George Remus: The Real Great Gatsby

It's winter time, 1920, and it's another long afternoon in room 627 of the Chicago federal building. George Remus, a successful Chicago criminal defense attorney, stands next to his client in a sharp, tailored suit. He finds himself in room 627 pretty often these days. Ever since the Volstead Act went into effect a couple of months ago, his client list has been flooded with bootleggers, and most Chicago bootleggers wind up here. The courtroom of Judge Landis, an infimously hard-line prohibition enforcer. Inpatient and no nonsense, Judge Landis peers down at the defendant before him and throws down his verdict, yet another $10,000 fine for yet another Volstead violation. Remus approaches the bench, full of theatrical bluster. Though he is built like a cannonball, he is surprisingly agile. He almost leaps toward the judge. This is unacceptable, ridiculous, unaffront the very name of justice. Why? This is just cruel and unusual punishment, plain and simple. Never have I seen, never has there ever been a greater mockery of the law. Judge Landis raises an eyebrow and wrinkles his aqualine nose. Remus feels his client. A bootlegger with rough hands, place a palm on his shoulder. Don't worry about it. Everything's asus. I got this. As if it were nothing, the bootlegger casually pulls a lot of cash. So thick, it can barely fold from his pocket. He counts out the full amount of Landis' fine and crisp bills, $10,000 in cash worth around $160,000 in today's money. Now, who do I drop this off with? Remus takes a moment to collect himself before showing the bootlegger to the right court clerk. Then the bootlegger counts out Remus' rather steep attorney fees, also in full, placing the money in Remus' palm. Nothing else, right big guy? He turns to leave, giving Remus a jocular punch on the arm. On his way out, he flashes a gap toothed grin and shouts back. Till next time. George Remus is stunned, but the wheels in his head have already started turning. The image of that huge roll of bills burns into his brain like a firebrand. Like a young Cornelius Vanderbilt, witnessing the majesty of a locomotive whizzing past him for the first time. Or even a teenage Paul McCurney, first hearing the sonic bliss of rock and roll. What happened in room 627 is a seismic moment that will change history forever. George Remus has an idea, an idea that will sprout into something goliath. That's right. George Remus is going to build the largest empire of illegal booze the planet will ever see. That will ultimately crumble by betrayal, duplicity, and cold-hearted murder. But who is George Remus? Drives this man, this lifelong T-totaler who never drinks alcohol to push the very boundaries of the law and his own sanity to become the king of the prohibition castle, if only for a little. All we know for now is George Remus needs to control booze, all the booze. History consists of heroes and villains, and I suppose everything in between. But it's usually the villains who are the most interesting, their flaws, their quirks, the voids and their hearts that force them to do the unthinkable. These are the characters that fascinate us, the Listen, that compel us to watch and don't let us look away. These are the characters that we're all about. You've heard of El Capone, but what about George Remus, whose bootlegging empire make Capone's operation look like a lemonade stand? Sure. You know Billy the Kid, but while he was robbing cattle with a pistol, James McClintock was blowing up men by the dozen with his new fangled war machines. Never heard of them? Just wait. You'll see. And it's all true. Each episode, we want you to join them on their treacherous journeys to not only learn about what makes them tick, but more importantly, feel the times that created them. From the creators of myths and legends and from cast media, this is scoundrel, histories forgotten villains. We're Jason and Curricle Wizer. And with us every episode, as we explore dark, quirky, and bizarre history that you might not have heard before, but really should. It's June 15th, 1882, and four-year-old George Remus is laying eyes on America for the first time. It's been a long journey on the Fifington from Germany as it docks in New York, but young George and his family are ready to call this strange land their new home. He's young, but he knows that here a popper like him can one day become a king. Settling in Chicago, young George immediately shows great academic promise, learning the language with ease. However, his father, a mean drunk, suffers from rheumatism, and struggles to find stable work. That's okay. George is plucky, unflappable, and doesn't hesitate at all. Before he reaches the 8th grade, George drops out of school to support his family. He starts working at his uncle's pharmacy on the north side of Chicago, earning $5 a week, often times sleeping on the cot in the back room to avoid his father's nightly, booze-fueled rages. Remus thrives at the pharmacy, taking over operations at 19, and quickly expanding into a second store. It's called Enterprising, and it's what Americans do. But while pharmacy life will be fine for some, it just doesn't do it for George Remus. He wants more, and this desire for more drives him to high levels of motivation and hard work. He attends law school at night, and completes a three-year degree in just 18 months. In 1900, the year he turns 22, he's admitted to the Illinois bar. As an attorney, Remus dreams big from the outset. He seeks high profile cases, the more press, the better, and develops a signature, bombastic defense style that catches the eye of reporters. He's a physical performer as much as a litigator, leaping and prowling the lengths of the courtroom, sometimes moaning, howling, weeping, and pulling out his hair to underscore his arguments. He's also prone to stunts. Once when defending a man accused of poisoning his wife, Remus takes his performance to the next level. He swallows a vial of poison right in front of the jury, who fill the courtroom with horrified gasps. And it works. Remus's point is crystal clear. If I took that whole vial and stand before you now, healthy as an ox, then it can't be all bad, can it? The jury promptly returns a verdict of not guilty. Of course, what they don't know is that Remus, still a pharmacist and ever the performer, had swallowed an antidote before his courtroom appearance. The poison is a problem. It's poison, but George is protected on purpose. It's all a ruse. It's now 1914, six years before prohibition starts, and a 36 year old George Remus gets his first big break. It's so big, it launches him into notoriety. He's representing William Cheney Ellis, a guy who murdered his wife in a jealous rage. Remus offers a then-unheard of defense, transitory insanity. He argues, theatrically, that Ellis blacked out