Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS. Constance me Vidio.
Speaker 2: Sorry, welcome back everyone, as we move into our ten
Speaker 2: o'clock hour, I'm delighted to be joined by attorney Jeff Convicts.
Speaker 2: Jeff practices law in the great state of California. He's
Speaker 2: an active practicing attorney who is in and out of
Speaker 2: federal court, in and out of the State Supreme Court
Speaker 2: in California. But he's also an author, and he has
Speaker 2: written a new book which is a historical novel. So,
Speaker 2: without any further Ado, Jeff, welcome to Nightside. How are you, sir?
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Dan, Well delighted to have you. And you had a
Speaker 2: very successful book which was called The Sentinel that sold.
Speaker 2: I think it's about six million copies. Was that your
Speaker 2: first effort at writing a book?
Speaker 3: It was my first effort at writing a book. It
Speaker 3: had Actually it was in the mid seventies after I
Speaker 3: got met a law school at Columbia and I just
Speaker 3: a friend of mine said why don't you write a book?
Speaker 3: And I did. It was interesting because the first creative
Speaker 3: writing paper I had at Cornell, I got a d
Speaker 3: on and the professor said, you're illiterate. I guess I
Speaker 3: turned along the way.
Speaker 4: It's true.
Speaker 3: It's true. And the interesting about thing about the book,
Speaker 3: even though it was turned down by thirty companies in
Speaker 3: a Rose, Simon and Schuster took it, and then Random
Speaker 3: House took it. And in those days, math market paperback
Speaker 3: was the business. Hardcover hardly existed. And they did a
Speaker 3: television ad and the next day the book blew through
Speaker 3: the roof everybody wherever I went in La New York,
Speaker 3: wherever on airplanes, everyone was reading it and they would
Speaker 3: get to a little after page one hundred when virtually
Speaker 3: everyone would say what because I tricked everybody and that
Speaker 3: got them locked in. So it was a huge hit.
Speaker 3: And then I did a sequel called The Guardian, which
Speaker 3: was a hit too, But now no one there is
Speaker 3: a big.
Speaker 2: So so you're a young lawyer at that point who
Speaker 2: you have started to practice law. But but better than that,
Speaker 2: you now become a highly successful author. I assumed The
Speaker 2: Sentinel turned into a movie, and there there were there
Speaker 2: were all sorts of a film adaptation, et cetera, and
Speaker 2: it was a It was a smashing success. Did you
Speaker 2: ever think at that point, well, gee, I've found my
Speaker 2: real life, my real role in life. Here they if
Speaker 2: I get to that point.
Speaker 3: Well, it did become a movie at Universal. I wasn't
Speaker 3: one hundred percent happy with it because the direct there
Speaker 3: took shortcuts. But such a long story. The truth is,
Speaker 3: when I got out of law school, I went right
Speaker 3: into the entertainment business. I went to one of the
Speaker 3: biggest talent agencies as a lawyer agent, and then I
Speaker 3: went to MGM as a production executive, and I was
Speaker 3: writing the book at night. And then when the book
Speaker 3: came out and was a hit, Universal bought the movie
Speaker 3: rights in a big bidding war. I made a lot
Speaker 3: of money in nineteen seventy four, was shocking, and I
Speaker 3: had no money in the bank, and suddenly I had
Speaker 3: a million and a half dollars. So I wrote two
Speaker 3: more books, The Centinel, The Guardian, and A Monster A
Speaker 3: Tale of Lockness, which was more about politics and more
Speaker 3: of a thriller about oil drilling. And then I said,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm staying in the movie business. The book
Speaker 3: business is very difficult. And I spent the next I
Speaker 3: still am in the movie business, running running public public
Speaker 3: distribution and production companies. We made a lot of movies.
Speaker 3: I produced some movies, but kind of In nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 3: I went back to my law practice full time. But
Speaker 3: the seeds of this book, the new book, The Circus
Speaker 3: of Satan, had already been planted.
Speaker 2: Where where did those seeds spring from?
Speaker 3: It started in the late seventies with a book called
Speaker 3: Against the Evidence, about a murder trial that took place
Speaker 3: in New York. Basically, four Jewish gamblers hired three Jewish
Speaker 3: killers and one Italian killer to kill a Jewish gambler
Speaker 3: who was breaking the rules and had gone to the press.
