Speaker 1: Novel.
Speaker 2: I read a lot of romance novels. People have a
Speaker 2: tendency to make fun of them, mostly because it's a
Speaker 2: genre largely targeted towards and written by women. Romance novels
Speaker 2: are full of hope, humor, and yes, sometimes there's really
Speaker 2: steamy sex. You like dragons and elves. You want to
Speaker 2: know what it looks like when a whole hockey team
Speaker 2: finds love. Maybe you'd like a fictionalized version of an
Speaker 2: amish courtship, or what would it look like for a
Speaker 2: rabbi to fall for a former sex worker. Romance has
Speaker 2: it all, Pumpkin. There's even a world where Italian gangsters
Speaker 2: learn there's more to life than money and violence. I'd
Speaker 2: actually never read any mafia romances before I came across
Speaker 2: you his story, so I figured i'd pick up a
Speaker 2: few for research purposes. Of course, I asked my Twitter
Speaker 2: followers what they liked about mafia stories and got a
Speaker 2: variety of answers. People are fascinated by the strong sense
Speaker 2: of loyalty, the found family narratives, and the protectiveness, plus
Speaker 2: the secretive nature of the community. And there's much to
Speaker 2: be said about size stepping government overreach. Everybody loves sticking
Speaker 2: it to the man. Add in the mysts about Italian men,
Speaker 2: their appreciation for good food, good living, and good loving,
Speaker 2: and well, it can be hard to resist a good
Speaker 2: mob romance. A lot of these images that feed into
Speaker 2: the lore of gangsters were shaped by Eunice and Dewey's
Speaker 2: conviction of Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 3: Okay, a brief synopsis of America's fascination with the Italian mafia.
Speaker 2: If I may.
Speaker 3: In the nineteen thirties, when the Lucky Luciano trial first
Speaker 3: started to hit the local papers, life imitated art and
Speaker 3: aught imitated life.
Speaker 4: In those days.
Speaker 2: Until the trial of Lucky there may have been rising
Speaker 2: public panic about the seeping influence of crime and corruption
Speaker 2: on American life, but the gangsters themselves.
Speaker 3: American people started to pick up sympathy for these guys.
Speaker 3: You've got this crazy dichotomy between people fascinated with the
Speaker 3: mob and people who hated and feared the mob. For
Speaker 3: very good reason.
Speaker 2: We can thank Hollywood for that.
Speaker 3: Those early gangster movies were based on real life crime figures.
Speaker 2: In the early thirties, Hollywood is turning out film after
Speaker 2: film about anti hero gangsters. Whether it's Edward g Robinson
Speaker 2: playing Rico in the nineteen thirty one movie Little.
Speaker 5: Caesar Allison Rico.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna talk to you, but you're not gonna hear
Speaker 6: a word I say.
Speaker 2: That would have been al Capone.
Speaker 3: This is inside dope, and if it gets out, it'll
Speaker 3: be just too bad for somebody.
Speaker 2: Or Humphrey Bogart as Duke Manty in The Petrified Forest,
Speaker 2: released in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 5: If you'll think I was kitten when I said I'd
Speaker 5: be glad to knock you up.
Speaker 3: People all love The Petrified Forest because that's Dilinger. You know,
Speaker 3: Bogi really nailed it.
Speaker 6: You're all right, Paly, I got good ideas. I'll try
Speaker 6: that picture soos that don't hurt.
Speaker 3: By the early thirties, it di was kissed that people
Speaker 3: wanted to see the gangsters.
Speaker 2: The government, unsurprisingly doesn't like this.
Speaker 7: The gangster is being seen as the hero. We've got
Speaker 7: to stop that. We've got to stop that.
Speaker 2: So the government starts promoting their own style of hero
Speaker 2: in films.
Speaker 3: Now we're going to make movies about g men, you know,
Speaker 3: government men, the FBI agents.
Speaker 2: I don't think the public ever really bought that. After all,
Speaker 2: having the law as Heroes doesn't exactly fit with most
Speaker 2: people's experiences.
Speaker 7: The general attitude towards criminality come nineteen thirty three as well.
Speaker 7: The gangsters in fact that in many ways they're better
Speaker 7: than the police. At least they're not being paid by
Speaker 7: the state. They're not taking money and being paid by
Speaker 7: the state, so they're cleaner than that.
