What Happened To Joe In Mafia 2

Third in a series of profiles for Women'south History Month.

On March 24, 1966, passersby walking on a footpath beside a picturesque brook nigh Salzburg, Austria, plant the trunk of a woman in the snowfall abreast a tree. Her glaze was neatly folded on the ground. A possible suicide note indicated the person was just "tired of life."

The woman was Virginia Hill, the former so-chosen "Queen of the Mob," a courtesan and entrusted cash courier for household-name American gangsters from the mid-1930s through the 1940s. An Austrian official ended the 49-year-old Virginia died of a cocky-administered overdose of sedatives, not a surprise given her history of near-fatal pill-swallowing going dorsum to the 1940s.

Hill, built-in in 1916, was surely something of a mental example, possibly diagnosed today as bipolar, sociopathic, deadline personality or worse. But while withal merely a teenager in 1934, she showed her mettle every bit the cute and beguiling redheaded amateur of Mob bookmaker Joe Epstein in the rough and decadent city of Chicago. Soon, with incredible ease, using her looks, sexual liaisons and talents for laundering money and stolen merchandise, Loma rose college than any other woman in the national underworld, an equal amid the most infamous male racketeers in the United States, among them Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Johnny Rosselli, Charles and Joe Fischetti, Tony Accardo, Frank Nitti, William "Ice Pick Willie" Alderman, Jack Dragna and, most famously, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

Fifty-fifty equally late as 1949, Loma was described as the "intellectual director" of the Chicago Outfit'due south narcotics trafficking ring in Mexico by making the gang's "financial and social contacts" and entering "high Mexican society through her many lovers," according to a 1951 report by Rudolph Halley, lead counsel to the Senate Special Commission to Investigate Criminal offense in Interstate Commerce, known equally the Kefauver Committee.

Simply Hill is best known for her relationship with Siegel, a stormy and sexual practice-charged union of two professional criminals, experts in coin laundering, gambling, intimidation, fraud and, later, Mexican narcotics. The two, both at times irrational, started seeing each other as early as 1937 in New York and resumed their matter full bore at actor George Raft's Hollywood home in 1939. To the notwithstanding-married Siegel, Loma was his ideal adult female in all respects. Their intense pairing on the West Coast ironically fused the interests of rival Mob factions – Siegel'southward ties to New York boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who used Siegel to proceeds a foothold in the Due west'due south race wire and gambling rackets, and Hill's association with the Chicago Outfit's Charles Fischetti and Fischetti's Los Angeles boss, Jack Dragna, who liked to hear her tell what Siegel was up to.

Dragna, who detested Siegel, was said to have once remarked that Hill "was the just woman who could exist trusted to continue her mouth shut." Hill's longtime financial provider, Epstein, who would exist unusually defended to her for decades, reportedly confided to Lansky: "Once that girl is under your skin, it'due south similar a cancer. It'due south incurable."

Her bond with the every bit smitten Siegel, whom she regarded every bit the greatest of her many lovers, would accept them to Las Vegas, which she grew to hate, in 1945 for the fateful edifice, opening, endmost and reopening of the syndicate-financed Flamingo hotel-casino. Rumors swirled that past 1947 Siegel had skimmed $2 million of the Flamingo'south building "costs" of $6 meg and gave information technology to his veteran cash-carrying girlfriend to hide in a Swiss banking company. The end would come days after Chicago ordered Loma to go out Las Vegas in early June 1947 and to tell Siegel she was going to buy wines for the Flamingo in Paris. Siegel called a charter aeroplane pilot to fly her solo to Los Angeles. Siegel is said to accept taken $600,000 in cash for his buddy "Fat Irish" Green to hold (Green later agreed to return the money to Lansky). Siegel flew to Los Angeles for the Beverly Hills home Loma rented (with Siegel's money) from Hill's friend, Juan Romero, her erstwhile Hollywood motion-picture show agent. Inside the house, unawares, Siegel was killed past a burglarize shot by someone – never apprehended – through the front window, almost certainly a gangland hit, on June 20, 1947. Colina offset heard almost it from a fellow reveler during a party on a boat in Paris.

