Sam Rummel

{{short description|American attorney and murder victim (1906–1950)}} {{use mdy dates|date=June 2024|cs1-dates=ly}}{{use American English|date=June 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Sam Rummel | image = File:LAT Photos via UCLA Digital - Police photographing body of Sam Rummel at scene of death in Los Angeles, Calif., 1950.jpg | alt =  | caption = Police photographing body of Sam Rummel at scene of death, 1950<br>{{small|(''Los Angeles Times'' photo collection via UCLA Digital)}} | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth date|1906|05|26}} | birth_place = Kansas City, Missouri, United States<ref>{{cite web |work=United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925 |publisher=FamilySearch |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVJG-P5RK |title=Entry for Samuel Louis Rummel, 1923}}</ref> | death_date = {{death date and age|1950|12|11|1906|05|26}} | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | nationality =  | other_names = | occupation = | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | children = }}

'''Samuel Louis Rummel''' (May 26, 1906{{snd}}December 11, 1950) was an American attorney and murder victim. Rummel's clients included Gardena, California poker clubs, gambling ship operator Tony Cornero, and reputed mobster and convicted income-tax evader Mickey Cohen. A shotgun blast killed Rummel outside his home in Laurel Canyon in 1950. No one was ever charged with Rummel's murder but a 2021 history of the Los Angeles underworld states that Rummel was killed on orders from Jack Dragna.

== Career == One history of law enforcement in California in the Earl Warren era described Rummel as "a smart, able lawyer, but had devoted his life and efforts to defending people in the underworld".<ref>{{Cite web |title=LAW ENFORCEMENT AND JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE EARL WARREN ERA - Interviews Conducted by Miriam F. Stein and Amelia R. Fry - 1970 through 1977 |year=1981 |publisher=Regents of the University of California |url=https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/rohoia/ucb/pdftext/enforcementjudi00olnerich.txt}}</ref> Rummel represented the owners of Gardena, California-based casinos in "their frequent court battles, and had won a key appeals court decision in 1941 that struck down a challenge to the clubs".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Gnerre |first=Sam |title=How Gardena become home to legalized card clubs |url=http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history/2013/06/28/how-gardena-become-home-to-legalized-card-clubs/ |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=South Bay History (blogs.dailybreeze.com) }}</ref> Rummel owned 15 percent of the Monterey poker club in Gardena.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Commerce |first=United States Congress Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LMQiixPcJxsC&dq=%22samuel+rummel%22+gardena&pg=PA737 |title=Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Hearings Before a Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, United States Senate ... Pursuant to S. Res. 202 ... [and S. Res. 129]. |date=1951 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |language=en}}</ref> He had also represented Tony Cornero, who ran gambling ships off the Pacific coast during the Great Depression.<ref name=":0" />

In 1955, when unidentified gunmen shot up the home of "Bingo King" Max Kleiger in Pacific Palisades, the ''Los Angeles Mirror'' reported, "The beach front gambler's name popped up in Kefauver committee testimony here a few years ago in connection with an alleged plot to recall then Mayor Bowron so that open gambling could run in the city. The committee reportedly received evidence of a meeting of five powerful syndicate figures in a Hollywood hotel room." The five people in the meeting were reportedly Bob Gans, Max Kleiger, Jimmy "the Eel" Utley, Curly Robinson, and Sammy Rummel.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1955-09-16 |title=Gangland Shoots Warning at Bingo King; He Flees |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/los-angeles-mirror-gangland-shoots-warni/148672328/ |access-date=2024-06-04 |work=Los Angeles Mirror |pages=5}}</ref> Gans was the town's one-time "slot-machine king," Robinson was the town's "pinball-machine king," Kleiger was a bookie, Utley "concentrated on bingo and abortion," and Sammy Rummel was Mickey Cohen's lawyer.{{sfnp|Buntin|2010|pages=162–163}}

Rummel, as part of a "stellar legal team", is credited as one of the reasons for Mickey Cohen's rise to power.{{sfnp|Tereba|2012|page=97}} One biography of Cohen suggests that the relationship between the two had substantially cooled at the time of Rummel's murder in 1950.{{sfnp|Tereba|2012|page=184–185}}