Speaker 2: Then there's Dewey, with his investigation into the Mob. This
Speaker 2: mustachioled crusader works hard to frame Dutch Schultz and then
Speaker 2: Lucky Luciano as public enemy number one. Dewey does start
Speaker 2: to have some success here changing public attitudes. He begins
Speaker 2: using radio broadcasts and newspaper headlines, and the hype of
Speaker 2: Lucky's trial helps chase away any lingering doubts the public
Speaker 2: may have about how bad the Mob is. By the
Speaker 2: time of the guilty verdict, the legend of Lucky Luciano
Speaker 2: and his downfall is being broadcast triumphantly across America. The
Speaker 2: gangster who revolutionized the mob has been taken down the
Speaker 2: boss of bosses laid Low, the original godfather. But even
Speaker 2: as Lucky is led away from that courtroom in handcuffs,
Speaker 2: people are already starting as to question the lines between
Speaker 2: the truth and fiction.
Speaker 8: Lucky Luciano, who is this guy? Who was he for real?
Speaker 2: When it comes to unicon Dewey's prized mob conviction? Is
Speaker 2: it possible the whole story of Lucky is a fraud?
Speaker 2: From the teams at iHeartRadio and novel I'm Nicole Perkins
Speaker 2: and this is the Godmother, Episode seven Disorganized Crime. On
Speaker 2: June eighteenth, nineteen thirty six, twelve days after Lucky Luciano
Speaker 2: was found guilty on charges of compulsory prostitution, he returns
Speaker 2: to court for sentencing Dewey, Lucky, and the other co
Speaker 2: defendants pushed past the crowds and step into the Manhattan courtroom.
Speaker 2: There they all stand before Judge McCook, a judge you
Speaker 2: might remember who had been specially appointed to take on
Speaker 2: organis crime.
Speaker 8: They were set on putting these guys away for as
Speaker 8: long as they could, particularly Luciano.
Speaker 2: A few weeks ago, Lucky had been all arrogance and
Speaker 2: swagger as he took to the stand in that same courtroom.
Speaker 2: But if he'd been surprised by the jury's eventual guilty verdict,
Speaker 2: it was nothing compared to his slack jaw shock. As
Speaker 2: Judge McCook reads his sentence aloud to the courtroom.
Speaker 4: Holy Toledo for prostitution, you're giving me a life sentence.
Speaker 8: Lucky Luciano took the harshest term from Judge McCook.
Speaker 4: Thirty to fifty years in prison. It was a life sentence.
Speaker 2: Once all sentences have been handed out, Lucky and the
Speaker 2: other defendants are taken away for processing.
Speaker 8: It was quickly determined they needed to be split up
Speaker 8: and sent to different prisons so that they couldn't reorganize
Speaker 8: this sex trafficking gang.
Speaker 2: Lucky heads upstate to a prison on the Canadian border,
Speaker 2: up the river.
Speaker 6: As they say, he wasn't taken down by taxes like
Speaker 6: al Capone or Waxi Garden. He wasn't shot in the
Speaker 6: head by arrival like Dutch Schalt. He was brought down
Speaker 6: by a bunch of two bit hores. Most men in
Speaker 6: the underworld insisted it could not be true.
Speaker 2: In the end, it's the women who bring Lucky low.
Speaker 2: Lucky might be down, but he and his team of
Speaker 2: expensive lawyers are far from done because, let's face it,
Speaker 2: the prosecution's case hadn't exactly been watertight.
Speaker 7: At best, questionable, if not don't right illegal.
Speaker 2: So as that summer of nineteen thirty six passes, Lucky's
Speaker 2: team starts to work on their appeal in an attempt
Speaker 2: to swiftly free Lucky from his new home up the river.
Speaker 2: And while they're working on that, what is Eunice Carter
Speaker 2: doing what she does?
Speaker 9: After Luciano's trial, Thomas Dewey's team continues to investigate organized crime.
Speaker 2: She and Dewey are back in their office on the
Speaker 2: Woolworth Building's fourteenth floor. She was a relative rookie when
Speaker 2: she joined Dewey's investigation, But Eunice Harbor's ambitions of becoming
Speaker 2: a judge one day It's a lofty goal on any scale,
Speaker 2: let alone for a black woman in the footheels of
Speaker 2: a vast mountain of systemic racism and sexism in America.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't be surprised if Eunice thought why not?
Speaker 2: Her career as a prosecutor was off to the best
Speaker 2: possible start with a high profile Lucky conviction. It's easy
Speaker 2: to imagine Unice back in her office desk, light burning
Speaker 2: her eyes as she goes back over every piece of
Speaker 2: evidence in preparation for Lucky so appeal. She has to
Speaker 2: know everything will be called into question. It was her
Speaker 2: original work that got the conviction in the first place.
Speaker 2: She may not have received kudos in public, but if
Speaker 2: Lucky won his appeal, the prosecution's loss will definitely have
Speaker 2: her name all over it. By nineteen thirty seven, Lucky's
Speaker 2: lawyers think a do over might be imminent. There was
Speaker 2: one obvious weakness in his original conviction.