from extreme emotional stress caused by his wife's infidelity. When he woke the next day, Remus explains, his client had no memory of the crime, and therefore could not be held responsible. The three week long trial is all over the papers. Cheney Ellis, due to Remus has brilliantly executed a creative defense, gets only 15 years, instead of the expected death sentence. Suddenly, everything changes. Remus is instantly one of Chicago's best known defense attorneys, and in addition to a claim, this earns him a great deal of money. By the year 1919, he's pulling in around $50,000 a year, roughly $800,000 in today's money. This is enough to fund a very comfortable life for himself, as well as for his wife and their teenage daughter. And yet, jumping to where we started in 1920, in room 627 of the Chicago Federal Building, George Remus stands in Judge Landis' courtroom taken aback by the stunning amount of money his client is throwing around with ease. It's confusing. Something doesn't add up. How is this seemingly low-down bootleger packing wads and wads of cash? It's as if a point of light opens on a darkened horizon, beckoning Remus toward a bigger, grander future. When Remus looks at his bootleger clients, he doesn't see particularly smart or enlightened men. These are street tuffs, with no education, no sophistication, no class. That's what he sees. And yet, they can easily afford expensive lawyers and the court's outrageous fees. In fact, they're making far more money than he could ever dream of earning as a very successful attorney, and his ambition will not allow him to ignore the signs. So Remus hits the books, searching. He pours over the Volsted Act, the act that enforces the 18th Amendment, and makes prohibition what it is, looking for any vulnerability he can find. lands on exactly what he's looking for. A glorious, glaring series of loopholes. The title two of the Volsted Act. Title two, section three, said this, "Nothing in this act shall prohibit the purchase and sale of warehouse receipts covering distilled spirits on deposit and government-bonded warehouses." This is important because when prohibition becomes a law in 1920, there's still booze in existence. It doesn't just magically disappear overnight. And so you have distilleries with lots of liquor, around 200 million gallons of pre-volsted booze. And the owners have significantly fewer legal ways to sell that liquor. Since these bottles are private property, they're untouchable by federal agents. And yet, where do you sell them? This becomes the problem. All that liquor is sitting in warehouses just waiting in limbo. And Remus has just found a loophole that allows him to buy those warehouses. It's his light bulb moment. If he has the cash, he can buy up the warehouses of booze that the government can't destroy at bargain prices. This gives him a legal, safe, and virtually unlimited supply of alcohol. And all he has to figure out is how to transport it from their warehouses and sell it. That's where Title Two, section six, comes into play. Quote, "Except that a person may, without a permit, purchase and use alcohol for medicinal purposes. A liquor prescription may seem shady to us." But remember, this is the early 1920s. The days of medicinal heroin and cocaine. So a little medicinal booze doesn't raise many eyebrows. Remus can legally withdraw alcohol from the warehouses and transport it to retail pharmacies to be sold to prescribed patients. How convenient that he already has two pharmacies for which he can buy a limited amount of withdrawal permits. And there he has it. A legal way to sell alcohol during prohibition. But this is only half the plan, the front half. Remus knows the real money is in bootlegging, making, distributing, and/or selling unlawful goods. In this case, alcohol is a beverage. He plans to use his legit business. Buying warehouse alcohol, obtaining medicinal permits, and selling the alcohol through his pharmacies to prescribe customers in order to conceal a second illegal business. He hires employees as hijackers to divert alcohol from his warehouses and sells it on the bootleg market, robbing Remus to pay Remus, as he would later call it, and raking in all the profits. Essentially, George Remus is double dipping. He's found a legal loophole that gives him access to a lot of booze. He also has a legal way to sell a little of that booze. But to make the big bucks the real money he's after, he's designed a scheme in the background to steal excess booze from himself to sell under the table. He calls the plan the circle, and decides to try it out in Chicago. Now, this all may be well and good, if not for a little thing called the mob. By the time Remus sets up shop, organized crime syndicates already have the Chicago booze trade, legal and illegal carved into territories. George Remus, who is not an experienced gangster, is out of his depth. Though he's represented many criminals as an attorney, he's still pretty green when it comes to pulling off any criminal enterprises of his own. This leaves him at a disadvantage in more ways than one. Most importantly, he hasn't yet realized that the real key to bootlegging is protection, influence, and paying off people in power. This means that there's no one to stop other bootleggers from informing on him and no one to stop the feds from acting on those tips. - Which is why he has no security or defense on May 12th, 1920, when the feds rate his office on one such tip and arrest him. It's only by posting his own $10,000 bond, remember 160,000 in today's money, that he gets out of jail. - This is another turning point for Remus. He recognizes that perhaps he's in over his head and needs to rethink his strategy and he will not be so careless in the future. - Once again, George Remus hits the books. The eighth grade dropout turned lawyer dropout is a prodigious learner, throughout his career. Since the Chicago location is not working, he'll need to look elsewhere. Maybe a smaller city with a less saturated market and a police force that can fit in this pocket. - Yeah, if he wants to be the biggest fish, he's gonna need a smaller pond. - And there it is. The answer yet again, hiding in plain sight. Good old Cincinnati, Ohio. As it turns out, the Queen City is perfectly situated for his needs. 