Speaker 3: And the reason it was so notorious is from nineteen
Speaker 3: hundred to nineteen thirteen, politics in virtually every American city
Speaker 3: with some little adjustments, were controlled by what I call
Speaker 3: the Irish mobs. The Irish had come over the Seventh
Speaker 3: in the sixth in the eighteen forties eighteen fifties from
Speaker 3: the Potato famine, and a lot of them moved into
Speaker 3: gangs in these major cities. They were like the bootle
Speaker 3: Boys and the Roach Guards, and the Death House Gang
Speaker 3: and the Tunnel Gang. And eventually they coalesced into one
Speaker 3: big gang called the Wio Gang, which I begin my
Speaker 3: book with in a bar fight. And then by nineteen
Speaker 3: hundred they had basically moved out of gangdom and become
Speaker 3: political powers. Like in New York, the Irish completely controlled
Speaker 3: Tammany Hall, and through Tammany Hall they controlled the police department,
Speaker 3: who were all grafters, and the police department would scour
Speaker 3: the city grafting and grafting the opium dens and the
Speaker 3: houses of prostitution and the gambling casinos, and the money
Speaker 3: would be remitted to the eye Irish overlords at Tammany
Speaker 3: Hall and then the student The overlords at Tammany Hall
Speaker 3: would get people elected to major positions in the city
Speaker 3: who had then kicked back money to Tammany Hall. In fact,
Speaker 3: in nineteen ten, when Mayor Gamer was elected, he canceled
Speaker 3: money going to Tammany Hall for a thousand Tammany executives,
Speaker 3: all of whom were dead. So the money was just
Speaker 3: pouring in. And this happened in almost every major city,
Speaker 3: not so much in Boston because the Brahmins were there,
Speaker 3: as you know you're from Boston. But in my book,
Speaker 3: I do have Honey Fits and Patrick Kennedy and Kennedy's
Speaker 3: son and Rose Fitzgerald there in there. There was a
Speaker 3: heavy Irish presence in Chicago through Bath House, John Coglin
Speaker 3: and Hinky Mike Kenna. Saint Louis was completely controlled by
Speaker 3: Eddie the Rat Egan and his gang.
Speaker 2: But when you talk about when you talk about Chicago,
Speaker 2: obviously you get to the Daily family of you know,
Speaker 2: in the fifties, and they sort of handed it off
Speaker 2: to Jane Byrne and then that was kind of the
Speaker 2: end of the Irish control in Chicago. But there were
Speaker 2: a lot of stories about what mayor Daily, you know,
Speaker 2: the Richard Daily, the father, might have done to help
Speaker 2: find a few extra votes in Chicago to swing Illinois
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixty presidential election. So those of us
Speaker 2: in Boston are very familiar with the interplay between political
Speaker 2: figures and gangs. So this is a book that I'm
Speaker 2: sure a lot of my listeners are going to read,
Speaker 2: and I want to, I want to expand our conversation
Speaker 2: on it, but I got to take a quick commercial break.
Speaker 2: My guest is attorney Jeff Convicts. John Jeff has had
Speaker 2: tremendous success as an author, and despite all of that,
Speaker 2: he remained a practicing, highly successful lawyer in California, And
Speaker 2: he now has a new book that comes out actually
Speaker 2: later this month called Circus of Satan.
Speaker 4: It is a historical novel.
Speaker 2: There's and we we will occasionally occasionally have authors of
Speaker 2: historical novels that I think would be of interest to
Speaker 2: my audience. We know a lot of the successions here
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts. Matter of fact, more recently we had the
Speaker 2: Senate President in Massachusetts, a Democrat by the name of
Speaker 2: Bill Bulger, and his brother, the notorious Whitey Bulger, who
Speaker 2: had been at one point a resident of Alcatraz. They
Speaker 2: had a real rule of terror here in Boston from
Speaker 2: the late sixties through the seventies and eighties and into
Speaker 2: the nineties. And actually Bulger was the former cent of President,
Speaker 2: was the president of the University of Massachusetts until then
Speaker 2: Governor Mitt Romney convinced him to resign that post. So
Speaker 2: even it comes up to the twentieth the twenty first century,
Speaker 2: and we're going to talk with Jeff Convince. If you
Speaker 2: have a question, you were more than welcome to join
Speaker 2: the conversation if you're interested in the interrelationship between politicians
Speaker 2: and gang activity, which dates from the earliest years of
Speaker 2: the nineteen hundreds, actually a little bit into the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy eight onto eighteen eighties and nineties. That's the
Speaker 2: era we're talking about. If you'd like to join the conversation,
Speaker 2: feel free six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty
Speaker 2: six one, seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty. If you're
Speaker 2: familiar with any of Jeff's prior books, including The Sentinel,
Speaker 2: I think he would admit is his best known book,
Speaker 2: you can you can talk to him as well. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on Night's Side right after a couple of
Speaker 2: brief messages with my guest, California attorney, author successful in
Speaker 2: two very interesting and arguably related realms, writing and the law.
Speaker 2: Back on Nightside after this.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w BEAZ,
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is a writer and a lawyer and accomplished
Speaker 2: in both of those fields. Jeff convicts. Jeff, let's talk
Speaker 2: about the book that is about to come out again,
Speaker 2: A book that you've worked on for some time. How
Speaker 2: long would you say you've worked on this book? I
Speaker 2: suspect it's been in the making for a long time.