Speaker 6: The witnesses the Underworld had a strong self interest in
Speaker 6: pressing the narrative that these women were unreliable witnesses.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just what the witnesses had said on the stand,
Speaker 2: it's the way Eunice and Dewey had coaxed that testimony
Speaker 2: out of them in the first place.
Speaker 10: So they were effectively held against their will in communicado
Speaker 10: unlesson until they cooperate.
Speaker 2: Lucky and his team are well aware of just how
Speaker 2: shady the coercion of testimonies had been from the witnesses.
Speaker 2: In fact, most of America is becoming aware. The public
Speaker 2: has been reading a slow trickle of allegations that had
Speaker 2: found their way into the newspapers. Some of the witnesses
Speaker 2: who had cooperated with the prosecution are now talking to
Speaker 2: reporters about their experiences. I wonder if Dewey's composure cracks
Speaker 2: away from the courthouse as he reads the newspaper over
Speaker 2: his breakfast each morning. Maybe he worries his mustache into disarray,
Speaker 2: wondering who could be leaking all of this information. Readers
Speaker 2: aren't just learning about brutal coercion. Eunice and Dewey may
Speaker 2: have turned the bad cop dial up a little too high,
Speaker 2: but they'd also been using the good cop routine.
Speaker 6: It is certainly true that the ones who were willing
Speaker 6: to talk were given special treatment. They didn't have to
Speaker 6: stay necessarily in the jails. In some cases, they were
Speaker 6: put into secret apartments.
Speaker 10: Dewey's assistant prosecutors was taking the girls out the bar
Speaker 10: and getting drunk with them.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure Unis wasn't the assistant prosecutor taking the
Speaker 2: girls out, but who knows.
Speaker 10: The idea of whining and dining the ones who were
Speaker 10: released from jail was fairly outrageous.
Speaker 2: And the newspaper reports are now alleging that this coaxing
Speaker 2: of the witnesses didn't stop with simple nights out on
Speaker 2: the town. Apparently, certain promises were made to the witnesses
Speaker 2: about rewards After a positive conviction, several.
Speaker 10: Of them received emoluments that were highly unusual. Two of
Speaker 10: the women were sent on a cruise around the world,
Speaker 10: paid for by doing as prosecutors.
Speaker 2: When the trial began, Judge McCook reminded the jurors of
Speaker 2: the sex workers humanity, But maybe he should have delivered
Speaker 2: that message to the prosecution as well. These witnesses had
Speaker 2: been exploited at every turn by their customers, the mob,
Speaker 2: the prosecution, the defense, and now the press. Yes, everyone
Speaker 2: wants these little birdies to sing for their supper, with
Speaker 2: promises of gilded cages for protection, but there's no real
Speaker 2: safety after you read out the mob is there. The
Speaker 2: good guys want you to be grateful as if they
Speaker 2: saved you. The bad guys want you punished, and the
Speaker 2: press wants you to keep singing. But all those gilded
Speaker 2: cages flake and rust, So which one do you choose.
Speaker 2: There's no way to be truly free, is there. Dewey
Speaker 2: and his team are about to learn the hard way
Speaker 2: that some of their key witnesses are falling back into
Speaker 2: the hands of the mob. Koki Flow was one of
Speaker 2: the prosecution's key witnesses. You remember Koki, She was going
Speaker 2: through detox on the stand. Koch's testimony, like nearly all
Speaker 2: the witnesses, had put her life in great danger. No
Speaker 2: one likes a snitch, especially if they're pointing fingers at
Speaker 2: the boss of bosses. But if Dewey was worried about
Speaker 2: the safety of Kochi or any of the rest of
Speaker 2: the women, he didn't show signs of it, at least
Speaker 2: not in his media briefings.
Speaker 3: His press releases afterwards were more of a justification of
Speaker 3: what had been done during the trial. He was very
Speaker 3: mute on what steps were being taken to protect the women.
Speaker 2: After the trial, when Lucky is convicted, Cokey and Millie Harris,
Speaker 2: one of the other trial witnesses, understandably decide to get
Speaker 2: the hell out of Dodge. They flee upstate to Rochester,
Speaker 2: New York, and whole up in a cheap hotel. Breathing
Speaker 2: fresh air and looking over their shoulders.
Speaker 10: They began writing these stories that they were hired to
Speaker 10: write for Liberty Magazine.
Speaker 2: They were offered the magazine deal in exchange for their
Speaker 2: life stories.
Speaker 10: A series of stories was called Underworld Nights.
Speaker 2: Liberty Magazine is a popular magazine that features stories from
Speaker 2: people of all walks of life, including celebrities, politicians, and
Speaker 2: former sex workers turned prosecution witnesses. The series of articles
Speaker 2: is published.