== Murder == Rummel was shot in the back from about ten yards distance around 1:30 a.m. on December 12, 1950, on the walkway to his home in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, California, United States, by someone wielding a double-barreled shotgun.<ref>{{cite web |work=California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994 |publisher=FamilySearch |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPSD-V629 |title=Entry for Samuel Louis Rummel, 11 December 1950}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Webster |first=John |title=Cohen's lawyer shot to death |date=1950 |url=https://calisphere.org/item/30ce7656b6a49b083c676317198ce621/ |access-date=2024-06-04}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite web |last= |date=2006-03-03 |title=Over to the dark side |url=https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/over-to-the-dark-side/1927.article |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=Law Gazette }}</ref> The killing occurred the morning before Rummel was scheduled to testify before a grand jury in the matter of Guarantee Finance, described as a "massive bookmaking-loan syndicate that operated in county territory until it was shut down by state authorities in early 1949".{{sfnp|Tereba|2012|page=184}} Mickey Cohen attended Rummel's funeral, in company with his bodyguards Dominic "Highpockets" Faranacci and Sam Farkas.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1950-12-15 |title=Simple Rites for Rummel |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-news-simple-rites-for-rummel/148684257/ |access-date=2024-06-04 |work=Daily News |pages=41}}</ref> No charges were ever filed in the case of Rummel's murder.<ref name=":1" />

According to a history of the Los Angeles Police Department, "The assassination took place just one day before the County Grand Jury was to open its investigation of connections between county law officers and a large bookmaking ring. It was obvious the ring was determined to survive at all costs and no one was immune. Its involvement in local law enforcement agencies was frightening. Two former Sheriffs Department employees, a captain and sergeant, had been suspended and were indicted for their alleged involvement in taking bribes and failing to enforce gambling laws. Both had been talking to Rummel shortly before his death."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Capt. Arthur Sjoquist |url=http://archive.org/details/history-of-the-lapd-art-sjoquist-1984 |title=History of fhe LAPD by Arthur Sjoquist 1984 |date=1984-01-01 |language=English}}</ref> A Congressional investigation into organized crime suggested the owners of the Horseshoe Club, a rival Gardena poker outfit to Rummel's Monterey, may have had an interest in his death.<ref name=":2" />

LAPD Chief of Police William H. Parker suspected Jimmy "the Weasel" Fratianno, but prosecutors deemed evidence too weak for an arrest.{{sfnp|Buntin|2010|page=167}} According to the authors of ''Los Angeles Underworld'' (2021), two associates of Los Angeles boss Jack Dragna were responsible for the killing: "Angelo Polizzi squeezed the trigger, and Nick Licata's son Carlo assisted on the hit. The pair became made mafia members a year later, and Polizzi eventually rose to {{lang|it|caporegime}}."

== References == {{reflist}}

=== Sources === {{refbegin|indent=yes}} * {{cite book |isbn=978-1-43967-209-9 |title=Los Angeles Underworld |series=Images of America |first1=Avi |last1=Bash |first2=J. Michael |last2=Niotta |year=2021 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |location=Charleston, South Carolina |lccn=2020947165 }} * {{cite book |last=Buntin |first=John |year=2010 |title=L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City |publisher=Crown |isbn=9780307352088 }} * {{cite book |title=Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.'s Notorious Mobster |last1=Tereba |first1=Tere |date=2012 |publisher=ECW Press |location=Toronto, Ontario |isbn=978-1-77090-203-9 |lccn=2012944624 |oclc=797830888}} {{refend}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rummel, Sammy}} Category:1906 births Category:1950 deaths Category:1950s murders in the United States Category:20th-century American Jews Category:20th-century American lawyers Category:American murder victims Category:Deaths by firearm in California Category:Lawyers from Los Angeles Category:People from Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles Category:People murdered by the Los Angeles crime family Category:Organized crime in Los Angeles