Speaker 3: Well, I did after reading this against the evidence. And
Speaker 3: actually there are more books about the Becca Rosenthal murders.
Speaker 3: In fact, a book called Satan Circus which is nonfiction,
Speaker 3: and the whole book is about the murders. My book
Speaker 3: just uses the Becha Rosenthal case in about twenty pages,
Speaker 3: which triggers a whole bunch of plot issues that are
Speaker 3: fictional but lead to the same place. So I started
Speaker 3: writing it in the late seventies. Was I tried to
Speaker 3: fictionalize it. It didn't work. I put it away. It
Speaker 3: was sat in a closet for sixteen years. I got
Speaker 3: married again and my wife, my new wife, found it Joe,
Speaker 3: and she said, it's a great story. So I read
Speaker 3: it again. It didn't work, and then I realized why
Speaker 3: I was trying to fictionalize real events. So I turned
Speaker 3: my attention to writing a fictional story. But virtually everything
Speaker 3: in the book actually happened, from the Triangle shirtwaist fire
Speaker 3: to the Beck and Rosemen bal murders, the sinking of
Speaker 3: the Titanic, the murder of Stamford White, the nineteen oh
Speaker 3: three World's Fair, the Great Dance Fight in Chicago, the
Speaker 3: greatest dive in the history of boxing. All this stuff
Speaker 3: was real, so I had a feather my real characters
Speaker 3: through it. It took me twenty five years, fought and
Speaker 3: on because I had a law practice, and I was
Speaker 3: also producing movies. But it took twenty five years. And
Speaker 3: what I realized at the end, which was which shocked me,
Speaker 3: is about ten years after I started the book, there
Speaker 3: was a movie called Gangs in New York with Leonardo
Speaker 3: DiCaprio about the basically about the Irish and the Irish gangs.
Speaker 3: And then there was a giant mini series hit called
Speaker 3: Boardwalk Empire that started in nineteen twenty. My book basically
Speaker 3: ends in nineteen twenty. It's the middle period. It connects
Speaker 3: Gangs in New York the Boardwalk Empire and then explains
Speaker 3: a period and events that almost nobody knows about. It's
Speaker 3: a dead era when the Irish controlled everything, and then
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirteen the Irish mob was destroyed.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you a couple of questions here. I'm
Speaker 2: more familiar with what has gone on in Boston, and
Speaker 2: I suspect that's fairly a representative of some of the
Speaker 2: other cities that you have in this book.
Speaker 4: But in Boston, for a long long time, as we.
Speaker 2: Call them, the Brahmins of the Yankees, those who could
Speaker 2: trace their roots to the Mayflower, ruled everything here. They
Speaker 2: they were the bankers, Uh, the educators, they the the investors.
Speaker 2: It was it was all uh, one class. And then
Speaker 2: obviously you had, as you mentioned here, the UH the
Speaker 2: the Irish landed and UH and things changed and the
Speaker 2: Irish the way in was uh political. But at the
Speaker 2: same time there was a lot of gang activity here.
Speaker 2: There were other gangs that that came along. But the
Speaker 2: Irish in Boston, UH, they didn't want their their children,
Speaker 2: their kids to be involved in that sort of stuff. So,
Speaker 2: for example, you'd have Joe Kennedy. Uh, the patriarch of
Speaker 2: the Kennedy family was involved in bootlegging. Reportedly, I I
Speaker 2: can never tell you that I bought bootleg whiskey from
Speaker 2: Joe Kennedy, but I've seen enough to realize that's true.
Speaker 2: He himself was involved, as you know, in the movie industry,
Speaker 2: but his son went on to become the President of
Speaker 2: the United States. As you know, your dad was active
Speaker 2: in democratic politics. He had another son who ran for president. Both,
Speaker 2: of course, sadly and tragically were assassinated. But the patriarch
Speaker 2: wanted their children to be in what arguably was a
Speaker 2: cleaner business. But I'm not sure that the politics was
Speaker 2: any cleaner than the gang activity. If you get my drift.
Speaker 3: Well, as a current example, there were museums all over
Speaker 3: the country, and charitable institutions and a great creative art
Speaker 3: centers around the nation named after the Annenbergs, well most
Speaker 3: of them Max Adamberg with gangsters. In fact, they led
Speaker 3: the newspaper hit squads and Chicago that would beat up
Speaker 3: newspaper stand proprietors who had the wrong newspaper up front
Speaker 3: and their stands, and then the other papers would send
Speaker 3: gangs and beat them up. And then eventually at the
Speaker 3: end of his life Moses Annenberger tried to get away
Speaker 3: from it. Became the bigger criminal because he controlled the
Speaker 3: betting wire and he had a NonStop war with Capone
Speaker 3: and the Chicago organization and the Purple Gang. I mean,
Speaker 3: he was deeply embedded and then went to jail. And
Speaker 3: when he got out of jail, on his death bet
Speaker 3: he said to his son Walter, I made millions. I'm
Speaker 3: the richest man in the country. I was the most
Speaker 3: powerful man in the country. It was all for nothing.
