Pearson, Will (eds); Mangesh Hattikudur, Elizabeth Hunt; Mental Floss (pub);
Mental floss Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits
Collins, 2005, 320 pages
ISBN 006078475X 9780060784751
topics: | trivia | history
Boss William Tweed raised corruption to an art form. As a member of New York’s Tammany Hall (a political club), Tweed and his cronies, including Mayor Fernando Wood, ran New York in the Civil War era as their own private money factory. The building of City Hall was a clinic in graft: the city was charged $7,500 for every thermometer, $41,190 for each broom, and $5.7 million for furniture and carpets. One carpenter even received almost $361,000 for a single month’s work. Tweed once bought 300 benches for $5 each, then sold them to the city for $600 a pop. And although he was crooked as a dog’s hind leg, Tweed does get a bit of credit from some historians for undertaking many important projects that improved life in New York (albeit at enormous financial gain to himself). Tweed’s illicit profits were said to be in the range of $200 million, and that’s in the 1860s! The law eventually caught up with the Boss, though, and he died in prison in 1878. [AM: his successful prosecution was one of the high-profile cases that started to bring down corruption in US public life.]
The 18th president of the United States was a great war general. But he was less skilled at avoiding scandal. To be fair, it wasn’t so much Grant himself as the cast of characters around him that caused all the trouble. Grant’s period in office (1869–1877) was marred by four major scandals: - Crédit Mobilier, a railroad construction scandal during which the federal government and Union Pacific stockholders were bilked out of some $20 million; - Whiskey Ring, wherein over 100 Treasury Department officials were convicted of taking bribes and cutting deals for distillers; - Indian Ring, another scandal of bribes from companies licensed to trade on Indian reservations; - Black Friday, a scheme involving Grant’s brother-in-law that attempted to artificially inflate the price of gold.
Scandals Description
Black Friday Speculators corner the gold market and 1869 ruin the economy for several years. New York alleged corruption ring set up at the New York Custom House custom house under two of Grant's appointments, collectors Moses H. Grinnell 1872 and Thomas Murphy. Three major investigations to unearth it. Star Route Corrupt system of postal contractors, clerks, and brokers to Postal Ring obtain lucrative Star Route postal contracts. 1872 Salary Grab Congressmen receive a retroactive $5,000 bonus for previous 1872 term served. Sanborn Contract John Sanborn collected taxes at exorbitant fees and 1874 split the profits among associates. Delano Affair Secretary of Interior, Columbus Delano, allegedly took bribes 1875 to secure fraudulent land grants. Pratt & Boyd Attorney General George H. Williams allegedly received a bribe 1875 not to prosecute the Pratt & Boyd company. Whiskey Ring Corrupt government officials and whiskey makers steal millions 1875 of dollars in national tax evasion scam. Trading Post Secretary of War William Belknap allegedly takes extortion 1876 money from trading contractor at Fort Sill. Cattelism Secretary of Navy George Robeson allegedly receives bribes from 1876 Cattell & Company for lucrative Naval contracts. Safe Burglary Private Secretary Orville Babcock indicted over framing a Conspiracy private citizen for uncovering corrupt Washington contractors. 1876
In the 1970s and ’80s, the Cook County Circuit Court system based in Chicago was so corrupt and dirty that two federal investigations, Operations Greylord and Gambat, were undertaken to expose it. Lots of judges went to jail for their underhanded dealings, but the worst of the worst was the not-so-honorable Thomas J. Maloney. During the 13 years he spent on the bench, from 1977 to 1990, Maloney "fixed" as many as six murder trials, taking bribes from $10,000 to $100,000 from gangs to convict members of other gangs of murder or manslaughter. Eventually, the justice got his own justice as he was indicted and sentenced to 15 years and 9 months in prison. The fact is he’s the only judge in Illinois history to be convicted of fixing a trial. Of course, there would have been another in the same Greylord operation, Judge Frank J. Wilson, but he blew his own brains out just before the Feds came a-knocking. In 1981, William J. Bracey was convicted of triple murder and sentenced to death by Maloney. After Maloney's conviction, he claimed that his judgment be investigated for possibly being influenced by bribery. --- Ian Ayres The Twin Faces of Judicial Corruption: Extortion and Bribery Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository 1-1-1997 http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2495&context=fss_papers On January 25, 1990, I stood in a Cook County Circuit Court and accused the presiding judge, the Honorable Thomas J. Maloney, of extortion. I was filing a final amended post-conviction petition on behalf of Dino Titone. Titone had been convicted and sentenced to death in bench trials by Judge Maloney for participating in the murders of Aldo Fratto and Tullio Infelise. My post-conviction petition alleged that Titone's own lawyer had solicited money from Titone on behalf of Judge Maloney, and that Titone with the help of his father had ultimately paid Judge Maloney $10,000. The petition alleged that after Judge Maloney received the money, an FBI investigation of judicial corruption in Cook County - code name "Operation Greylord" - became public and that Judge Maloney convicted and sentenced Titone to death in order to cover up Maloney's felonious conduct. When he read the allegations, Maloney went ballistic. He forced me to answer a series of personal questions regarding my age and place of birth. Even though I repeatedly characterized the deal between Judge Maloney and my client as "extortion," the lllinois Supreme Court insisted on referring to the underlying transaction as a "bribery conspiracy." So which was it: bribery or extortion? And should the characterization of a conspiracy as "bribery" or "extortion" determine whether a convicted defendant eams a new trial? My answers to these questions are straightforward. First, it will often be impossible to distinguish "bribery" and "extortion," because conspiracies will routinely combine elements of both deals. Second, deciding whether to grant a new trial should not turn on this characterization. Any defendant who can show that a judge accepted money (or negotiated for money) should be granted a new trial - regardless of whether the conspiracy seems more like bribery or extortion.