My Life In Crime

By Det. Lt. Bert Bernstein

GANGSTERS
GAMBLERS
GRIFTERS
GRAFTERS
GOONS
AND THE MAFIA
Walk with me into the past…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483416441

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Dept.

Copyright © 2014 Det. Lt. Bert Bernstein.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1645-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1644-1 (e)

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 09/15/2014

CONTENTS

Prologue

I Was On The Job

Return Of The Rookie

Shake, Rattle And Egg Rolls

Stop, Talk And Bust

Full Mooners

Lock And Load

Street Sweeping

Rising To The Occasion Of Murder

A Roadside Interlude

The Handwriting Expert

The Gypsies

Making The Big Leap

Welcome To Las Vegas

I’m Sorry To Tell You

Political Chess

Cuban Action And Reaction

Pappy! Can You Hear Me Now?

Old San Juan

Don’t Five And Dime Me

On The Job Training

Venezuela Intrigue

A Lateral Promotion

Huff, Puff And Gasp!

Say Hey To J.f.k.

Would You Like To Touch My Candelabra?

A Fate Of Twist

A Most Exhuberent Off-Duty Job

Holy Jimmy And The Fruitcake

Updating New Faces

Hey! Get Away From My Car!

New Blood

A Big Fish, At The Dog Track

What’s A Bernstein?

Harry Was Wild About Me

Speaking Of Me

Junkets And Charters Galore

Mikey’s Doctor D

Huntington Who?

He Talked Until He Was Blue In The Face

One Thing Leads To Another

Missing The Big One

The Tiger Lily

Return Of The Habitual

It’s My Job, Dummy!

Who Wants To See Me?

I’ll Be With You In A Minute

Somebody Wants To See Me, Again

Mixed Reviews

It’s Only A Short Flight

The Fish I Couldn’t Land

I Didn’t Like The Bastard

The Incorrigible English Patient

The Mid Sixties

Claudius Maximus

Father Edgar

Betting With Mr. K

St. Francis Hospital, Gone But Not Forgotten

What’s It All About … Alfie?

Look Out! The Politicos Are Coming

In The Wee Hours

Only If It’s A Homocide

Memorable Night People

Politico Redux

A French Canadian Escapade

A Friendly Adversary, A Tough Ending

Bourbon And Thorobreds

Roses And Rhubarb

Always Learning

And That’s The Way It Happened

The End Was In Sight

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

M y 30 years of police service at the Miami Beach Police Department. A personal, chronological retrospect of vignettes, short stories, and observations from the eras of politics, gambling and mayhem from 1952- 1982.

I dedicate this to my wife, Bea, my companion, my love, and to my children, grandchildren and loving family members.

Detective Lieutenant Bert Bernstein – Retired 1982, Miami Beach P.D.

PROLOGUE

I n the years following World War II, Miami Beach had a year round population of forty five to fifty thousand permanent residents. The residents were composed of a mixture of young, old, rich, not-so-rich and retirees who for the most part were from many large northern cities, predominately New York City. During the winter season, December through mid-April, the population ballooned to one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand as the lure of warm weather, fancy hotels, nightclub entertainment, the beaches and good restaurants brought the Snow Birds and vacationers from up north to the city. There were the last gasps of bigotry that lingered in the city as some apartment complexes and private clubs like the Bath Club and La Gorce Country Club were restricted. That specifically meant no Jews or Blacks as members. The South Beach area that I knew below Lincoln Road was inhabited mostly by working people and retirees. The cities’ Islands were mostly populated by wealthy home owners.

If you had the urge for casino gambling there was Green Acres, the Colonial Inn, Club Boheme and other lesser sites in South Broward County. Inside and within ten miles of the city limits there lived a host of semi-retired and active mobsters. They were predominately members of Italian mafia families from the major cities in the northeast. Living among them also were a number of Jewish mobsters. Their interests reached into local politics to obtain and maintain whatever juice they needed and they were willing to pay top dollar for, including any and all types of favors. They invested in real estate, bars, restaurants, automobile dealerships, liquor stores and liquor distributorships and the holy grail of profits from illegal casino gambling and sports bookmaking. There was murkiness of immorality that had settled over post-war south Florida and a good part of it was due to the growth of organized crime. Someone noticed and turned on the spotlights on the activity.

In Washington D.C., Tennessee Senator, Estes Kefauver, started a series of criminal enterprise hearings into organized crime’s related activities and their involvement in all facets of illegal gambling. The hearings would be an early insight to the city’s ambivalent attitude toward enforcement of gambling laws. Newspaper exposés of illegal gambling uncovered the confluence of the lack of concerted police enforcement of gambling with its conjunction to politics. The city bureaucrats and most politicos were quite tolerable with the police gambling enforcement and the general public and businessmen were okay with that.