Speaker 2: A lot of regret. There a lot of regret, And
Speaker 2: of course anybody who knows journalism knows that there are
Speaker 2: journalism schools Aninburg schools and awards and all that. So
Speaker 2: I assume that the pattern that we see here in
Speaker 2: Boston followed on in Chicago. And I don't know that
Speaker 2: I'd want to be in the gang that was up
Speaker 2: against al capoone. So there you had, I guess a
Speaker 2: Jewish gang was in competition with an Italian gang.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: The interesting thing is the Irish had in in Chicago.
Speaker 3: There were there was segregated vice district. The most famous
Speaker 3: was the Levee and that was run by a man
Speaker 3: by Big Jim Colosimo, who was assassinated in the first
Speaker 3: episode of Boardwalk Empire. So that the Irish powers, the
Speaker 3: Aldermans controlled the Levees and the other crime areas through
Speaker 3: through Big Jim Colosmo and Johnny Torrio who he brought
Speaker 3: in for New York, and then Johnny Toreo brought in Capone.
Speaker 3: But there was there was a heavy Irish presence in
Speaker 3: the gangs, the Obanion Bannons. You know that big Valentine's
Speaker 3: Day massacre. Uh So it was a mixed bag. In
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, it was all Irish, all Irish, okay.
Speaker 2: And when you use the term levees in terms of Chicago,
Speaker 2: we would be referring to it as the docks.
Speaker 3: It's the waterfront, well, it's called the Levy and it
Speaker 3: was about as depraved as you can imagine. The people
Speaker 3: in the people in Chicago loved the praved areas, but
Speaker 3: they wanted to separate them away so that their conscience
Speaker 3: could blossom as men of essex and morality that had none.
Speaker 3: So it was a little different in every city. But
Speaker 3: what happened was in the Becker Rosenthal murders, the connection
Speaker 3: between the politicians at Tammany Hall and the police department,
Speaker 3: which was totally corrupt, was broken, and once that was broken,
Speaker 3: the control over the vote died. Socialists came in with
Speaker 3: the Jews. The merchant bankers came in to rescue the
Speaker 3: Jews from poverty. The Protestant churches went to war with
Speaker 3: the Catholic Church, and before you know it, the Irish
Speaker 3: mob had collapsed, and out of that rose the Jewish
Speaker 3: organized crime families into labor rackets to hearing, followed by
Speaker 3: Jewish crime families and Italian crime families into bootlegging and
Speaker 3: then organized crime as we know today. But it wouldn't
Speaker 3: have happened without the Becca Rosenthal murders. That did it.
Speaker 3: It broke the chain that Herbert bays Swope, the great reporter,
Speaker 3: who was at the Pulett, who was at Pulitt's World,
Speaker 3: was trying to break. And this was the event that did.
Speaker 3: It's not central to my book, but it's at the end,
Speaker 3: and it allows part portions of the plot to unravel
Speaker 3: with all the surprise endings. So I use it. But
Speaker 3: there are whole books on that. There's a book, as
Speaker 3: I said, called Satan's Circus is one against the evidence.
Speaker 3: It's a very famous case.
Speaker 2: And so you take the title Satan's Circus and you
Speaker 2: flip it around here. Circus of Satan. Is that the
Speaker 2: genesis of your title?
Speaker 3: Two reasons. Number one, The ten Underloin district on the
Speaker 3: West Side was the upper level of crime and corruption.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: It was called the Tenderloin by a cop who said,
Speaker 3: I've been on the East Side getting chuck steak. Now
Speaker 3: I'm going to cross town to get some tenderloin. And
Speaker 3: San Francisco picked up the name.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, The tenderloin district in San Francisco was not
Speaker 2: a place you want to spend a lot of time.
Speaker 4: It's a.
Speaker 3: But the The Protestant clergy referred to the Tenderloin as
Speaker 3: Satan's Circus because it was so different, and I took
Speaker 3: the title for two reasons. Number one, there's a nonfiction
Speaker 3: book called Satan's Circus about the Becca Rosenthal murders. I
Speaker 3: didn't want to clash for that. But my hero, my
Speaker 3: my anti hero, is not exactly an altar boy. When
Speaker 3: he looks back on his life. Some of the things
Speaker 3: he did, he regrets it led to awful things. Even
Speaker 3: though the resolution might have worked out. He left the
Speaker 3: trail of bodies, pain and tears behind. And until the
Speaker 3: end of the book he admits, from the time he
Speaker 3: was a child until the end, he could never cry
Speaker 3: because so many bad things that happened. So he compares
Speaker 3: his life to a circus of Satan, and he has
Speaker 3: this metaphorical presence of Satanic clowns juggling and Satanic lion
Speaker 3: Tamer's taming at the end of each chapter, so it
Speaker 3: has a double meaning. It's his life and it's the place.