80% of the whiskey in the US is manufactured just 300 miles south of Cincinnati, giving Remus strong access and control over his supply. The local government and police are also far more purchasable and local bootleggers seem to operate right out in the open. Though they aren't very well organized, it's the perfect atmosphere for a man like Remus to step in and take over. - Cincinnati holds all the promise of bigger and better dreams. This time, he won't stick to just a few liquor inventories and two pharmacies. Instead, he's going to buy up distilleries all around Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio, giving him a massive amount of booze to work with. - And he's opening a much larger network of pharmacies and drug companies for distribution, even if some exist in name only as shell companies. Through this network and a lot of palm gracing, he hopes to get enough withdrawal permits to provide legal cover. For the truly massive bootlegging operation he seeks to create underneath, all based out of Cincinnati. - Remus envisions that his will be a different sort of bootlegging empire. While the harder gangsters depend more on Braun, he depends on bribery and brilliance. Referring to himself in the third person, a lifelong habit, he'll come to say that Cincinnati is a place where Remus could become as great as Remus ought to be. - Through an old law school connection, he develops a relationship with Jess Smith, a shadowy figure with close personal connections to the US Attorney General. From their first meeting on, Smith makes huge promises to Remus with casual confidence, including access to all of the withdrawal permits he wants. In return, Remus promises Smith a generous cut of every shipment. Then, Smith ups the ante. For a solid 50 grand, over $600,000 today, he will protect Remus from all prosecution by the Justice Department. - Essentially, he offers Remus immunity and Remus jumps at the opportunity, paying Smith in full that same day. Some sources saying in 50 $1,000 bills, he comes home from Washington elated and untouchable. - It's all happening for George. His illegal booze empires on the rise, but he's truly playing with fire, bolstered violations, money laundering, bribing government officials. These are federal offenses that will truly be met with more than a slap on the wrist of cot. - Which brings up questions. Remus had a very lucrative legal career and a lovely family back in Chicago. - Why start drawing outside the lines and fly dangerously close to the sun? Is it the usual culprit, hubris, ego? What void is George filling? - Well, beyond the risky whiskey business, Remus has another reason to get out of Chicago. After gradual astrangement from his wife, his eyes have begun to wander. - She's the dust girl in his law office, Augusta Imaging Homes, Neigh Brown, a dark eyed woman in her 30s with an infectious laugh and a cheeky smile. Imaging tells Remus all about her divorce from a nasty ex in her trouble making ends meet. Remus tells her all about his wife, who had nearly divorced him once before. He's attracted to Imaging's sense of glamour, her burgeoning flapper ideals, that rebellious streak, that boldness against what society says she can be, and she's attracted to his ambition and the security he might provide. - Remus starts making grand romantic gestures, often involving lots of money. Well, why not let him pay her bills and take care of that difficult divorce pro bono? And why not quit that tiresome job? Let him put her up in a new apartment. Soon, Remus all but moves in with her at her new pietta tear. Imaging, despite only being around seven years younger than Remus, looks to calling him daddy, head over heels in love. Remus barely tries to hide his affair with Imaging. - This becomes the last straw for his wife, who divorces Remus quite publicly. This gives Remus the opportunity to leave for Cincinnati permanently, to make a fresh start with Imaging. In the beginnings of a life, Remus feels might finally suit him. - He liquidates his assets. Paces ex-wife her dues closes his law practice and heads to Cincinnati with Imaging. Her daughter and his insatiable hunger for more. A hunger that will eventually be his downfall. - It's New Year's Eve, 1921. 825 and Mosa Avenue, Price Hill, Cincinnati's West Side. The 31 room, Remus Mansion, dubbed the Marble Palace, buzzes with activity and excitement. It's appointed with the most magnificent, Infant furniture money can buy. Final hogging doors inlaid with hand-stained glass, imported rugs on the floors, and walls crowded with rare collectibles and works of art. Coveted first editions fill bookshelf after bookshelf in the salon, alongside a solid gold piano. This place is so opulent, the floor in the main room, is designed to spell the word remiss in tiling. It's unconfirmed, but rumor has it that F Scott Fitzgerald once met remiss, and the outlandish experience later served as his inspiration for the great Gatsby book he would eventually write. - Anyway, tonight is New Year's Eve. Despite the mansion's size, all tonight's action is happening in one part of the estate. As guests arrive, they are brought to the Greco-Roman indoor swimming pool, dubbed, quote, "the imaging baths," which cost remiss $175,000 in today's money to build. The pool is magnificent. 115 feet long, 86 feet wide, line with rookwood tiles, decorated with inlays of pearls and terracotta, and surrounded by baroque marble statues of athletic swimmers. Roman gardens and elaborate topiaries bursting with exotic flowers line the perimeter of the room. Colored blades reflect off the tile floor around the shimmering water. - Approximately 100 guests are in attendance, dressed to their finest. Models in greasing gowns and turbines serve or derves from silver platters as a full orchestra swells in the background. And the liquor? Oh, the liquor is definitely flowing today. - It's said that there's enough liquor to fill the pool itself, although Remus, a tea-totaler himself, isn't having any. Partway through, everyone sits down and elaborate tables around the pool's edge. And that's when they discover the party favors. - $1,000 bills worth about 17 grand today, hidden under every gold-gilded plate. It's incredible. - After dinner and dancing, the synchronized swimmers come out. They're scandalously bare legs kicking and flourishing in unison. By now, everyone's quite in their cups. And the atmosphere is raucous and tinged with tipsy celebratory joy. - Remus runs around Mag Cap, letting people cigars with $100 bills. - You're the stroke of midnight. His daughter dresses up as the spirit of the new year and a gauzy gown. Walks to the end of the diving board and yells, "Happy new year!" as she dives in. - Imaging follows, dressed in a risqué swimsuit designed just for the occasion, and executes a well-practiced dive. - The crowd goes wild and Remus, standing by the band, urges them to jump in too. Knowing how their bread is buttered, the players dive in fully clothed, soaking their tuxedos. Even Remus joins in this time. This party has gone from raucous to legendary. - Even more party favors appear. Each one works extravagant than the last. For the men, diamond stick pins, and engraved solid gold pocket watches. For the women, it becomes a roaring 20s Oprah show. He gives each of them a set of keys and leaves them out to the driveway, where a line of brand new 1922 automobiles