Speaker 10: Once they finished that and they were paid for that,
Speaker 10: they couldn't go back to New York to their old lives,
Speaker 10: so they decided to go on a road trip and
Speaker 10: they bought a car. They took the southern route out
Speaker 10: to California, California.
Speaker 2: Because Flow and Millie aren't just magazine writers now, in
Speaker 2: the aftermath of the trial, they'd also been offered a
Speaker 2: movie deal.
Speaker 10: They were under the impression that this film deal was
Speaker 10: imminent and they wanted to be in LA when the
Speaker 10: film deal went down.
Speaker 2: The ladies don't end up in Tinseltown right away. Maybe
Speaker 2: they want to make their money stretch a little longer,
Speaker 2: or try their hand at living straight. Because before long
Speaker 2: they're living in Pomona, just outside of LA and they're
Speaker 2: getting short of cash because they've spent their remaining money
Speaker 2: on a kind of a strange new business.
Speaker 10: They decided to open a gas station and Pomona, of
Speaker 10: all things, and the two of them opened a gas
Speaker 10: station and they ran it for a while, and Koki
Speaker 10: Flow is okay.
Speaker 2: With that, But for Millie Harris. It's not so simple.
Speaker 2: Hollywood tends to take its time, and the film about
Speaker 2: their lives still hasn't come about yet. And the gas
Speaker 2: station Pomona life isn't quite what she'd anticipated. I'm sure
Speaker 2: it lacked all the glitz and glam of New York City,
Speaker 2: and she's a city girl. Plus she's carrying an emotional weight.
Speaker 10: She wanted to get back to New York.
Speaker 2: She missed her husband, a husband she had helped put
Speaker 2: away alongside.
Speaker 10: Lucky who was in jail and sing sing.
Speaker 2: Maybe the guilt is eating away at her.
Speaker 10: Because Millie Harris, without Kochie Flow's knowledge, started communicating with
Speaker 10: the lawyers for Luciana who were handling his appeal, and
Speaker 10: an investigator wanted to get her to recant her testimony,
Speaker 10: which she did.
Speaker 2: Eventually, both women returned to New York together, back to
Speaker 2: their old lives. Cochie goes back on heroin, she became.
Speaker 10: An addict again. They both went into a sanitarium to
Speaker 10: try to take the cure to get off of heroin,
Speaker 10: and it was during that time that they signed these
Speaker 10: affidavits recanting their testimony.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the fear of something new is as much of
Speaker 2: a prison as anything else. By March nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: all the prosecution's key witnesses have officially turned. Eunice and
Speaker 2: Dewey have lost the very foundation of their case against Lucky,
Speaker 2: and Lucky's defense is picking up steam. All they have
Speaker 2: to do now is get these recanted statements in front
Speaker 2: of an appeals court, get the conviction overturned, and then
Speaker 2: Lucky will be a free man. Dewey is clearly worried
Speaker 2: about this too. He re enlists Eunice as his assistant
Speaker 2: for an April nineteen thirty seven hearing for a retrial.
Speaker 2: But Eunice, Dewey, and Lucky haven't factored in Judge McCook,
Speaker 2: that belligerent, dedicated, anti mob judge who had already come
Speaker 2: up with his own plan for this turn and of events.
Speaker 10: McCook did something that was highly unusual.
Speaker 2: You see, back in June of nineteen thirty six, when
Speaker 2: the Blue Ribbon jury had dropped the bombshell of Lucky
Speaker 2: Luciano's conviction, When Dewey was striding triumphantly from the courtroom
Speaker 2: and Eunice was well not there as the drama played out,
Speaker 2: another scene was also taking place, this one behind closed doors.
Speaker 2: Judge McCook, instead of taking a well earned break after
Speaker 2: ruling over the trial of the Century, is in his
Speaker 2: office surrounded by sex workers.
Speaker 10: After the verdict, and while the motion for new trial
Speaker 10: was pending, he called all seventy some women who were
Speaker 10: still in jail into his chambers.
Speaker 2: These seventy women are the sex workers and madams who
Speaker 2: have been witnesses in the trial. And this isn't some
Speaker 2: post trial party.
Speaker 10: And without any notice to the defense or without any
Speaker 10: defense lawyer being present, on the record, with a prosecutor present,
Speaker 10: he made them reassert their testimony.
Speaker 2: All seventy women are told to swear again that their
Speaker 2: testimony was accurate.
Speaker 10: Highly unusual to do that, outrageous. Actually, the case really
Speaker 10: reeks a prosgatorial misconduct, at least by today's standards.