Speaker 2: Gotcha all right? We got to take a break. News
Speaker 2: at the bottom of the hour. My guest is attorney
Speaker 2: and author Jeff Convicts. If you you would have known
Speaker 2: him from the book The Sentinel and other books along
Speaker 2: the way. The new book, which is coming out on
Speaker 2: June seventeenth, the publication date. Who's the circus of Satan
Speaker 2: being published by you? Back with Simon and Schuster are
Speaker 2: a different publisher No, My.
Speaker 3: First three books were published by Simon and Schuster Random
Speaker 3: House in Bantam. This one, I decided it's going to
Speaker 3: be my own publishing company. I want complete control. I
Speaker 3: designed the cover, I had designed the inside, I designed
Speaker 3: all the marketing campaigns. My partner and I put up
Speaker 3: all the money. We hired the pr people, the marketing people,
Speaker 3: we have ads and publishers weekly in variety. We're going
Speaker 3: all out. It's very difficult because the major publishers have powers.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's almost impossible to get an indie book
Speaker 3: into a bookstore because of the discount rate for hardcovers.
Speaker 3: So the way you buy this book is you go
Speaker 3: on Amazon and it's actually in pre order. Now you
Speaker 3: go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or other online booksellers,
Speaker 3: just press order, give your address, won't pay for it,
Speaker 3: and it comes the next day, two days later. So
Speaker 3: it's a different thing. I had to learn how to
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the lawyer, and you're figure it out then, Jeff,
Speaker 2: we'll be back in a couple of a couple of
Speaker 2: minutes after the newscast. Folks, if you want to jump
Speaker 2: on board, you have a knowledge of these these these
Speaker 2: sordid histories in most major American cities throughout most of
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, and you want to either add to
Speaker 2: the conversation or ask a question, You're more than welcome
Speaker 2: six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or six
Speaker 2: one seven, nine three, one ten thirty back with attorney
Speaker 2: and author Jeff Convicts right after the news break at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking with a gentleman who has combined two areas
Speaker 2: of expertise literature writing and also the law. Jeff Convicts
Speaker 2: is a very successful California lawyer who hit it big
Speaker 2: with a book called The Sentinel in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: That nineteen seventies. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm not that I.
Speaker 4: Was looking you know what I was doing, Jeff.
Speaker 2: I was looking at the number of sold six million,
Speaker 2: and I defaulted to the sixties, the seventies. You and
Speaker 2: I graduated from law school the same year. If you
Speaker 2: get out in seventy four.
Speaker 3: By the way, just now, I got out in seventies, So.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough. Well you don't sound it, that's that
Speaker 2: is for sure. And the book that he's written now
Speaker 2: is is available for pre order Circus of Satan, highly
Speaker 2: recommended to me by someone, which is why I have
Speaker 2: Jeff on tonight. I want to follow up because I'm
Speaker 2: not sure that you responded as fully as I think
Speaker 2: you could to the to the whole question of out
Speaker 2: of at least in Boston, and maybe Boston is the
Speaker 2: exception of the rule out of the the the Irish gangs.
Speaker 2: And and not that Joe Kennedy led a street gang,
Speaker 2: because that wasn't what he did, but he wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure that his sons were we're in a more
Speaker 2: legitimate field politics. And and ultimately, Bobby Kennedy went after
Speaker 2: organized crime. And as a matter of fact, some people
Speaker 2: believe that his pursuit of organized crime, UH and his
Speaker 2: tenacious pursuit of organized crime may have laid laid the
Speaker 2: foundation for both his and his brother's assassination. Do you
Speaker 2: have a thought on that theory, you know, because nobody
Speaker 2: knows the real story as far as I'm concerned, behind
Speaker 2: the Kennedy assassination. But I see the hands of organized
Speaker 2: crime much more clearly than I do of Fidel Castro,
Speaker 2: or the Soviet Union, or or or any sort of
Speaker 2: you know, crazy right wing plot does. Does your experience
Speaker 2: and your knowledge in this area, has that helped? Have
Speaker 2: you thought about that the implications of both of those assassinations.
Speaker 3: The easiest answer is I'm a political animal. I know
Speaker 3: that I read nonfiction. I read NonStop. I'm up on
Speaker 3: current events, and I've always been. I have my opinions
Speaker 3: on the Kennedy assassination. I feel strongly. I guess maybe
Speaker 3: our new head of Health and Welfare, mister Kennedy, feels
Speaker 3: the same. I suspect that Alan Dulles and the CIA
Speaker 3: had a hand in it. I can't prove it. There's
Speaker 3: no thorough proof of that, but they were as duplicitous
Speaker 3: a group of characters as I've ever come across. Now,
Speaker 3: all the derivations of that, I probably could talk for
Speaker 3: hours on it, but I don't believe there was a
Speaker 3: single gunman, and I don't believe the CIA wasn't involved.