are parked in a row. You get a Model T, you get a Model T. - As Remus watches the jubilation unfold, someone hands him a glass of champagne. The yellow bubbles are captivating, almost hypnotizing. The music around him dims, his ecstatic smile wanes, and he stares. In his head, he's somewhere else. There are no more golden baths of sort. Glamrs people dancing the Charleston. He's back in his childhood, in a Chicago tenement, living in squalor. - And there's his father, just like he always was, sitting in the dark, plagued by the torment of rheumatism. He's barely able to raise his arm, as he takes swig after swig of whiskey, his only momentary relief from the relentless pain. - In another desperate plea, George's mother runs over to tackle the bottle away from him, if only to prolong his slow suicide. But even with all his pain, Remus seniors slaps her away in a drunken frenzy. The abrasive shrill of screams fills the dusty air. And young George sees it all. He cries, howling loudly, watching his father slowly poison himself to death, with the brown liquid. - And just like that, the blasting orchestra snaps Remus back to his party, staring at the champagne. He shakes it off, and calls for more caviar. - In Cincinnati, business is good. Incredibly outrageously good. Remus has his front operation up and running, along with the steady supply of permits and the promise of protection. Learning from his past mistakes, Remus makes payoffs any chance he gets to ensure his own protection. If a politician cop or Fed can be bought, Remus buys their loyalty. Really, if anyone seems useful to buy, he buys them. At this point, his payroll includes people all up and down the chain of command. - Remus pumps massive amounts of liquor into bootleg markets in Ohio and nine nearby states. The profit is enormous, and he pours it back into expansion. After just one year of the circle in action, Remus has bought up 35% of all the liquor in the US. After two, Remus has one of the largest illegal liquor organizations in the country, controlling the bootleg markets in at least nine states and likely others. - At this time, if you're drinking liquor in the Midwest or the East, you're probably drinking Remus's liquor. The business grosses over $50 million, over $644 million in today's money, and these two years alone. One of the most important parts of this George Remus operation is his main compound. Death Valley, as he calls it, it's a 50 acre tract of rough land on the far west outskirts of Cincinnati, with a farmhouse complex accessible only by a long, well guarded dirt road. This is where Remus' liquor goes for processing and resale on the bootleg market. It's also his headquarters, his throne, the stronghold, the beating heart of his empire, well, you get it. - However, little does he know, death Valley will ultimately be his undoing, because while Remus is thorough, he has not managed to pay off every fed, and those who haven't been bought by Remus have been watching and waiting. - On October 23rd, 1921, federal agents raid death Valley and catch the bootleggers with their nickerbockers down. In all, they seized 12 courts of champagne, 13 barrels of whiskey, and 500 gallons of gin, worth about $40,000, over $621,000 today. Remus himself is arrested, dragged before the court, and indicted on 3,000 charges, along with 13 co-defendants. At first, Remus has so convinced that Jess Smith, who promised a while back to protect him from the courts in case things went south, will come through for him, that he assumes that charges will be dropped before the trial. - But it soon becomes apparent that the trial is going to proceed. So Smith reassures Remus, that he still has everything under control. You see, the way it works is they have to go through the motions of a trial to save face, he explains. It's all political. You'll never see the inside of a jail cell in a million years, relax. Don't look so stressed. - Remus believes Smith again, what choice does he have? - In a long trial ensues. He raises a multi-million dollar defense fund for himself and his co-defendants, hiring six of the best attorneys money can buy, a sort of 1920s dream team. But Johnny Cochran isn't even born yet. He approaches the trial like a man who believes he'll never be convicted, because he's been told as much by Smith. - But the Gavel strikes May 16th, 1923, and Remus has found guilty on several charges. He's sentenced to the maximum of two years in an Atlanta federal prison, along with a $10,000 fine, which is over $160,000 these days. - So, just Smith has let him down, and he'll be serving time. Remus is beside himself, he's furious. But Smith is still the ever reassuring guy, promising an imminent pardon for Remus. He continues issuing these feel good statements, right up until May 30th, 1924, when Smith finally places a waste basket on the floor, lays his head on the rim, and shoots himself in the temple with a revolver. - This is when Remus finally realizes that he's actually going to prison. It's happening. - But he resolves to survive. He may have been disbarred, disgraced, and humiliated, but he still has the crown jewel of his empire, imaging. As long as he has her, he'll be okay. She's his strength, his comfort, and his business proxy. Before going to Atlanta, he gives her power of attorney. This means control of his estate and his empire, thought to be worth the equivalent of $200 million in today's money. - Imaging takes to the role of comforter confidant when it suits her, genuinely wanting to help her beleaguered husband. She assures Remus that he'll get out in no time. Then when everything is over, they can travel the world, settle down someplace quiet. away from all this unpleasantness. Remus believes her and steals himself for what comes next, wearing a bespoke suit. With matching spats and a silk shirt, Remus surrenders himself at Union Station in Cincinnati on January 24, 1924. He is met by his co-conspirators as well as armed guards who oversee their trip to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Imaging sensor servants to the station with heaping platters of fried chicken, a send-off meal that can be taken to go. Once on the train, Remus settles in and reportedly reads "Dante's Inferno, the whole way south." Behind bars, Remus quickly learns that things can go well for him if he's generous. Lucky for Remus, the warden tends to appreciate thoughtful gifts and nice things. Remus strikes a deal for a substantial bribe. Soon, Remus is enjoying a new mattress, fine linens and bedding, a radio, his own refrigerator, even a private bath, anything he wants. This is not exactly hard time for Remus. Still, the greatest comfort to Remus is imaging. She runs a long-term suite at a nearby hotel, and visits him every day. Since she's in charge of the Remus estate, she's the one who brings