Speaker 2: These women don't have a cushy life at the start
Speaker 2: of Lucky's trial, and we know it took a lot
Speaker 2: to persuade them to testify in the first place. Their
Speaker 2: lives leading up to the trial had been severely uprooted,
Speaker 2: and it probably didn't get any easier after their names
Speaker 2: had been dragged through the press. Plus, I imagine the
Speaker 2: mob and their defense attorneys probably weren't very sweet when
Speaker 2: it came time to convince them to recant. It's been
Speaker 2: one harrowing experience after another, and now recanting their testimony
Speaker 2: means nothing. Lucky's defense team tries everything they have to
Speaker 2: get the case invalidated. In fact, by October tenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty eight, they've taken this all the way to the
Speaker 2: highest court in the land.
Speaker 3: The conviction was analyzed by the appellate and was denied
Speaker 3: for an appeal. They denied a retrial, and they denied
Speaker 3: a mistrial.
Speaker 2: Thanks in part to Judge McCook's early intervention.
Speaker 8: Judge McCook, I'm not saying it was a crooked trial.
Speaker 8: I'm just saying, in nineteen thirty six, don't be a
Speaker 8: high profile criminal. They put him away in a manner
Speaker 8: that today standards I would hope wouldn't hold water.
Speaker 3: It was not fair, but it was considered fair for
Speaker 3: its time.
Speaker 2: Dewey and Unice's triumph is now set in stone. It
Speaker 2: looks like Charles Lucky Luciano is stuck in jail for
Speaker 2: the foreseeable future, and as he languishes there while his
Speaker 2: lawyers try and fail to win an appeal, Eunice and
Speaker 2: Dewey are already busy again. They both continue their fight
Speaker 2: against organized crime, although with very different results. Unice is
Speaker 2: now diligently prosecuting Numbers runners in Harlem.
Speaker 9: She winds up taking down some numbers racket leaders in Harlem,
Speaker 9: which is sort of met with mixed feelings within the
Speaker 9: Harlem community.
Speaker 2: Unice's success on this front isn't met with blanket approval.
Speaker 9: There's definitely a lot of people who are very happy
Speaker 9: because they do not want there to be criminal activity
Speaker 9: in their community. But then also when you look at
Speaker 9: the newspapers, not only black owned papers in carl but
Speaker 9: across the city, there's editorials that are like, why is
Speaker 9: this woman targeting her own community?
Speaker 2: In order to get ahead in the predominantly white world
Speaker 2: of law and justice, Unice has to prosecute people who
Speaker 2: walk the same streets as she does. It's a fine line.
Speaker 2: I imagine she has to prove to her white colleagues
Speaker 2: she won't be biased in her work, while also trying
Speaker 2: to prove her self trustworthy to her Harlem community.
Speaker 5: We talk frequently today about the constraints on black womanhood
Speaker 5: in the public eye. Right we know that black women
Speaker 5: are subjected to more critique, to more hate, to a
Speaker 5: different set of standards than other people. These pressure from
Speaker 5: within the black community to be a representative of the
Speaker 5: race would also presumably have made Unice Carter fuel pressure
Speaker 5: even when she wasn't in white spaces.
Speaker 2: During this time. Whenever Unice Carter opens the paper and
Speaker 2: sees her name, it's not with professional accolades or recognition.
Speaker 2: In the society pages, she reads judgments of her loyalty,
Speaker 2: her character, and her image. The newspapers that used to
Speaker 2: praise Unice now judge her as harshly as any jury. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Dewey is receiving a much more positive reception in the media.
Speaker 2: By the end of nineteen thirty seven, Thomas Dewey is
Speaker 2: no longer a special prosecutor. He gets sworn in as
Speaker 2: one of five New York District jorneys with a power
Speaker 2: to decide who gets prosecuted. The law was only ever
Speaker 2: a stepping stone. He wants to break into politics. The
Speaker 2: following year, he's on the move again. He runs and
Speaker 2: loses a gubernatorial race, but in nineteen forty two he
Speaker 2: runs again and is successfully elected governor of New York.
Speaker 2: His dreams of political office have come true. His rise
Speaker 2: is by any standards, meteoric. He's ridden a wave of
Speaker 2: popularity that followed Lucky's prosecution, far higher and faster than
Speaker 2: many might have expected. How did he manage it?
Speaker 3: Not in cooperation with police and federal law enforcement departments throughout.
Speaker 10: The United States.
Speaker 1: The only national program that brings you authentic police case
Speaker 1: history gain in Muster.
Speaker 2: In the immediate aftermath of Lucky's trial. Dewey is not
Speaker 2: shy about trumpeting his performance.
Speaker 4: He gave his reports on WNYC radio. He also regularly
Speaker 4: gave interviews. Dewey, by thirty seven thirty eight was in
Speaker 4: the news. He was the guy who put Lucciano away.