Speaker 3: But you can paper the walls with my beliefs. That's
Speaker 3: from my analysis of what I've read, And I.
Speaker 2: Could be wrong, But by the way, not only could
Speaker 2: you be right, but your theory could possibly The Blaky
Speaker 2: Commission in the late seventies and the House of Representatives
Speaker 2: I thought, did the deepest dive on whatever was available
Speaker 2: in seventy nine and at that point had not been
Speaker 2: lost to antiquity, basically came to the conclusion that organized
Speaker 2: crime was more likely than not involved. But that is
Speaker 2: not necessarily inconsistent with your saying the CIA might have
Speaker 2: covered the attracts by using the Jack Rubys of the
Speaker 2: world and some of the Chicago gangsters who had very
Speaker 2: close relationships with a couple of women that President Kennedy
Speaker 2: allegedly was involved in.
Speaker 3: You don't as you're referring to Sam g and Conn
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, Yeah, that's well, that was what the
Speaker 2: Blaky Commission, and I am influenced greatly by the Blaki
Speaker 2: Commission and spent a lot of time looking at that
Speaker 2: as a reporter in seventy eight and in the eighty three.
Speaker 2: The fifteenth and the twentieth anniversary of the assassination and
Speaker 2: had a chance to interview lots of the people who
Speaker 2: were on the scene. Literally from interviewed John Conley, interviewed
Speaker 2: Senator Ralph Yarboro, who was you know along in years
Speaker 2: by nineteen eighty three. Interviewed the Texas ranger who was
Speaker 2: holding Oswald's arm as Oswald was being shot by Jack Ruby,
Speaker 2: fascinating guy who only died a few years ago. Interviewed
Speaker 2: some of the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital. It
Speaker 2: was just it was a very you know, very interesting
Speaker 2: and again it shows that, you know, there is this
Speaker 2: relationship between organized crime and politics, or organized crime and government.
Speaker 2: There it's not as clear a demarcations as we should
Speaker 2: have in a society. Comment on that if you would,
Speaker 2: and then I want to get to some phone.
Speaker 3: Well, people sometimes ask me, how did the violence back then?
Speaker 3: And it was very violent. My book doesn't sugarcoate it.
Speaker 3: How is it different from the violence today? Well, the
Speaker 3: truth of the matter is whether it was the Irish
Speaker 3: mob or the Jewish organized crime that rose after the
Speaker 3: Irish Mob was destroyed, or even the Italian mob or gangsters,
Speaker 3: and whether they were original immigrants or the sons. They
Speaker 3: all wanted to be Americans. That's the difference. They wanted
Speaker 3: to be Americans. They just happened to want to be gangsters,
Speaker 3: but they wanted to be Americans.
Speaker 4: The path they chose.
Speaker 3: In fact, what's happening here today with the trend Agua,
Speaker 3: MS thirteen and others, they don't want to be Americans.
Speaker 3: It's the last thing they want. They want to use
Speaker 3: America for their own means. So I guess the difference
Speaker 3: is you have criminals who wanted to be Americans to
Speaker 3: be criminals, and today you have criminals who wouldn't care
Speaker 3: less about being Americans. And the other interesting thing is
Speaker 3: my story in my book is so intricate, and there
Speaker 3: are so many steps involved. If something goes wrong, everything
Speaker 3: goes wrong and you have to recalibrate. It could never
Speaker 3: happen today because you have cell phones, you have internets.
Speaker 3: You pick up the phone, you call someone else, and
Speaker 3: the plot would be broken today. Organized crime, other than
Speaker 3: these immigrant gangs are really like medicare frauds and SBA FORUD.
Speaker 3: It's all over the place. I see you have a
Speaker 3: lot of friends with criminal lawyers like Robert Shapiro, is
Speaker 3: a close friend of mine. It's all over the place,
Speaker 3: and it's more technological fraud, technological crime rather than the
Speaker 3: crime that existed back then.
Speaker 2: Well, the crime that's coming across the border, which involves
Speaker 2: fentanyl and things like that, which are really are scary.
Speaker 2: They they are selling that junk here because Americans will
Speaker 2: pay for it. Yes, there may be people in their
Speaker 2: home countries who would play, who would try that junk,
Speaker 2: but they can't make the same amount of money. There's
Speaker 2: no there's no return and investment selling it to people
Speaker 2: who are in poverty in Central America or South America.
Speaker 2: That's why they are basically bringing that stuff across the border,
Speaker 2: because there's a marketplace for it. Let me let me
Speaker 2: get us a call or two in here. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go first off to Lola in San Diego, California. Lola,
Speaker 2: you are next on night Side with my guest who
Speaker 2: also is in California, Jeff Convits tonight. Go ahead, Lola.