the bribe money. Sometimes authorities go so far as to let her into the cell to tend to Remus. Cooking and cleaning, sometimes even getting down on her hands and knees to scrub the floor, as if in a caricature pantomime of devotion. And yet, despite Remus' seemingly cushy jail experience in Atlanta, incarceration hits him incredibly hard. He's humiliated, and it feels awfully similar to how he felt in his formative years. He spent a long time running away from that feeling. And yet, here it is, again. At the beginning of his prison term, Remus spends all day appealing his sentence to the Supreme Court, which keeps him somewhat busy and hopeful. But, when his appeal is denied, things start spiraling out of control. Prisoned, it seems, is drawing out something new in Remus, something much harder to control. This is the first of what he calls his "brain storms." Periods of extreme agitation and zaps of energy. These obsessive, furious episodes of Mania. Episodes that start to focus on imaging. His rage comes like a lightning bolt with very little warning when it will strike. Sometimes it's direct. Other times, it's worse, arriving in round about in spiteful ways. Petty often, but always cruel. One day, he's screaming that she's an insolent child. The next that she's a temptress. Or maybe today, he's purposefully missing set visitation dates, leaving her to piece together what she could possibly have done to deserve this sort of abuse. But George, her George, always comes back to his senses at some point, begging her forgiveness with effusive letters and calls. It's our mind that he's still there, somewhere. And yet, more and more, she leaves their visits crying, inconsolable. More and more, she feels called to be in Cincinnati with her daughter. And when she does come to Atlanta, her visits grow shorter and shorter. Remus doubles down and keens after her. Can't she see she's the only thing in the whole world he loves? Honeybunch? During all this, Remus is also writing to every official he can think of, calling it every favor, and trying to bribe anyone who seems remotely bribeable. This is how he stumbles on the idea to speak with federal prohibition agent Franklin Dodge. Franklin Dodge Jr. is one of those fortunate sons. From a wealthy, well-bred family, the sort that's protected by a pedigree Remus can never claim. His father is a powerful Michigan politician with friends in high places. Hence, Dodge's job in the federal government. He's charming, a talker like Remus, but tall and dusky-eyed, with a full head of hair and a reputation with the ladies that will soon be revealed to be well-earned. Dodge has been sent to the Atlanta Penitentiary by the Justice Department to investigate local corruption. At a friend's urging, Remus sends Dodge a message, inviting him for a chat about matters of potential mutual interest. Remus waits, and finally, Dodge bites. The day Dodge comes to Remus's cell, he wraps on the bars. Dodge gives off a slight inattention that makes people want to reach out and oppress him. Remus beckons the agent close, and speaks in a stage whisper, signaling that this information is for the two of them alone, an intimate, valuable offering. He carefully explains how he created the circle, and exactly how successful it's been, listing his assets as if to wow Dodge. He goes so far as to name-drop several federal agents and hire ups on his payroll, and offers certifiable evidence of the exact corruption that Dodge is investigating at the prison. In exchange, all Remus needs is for Dodge to push for commutation or release, whichever gets him out of prison quicker. Dodge can't promise anything, of course, but he agrees to see what he can do. Once he leaves the cell, he goes straight to his bosses at the Justice Department with everything Remus told him, including the names of Remus' accomplices in the federal government. That information secures a bust, inditing 11 crooked feds, no quid pro quo for Remus necessary. It seems he showed his hand too early and unwittingly played himself. But Remus has played himself even worse by revealing the true extent of his fortune to Dodge, impressing him too effectively. Well, I ask for a single bribe, Dodge reasons, when I can have the whole thing, and having shown him the gate to the kingdom, Remus is about to hand Dodge the keys. And it's imaging. Desperate to influence Dodge, Remus sends the most important person in his life, who he knows can be so persuasive, to see if she can get Dodge to see things their way. Play up to him, Remus tells her, because he's my last chance to get out of jail. Remus isn't allowed to return to Cincinnati as a free man until four years later in 1927. His time in prison causes immense stress on his mental state, compounded by what's been happening with imaging. Her visits have all but ceased. Her letters, which don't arrive for months on end, remain subtly encouraging, but tinged with a sad, unsettling air of nostalgia. Rumor has it, imaging is having an affair, with none other, and the man who had been Remus's downfall in prison. Franklin Dodge. One day, it's confirmed, when imaging sends notice that she's just sold a major Remus asset, the Fleishman Distillery. She takes a shocking loss, only getting 80,000 for what Remus had originally bought in 1921, for $197,000. That's about 3.1 million in today's money. Even more shocking is the check she sends for $100, but she deems Remus's cut of the sale. By the time he leaves Atlanta, Remus has only $36 in his possession, roughly worth a cool $600 bucks today. An imaging is living with Remus's sworn enemy. Together, she and Dodge are ruthlessly plundering his estate. A faithful employee from Long Defunked Death Valley is there waiting when Remus is released and drives him back home to Cincinnati. On the road, Remus feels something close to hope, a glimmer of promise. He's determined to recover his money from imaging and Dodge. Then maybe he'll travel, maybe even secure a speaking tour about his life as a bootlegger. Letters of interest from Hollywood have already arrived, inquiring about film rights. First and foremost, though, he's deeply exhausted and ready to sleep in his own bed. When Remus arrives at the Marble Palace, the sky is still deep black with no hint of done. If imaging is there, he thinks she's about to get a rude awakening. But something doesn't seem right as Remus walks toward the mansion. It's dark, too dark, and too quiet. He quickens his pace to the front door, only to find it padlock shut and surrounded with barbed wire, ice cold panic floods his veins, as he runs full speed from entrance to entrance door to door, finding the same security measures at each one. Finally, he breaks the pain of a window and propels himself through the shattered glass. He's entirely unprepared for what he finds inside. The Marble Palace, once