Virginia's backstory started at her birthplace, the small-scale town of Lipscomb, Alabama, on August 26, 1916. She was one of 9 or 10 children fathered past Mack Colina, a trader in horses and mules. Mack beat her during her babyhood until one day she threw a hot skillet at him. She was sexually agile with boys at historic period 12 and allegedly married a mysterious human named George when she was simply xiv. At 17, she moved with George to Chicago in 1933, where she dumped him. She then worked as a side show "shimmy" dancer at Chicago's "A Century of Progress Exposition" and, some claim, as a prostitute. A twelvemonth after, she was a waitress in a short brim at the San Carlo Italian Village, a hangout for the Capone gang, still thriving afterward dominate Al Capone was sent to federal prison house in 1931. At the San Carlo, she met a client, Epstein, the Capone group's bookmaker and accounts human being for Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik. The run a risk meeting with Epstein would lead to Virginia'south future as the mistress, cash carrier, money launderer and spy for many of America's leading racketeers.

Epstein was impressed by Hill's no-nonsense demeanor. He met Hill again at a party in June 1934 and recruited her to launder Outfit dissonance money by placing wagers at Chicago equus caballus race tracks. Epstein's betting schemes enabled him to increase his odds of winning. The funds from winning bets could then be reported to the Internal Revenue Service as legitimate income. Hill, given greenbacks to bet $i,000, $two,000 and more per race, followed Epstein'southward precise instructions, brought back the winning tickets and got a 10 percent share of the proceeds. He showed her how to lure unsuspecting men into "sucker" bets – pure turn a profit for bookies – such every bit for fixed boxing matches. She passed with flying colors.

Epstein bought her expensive clothes and had her lath planes carrying stolen jewels and furs for auction out of state. Her savvy, discretion and vulgar, wisecracking conversation at the Outfit's hangout, the Plantation Gild, impressed those she met. By 1935, nevertheless not yet twenty years old, Hill was invited to confer nigh business with Frank Nitti, Charles Fischetti and others in the Outfit'due south tiptop echelon.

Colina, well-dressed and bejeweled, was seen every bit a shrewd and trusted courier of cash and a less-obvious target of frisking by police enforcement than the typical male Mob torpedo. In the mid- and late 1930s, Colina was the top moll of the underworld. Her boyfriend/benefactors included Major Riddle, a rich trucking and oil tycoon, Chicago Outfit associate and late Las Vegas casino mogul. In a secret scheme hatched by Epstein, Colina agreed to exist Riddle'due south paramour for more than a yr, enticing Riddle to hand over thousands in greenbacks for nonexistent "investments" that she merely delivered to Epstein. She did well-nigh anything for Epstein, including having sexual practice with men to obtain data. She fifty-fifty, on a dare without hesitation, gave oral sex to Charles Fischetti, Guzik and several other height Outfit men in front of shocked guests – including Fischetti's wife – at a Christmas party in 1936.

The Outfit had around this time made a deal with Luciano's New York gang, allowing for mutual investments in each other'southward vice rackets. Epstein sent Hill back East, instructing her to use her wilds on the vain Adonis, the male monarch of New York'due south vice schemes, to see if he was holding up his end with Chicago. Loma relished the office. She moved to New York and laundered tens of thousands in greenbacks she received in the mail from Epstein. In Adonis, she found mutual physical attraction. She helped Adonis pull scams, collect and evangelize racket-earned cash. They made coin together during their matter, only neither was faithful to the other.