Speaker 4: He was the gangbuster.
Speaker 2: Gangbusters is a law versus gangster fact based radio drama.
Speaker 2: It first aired in nineteen thirty five. It's a program
Speaker 2: that Dewey becomes associated with by nineteen thirty six. In
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, a book called ninety Times Guilty is published.
Speaker 2: It tells a now familiar story of Lucky Luciano as
Speaker 2: a shadowy mafia figure pulling the strings of the underworld,
Speaker 2: a criminal mastermind. Hickman Powell, a former political reporter for
Speaker 2: The New York Herald Tribune writes the book while working
Speaker 2: for Thomas Dewey as a volunteer speechwriter and researcher.
Speaker 1: Ninety Times Guilty came out with the idea that Luciano
Speaker 1: had centralized, organized modernized the American mafia.
Speaker 2: It's a great pr strategy for Dewey to lean into.
Speaker 7: He knows that victory of a kingping boss is going
Speaker 7: to be incredibly good publicity for him.
Speaker 2: The only problem is this book was largely fiction. It
Speaker 2: combines some of the hype about Lucky that Dewey has
Speaker 2: been feeding to the press with some new tar tales.
Speaker 1: The idea that Luciano organized crime in America because he'd
Speaker 1: killed sixty to eighty Greeces as they were called old
Speaker 1: style mafia gangsters. It gives credence to the idea that
Speaker 1: he was a dominant figure in organized crime in America nationally.
Speaker 10: It was just a.
Speaker 1: Completely made up story that true crime writers ran with.
Speaker 2: And it isn't just these scenes of vicious mob murders
Speaker 2: this book has fictionalized. It's also cementing a bigger lie
Speaker 2: about Lucky too.
Speaker 8: I'm not trying to be the cheerleader for Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 8: But I realized the opposition had a self righteous, zealous
Speaker 8: campaign going and they needed a poster boy.
Speaker 7: If you want to make your name, there's no point
Speaker 7: in putting some small time hoodlum from downtown Manhattan in prison.
Speaker 7: That's not going to make you famous. But you get
Speaker 7: the boss of all bosses of the mafia, and suddenly
Speaker 7: you were all over the papers.
Speaker 2: Dewey needed to position Lucky as the one true face
Speaker 2: of crime in America. It was vital for people to
Speaker 2: think it had been Lucky pulling all the strings. And
Speaker 2: now that he's been taken down, the war on crime
Speaker 2: has been won.
Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen thirties, with Dewey's success as
Speaker 1: well as Whover's success, American newspapers are saying, well, we've
Speaker 1: beaten organized crime.
Speaker 10: Of course they hadn't.
Speaker 2: The book is part of a winning career political strategy.
Speaker 8: For doing There's something to be said of criminal poster boys.
Speaker 8: Your El Choppels, your John Gotties, your Frank Lucas, your
Speaker 8: Lucky Luciano. Who makes them that? Are they really the
Speaker 8: face of the problem poster boy for whom.
Speaker 2: Dewey's plan of using an anti organized crime crusade to
Speaker 2: get to power has been used many times since. Remember
Speaker 2: Giuliani versus the Mob in the nineties. Dewey and his
Speaker 2: subsequent imitators are able to gain traction because they're tapping
Speaker 2: into an already existing rich current in America.
Speaker 7: White supremacy is absolutely central to organized crime. I don't
Speaker 7: think you can discuss one without the other.
Speaker 2: Lucky arriving into the squalor poverty and xenophobia of the
Speaker 2: Lower East Side of New York is an ideal candidate.
Speaker 1: Now, a lot of the mafia stuff is a reworking
Speaker 1: of nativist idea as bad in America has to come
Speaker 1: from somewhere else. It's foreign, it's the other.
Speaker 2: We still see this today, right, If.
Speaker 7: It is organized crime within America, it's by so called
Speaker 7: immigrant groups, it's Mexican nacos, it's Russian mafia, it's the mafia.
Speaker 7: You don't tend to think of organized crime as being American.
Speaker 7: I think what happened in the nineteen twenties and nineteen
Speaker 7: thirties was this drive to demonize people in a way
Speaker 7: that really hadn't been attempted before.
Speaker 1: Organized crime is totally and only to do with Italians
Speaker 1: who've got the braun and Jews who've got the brain
Speaker 1: using those ethnic stereotypes, which is essentially the analysis that
Speaker 1: the US government followed, and certainly true crime writers.
Speaker 2: So you get this fertile ground for Dewey's projection of
Speaker 2: Lucky as the mafia boogeyman, an evil puppet master responsible
Speaker 2: for all of society's ills.