Speaker 5: Hi, Jeff, thank you for troking my call. I just
Speaker 5: want you to know that your release date to your
Speaker 5: book is on my birthday, so thank you.
Speaker 3: By the way, birthday. When I set the date, it's.
Speaker 4: Also I have a bridge in Brooklyn. I'd like to
Speaker 4: show you.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, Dan, there's no coincidences. Bunker Hill Day
Speaker 5: is also my birthday. And I'm glad to see you
Speaker 5: keeping the radar up on corruption and what's going on,
Speaker 5: because we allegedly have some stuff going on in Massachusetts.
Speaker 5: So you might want to put your radar on that
Speaker 5: state for your next book.
Speaker 2: I think in San Francisco is talking about.
Speaker 5: Francisco. I'm not in San Francisco. I'm in San Dieo.
Speaker 4: I'm misspoke.
Speaker 2: I know that, I know that.
Speaker 4: But my daughter's in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Uh, she's doing fine actually today she uh
Speaker 2: Lola is referring to the Karen Reed trial. I don't know,
Speaker 2: Jeff that you have followed that trial. It's uh, it's
Speaker 2: it's not a it's not a classic organized crime trial.
Speaker 4: Uh, but there is.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of allegations of police abuse and misconduct,
Speaker 2: and it's actually being used by the defensive attorneys, including
Speaker 2: a guy from California named Alan Jackson, who you might
Speaker 2: have be aware of.
Speaker 3: Well, I am following it, but not quite as much
Speaker 3: as I follow other things.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: So when you do, when you do get a moment.
Speaker 5: Look at the the YouTube videos because allegedly there's a
Speaker 5: judge there on the case and she's throwing signals like
Speaker 5: she's a baseball coach.
Speaker 4: Yah, you know what all I'm gonna I well, I
Speaker 4: gotta again.
Speaker 2: I think that that the jalre some rus here.
Speaker 4: But I want to get back to the topic that
Speaker 4: you know, I don't.
Speaker 5: Great to talk with you say and singing something is
Speaker 5: two different things.
Speaker 2: So just okay, time times out, Thanks much, We'll talk soon. Okay,
Speaker 2: have a great night if any of you would like
Speaker 2: to talk about the issue at hand, which is the
Speaker 2: book of my guest, Circus of Satan, which talks about
Speaker 2: organized crime activity in this country really from about the
Speaker 2: end of the nineteenth century, throughout the twentieth century, throughout
Speaker 2: much of the twentieth century. Attorney Jeff convicts. The book
Speaker 2: is called Circus of Satan. It's a historical novel. We
Speaker 2: do not do novels per se historical novels. I make
Speaker 2: exceptions for including the historical novels of our good friend
Speaker 2: Bill Martin William Martin, who has written so many great
Speaker 2: books which are New England based. This is a different
Speaker 2: type genre of book, and I want wanted people to
Speaker 2: be aware of it. We'll take a very quick break
Speaker 2: if you'd like to follow in Lola's footsteps and perhaps
Speaker 2: talk about this book or the theories that my guest
Speaker 2: has talked about. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten
Speaker 2: thirty six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. Coming
Speaker 2: right back on night Side.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking with Jeff Convits, a very successful attorney. It
Speaker 2: has been involved in the entertainment industry for a long time.
Speaker 2: But I had a breakthrough novel back in the mid
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies called The Sentinel UH and has spent the
Speaker 2: last I don't know a couple of decades with a
Speaker 2: book that had been buried away which he has brought
Speaker 2: to life. And it's called Circus of Satan, and it
Speaker 2: basically talks about ethics, morality.
Speaker 4: Judgment, revenge.
Speaker 1: UH.
Speaker 2: A very violent time. And and I think, Jeff, what's
Speaker 2: important one of the things that's that are important with
Speaker 2: your book is to make people understand really how violent
Speaker 2: America was in this period of time, and somehow we
Speaker 2: survived it as a nation. Can you imagine if there
Speaker 2: was an internet and and and spot news, breaking news
Speaker 2: stories back at the turn of the nineteenth century the
Speaker 2: twentieth century, I should say, uh, how that would have
Speaker 2: been covered? You know, the Valentine's Day massacre, these this's
Speaker 2: just this, you know, carnage that's that's that littered the
Speaker 2: streets of America for decades.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: I think I noted the fact that my book, which
Speaker 3: is fiction and as a page turn to, every chapter
Speaker 3: has a has a cliffhanger or a giant event that
Speaker 3: leads you to the next till the very end. None
Speaker 3: of that could have happened if you had the Internet
Speaker 3: and you had cell phones. The only place you got
Speaker 3: news in those days was through the newspapers, and the
Speaker 3: reporters controlled the message, probably more legitimately than some today.
Speaker 3: They were very accurate, but they all had their agendas.
Speaker 3: I mean Herbert Bateswolpe, who was the most famous appearances world.