One of Adonis' main earners at the fourth dimension was Siegel. Hill told the Kefauver Committee in 1951 that she met Siegel in 1942 or 1943, but she likely beginning saw the handsome, blue-eyed Siegel in 1937 while in the company of Adonis and virtually immediately started a sexual human relationship with Adonis' underling. This injure and enraged Adonis. He made his anger known to the Outfit, which soon cutting Hill'due south assart. She moved to be near her female parent in Georgia, then headed to Hollywood, where one mean solar day she got into a loud argument with a date, the famed thespian Errol Flynn, at the Brownish Derby eating place. Her name made it into the national gossip columns.

3-21-16 Bugsy Siegel1 — Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel

The yr 1939 would be a busy ane. She had her hot dalliance with Siegel in Raft's Los Angeles abode but information technology did not last. She took upwardly with a Mexican nightclub dancer named Miguelito Valdez, returned to Chicago and then went to Georgia, where she met a 19-year-one-time college football player at a bar, married him on the spur of the moment and had it annulled half-dozen months later. She also may accept taken Louis Dragna'due south summit associate, Johnny Rosselli, as a lover. She married Valdez in early 1940 to permit him back into the The states to resume his career. That year, Siegel saturday in jail on a murder rap from August to Nov. She invested Outfit cash into a nightclub in New York, the Hurricane, and appeared at the opening, dancing the rumba in her bare feet with Valdez before news cameras. Later the opening, she tricked the hapless Valdez into signing a paper saying information technology was for a club booking when it was an uncontested divorce agreement.

Past then, fluent in Spanish, Hill was directing drug trafficking – specifically heroin – out of Mexico for her Chicago patrons. To curry favor and obtain important information for the Outfit s of the border, she had diplomacy with the son of a Mexican finance minister and a connected politician.

All the while, Epstein sent her cash through the mail when she asked for it, a service her old loyal friend from her teen years would maintain into the mid-1960s. Luciano's pinnacle henchman Lansky likewise used Hill to distribute Mob cash, likely realizing her double attraction as a courier who provided sexual favors to the recipient. The seductress served as a spy, exchanging verbal communications with gangsters and reporting dorsum to Lansky on the latest inside news and gossip.

In the early 1940s, Virginia was traveling from Chicago to New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City doing the bidding of Chicago and Los Angeles Mob figures. She and her brother Chick took acting lessons in Hollywood and tried to land movie parts. She spent thousands, thanks to Epstein, on furs and jewelry. She rented suites of rooms at the Beverly Hills Hotel and hosted lavish parties, dropping a and so-fortune $seven,500 on one glory shindig. In New York in 1944, she started a relationship with Carl Laemmle, Jr., heir to the fortune left past his movie producer father. He brutal difficult for her and bought her expensive gifts, but she rebuffed his advances.

Siegel dodged his murder accuse, in the slaying of Mob acquaintance Harry Greenberg, in 1942. He struck Hill during their frequent arguments. In 1944, soon after he allegedly punched and raped Hill, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrested him for felony bookmaking. He vanquish the felony rap but his abort fabricated the papers. Embarrassed and frustrated dealing with L.A.'due south gangsters and law enforcement, he turned his sights on Las Vegas. He had investments there in a race wire at the Northern Guild and El Cortez casinos. He idea Las Vegas had great potential as a new resort destination for travelers. He wanted Loma to join him there. She refused at beginning. Dragna contacted her and told her to become to Las Vegas, sentinel Siegel and written report back on his activities.

In 1945, Siegel became a partner with Hollywood nightclub owner and publisher Billy Wilkerson, whose planned Flamingo resort project in Las Vegas ran out of money subsequently Wilkerson gambled away his greenbacks. Siegel obtained virtually $1.5 million in financing from, among others, Luciano'south crony Lansky and Chicago's Fischetti brothers and Murray Humphreys. Loma agreed to come live with him temporarily in Las Vegas.