overbremming with decadence and finery, has been stripped for parts. It's completely bare. Nearly everything is gone. All the fine furniture, every piece of art, all the rugs, the china, the silver, he's barreling from room to room, the solid gold piano, the statues, the plants, even Remus' Washington letter. All of it, gone. Pieces of the house itself have been plundered. The stained glass pains rested from the doors. Some of the doors themselves carried off. All of the chandeliers and the silver lights conscious stolen away. Everywhere he looks, it's nothing but gaping, nothingness. A shell. littered with worthless and meaningless debris. - Remus walks, dazed, in the fallout of this new wasteland. Even the imaging baths have not been spared. The urns, lights, gardens, statues, even the tiles have been pillaged. Trackingly, the pool is still full. It seems they hadn't yet made off with the water. This strikes Remus as wildly, bitterly funny. It draws out a spell of shrieking laughter from his throat. An uncanny, ghoulish laughter weighed down with the viscera of unbearable pain. - That horrible sound brings his former employee running. He finds Remus on his knees by the pool, dissolving into choking sobs. In the stillness of the water, Remus's grief-contorted reflection makes a haunting double, a silent echo of his suffering. - Only a small but deliberate selection of items have been left behind. A small table in the kitchen, a heap of Remus's clothes, left in a pile on the back porch, an old cot with a threadbare blanket, and a pair of men's oxfords that aren't Remus's size. Oh, and 63 pairs of imaging shoes. - And most brutally, a number of monographed items altered so that where there were once ours for Remus, now there are d's for dodge. - Remus cannot be left alone in this current state. So the former employee takes him back to his family home and tries to nurse him back to health. For the first six weeks, Remus is completely inconsolable and unable to function, worsening brainstorms consume him, and they always fixate on the same thing, imaging and dodge. - He's convinced this is no typical affair. It feels more like an attack, an act of hatred and spite. So intense, he can barely comprehend it. His state is so dire that it sometimes seems like dementia. He's sundowning, his symptoms worsening at night. He'll wake up at all hours, raving about his twin persecutors. - I see them before me all the time, he confesses. They've become phantom figures, haunting him relentlessly, laughing at him, dodge, a wasp with old money mocking the classless immigrant as he saw him, stealing not only his money, but his wife. It makes George feel helpless. The same way he felt watching his father drink himself to death in the humiliation of squalor, a feeling he promised himself he would never allow himself to feel again. - Eventually, Remus returns again to the marble palace, supervised by his sister and her husband, but his obsessions never really let up. Instead, they morph, trying to find purchase. Still, he appears to gradually gain a firmer grasp on reality, on lucidity. He chances on some reserves of cash and hires two private eyes, one to track down his money, and the other to track down imaging and dodge, who he is obsessed with catching together in flagrant day. - Remus also turns his focus on his divorce case, which imaging filed back in 1925. He's managed to delay the suit several times, all the while continuing to sue, counter sue, and appeal, anything to suspend the case in legal purgatory indefinitely. After all, imaging may have his money, but Remus still has his litigiousness and legal skill. - The divorce bleeds into the pages of both local and national newspapers, and the uglier it becomes, the more coverage it receives. This, in turn, ramps up the behavior of both parties. Remus lashes out at imaging's attorney during a deposition, physically attacking him, and trying to throw him out an open window. - But then imaging and dodge hire a hitman to kill Remus. The only reason it doesn't work, is that the hitman knows how powerful Remus can be, and fears retribution. - So instead of killing him, Hitman simply tells Remus about the plot, both parties end up hiring bodyguards, whose services they utilize regularly. - Still, it's clear that Remus holds a torch for imaging. At times, he maintains that she's simply been misled by dodge. Several times, he uses the promise of a settlement to lure her into meeting with him, only to try unsuccessfully to reconcile romantically. It's like a part of him truly believes she'll come back to him. - But imaging has already made a permine, and she's not swaying. She's chosen dodge. As far as she's concerned, her life with Remus is already over. Finally, the day comes when Remus has exhausted his legal recourse. There are no more appeals to file, no more stalling tactics available. The unhappy couple sets a date for the divorce hearing, and while he waits, Remus's mood and thoughts grow darker and darker. - It's October 6th, 1927. The morning is sunny and uncharacteristically warm. Remus dresses in a brown silk suit and a wide brim fedora. He has breakfast with his sister and her husband, around 7am. His driver meets him in a wide set blue Buick. Remus tells him to drive to the hotel alms downtown. He's received word that imaging stain there. And he wants a chance to talk with her before the trial. - They arrive at around 7.30am and wait. Finally, imaging emerges, dressed in an elegant black gown, an matching turban, hand-tailored Italian silk, suggestive of mourning. Remus expects to see her with dodge, but she comes out of the hotel with her daughter instead. The two of them get into a taxi. - Remus will later claim that the sight of imaging smile triggered an out-of-body experience of incandescent rage. He'll describe a halo settling around his head, a cacophony of sounds, colors, comets and shooting stars, ancient and unfathomable voices speaking to him in lost tongues, all obscuring his own actions from view. And yet, through the noise, he's able to utter something very clearly to his driver. Catch that car. - They pursue the taxi through walnut hills, down victory boulevard. It's probably about that time that something catches imaging's eye. And she realizes she's being followed. In no time, there it is. The speeding Buick pulling up right beside her. - On Remus' command, the Buick passes the taxi. The car switch places and then switch again. Neck and neck and pursuit and flight through rush hour traffic. Imaging screams and points toward Eden Park. There, try to lose them. - But the Buick is faster and more powerful than the taxi. And as they near a narrowing bend, approaching the small standing reservoir, known as Mirror Lake, Remus speeds past imaging and swirves into the middle of the road. He's blocking the path. - To