In 1943 my father, mother and I moved to Miami Beach. My father had recently recovered from a heart attack and was advised to take it easy by moving to warmer climes. I attended Miami Beach high school for a year but returned to my home in Huntington, Long Island where I graduated. World War II was over. As my father’s health improved he decided to ease back into business joining with his nephew in Los Angeles as they expanded an office supply business. I returned home and drove my parents to Los Angeles where we resided in the suburb of Culver City. The office supplies business in downtown Los Angeles went well but my mother was left at home most of the time and steadily she became unhappy as she had no friends to socialize with. Within a year we returned to Miami Beach.

Shortly thereafter I enlisted in the Army Air Force. After serving my enlistment I returned home to Miami Beach and decided to go to college. I attended the University of Miami via the G.I. Bill, deciding against any vocation that had to do with business. I took Geology as a major. Graduation was in February, 1951, and I got married the same month. My betrothed, Bea, had a job working at the Miami Beach Police Department, Identification Bureau.

I applied to the United States Geologic Services for work at either of their two facilities in Florida. To date they have never acknowledged my application. At the time the country was in an economic slump. My father created a job for me within his business. He was always the businessman and as it happened I turned out to be a blue collar worker. I was happy with that. My in-laws paid for three months’ rent for a one bedroom apartment and both parents chipped in and bought us a used car. Life was pretty good for us. I learned some tidbits about city politics as our early marriage years progressed when we lived in a rented apartment in South Beach.

The City of Miami Beach government management consisted of a Mayor, six councilmen and a city manager. The city manager usually had the strongest decision making position and it was usually with the consent of the majority of councilmen. Within the council cliques were the promoters, bankers, contractors, entrepreneurs, businessmen of all types and erstwhile city and state lobbyists. Some, allegedly had bagmen that were associated primarily with eastern mobsters who needed the juice to further their interests in local gambling. Most of these men reportedly provided monetary contributions to municipal campaigns in trying to keep the city council stacked in their favor when it came to doing business with the city.

Gambling syndicates were a notable part of the scene as there were bookmakers located in almost every hotel pool areas, a few sundry stores and private apartments. The unwritten city policy always favored a be nice to visitors and residents when it came to gambling even though it was against city, county, state and federal law. Playing card games for money was illegal and most people knew that no money on the table advice. The local gambling group that maintained the majority of illegal bookmaking in the city was known as the S&G Syndicate. They had local control over the Racing News Wire Service. This was a necessity for the S&G Syndicate operation as to maintain a monopoly of this service. Bookmakers under the aegis of the syndicate had to pay to play.

I never gave it much thought then because I had gambled somewhat my entire youth. In my youth I pitched pennies, knocked marbles out of a circle, played twenty-one with cards, and played poker while in the army. During my college years, and after returning home from classes at the U. of M., I occasionally went to a bookmaker at the Blackstone Hotel for lunch. I could make a wager on a horse race for fifty cents and then help myself to a corned beef sandwich, a piece of Danish and a soda. If I won my horse bet it was a real, fine day. I was a gambler from the get-go, a gene inherited from my parents. I didn’t go into debt while gambling, only losing what I could afford.

The city had a district Constable whose main purpose was serving non-criminal papers, although he could make arrests for district and state crimes. He was the enforcement arm of the Justice of the Peace. The district Justice of The Peace heard matters of a civil nature in addition to criminal charges that were felonies. The felony cases were heard for a motion to dismiss and probable cause and were either dismissed or bound over to the state felony courts. Miami Beach had its’ own municipal court that was adjoined to the same building as the police department. The municipal judges were appointed by the sitting city council.

While working for my father my wife suggested that I take the test for the Police Department. She was working at the Police Department Identification Bureau, and at the time realized that the salary for patrolmen was an incentive. City police work was not as hazardous as the police work in major cities. I took the Civil Service test and came out second on the passing list. Shortly thereafter I passed the required physical exam. A month later I was notified to come to the Police Department and be sworn in. The letter further stated that I should buy my own .38 caliber revolver-four inch barrel, leather accessories, blackjack, handcuffs and whistle. Our police department jailer, Bill Magill, maintained a few racks of departmental pants, shirts, caps and shirt-sleeve emblems. I picked out two shirts, two pair of pants, a cap, and two shirt-sleeve emblems and had the shirts and pants tailored to fit. I was anxious to begin my new job.

I WAS ON THE JOB

T he morning of December 31, 1951, eight other men and I were sworn in by the city municipal judge in his courtroom. In police parlance it was my first day of police work, or, On the job. An hour later we received three hours of verbal training from two ranking detectives of our Detective Bureau, Clarence Moe Huddleston and Arthur Red Leonard. Those three hours were the entire total of the preparatory police training for all of us. I received two badges, number 126 for my cap and shirt along with two ticket violation books. I didn’t know it then but I would be going to work with a very few select number of in-house alcoholics, semi-psychopaths, ass-kissing, politically connected regulars. It took me the better part of a year to recognize those who were those personality types working in the uniform division and where some of their inside political influence came from. I was introduced to a political game I’d never played before and I disliked it from the beginning. The meaning of good police work was to become ambiguous. Fortunately, major crimes against people were ebbing, with lesser crimes more prevalent in the city at the time.

I reported to work the following day on the day shift and was assigned a temporary walking beat on 5th Street. I trod