Boxing and the Mob by Jeffrey Sussman

Author:Jeffrey Sussman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

Judge Mullen added his own thoughts:

In boxing your wish was tantamount to a command performance. You had terrific, improper, and illegal influence in the fight game. You enriched yourself to a degree I can’t contemplate.

You had a long, long, and merry dance in the pursuit of power in the boxing game, but the time has now come when the piper must be paid.[7]

Taking into account Carbo’s health, Judge John A. Mullen sentenced him to two years in jail, instead of the three years he could have imposed.

As he was being led away, Carbo smiled and thanked the judge. There goes Mr. Gray, commented one boxing fan. Good riddance.

Although Carbo may have thought that after two years of imprisonment, he would be free, law enforcement agents had no such intention. To them, Carbo had gotten off easy. There would be more to come.

On May 30, 1960, Carbo and five other defendants, after a 13-week trial, were found guilty in federal court of trying to take over the management of a welterweight champion named Don Jordan. Carbo and his associates had threatened Jordan’s manager, Don Nesseth, and boxing promoter Jackie Leonard. The defendants included Carbo, Blinky Palermo, Truman Gibson, Joe Sica, and Louis Dragna, the latter two were notorious Los Angeles mobsters.

According to journalist Barney Nagler in his book James Norris and the Decline of Boxing, these are the events that led to the trial: In 1959, Jackie Leonard, a former boxer, was a 42-year-old matchmaker in Los Angeles. Jackie Leonard was the name he adopted while boxing; his original name was Leonard Blakely. He was the matchmaker for the Hollywood Legion Stadium. Leonard was friendly with Nesseth, who—in addition to being a used car dealer—managed the excellent welterweight boxer Don Jordan. Nesseth was having difficulty getting Jordan’s matches televised, so he turned to Leonard, who, in turn, contacted Truman Gibson in Chicago. They had met in 1958, when Gibson told Leonard that Carbo wanted his boxers to get matches in the Hollywood Legion Stadium. Gibson was able to accommodate Leonard and arrange for three of Jordan’s bouts to be televised. Nesseth and Leonard were pleased because not only had the bouts been televised, but also Jordan had won the three bouts.

Now, Leonard and Nesseth were in debt to Gibson, when, in fact, the debt was really owed to Carbo, and he wanted prompt repayment. Leonard and Nesseth were called to a meeting with Gibson at the Bismark Hotel. During the meeting, Gibson received a phone call. He handed the phone to Leonard, telling him Blinky Palermo wanted to speak to him. For Jordan’s upcoming championship bout against Virgil Akins, Blinky brusquely informed Leonard that he and Carbo wanted 50 percent of Jordan’s earnings from the bout. In addition, they wanted a 50 percent ownership of Jordan’s management contract. The call ended without Leonard’s compliance and with loud expressions of Palermo’s anger. He wanted an answer right away, and it had better be the answer Palermo and Carbo wanted to hear. Gibson

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