After the Little Bohemia catastrophe, both J.Edgar Hoover and John Dillinger realized that they would have to make some changes, and fast. J. Edgar Hoover knew he was going to have to get rid of Dillinger, one way or the other, or else his fledgling agency would be disbanded as a waste of time and money. Dillinger knew he was going to have to retire from bank-robbing and disappear, or else he would wind up dead.

First, Dillinger had to get his hands on some more capital, to facilitate his "retirement". In March of 1934 he, Baby Face Nelson and some other members of the Dillinger gang knocked over the Security National Bank & Trust  Company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, followed several days later by the First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa. These heists made Dillinger about $20,000 richer. This is about a half-million dollars in today's money.

Unfortunately, a few days after Dillinger arrived in Chicago on April 9th, 1934 with Billie Frechette, she was captured by the Feds at a tavern. After arranging for his lover to be represented by Louis Piquette, Dillinger realized there was nothing more he could do for her. He paid an anonymous elderly couple, Mr & Mrs. G, $10,000 to drive him to California, where he began a new life as a grip (A grip moves sets, lights, etc) at the Warner Brothers film studio.

This solved Dillinger's problem, but not J. Edgar Hoover's. He was offered a way out of the Dillinger fiasco by Martin Zarkovich, a Chicago police detective, his lover, Anna Sage, the Romanian born Madam of a whorehouse who the authorities were trying to deport, and Dillinger's ubiquitous lawyer, Louis Piquette. All they needed to do was to find a way to bury Dillinger, or a reasonable substitute. This way, Zarkovich could get the $20,000 reward being offered to anyone who captured Dillinger, Anna Sage could stay in America, and Louis Piquette's most famous client would be safe forever. They just had to come up with someone who sort of looked like Dillinger, which they did, a small-time hood named Jimmy Lawrence. Actually, he didn't look that much like Dillinger, as we shall see, but the FBI just lied about it.

One thing we shall never know, because the documents have either disappeared or else never existed in the first place, is who knew what. Did J. Edgar Hoover know? Did Melvin Purvis know?  What is known is that Anna Sage took "Dillinger", along with one of her prostitutes, Polly Hamilton, to the Biograph Theatre, on July 22,1934 wearing a previously-agreed upon orange-and-white dress. (hence the "lady in red" myth) This was so that Melvin Purvis would know who Dillinger was. (of course this is where an inquiring mind would ask why Purvis would not be able to recognize Dillinger) As soon as "Dillinger" exited the theater, he was shot down like a dog, wounding several innocent bystanders. Modern forensics, applied to the death scene, prove that Dillinger/Lawrence was shot several times as he lay immobile on the ground. They were not taking any chances that this poor patsy was going to live and be able to say he wasn't Dillinger. Later, the FBI claimed that a loaded gun was found on the body, and this gun was displayed prominently at FBI Headquarters in Washington DC. Unfortunately, it was later discovered that the gun in question was not manufactured until five years after "Dillinger's" death.

When "Dillinger's" body was examined he was found to be tall, slightly heavyset, (Dillinger was of medium height and build) a victim of rheumatic fever, (a childhood illness Dillinger never had; his Navy physical examination papers prove this) the possessor of a fine set of teeth (Dillinger was missing an upper right incisor) with an olive complexion, black wavy hair, copious black body hair, brown eyes, and an enormous penis. Dillinger was blonde, straight haired, grey-eyed, had scanty body hair and was of an average endowment. He looked like what he was, a German-American. The dead man looked like what he was, an Italian-American. The lies began to fly thick and fast. Supposedly the reason the dead man did not resemble Dillinger was that he had had his appearance "completely changed" by plastic surgery (an impossibility, in the 1930's) and had dyed his hair black. The difference in the eye color, skin tone, penis size, etc. were marked down as "post mortem changes". When Dillinger's father/grandfather was shown his son's/grandson's corpse, he exclaimed, "That's not my boy!" Dillinger's sister/mother was more clever. She identified the body as being Dillinger's by a mark on the leg, rather odd considering that the corpse had been embalmed almost immediately. Billie Frechette, when interviewed shortly before her death, claimed that Dillinger had no marks anywhere on his legs.

This is the end of our story, a story of corruption, greed, murder and the birth of Big Government. Soon the process will be complete, and government agencies like the FBI will see to it that we are all continuously under surveillance, living in a state of perpetual fear.

J. Edgar Hoover became one of the most feared men in Washington, and used the FBI as his own personal fiefdom.

Melvin Purvis got fired.

Martin Zarkovich continued to the end as a crooked cop.

Anna Sage was deported back to Romania.

Polly Hamilton changed her name and dissappeared.

Louis Piquette served a two-year jail sentence rather than divulge his clients' secrets.

Baby Face Nelson was gunned down on November 27, 1934 by Federal agents outside of Chicago, Illinois

Billie Frechette served two years in Federal prison for harboring a criminal. Frechette had two subsequent marriages and died of cancer at Shawano Indian Reservation on January 13, 1969

John Dillinger worked for Warner Brothers and as a grocer. His date of death is unknown. 

