished.
Public opinion on organized crime in Northeast Kentucky changed. State authorities began a full court press on the gambling houses, and began prosecuting some of the law enforcement officials who’d overseen the culture of vice for so long. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy cited Ratterman’s ordeal as he ramped up federal opposition to organized crime across the country.
Gambling in Las Vegas, Nevada was legal, and starting in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it had increasingly taken a chunk of the 1.2 million visitors who had gambled annually in Newport, Kentucky. (Actually, the first nine Vegas casinos were said to have had ties to Newport- and ultimately, the Cleveland mob syndicate.)
Eventually, George Ratterman became a pro football TV commentator for ABC and NBC, frequently with Jack Buck and Charlie Jones.
Ratterman died in 2007, as he neared his 81st birthday. Due in part to years of stagnant riverfront development in Cincinnati, Newport gained momentum in recent years. Restaurants, an aquarium, a convention center, and various other entertainment venues have grown in the spots where the gambling houses once thrived. Even the lingering strip joints- the destination of hundreds of bachelor parties in recent decades- have become increasingly marginalized.
In 2002, a local developer revived the Tropicana name. He flew in some of the principals who were involved in the 1961 George Ratterman bust. This time, there was no need for a raid.
6 Comments
Damn, they started toying with using radio in a QB’s helmet in 1956? Love the Brownie Elf and also, is this really
this dude’s throwing motion? Byron Leftwich thinks this is silly.
Ha.
Here is info on the radio helmet. The original is on display in Canton.
https://waitingfornextyear.com/2014/10/paul-brown-radio-helmets-nfl/
fantastic. all that is missing is some off-the-wall quote. Did he ever say something like “After having to replace Otto Graham in Cleveland, taking down the mob was easy” or something similar? If not, can we pretend?
Would not have been out of character. He was a joker-type of player. Once s rookie came out to the huddle with a play sent by Paul Brown. GR told him to go back and get another one- he didn’t like that one. They had to stop the poor guy. Would not have gone well w/ PB. Another time, he & others were on a crosswalk. A car was in the way. They opened the rear door, crawled through and out the other side. He said his kids were confused about his first name. They thought it was Wewant. Since he was a backup, the crowd would chant “We want Ratterman. “
The Desert Inn was definitely tied to the Cleveland mob. The Wynn and the Encore now stand where the D.I. was built. At least they are first class joints and treat their customers relatively well. And their golf course is fabulous.
As a Cincinnati resident now, I can attest to how much Newport has changed for the better in the last 20 years. It’s a popular and even family friendly scene nowadays.