Siegel made many expensive changes to the Flamingo. Building materials were stolen nether his nose and resold, driving up costs and delaying the project. The Mob'southward investment expanded to $vi million by the time the casino opened, unfinished, on December 26, 1946. The debut included Raft and a scattering of other Hollywood stars every bit guests but turned out to exist a flop. Lucky gamblers led to losses of most $300,000 (or so veteran thief Siegel'southward story goes) in the get-go two weeks. Siegel closed the gambling hall, finished the hotel rooms and reopened it in early 1947.

Ane day in the casino, a drunkard and enraged Hill punched a woman. Siegel took Loma upstairs and yelled, "You lot've made me look like a bum!" Shortly thereafter, Loma took an overdose of sleeping pills and barbarous silent. She survived subsequently Siegel and some other man drove her to a hospital to have her stomach pumped.

The Flamingo turned effectually and earned an income in the spring of 1947, but was still in the red. Siegel's investors were unhappy with the losses and his corrosive personality. On nigh June 8, 1947, Colina received orders from the Outfit to leave Las Vegas for Chicago. A pilot, Lew Gourley, after wrote that Siegel himself called him to charter her a flight to Los Angeles. Hill was "an excellent passenger" during the flight merely she objected when Gourley told her that due to heavy fog. they might take to land in Palmdale. Hill said no, that she had to be in Los Angeles inside an hour, likely to make a connecting flying. She flew to Chicago and eventually made it to Paris. Siegel was shot to death 12 days afterwards. In the coming weeks in Europe Hill would survive three more suicide attempts and after returning to usa, a fourth in Miami where Siegel had bought her a house. After a trip to United mexican states, she returned and searched for a home in Reno, Nevada, and Spokane, Washington. By now, federal authorities were investigating her for evading taxes on her cash income.

In early 1950, she traveled to the popular ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho. There she met a ski instructor named Hans Hauser, a former world champion downhill skier from Austria. Hauser'south friend and beau ski teacher Otto Lang described Loma as "far from pretty, a bit short and dumpy" who compulsively pulled out her eyelashes "hair past hair." Soon, Lang wrote, some "shady and ominous characters began to drift in and telephone call Virginia and leave again" without skiing. She accepted deliveries of stacks of $100 and $50 bills and threw some gratuitous parties. The FBI came to investigate, and the lodge wanted her to leave. Merely Hauser told Lang he wanted to marry Hill. Lang advised confronting it but Hauser and Hill eloped the adjacent morning time. They had a son, Peter, on November xx, 1950, in Brighton, Massachusetts.

The following year, the Kefauver Committee subpoenaed Hill, at present 34, to appear in New York to show during nationally televised hearings on organized crime activities. Loma arrived on March 16, 1951, several months after giving birth. She entered the Foley Courthouse in a $5,000 mink cape, broad-brimmed hat and silk gloves. Some described her as the "star witness" of the Kefauver hearings.

Hill evaded questions from commission counsel Halley most her organized crime associations. She gave vague answers and artfully lied almost the origins of the tens of thousands in cash she had Epstein hold for her in a prophylactic deposit box. The coin was from her winnings betting on the horses, she explained. Loma also claimed the "fellas" she knew, including Siegel, but sent her gifts and coin along the way.

"Bought me everything I wanted, when I was with Ben. He paid for everything. And he gave me some coin, too, bought me a house in Florida."

Well-nigh Siegel and the Flamingo, Hill said she advised him to sell the casino "considering it was making him a nervous wreck."

Halley asked about how she obtained up to $xx,000 in the by year, including the $12,000 she spent during her brief stay in Sun Valley.

Loma said she had asked Epstein since 1935 to hold her gambling winnings. He sent some when she needed coin and she "never kept rails of information technology." She also said admitted recently receiving $ten,000 greenbacks from friends in Mexico.

Virginia denied, likely on cue from her Mob cohorts, that the infamous men she consorted with were racketeers or gangsters. She also denied beingness role of the "dirty business concern" of mobbed-up drug sales in United mexican states. Merely investigator Halley knew otherwise. In 1949, she was identified as assisting in the heroin trade in Mexico with Al Blumenthal, owner of the Los Angeles nightclub Ciro's, providing the investment cash.