avoid an accident, the taxi runs off the road, stalling right in front of the spring house gazebo. For a moment, the two cars are still and no one moves. - Then, imaging scrambles out. Next, it's Remus with an eerie calm and steadfast speed. He makes a beeline for imaging. At the same time, pulling a small, pearl-handled revolver from his coat pocket. He strides closer and closer. You can hear imaging struggling, panting, grunting, trying to get away. Remus reaches out and grabs her left wrist with his right hand, twirling her back toward him until he can feel her breath and she can feel his. - Imaging is full of panic. Daddy, dear, I love you. Don't do it. Please, don't. - But he presses the gun hard against her belly and fires. - Imaging falls limp and crumbles to the ground outside the car. Blood flows, blossoming across the fabric of her dress. Unseen on the black silk, save for its glossy sheen. Her daughter lets out a devastating scream. - Remus registers the sound. It's small and tinny and he feels nothing at all. - Suddenly, a adrenaline jump starts imaging's body, jolting her to her feet. She takes off a second time. Weaving wildly along the shoulder of the road, calling for help, a man is trying to kill her and she's been shot in the panic. Her daughter follows, tears streaming down her cheeks. - A long line of cars slows to a standstill. Imaging tries the door the first car that she reaches but the driver refuses to let her in. Eventually, a motorist in a Ford lets the two women in and starts driving them back through Eden Park. Along the way, they come across an officer and tell him what's happened. Mrs. Remus, shot by George Remus. - It's a battle with consciousness the entire way and around 10.45 AM. Imaging dies on the operating table. Her black dress in tatters all around her. - George Remus still eerily calm, walks out of Eden Park and takes a cab to the central station of the Cincinnati Police Department. Upon arrival, he states plainly, "I just shot my wife and I came here to surrender. My name is George Remus." - Once word spreads, the imaging is dead. An officer approaches Remus, who is locked in a cell, pacing and slamming a closed fist into an open palm. Well, you've done what you set out to do. He says, "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" And Remus does, quote, "She who dances down the Primrose path must die on the Primrose path." "I'm happy this is the first piece I've had in two and a half years." From the outset, George Remus presents a dual narrative about his crime. On the one hand, he argues that he lost touch with reality and temporarily became insane, afflicted by brainstorms. It's the same temporary insanity defense that made him famous all those years ago in Chicago. On the other hand, he argues that what he did was morally justified, imaging betrayed him so completely that he had no other conceivable recourse but to kill her. Therefore, he feels that killing her was, quote, "morally justified homicide," and is confident that jury of his peers will agree. The trial begins on November 14th, 1927, before the honorable Chester R. Shook. The courtroom is jam-packed with reporters and curious onlookers each day of the six-week long proceedings. People stand in line around the courthouse, hoping they might be picked for a ring-side seat. Those who are, find themselves treated to quite a show. Remus acts as his own attorney, despite being disbarred. He's in rare form, flaring shamelessly with the press, the jury, and the observers. Then, of course, there's his showy courtroom routines, meant to display his insanity. Periodically, he falls into weeping spells, some of which are so severe he has to be excused for the day. This is next level, even for George Remus, whose courtroom hystereonics landed in the pejorative of weeping Remus back in his lawyer days. The prosecution is headed up by Charles P. Taft, the second, the son of the former US president, and then sitting Supreme Court justice, William Howard Taft. Still in his thirties, Taft is sharp, but rather inexperienced. Still, he poses a strong argument against Remus. He brings through the top alianists in the country, to testify to Remus' sanity, and furthermore, to his manipulativeness, and his inability to feel empathy and remorse. Imaging's daughter, his star witness, tells the court in heartbreaking detail about how Remus killed her mother. Taft urges the jury to remember that George Remus is a brilliant man, enterprising and conniving, and fully capable of faking emotion to get what he wants. Which, in this case, is to get away with murder. In the end, however, beyond all of the fanfare and courtroom theatrics, beyond the witness testimony, Remus has the ace in the hole, an unbeatable hidden weapon that Taft is uniquely unfit to combat. He has the trial underneath the trial. George Remus realizes he can shift the jury's focus, to litigate larger forces and trends. This trial doesn't have to be about whether Remus is responsible for killing imaging. It can be about the injustices of prohibition, or the faults of middle-aged flappers, like imaging. Or perhaps the trial can be about the searing class divisions in America. It seems curious that someone who's become famous for outrageous wealth can bill himself as a working class hero, but that is exactly what Remus does. In the end, he's still just a guy from humble beginnings, and will always be seen as less than to the landed gentry class. It's something intrinsically understood about the social order in America, both by Remus and by the many average Joes in Cincinnati, including the members of the jury. And Remus has cultivated a good reputation among the working people of Cincinnati. Unlike this stodgy, upturned-no sions of American nobility, who never put much thought into what the commoners thought of them, George Remus consciously promoted an image of himself as a full hero. He gave solid, good-paying jobs to thousands who had been put out of work by prohibition. He walked into working class neighborhoods and handed out $100 bills, Pablo Escobar style. He even let neighborhood children come and play in the yard of his mansion, which was unheard of among others in his tax bracket. It seems generosity does pay after all, because Remus caches in all that goodwill, and it returns significant dividends. In his closing arguments, he reinforces this allegiance, harkening back to his beginnings as a young immigrant, a persevering child, who started with nothing, like so many of them. He said, this defendant started life at $5 a month, and he may have contaminated his neighbors. