Amid aggressive interrogation by Delau, Birns insisted he had been dining on frog legs in a Garfield Heights steakhouse at the night of Gold's murder. Boom. Birns was killed in March 1975. They searched his car and confiscated a revolver which he had placed in his glove box. The man only managed to drag away Birns's upper torso. [10] Crnic was later killed while attempting to attach a car bomb to a vehicle belonging to mafia associate John "Johnny Del" Delzoppo on April 5, 1977. In the hospital, he told police the shooter was a man in the back seat of a car driven by Shondor Birns. It was, The Plain Dealer said, "one of the few cases on record in which men identified by police as 'gangsters' were convicted of anything." He was soon labeled as "Cleveland's Public Enemy No. The property was initially owned by Oscar and Helen Cisar, who in turn deeded it to the Plata family. He and his wife, Jane, had one son, Michael (d. 1978). He soon acquired an assault conviction in which Birns broke the jaw of a motorist who had taken too long to make his turn in front of Birns. Largely on King's testimony, Birns and the others were indicted. Cleveland, Therefore, Birns had arranged a loan for Greene through the Gambino family. [1][page needed], One of Birns's most serious arrests was for the 1934 murder of Rudy Duncan, a 36-year-old night club bouncer at Euclid Avenue's Keystone Club. Alex Birns was born Alexander Birnstein in 1907, in the town of Lemes, in a section of Austria-Hungary that went to Czechoslovakia under the Versailles treaty. In the movie, Greene kills Shondor Birns by detonating a bomb on his car. Police and newspaper reporters ate and drank on the house. He said he had merely asked an Alhambra waitress to see if the juror would be fair to him. Seriously, no one, save for official records used the name Alex when referring to Shonder Birns. [1][page needed], One of the best known of the black numbers operators was Donald "The Kid" King, the future boxing promoter. One of the gangsters shouted, "We want you out of the business or you're dead", while pulling back his coat to reveal a pistol in his waistband. He was also jealous of Birns's immense wealth and popularity with the Cleveland media and public. With the backing of the Cleveland crime family, Birns operated freely and was well liked by all the prostitutes of his whore houses. Greene was trying to build his first iteration of the Celtic Club, but Birns insisted on including one of his associates in the deal. 1 in bombings. 1 by the local newspapers. His parents were Herman and Illon Birnstein. Shondor, like everyone else in the club, knew what I was there for. Birns operated the Ten-Eleven Club and the Alhambra restaurant, often treating off-duty policemen, lawyers, and journalists. Defense lawyer Fred Garmone called King "a scheming, lying, witness-fixing extortionist himself". "[7] All concerned was shocked when two days later, Birns produced Allene Leonards, a shy, 24-year-old teacher in the Garfield Heights school system who confirmed his alibi claiming that she had been with Birns the whole night. Bombing victim. His first wife, Jane, divorced him in 1964. He had married Jane in 1952, and had one son, Michael (died 1978), with her. Yet he was popular, had an engaging personality, was known by many newsmen because he was good copy and was ever ready to buy them a drink. Birns was afterwards arrested a number of times but served little time in jail, having friends among lawyers, judges, and policemen, and buying off or silencing witnesses. Virgil Ogletree: Bombing suspect, and the reason for the police's search of Mapp's house. He denied ownership of the gun and would not reveal who shot him. He was born Szandor (Hungarian for Alexander) Birnstein in either 1905 or 1907 in what is now the Slo-vak Republic town of Lemesany, which was then part of the Austro-HungarianEmpire. [1][page needed], On the streets, Birns developed a reputation as a fierce fighter, proving himself quick with his fists in many fights with street thugs. The police raided his house, arrested him, seized the narcotics and what was left of the $75,000. – Cut of their profits, $1,000 weekly, – Peacemaker and mediator of disputes among the blacks. [1][page needed], Birns was always dealing with heavy opposition from a few black gangsters who wanted independence from him and the more powerful and politically connected Mafiosi of the Cleveland family. There were those, however, who neither cared for Birns nor took from him. Birns was among those picked up for questioning. Bang. [1][page needed], Then his major brushes with the law began. This was possibly a mob hit, as Gold had purportedly engaged in a heated phone conversation with notorious Cleveland mobster Shondor Birns shortly before his death. In recent years, Birns lived in Orange with his second wife, Ellie. A wartime presidential order was issued charging Birns as an enemy alien and he was interned at McAllester, Oklahoma. 1" by the local newspapers. [1][page needed]. They would serve as important contacts for him in the future and vice versa. He denied even knowing Duncan at all. [1][page needed], In October 1956, Birns sent an emissary to King and his colleagues demanding that they pay up to $200 a week to make sure that none of their competitors paid out more than 500 to 1, or pay the consequences. Diamond was an associate of Teamster leader William Presser and was once referred to by the local newspapers as "Cleveland's Number One Racketeer". Several pellets of shot hit him in the back of his head, but King survived. Birns pressed Greene but Greene flatly refused to return the money; instead asserting that it wasn't his fault that it got lost. Suspecting that Birns was behind it, Greene decided to retaliate. Many of Birns's clients were judges, politicians and police officers of high rank. A