Once upon a time in America, at the height of the Great Depression, a group of famous criminals and lawbreakers threatened to throw the country into anarchy.  This led to the establishment of the FBI, which has now in our day mushroomed into a huge, incompetent and corrupt government agency. In Dillinger's day it was a small and incompetent and corrupt government agency. There are many untruths and myths circulating about John Dillinger, "Public Enemy Number One".  The reasons for this will become clear as we explore the truth about his "demise" and miraculous "prison escapes".  These falsehoods were invented by the FBI, to cover their backsides. 

John Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903 in Brightwood, Indiana.  He grew up in nearby Mooresville where his father, an old and strict man. disciplined him harshly.  He was an indifferent student, but loved sports and playing pool, which he often skipped school to do.  Dillinger hated the isolation of the farm, especially after his sister was married.  Local legend has it that his sister was in point of fact his mother, of which we will hear more later.  Not seeing much of a future in the area, Dillinger joined the Navy, but deserted almost immediately and returned home, where he married a girl named Beryl Hovious.  Both the marriage and Dillinger's efforts to hold down a steady job were complete disasters.  Being very much at loose ends, Dillinger agreed to participate in the mugging of a Mooresville grocer with a pal.  What made the crime especially stupid was that Dillinger was in and out of the grocer's shop every day and was immediately arrested for the crime as the grocer recognized him on sight.  Dillinger's father was horrified by his son's delinquent behavior and made his son appear in court without legal representation and throw himself on the mercy of the court.  He received a 20 year prison sentence , whilst his slick friend pled guilty with the aid of a lawyer and got only two years.  

This draconian prison sentence added much to the legend of Dillinger and was featured heavily in newspaper editorials of the day pondering how a farm boy like Dillinger could become a notorious criminal.  A motion picture was even made on the topic, called "They Made Me a Criminal" and starring John Garfield.  Dillinger was paroled in 1933 after serving nine years of his sentence at the Indiana State Prison.  By this time he was basically a hardened criminal and had embraced a life of crime, serving apprenticeships  with such famous "yeggs" (bank robbers) as Harry Pierpont and Russell "Boobie" Clark.  He learned everything from them that they could teach him, and after his parole managed to smuggle guns and money to them inside the prison in a box of thread ordered for one of the prison workrooms, allowing them to make their escape.  This was how the Dillinger gang was formed.  Altogether gangs led by Dillinger robbed about a dozen banks and stole over $300,000 dollars, an amount equivalent to over 5 million dollars in today's money. 

Within four months Dillinger was back in jail in Lima, Ohio but this time his criminal pals reciprocated and sprung him out of jail, murdering the jailer Sheriff Jessie Sarber in the process.  Most of the gang was recaptured again in Tuscon, Arizona , after which Dillinger was sent to the "escape proof" Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana to face charges in the murder of Officer William O'Malley during a bank robbery in East Chicago.  To this day many members of Dillinger's family as well as his fans (yes, he has fans) swear that that Dillinger was not only innocent of this crime but was not even in East Chicago when it occurred.  During his brief time between incarcerations, Dillinger had acquired two essentials for a real "yegg", a completely crooked lawyer with mob connections called Louis Piquette and a flashy "gun moll" named Billie Frechette, who was half American Indian.  Billie would shock people to the core as she traveled about with Dillinger, wearing a beret, a tight sweater and slacks, her black hair bobbed and marcelled and her face heavily caked with make-up. Most people at that time had never seen a woman in slacks. 

Many people have heard and believe the absurd story that Dillinger was somehow able to carve a gun out of soap or wood and stain it black with shoe polish, which he used to escape from the Crown Point Jail on March 3,1934. How he would have gotten soap, wood, a knife, or shoe polish into the tiny holding pens at Crown Point (It was just a holding facility, not a prison with workrooms and tools) and created this false weapon while being observed constantly by five warders is never explained. Of course the crooked lawyer Piquette bribed Dillinger's way out of Crown Point Jail, using Dillinger's ill-gotten gains from his bank robberies.The false gun story was invented to protect his jailers from reprisals.

Dillinger and his gang then decided to take a much needed rest from bank-robbing at a resort called the Inn at Little Bohemia.Somehow Melvin Purvis, the white-haired boy of the newly formed FBI run by the notorious J Edgar Hoover was tipped off to the presence of the Dillinger gang at the Inn. The first thing the incompetent Purvis did was shoot three innocent people sitting in a car in front of the Inn. They then spent hours strafing the Inn with gunfire, wounding several people. Of course Dillinger and his gang had escaped long before out the back door of the Inn.They went to local farms and took cars, often giving the farmers money for the vehicles.