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we couldn't all be born with a golden spoon in our mouths, like Charles P. Taft the second. Those closing lines hit their mark. The whole room seems deeply touched, and several members of the jury wiped tears from their eyes. Prosecutors do their best to follow Remus' grand finale, but pale in comparison. They try to reassert that Remus is manipulating the jury, diverting them. They try to remind them of what happened to imaging. How her daughter had to watch her own mother bleed out in the back of a stranger's car. But it's no use, especially coming from Taft. Remus' insult is exacting, and has stripped Taft, a former first child in resident of the White House, of any credibility. The jury feels they have no reason to believe that Remus was manipulating them, and they certainly don't trust someone like Taft to tell them otherwise. It takes only 19 minutes for the jury to reach their verdict. Again, the packed courtroom falls silent in anticipation. We, the jury, on the issue joint, find the defendant not guilty of murder, as he stands charged on the indictment on the sole ground of insanity. Near deafening applause and cheerful, raucous celebration fill the courtroom. Remus looks, overjoyed, not surprised, but happy, and grateful. This is American justice, announces. The members of the jury tell the press there was no question about finding Remus not guilty. In the jury room, they refer to their verdict as Remus' quote "Christmas present." In fact, one of the jurors would later state, "I began to pity Remus and hate the prosecutor's assistance. I thought Remus must have been insane when he killed her. Anyway, I believe Remus was justified in what he did." The jurors also agree that they would have let Remus go entirely, rather than sentencing him to time at the Lima State Hospital if they were able to. They're so adamant that they file a formal petition with Judge Shuk requesting that Remus be immediately released from Lima so that he can spend Christmas with his mother and family. This doesn't go over well with Judge Shuk, who is none too pleased with the verdict they had reached in the first place. He calls the petition "the most intolerable, outrageous, insulting, and audacious thing ever given in a court of justice," and both demanded and received an apology from each juror. On December 30, 1927, slightly less than three months after he killed imaging, is officially remanded to the custody of the Lima State Hospital for the criminally insane. Starting in February, Remus argues legally for his sanity and release using the testimony of the alienists for the prosecution. That's right. In his trial, he argued that he was insane, and now he's using the prosecutor's experts all of whom testified to his sanity to prove that he's sane. And ultimately, he wins that case by July 1928. Remus is a free man. After that, history unfolds. Dodge, in a small way, finally gets what's coming to him. In 1930, he's indicted on seven counts of perjury from false testimony he'd given in an unrelated case. He sentenced to 30 months in the same Atlanta penitentiary he'd investigated for corruption. Afterward, he returns home to Lansing, Michigan, where he lands more or less on his feet. He lives the rest of his life quietly, marrying and having a family. He dies at 77 in the late 1960s. The rest of Remus's life follows a somewhat similar pattern. Things become far more subdued, far quieter. At first, Remus spends most of his time trying to retrieve his fortune. He claims Imagine's entire estate, but finds it only amounts to $1,589.46, or 25 grand in today's money. In credit, with the Pierce Arrow Automobile Agency, on a car she had traded in years before. He manages to get two Chicago banks to open safety deposit boxes reportedly belonging to Imagine, which he hopes contained the 1.8 million in cash and diamonds she stashed away while he was in prison. No such luck. Inside are only a few bottles of booze. In 1941, Remus marries Blanche Wilson, his long-term secretary. She's a no-nonsense devoted woman who Remus finds comfort in as he settles into old age. They move across the Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky, where they buy a small house at 1810 Green Up Street. Remus starts a modest contracting in construction business, living in deliberate quiet and obscurity. Occasionally, he travels to his old haunts, but when people recognize him, it's only as a shadow of a bygone era, a ghost. In August of 1950, Remus suffers a sudden and severe stroke while exercising. He survives, but the residual effects are severe. Blanche eventually has to hire a 24-hour nurse to help. This is how Remus lives for about two years, before dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in December of 1942 at the age of 74. Obituary's hit the papers, most of which are less about the man and more about the bygone time period he's so exemplified. As one headline reads, "Another Gatsby passes." Remus is buried in a small country cemetery in Falmouth, Kentucky. In death, he has one last movement of ostentatious flair. His gravestone is larger, grander, and more expensive than all the surrounding markers. It features the statue of a woman with two angels looking over her, guarding her. And true to form with George Remus, there is controversy here, too. Soon after his burial, the angels are vandalized. Their wings knocked to jagged shards. Perhaps this is a final salute to slain imaging, but no one comes forward to claim or confirm it. Afterward, Blanche comes out to the grave with a hammer and knocks the remains of the wings off the angels' stonebacks. A clean break. America is known for its worship of personalities. Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Muhammad Ali, so many more. We lionize them not only for their accomplishments, but for the wit, charm, and swagger, with which they reach their heights. Even a lowdown, murderous criminal like George Remus, charmed his way not only to pinnacles of societal wealth, but he even convinced a jury of his peers to exonerate him from a murder that he brazenly admitted to doing. Only in a country like the United States can a character like George Remus ever truly thrive. But the question remains, what drove him to such extremity? You don't have to be Freud or Sophocles to recognize this as a classic case of hubris. But there was something more, a sense of control, perhaps, but always fleed at him during childhood. George Remus was a lifelong tea totler. The taste of alcohol didn't appeal to him, and he never indulged in it. He watched as alcohol controlled his father and threw his young life into torment. This was his turn to do the controlling, to control a very culprit that destroyed his family. Booze, all the booze. Scoundrel, history's forgotten villains is executive produced by Jason and Carissa Weiser and Colin Thompson. Today's episode was written by Lana Adler. It's produced by DJ Lubal, an edited and sound design by Anton Dodie. Scoundrel, history's forgotten villains is a cast original podcast.