reporter and photograph were waiting when he arrived. Amazingly, a paper bag of clothing from inside his car survived. From New York City, the family moved to Cleveland, settling in the lower Woodland Avenue district. He was regarded as a celebrity gangster and had many public sympathizers in what was generally seen as a vendetta. He and his wife, Jane, had one son, Michael (d. 1978). While my guy was always super cool, Birns was a completely different kind of dude. The explosive was wired improperly and failed to detonate. [11], In the Cleveland Press, Dick McLaughlin summed up his career: "A muscleman whose specialty was controlling numbers gambling on the East Side, keeping the peace among rival operators and getting a cut from each of them, Birns was a feared man because of his violent reaction to any adversary. During this period, he gloried in his fame and enjoyed the attention which he received from local law enforcement as well as fellow gangsters. His dispute with the Mafia began when he borrowed money, through Shondor Birns, from the New York Mafia. There ain't gonna be no more Shondors...."[1][page needed] Kevin McTaggert, a henchman for Danny Greene, later told the FBI that Greene had contracted Hells Angels member Enis "Eagle" Crnic to kill Birns for a fee of $7,500. It read: "Diamond's of Ohio - Fashions for men which women love". Alex Birns was born Alexander Birnstein in 1907 in the town of Lemes in a section of Austria-Hungary that went to Czechoslovakia under the Versailles treaty. He was then taken to the hospital and refused to cooperate any further with police. Birns had misplaced his cheque and could not produce it when asked for it by the coatroom girl. However, when longtime Cleveland family boss, John Scalish died, Birns teamed up with the faction backing James T. Licavoli as the new boss. At the trial, a neighbor backed Birns's alibi. Daniel Greene was born to first generation Irish-American immigrants John Henry Greene and his girlfriend, Irene Cecilia Fallon. [1][page needed], Greene had requested from Birns a loan of $75,000. [1][page needed], Anticipating an untimely demise, Gold left behind an affidavit claiming that Birns had given him the bonds. Birns married twice. His hair was scorched off from the heat of the blast. "[1][page needed], More often, Birns chose to lunch at the Theatrical on the Short Vincent, where he always sat at the end of the bar. Cleveland, [5], When the trial began, King was cast as the star witness in the trial. When they got into their car back in the theater parking lot, two men wearing white cotton gloves walked up alongside, one on each side. • The papers called him Alex “Shon-dor”Birns,butthatwasbackwards. He told the doctor a firecracker caused the injury. Shondor got part of the money from New York mobsters. The coatroom girl subsequently refused to give Birns access to his coat. King eventually began holding out on the protection money being paid on a regular basis to Birns, Lonardo and their associates. After six appearances in court, a prosecutor remarked, "It is time the court put away this man whose reputation is one of rampant criminality." They divorced in 1964 and Birns then married Allene Leonards. Police and bomb squad members worked an entire day examining the bombing scene. At the age of 19, Birns was convicted of auto theft and served two years in prison. [4], In 1959, Birns was shot at by an unknown assailant as he arrived home. 349 likes. He was actively involved in a wide variety of racketeering and other organized crime related activities such as prostitution, theft, A year after his release in 2010, Eng’s wife Lori was murdered by another Flying Dragon member, David Chea, who killed himself (probably in order to avoid Johnny Eng’s retribution). It took the jurors four hours to reach a verdict, which resulted in Birns's acquittal. Uninjured, he went to the police and accused Birns of ordering the bombing. In February, Birns and his girlfriend were walking downtown when a car with several black men drove by. Birns dropped out of school after 10th grade in 1922, enlisting in the Navy in 1923 but being discharged 6 months later because he was underage. 1" by the local press. King gained prominence among the other operators in 1954, after he thwarted a robbery of one of his gambling houses, killing one of the stick-up men. Her clothing caught fire and was engulfed in flames. Police called it "continuation of guerrilla warfare among policy game racketeers. Supposedly Danny borrowed $80,000 or $75,000 from Shondor Birns to open a cheat spot, an after-hours drinking establishment. Once, when he was under a 24-hour surveillance, Birns was leaving a Cleveland Indians baseball game. After watching Kill the Irishman, I was flipping through the bonus features on the DVD and was shocked to discover the person who wrote the book is Rick Porrello and he lives in the next town over from mine.If you read my blog you know how much I love that movie as I wrote about it for a St. Patrick’s Day post. From there, the family moved to Cleveland and settled in the lower Woodland Avenue district. Somebody also tipped off the press. He was actively involved in a wide variety of racketeering and other organized crime related activities such as prostitution, theft, numbers, … They found him, but they couldn't find evidence to tie him to the murder. Like many im… In the mid-1960s, King and his partner, a Cleveland prize-fighter named Victor Ogletree were reportedly grossing $15,000 a day on policy. Birns was sitting at Keystone with two of his fellow gang members when he rose to retrieve some cigars from his overcoat which he had checked in the coat room. 11201 Euclid Ave. Several close murder attempts led Birns to buy a Greene wanted the money to set up a "cheat spot", a speakeasy and gambling house. Somehow the money wound up in the hands of Billy Cox, a numbers operator, who used it to purchase narcotics. He was only a month old … This time, Birns brought his heavily armed black bodyguard along in anticipation of trouble. Birns' nose was broken when his body landed on the street after being blown out the top of his car. After two days, Birns checked himself out of the hospital and was well on his way to a full recovery when he was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon. [1][page needed], When the police arrived, they found Birns in his car ready to pull away, while holding a bloody handkerchief to his shoulder. 