Speaker 7: If you create a super demon, you're more likely to
Speaker 7: get funding, you're more likely to get political power, you're
Speaker 7: more likely to remain in political power. And also if
Speaker 7: you screw up, you can say, well, how on earth
Speaker 7: do you expect us to be able to deal with this?
Speaker 7: They're all over the place. They're far too big for us.
Speaker 1: There's a career opportunity for prosecutors in America that do
Speaker 1: tend to use their trials and convictions to advance their
Speaker 1: political prospects. And I'd argue the prosecution of Lucky Luciana was,
Speaker 1: to use London terms, a fit up.
Speaker 2: In other words, Lucky's trial was rigged. So what is
Speaker 2: the truth about Lucky Luciano? Was he truly the godfather
Speaker 2: of the mafia?
Speaker 7: Categorically no, not at all.
Speaker 1: An important career criminal who now other career criminals became
Speaker 1: rich enough during prohibition to be able to afford hotel
Speaker 1: rooms in the ward Off historia. But the mythology stems
Speaker 1: from Dewey calling the greatest gangster in America. He was
Speaker 1: a career criminal, an extortionist in a city full of extortionists.
Speaker 2: It's not that doing in units had the wrong man.
Speaker 2: It was that there never really was just one mafia
Speaker 2: puppet master controlling all vice and organized crime. One thing
Speaker 2: Lucky is guilty of, though, with his scarred face, sharp
Speaker 2: clothes and ritzy address, is standing out.
Speaker 8: If you dressed better and had nicer cars than the governor,
Speaker 8: people notice, And if you have a wow factor that
Speaker 8: makes enemies ears perk up, you're going to become that
Speaker 8: de facto face of everything those people are out to get.
Speaker 1: Government liked to make the battle against organized crime good
Speaker 1: versus evil. We are the good guys, they are the
Speaker 1: bad guys. But there's so many different shades of great.
Speaker 2: This framing of Lucky as the boss of organized crime
Speaker 2: is still the way we understand the mafia today. It
Speaker 2: doesn't just come from Hollywood's portrayal of the mob. It
Speaker 2: also comes from a deliberate manipulation of the public and
Speaker 2: the law. It's a falsehood that originates as much from
Speaker 2: our criminal justice system as it does from those la writers'
Speaker 2: rooms Millie and Kokie Flow wanted to get into.
Speaker 1: I mean, The Godfather was a great film, but for me,
Speaker 1: a great misrepresentation of the issue of organized crime in America,
Speaker 1: based partly on the Luciana legend.
Speaker 7: Why is it that Luchana has this reputation that he
Speaker 7: doesn't deserve. Well, the answer lies really with Thomas Dewey.
Speaker 7: Dewey manipulated the press very successfully, and that mythology has
Speaker 7: never really been challenged sufficiently, I don't think to this day.
Speaker 2: But what about Eunice Carter? How much is she on
Speaker 2: the hook for this?
Speaker 7: Too?
Speaker 1: A team player, which is a good thing, but not
Speaker 1: necessarily if you're in a team that is involved in
Speaker 1: manipulating justice for political advancement, which it was in Dewey's case.
Speaker 8: Eunice Carter was probably a good fit for Thomas Dewey's
Speaker 8: office because she too was career motivated. She had bigger
Speaker 8: barriers and hurdles to jump just because of who she was.
Speaker 8: I believe she was probably as determined, if not more
Speaker 8: than Dewey to carry out their vision of justice.
Speaker 10: But for Unice Carter, Thomas Dewey would not have been
Speaker 10: able to convict Lucky Luciano. I don't know that Luciano
Speaker 10: would ever have been convicted of anything.
Speaker 2: I guess you could say Eunice Carter is the godmother
Speaker 2: of the Godfather. But while this undercurrent of American life
Speaker 2: is giving Dewey's career a seemingly unstoppable upwards trajectory, unsurprisingly,
Speaker 2: it isn't having the same impact on Unice. And as
Speaker 2: America enters the forties and Dewey's career continues to take off,
Speaker 2: Eunice's professional life seems to languish. In nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 2: Eunice is named to Dewey's staff to lead something called
Speaker 2: the Abandonment Bureau of Women's Courts. Here, her time is
Speaker 2: spent on cases covering everything from divorce and marital issues
Speaker 2: to custody and child support. She'd stay there until nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five, with none of the upwards career trajectory she'd
Speaker 2: hope for after Lucky's prosecution. I can't imagine Eunice's disappointment
Speaker 2: as she watches her boss Dewey reached his professional dreams
Speaker 2: based on the success of the case that could not
Speaker 2: have happened without her. Actually, yes, I can imagine it. Sadly,
Speaker 2: it's an old tale. If Thomas Dewey refuses to grab
Speaker 2: drinks with his colleagues so he can keep working, he
Speaker 2: may have been seen as dedicated and focused. If Eunice
Speaker 2: Carter refuses, she's seen as not being a team player
Speaker 2: or trying to show up her coworkers. And if she does,
Speaker 2: she could be dinged as not taking her work seriously enough.
