Gangland the Lawyers

Gangland figures cannot function without their lawyers - their mouthpieces - who speak for them in court, obtain bail, throw doubt on the evidence and, if all that fails, try to obtain a reduced sentence. However, in the underworld, this is only half the job. Although many lawyers are honest, possibly the best type of lawyer for gangland figures is dishonest - a shyster - who will act as a go-between with the police, provide false alibis, bribe and intimidate witnesses, jurors and judges and, from time to time, finance and set up robberies and burglaries. Occasionally these lawyers - who may by then have even become judges - will kill on their own or their client's behalf, or may be killed themselves. This book is a worldwide history of these individuals and their tawdry stories, looking at mob lawyers such as Frank Ragan, the Florida lawyer who acted for three mob leaders, Santos Trafficante, "Three Fingers" Lucchese and Carlos Marcello. It covers a wide range of characters from James Sawyer, the barrister and forger who was involved in the First Great Train Robbery to the American Judge Joseph Peel, who had his co-judge killed; from New South Wales's Murray Farquhar, involved with the state's top drug dealers to Illinois judge Thomas J. Maloney, sentenced to 16 years for corruption.