Halley complained to Hill that she had nada substantial to provide the committee despite having associated with organized criminals for years.

"Simply I never knew anything virtually their business," she said. "They didn't tell me about their business. Why would they tell me? I didn't care annihilation about business concern in the commencement identify. I don't even empathise it."

Halley replied: "The reason I inquire y'all is that you seem to have a great deal of power to handle financial affairs."

"Who, me?" she asked.

Halley told her "it but seems incommunicable" that she did not know who Siegel's associates were at the Flamingo. Hills claimed she mostly stayed upstairs with friends in her hotel room.

"I didn't ever get out. … In the first identify, I had hay fever. I was allergic to the cactus. Every time I went there, I was sick. Then I had to take those benadryls, and they would make me experience terrible anyhow. … Ben's friends, I never even met them or was around them."

After the committee finally excused her and on the way out of the hearing room Loma spewed obscenities at the press, slugged and floored a female person reporter, Marjorie Farnsworth, and covered her face while walking quickly through the corridors. Earlier climbing into an awaiting cab, she told reporters she hoped an atomic bomb would autumn on them.

Hill and Hans Hauser did non remain in the country for long. Hans overstayed his visa and had to leave. He flew to Chile to teach skiing and brought Peter with him. The IRS was pursuing Mrs. Hauser with vigor. That July, the agency served a $161,000 lien on her for back taxes from 1942 to 1947. In a stopover at the Denver aerodrome, Hill was nearly arrested. She snapped at reporters, "I'd shoot you if I had a gun." In Baronial, while the Hausers were in Europe, the IRS auctioned off 800 of Colina'due south possessions in Spokane – including ii cars, five expensive furs worth $23,000, a ruby and diamond band from Siegel for their intended hymeneals in 1947, communist china and crystal sets, her $30,000 home – from which the IRS netted a mere $41,000.

At present that Loma was in Austria, near Switzerland, some in us speculated that she had deposited as much as $5 million in Swiss banks for the underworld. U.Southward. and Interpol agents monitored Hill's movements. She made 65 border crossings in Europe from 1952 to 1956. She traveled with Epstein in Italia for several days in 1953. The Hausers moved to Klosters, Switzerland, and kept an flat in Zurich. A grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Hill in 1954 on four counts of tax evasion. The ever-loyal Epstein sent about $iii,000 a calendar month to his patron through the post and delivered money to her personally in Switzerland. In 1957, she dined with old boyfriend Joe Adonis in Rome and afterwards inquired about returning to the United states of america. Only she faced a $227,000 tax evasion suit in Los Angeles and heard she faced at least a year in prison if bedevilled.

Colina and her family unit moved to Austria. By the mid-1960s, she wearily related to people virtually her wish to commit suicide. In 1965, her husband found her unconscious and took her to a hospital for yet another overdose of sedatives – her seventh – to be pumped from her tummy. She flew to Cuba just officials knew who she was and denied her entry. In 1966, now out of money, fifty-fifty Epstein ignored her pleas for funds. She is said to have spoken past phone to Adonis, then living in Naples, Italy, on March 20. She left her home on March 22. Her trunk was establish two days afterward. Some maintained that Adonis had his soldiers force feed her drugs to kill her later she tried to extort money from him. Epstein publically admitted he had sent her $100,000 from 1952 to 1965 from her investments, backed by money provided by mobsters, and that her assets had finally run out.

Hans Hauser died from in an apparent suicide in Austria in 1974. Peter Hauser, a decorated U.S. Ground forces veteran of the Vietnam State of war, died in a car accident in Toulouse, France, in 1994. All 3 family members are buried together in a cemetery in Salzburg, Republic of austria.

Jeff Burbank is content development specialist for The Mob Museum. Contact him at jburbank@themobmuseum.org .