Undated article, and no place: "Gnawed at Dice Riches"
Pay-off Fees and Lawyers Cut into De Mayo's Money.
The $230,000 Accumulated in 1917 Went to Varied "Takers," Ex-bootlegger Tells Bankruptcy Referee.
Frank De Mayo, the former "bootleg king," who used to boast that "everybody had a price," was on the grill today before the referee in bankruptcy, harking back to his prosperous bootlegging days to explain the fading of a dice fortune, estimated by him at $230,000 at one time.
De Mayo has been trying to explain to Henry A. Bundschu, referee, and the trustee of his estate, that he is broke; that his small fortune, which reached a peak in 1917 of a quarter million, is now gone.
Bundschu is trying to trace the disposition of De Mayo's estate and gather up any missing assets to satisfy his creditors. De Mayo filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy July 12, stating he had only $1,000 left of his own to meet debts and judgments of more than $300,000.
The former booze runner, Bundschu learned today, would have most persons believe his fortune was spent in "fixing" public officials, paying off fines and compensating lawyers for getting him out of trouble in the prohibition era.
Testimony by De Mayo before Bundschu discloses he had $250,000 in 1917 when he was 27 years old, realized by dice games and other gambling in pool halls he operated between 1907 and 1917.
In 1928, when he became involved with federal authorities over his illicit booze traffic, his fortune began to dwindle, he told Bundschu. He testified he paid the late Frank Walsh and other lawyers a $50,000 retainer fee for an unsuccessful effort to "wiggle" him out of the clutches of Uncle Sam.
During the Prohibition era, De Mayo told Bundsch, he spent much money in "fixing" public officials, and used his last $100,000 in "trying to keep out of jail." He finally received a federal penitentiary sentence and served it.
De Mayo has told the federal bankruptcy court he gave Mrs. Bessie De Mayo, his wife, large amounts on many occasions when he "was in the money."
In 1931, after his release from prison, he went in the oil business, forming the De Mayo Oil company, and bought up leases on 3,400 acres of oil land in Eastern Texas with his wife's money, he has stated. He paid $85,000 for the lease options out of one-third of the oil profits in eight years, according to his statements to Bundschu.
Mrs. De Mayo owns the oil company, which, he says, he manages for her. The late Casimir J. Welch, East Fifteenth street Democratic leader, was a partner for a time in the De Mayo Oil company, according to De Mayo. Records show Mrs. De Mayo in 1931 invested $56,000 in the Muskogee Natural Gas company and later sold her interests for $70,000.
De Mayo even capitalized on liquor investments after repeal of the eighteenth amendment, he says. In 1933, he sold warehouse receipts he had obtained on legal whisky at a profit of $5,000, which now, he told his interrogator, is gone. He also said he made a profit on $5,000 on Dominion of Canada bonds in 1933, and in 1934 he lost $40,000 in an Edgerton, Mo., distillery failure.
Then, in 1933 and 1935, he invested some of his wife's earnings in two cabinet manufacturing concerns, realizing a profit for her, he related, of about $22,000. He stated his wife's present income is $25,000 a year from the Texas oil leases.
[$230,000 in 1935 is equivalent to $4,000,000 in 2016. $25,000 in 1935 is equivalent to $438,000. The image of Frank De Mayo comes from nationalcrimesyndicate.com.]
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