Speaker 2: How is she supposed to know how to get ahead
Speaker 2: if every step is used to hold her back. The
Speaker 2: struggle of navigating a predominantly white, predominantly male field is
Speaker 2: enough on its own, but add in the concerns of
Speaker 2: your own black community. Why are you a prosecutor? Why
Speaker 2: aren't you looking out for us? Unice's medal is probably
Speaker 2: tested on a daily basis, and as a black woman,
Speaker 2: she's expected to show uncommon resilience. She can't control what
Speaker 2: people think of her, so it wouldn't surprise me if
Speaker 2: she focused on what she could control her pursuit of
Speaker 2: a judgeship. But in the nineteen forties, Unice is not
Speaker 2: really seeing the rewards of her work, Unice has stayed
Speaker 2: close to Dewey, and Dewey has his sight set on
Speaker 2: a political win far higher than Governor. He's inching closer
Speaker 2: to the White House. Surely it's just a matter of
Speaker 2: time before he brings Unis along with him. Right, He's
Speaker 2: become a bit like found family for Unice, brought together
Speaker 2: by the intense, complicated loyalty of the mafia. But family
Speaker 2: can also be a source of betrayal. If Unice hadn't
Speaker 2: learned that yet, she was about to find out. That's
Speaker 2: coming up in episode eight of The Godmother. On this
Speaker 2: episode of a Godmother, you heard Hi.
Speaker 3: My name is Ellen Paulson. I research and I write
Speaker 3: books about women who were involved with notorious gangsters in desperadoes.
Speaker 11: My name is Christopher Alfhelps and I worked for the
Speaker 11: University of Exeter. I've published two books and several articles
Speaker 11: on the organized crime in the United States. I tend
Speaker 11: to specialize in a periage from eighteen sixty five to
Speaker 11: nineteen forty one.
Speaker 8: My name is Christian SIBERLINI and I am an organized
Speaker 8: crime historian and author.
Speaker 4: My name is Robert Whalen, and I'm an Emerathus Professor
Speaker 4: of history at Queen's University of Charlotte here in Charlotte,
Speaker 4: North Carolina.
Speaker 10: My name is Chuck Greeves. Before becoming a writer, I
Speaker 10: spent twenty five years as a Los Angeles trial lawyer.
Speaker 10: My fourth novel was basically fictionalization of the famous nineteen
Speaker 10: thirty six vice trial.
Speaker 6: I'm Debbie Applegate. I'm a historian and biographer, and I
Speaker 6: am the author of Madam, The Biography of Polyadler Icon
Speaker 6: of the Jazz Age.
Speaker 9: I am Claire White, and I am the director of
Speaker 9: Education at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah J. Jackson.
Speaker 5: I am an Associate Professor of Communication at the Annenberg
Speaker 5: School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and an
Speaker 5: affiliate with the Africana and African American Studies Program Here.
Speaker 1: I'm Mike woodowis author of Organized Crime in American Power
Speaker 1: and a teacher at the University of West of England.
Speaker 1: And I think, with Christopher we are professionally story in
Speaker 1: to look at the issue of organized crime in particular.
Speaker 2: The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 2: from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The Godmother is host
Speaker 2: and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hamid.
Speaker 2: Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior and Zaiana Yusuf.
Speaker 2: Our editor is Ajua Jima Broompong. Additional story editing from
Speaker 2: Max O'Brien and Mith Lee Raw, and our researcher is
Speaker 2: Zaiana Yusuf. Additional research from Mohammed Ahmed. David Waters is
Speaker 2: our executive producer. Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw,
Speaker 2: Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempsen. Our score
Speaker 2: was written, performed and recorded by Jeff Parker. Music supervision
Speaker 2: by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Production management and endless
Speaker 2: patients from Sharie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact
Speaker 2: checking by Fendell Fulton and Dania Suleiman. Story development by
Speaker 2: Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne and Zaiana Yusuf. Willard Foxton is
Speaker 2: our creative director of Development. Special thanks to Leah Carter,
Speaker 2: Stephen Carter, Angela J. Davis, Andrew Fernley, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebedy,
Speaker 2: Katherine Godfrey, Nadia Maidie, Amalia Sortland, Shawn Glenn, Neil Krishnan,
Speaker 2: Julia Bromberg, Katrina Norvelle, Carly Frankel, and all the team
Speaker 2: at w Emmy Novel