1975), a notorious criminal, was involved in rackets, PROSTITUTION, theft, assault, and murder from the days of Prohibition until his death. Shondor Birns had died as he lived —violently,andwithPageOnehead-lines. He was released, but only after paying $2 for two overdue traffic tickets. On July 8, 1963, he was found murdered and stuck in the trunk of his car. Alexander Shondor Birns 1907 – 1975 ... memorial page for Allene G Leonard Birns (1939–1996), Find a Grave Memorial no. Birns was only in his twenties. Bam. The judge and jury had difficulty understanding King and his rapid, inarticulate speech led the local newspapers to dub him "The Talker". The Gambino family, from whom Birns had borrowed the loan, wanted their money. [1][page needed] Birns would later divorce his first wife, Jane, and marry Leonards a year later. [1][page needed], In spite of being diligently pursued by law enforcement for most of his life, Birns eventually came to respect and admire the city's police officers. Birns managed to bypass that by disguising his connections to the Alhambra. One hit Birns in the shoulder and the other hit one of Birns's friends in the leg. In any event, those who initially refused would soon pay up. The motel owner said he had checked in Saturday and sought treatment for an injured right hand. Coroners workers spent hours collecting as many pieces of skin and bones that they could find. He was released. Like many families, the Birns family struggled to earn a living in the New World, and during Prohibition, they turned to bootlegging, taking in a small still from Cleveland Mafia boss Joe Lonardo to supplement their income and better provide for their children. OH [4], The relentless prosecutors, however, didn't give up and accused Birns of trying to contact a juror in the second case. [3], During the late 1930s, Birns became heavily involved in protecting whorehouses or "vice resorts" as they were dubbed by the media. [4], While in prison, Alex Birns was accused of masterminding the car bombing of numbers operator, Joe Allen, in an attempt to shake him down for 25 percent of his operation. 1" by the local newspapers. If you were a Cleveland mobster in the ’70s, public transportation would have been a smart choice. Part of the estate was reputedly used as a firing range by members of the Flying Dragons, honing their accuracy with machine guns. Three bullets hit him, but he managed to run up to the front porch of a house yelling, "Let me in, baby, let me in!" [1][page needed], At the trial, however, King told jurors that Birns's emissary had offered him $10,000 not to testify: "He said if I didn't testify, he would guarantee there would be no more shooting at me or bombing my house and I'd have no reason to be scared no more." In separate incidents in quick succession, two men were shot from the same passing car. By law, convicted felons weren't supposed to be legally able to get liquor licenses. [1][page needed], At 3:45 a.m. on the morning of May 23, 1957, an explosion ripped apart the front porch of King's house. [1][page needed] A leather gym bag and gym shoes had been blown from the trunk. He would pick up a newspaper and find himself labeled Public Enemy Number 1, and then he would turn around and give free drink and food to his accusers. Youngest of three children, he was brought to New York at the age of one month. He opened his Ten-Eleven Club at 1011 Chester Avenue in Downtown Cleveland. But the … The second acquitted him. [13] Greene himself survived a little while longer (although the Birns-allied Licavoli faction continued to try to kill him due to his partnership with their enemy Nardi) but like Nardi was killed by getting blown to pieces in a car bombing. [1][page needed], Throughout his lifetime, Alex Birns craved respectability and sought to obtain it through his popular Alhambra Restaurant, where many judges and politicians dined. Birns once told a reporter, "If I'm the city's biggest crook, why do they all want to be my friend? The outcome of the first trial was a hung jury. [1][page needed], In 1959, Birns physically assaulted a police officer. He had married Jane in 1952, and had one son, Michael (died 1978), with her. At one point, he was simply its "public relations director". The group continued shouting at Birns as he and his bodyguard cautiously backed out of the bar and left. It wouldn't be long before he found work on the other side of the law, acting as an enforcer for Alex "Shondor" Birns, a Jewish mobster.In addition to being a mob strongman, Greene started up his own loan-sharking, gambling and racketeering … He was a feared man, but a genial and generous man, holding court almost daily at the Theatrical Lounge where he lunched."[12]. When the man spent the money on a large cocaine purchase and was arrested, Greene found himself owing the mob $60,000 that he’d never laid … The restaurant was usually frequented by local and out-of-town big shots. [2], Later in the year, Birns was once again arrested by the police. At the time, Birns was unaware of the Immigration Act of 1917 which required any alien convicted of a crime of moral turpitude to gain permission prior to entering or leaving the country.
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