Speaker 3: His agenda was women, protecting the workers in the garman
Speaker 3: places from abuse, and of course, when the Triangle shirtwaist
Speaker 3: fire broke out, one hundred and twenty five, one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty eight women jumped to their deaths. He was
Speaker 3: the lead rabble rouser against the garment business. That was
Speaker 3: controlled by the Irish mob and so what happened then
Speaker 3: couldn't happen if we had the technology then technology now
Speaker 3: back then couldn't have happened.
Speaker 2: No, I do understand that, but I'm just saying we today,
Speaker 2: at least speaking for Boston, if there's a shooting, a
Speaker 2: single shooting, sometimes there's an injury, sometimes there's not shots
Speaker 2: fired somewhere, that will lead the newscast with breaking news.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure it's the same in every major American city.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's the same in Los Angeles, San Diego,
Speaker 2: where Lola is, San Francisco, every major city, because the
Speaker 2: newscasts they if they don't lead the newscast with the
Speaker 2: weather crisis, and if you watch it, the TV consultants
Speaker 2: are telling everybody the only issue the subject that everyone
Speaker 2: is interested in his weather. It's only about twenty five
Speaker 2: percent of the people care about sports, other people care
Speaker 2: about this, care about that, but everybody wants weather. I
Speaker 2: just can't imagine, and it's impossible, maybe, as you say,
Speaker 2: for in the type of world we live now, for
Speaker 2: these gangs who have coalesced and survived and actually done
Speaker 2: well financially, et cetera. It just would have been so shocking,
Speaker 2: and I think it's important for us to remember that
Speaker 2: as bad as things are today, they were worse in
Speaker 2: this country in the past. I feel like I'm preaching here,
Speaker 2: but it's what I really do believe.
Speaker 3: Well, take for example, the Bowery. It was the most
Speaker 3: populated place on earth. In ten square blocks, there were
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand people. There were one hundred synagogues, there
Speaker 3: were two hundred gangs, there were one thousand selza plants.
Speaker 3: Everything was on top of each other, and everything was
Speaker 3: to get the vote. Control the vote. The Jewish, Jews
Speaker 3: and the Italians. Give them whatever they want as long
Speaker 3: as they vote the Tammany slate. Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 3: was very different today. A dead body lying in the
Speaker 3: street was no big deal. Now at dead body lying
Speaker 3: in the street, it's the news right away, top story.
Speaker 2: Breaking breaking news, that's for sure. Jeff again, how can
Speaker 2: folks pre order the book? And it comes out on
Speaker 2: June seventh, But people tonight can can just go.
Speaker 4: On to Amazon dot com? Is that how it works?
Speaker 3: As simple as that, you can go onto Amazon dot
Speaker 3: com or Barnes and Noble or any other online bookseller.
Speaker 3: It'll pop up, it'll say pre order. You just got
Speaker 3: to click it and put it, you know, pay for it,
Speaker 3: and they'll deliver it to you on June seventeenth, which
Speaker 3: is the publication date, or a day after, or you
Speaker 3: can order it an ebook if you're an e book reader,
Speaker 3: it's available. We're going to have a sale on the ebook,
Speaker 3: so you'll be able to get in for a week
Speaker 3: and get it very cheaply, but no sale on the hardcover.
Speaker 3: If you're gonna read a book, you're gonna pay for it,
Speaker 3: which is what I hope they do. It's a it's
Speaker 3: a big book. It's five hundred and thirty one pages.
Speaker 3: I believe once you start reading it, you will not
Speaker 3: be able to put it down. And not only that,
Speaker 3: you will learn a lot about ideas of justice, ethics, morality,
Speaker 3: history that most people don't know. You'll learn a lot
Speaker 3: from this book. And all the reviews have said so
Speaker 3: the reviews are sensational.
Speaker 2: That's great. Well, congratulations on both of your successes as
Speaker 2: a practitioner of the law and also as a practitioner.
Speaker 2: I would say typewriter, but typewriters are out a I'm
Speaker 2: sure you were dealing with the word processor or a computer.
Speaker 2: Maybe when you started you had a typewriter on this book,
Speaker 2: because this book has been a long time in the making.
Speaker 2: Jeff Convits, I really appreciated your time. I've enjoyed the
Speaker 2: conversation both this afternoon and particularly tonight as well. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much. Hope at some point to meet you.
Speaker 3: As a side comment, Dan, my first typewriter, a Remington Electric,
Speaker 3: is sitting next to my desk on a pedestal. I
Speaker 3: wrote this sentinel on that.
Speaker 2: Would I would be sentimental about the sentinel if I
Speaker 2: had been fortunate enough to have written it.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much, Jeff, we'll talk again. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. Here comes the eleven o'clock news, and
Speaker 2: after that it's the twentieth hour of the week, and
Speaker 2: I have an idea what I'm going to talk about,
Speaker 2: but I hope that you'll be willing to participate. Coming
Speaker 2: back on night's side,