The public outcry over the Little Bohemia disaster was of course incredible. People expressed admiration for Dillinger as a sort of "Robin Hood" figure as in Depression America there was no institution more despised than the banks, which seemed to exist simply to foreclose on people's homes and farms. John Dillinger and Billie Frechette, with their flashy clothes and cars, seemed quite glamorous and sympathetic figures, especially compared with the dour Melvin Purvis and J. Edgar Hoover, who shot down innocent civilians trying to enjoy a duck dinner at a lakeside inn. The public called for the heads of Purvis and Hoover, and the immediate disbursement of the FBI as a fascist and un-American institution. The pressure was racheting up.

                                     TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK 

Marion Jones, former five-time Olympic medalist, was sentenced to six months in jail last Friday at the courthouse in White Plains, New York for lying to Federal prosecutors about her use of performance enhancing drugs. District Court Judge Kenneth Karas imposed the sentence after Jones pleaded guilty to charges that she committed perjury and used steroids. Jones begged not to be separated from her infant son, whom she is still nursing. The judge remained deaf to her pleas, saying that athletes are role models for children and that she broke a sacred trust. It was a humbling comedown for the woman who once appeared on the cover of "Vogue" and commanded millions of dollars from endorsements. She is now to all accounts and purposes, broke and has a criminal record to boot.

Are you listening, Fraudger?

It is an amazing thing to sit back and watch a man, a man I have loathed for years, a man I saw as a bully and a liar, a man who would regularly take himself out of games where he was not doing well with "a groin pull" or some such nonsense, whereas a real champion would have to have had the baseball pried out of his fingers, a man who blamed every pitching loss on his teammates, claiming that he had gotten no "run support", destroy himself with such reckless abandon. Does he WANT to be publicly destroyed and humiliated, and then wind up in prison?

In the first place, the man is too much of a flaming loudmouth and idiot to hope to get away with bucking the Feds. Ask Martha Stewart how well that worked out for her, Rog. She's basically a loudmouth and bully too, but she has some brains. You, if it weren't for MLB and that right arm of yours, would be sitting on the steps of your trailer in Katy, Texas, polishing your tooth.

Let's talk about the mistakes you've made already. Even though you were only up against the pathetic 89-year old zombie Mike Wallace, who kept looking throughout the entire interview as though his nose was about to fall off, to be followed in quick succession by his left arm, you made the statement that if anyone had given you syringes and drugs, they should come forward. Five minutes later you were babbling about how Brian McNamee had given you drugs (of course you lied about what type of drugs they were, falling back on the moth-eaten Rafael Palmiero vitamin B-12 myth) and injected them with syringes. Well, Roger, I guess someone did give you drugs and syringes, and unfortunately for you they did indeed come forward- to the Feds. As far as the lidocaine nonsense goes, I still feel my guess is correct. Since lidocaine is a topical pain killer used to dull the pain of the jab of the needle during injections, I feel that McNamee used it to kill the pain of the steroid or HGH injections. Clemens saw the bottle, and that's where he came up with the name. We're not talking Dr. Kildare here.

Then there was the disaster of a press conference with the surreptitiously taped phone call to McNamee, obviously a broken man, who had called to ask Clemens to speak to his dying son. Clemens then stormed out of the room saying that he did not give a "rat's ass" about being in the Hall of Fame. He better not. I would say that his chances right now of being elected are about as good as Adolf Hitler being posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  

Of course, Clemens called out Senator Mitchell and Congress, and since then the news for him has been bad, all bad, although he is such a moron he probably hardly realizes it. First, Congress postponed its hearings "to gather more evidence". When you are as guilty as Cain, as Clemens is, that is the last type of statement you want to hear, as it implies that there is lots more evidence out there- and I am quite sure there is. They have already interviewed Brian McNamee a second time. Secondly, Congress is not granting Clemens immunity for his testimony. If he lies to them, which he has shown he obviously will, he will have committed perjury, and off to prison he will go. Thirdly, these hearings will be conducted in camera, with lawmakers and Federal lawyers meeting with the players one on one. It will not, in other words be a joke, like the last hearing was, with Sammy Sosa and his immortal performance: "Me no hablo Ingles. Yo no speekee Espanol either". It will be an interrogation by a bunch of lawyers, like a cross-examination during a criminal trial.

I'm not sure what a top-class lawyer would advise Clemens to do at this point, as opposed to the small town shyster that he hired. He has lied to the press and the public but as of yet has not actually committed perjury under oath. I guess he'd have to drop the defamation suit against McNamee, cooperate with Congress and name names. Of course he will do none of the above. Doesn't Clemens get that Marion Jones went to prison for perjury, that Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury, and that if he lies in front of Congress, he will be indicted for perjury? None of these people got into trouble for taking performance enhancing drugs, just for lying about it.

The truly interesting thing about all this is the complete public rehabilitation of Jose Canseco. Of course anyone even remotely connected with athletics knew that Canseco was telling the truth, both in his book, "Juiced" and in his testimony before Congress, but the public abuse he took from columnists, talk-show hosts and other ball players who were angry at him for breaking their code of omerta was incredible. Now he is spoken of as something of a seer. I feel there is an important lesson here for Roger Clemens. Listen well, Roger, and tell the truth. In the end, it always will out.