“May it please the court, we’d like to request that Circuit Judge Johnst Northcutt vacate the bench for the remainder of this case because of his demonstrated public bias and prejudice against the defendants, including but not limited to participating in a raid on one of the defendant’s place of business—”
“Motion overruled,” the judge interrupted, rapping his gavel. “You may take your seat, Mr. King.”
Covington attorney Bert King stacked his papers, aligned the edges carefully and took his time returning to his seat in the Kenton County courtroom, where he joined a flock of local lawyers lined up like birds on a telephone wire, representing Lookout House casino owner James Brink, former Chicago and Detroit mobster “Sleepout Louis” Levinson and a half-dozen others who operated, owned and managed gambling clubs in and around Covington.
It was May 1936, just a few months after the Beverly Hills fire that killed a 5-year-old girl. But the gangsters at the defendants’ table did not look troubled at all. They made a show of looking bored and unconcerned, leaning back in heavy oak chairs that could have all been carved from the same “hanging tree” at about the same time the courthouse was built.
Their underworld friends lined the front rows of the gallery behind the railing, hats and a few overcoats on their laps. They wore dark suits in charcoal and navy blue, just like any gathering of businessmen at the exclusive Queen City Club in downtown Cincinnati. But there was something hard to define, just a little bit out of place for a boardroom. The suits were too stylish, too sharp, too tailored. The chalk-stripes were too bold. Some didn’t even have the decency to take off their hats. And their faces had the unhealthy pallor of night people who don’t see enough daylight. It reminded Judge Northcutt of the coloring he saw regularly on the faces of prisoners who were hauled into court after a few weeks in the county jail. The bailiffs called it “jailface.”
There were also a few hard-eyed women in the crowd. They were pretty and fashionable, but again, something was just a little bit wrong. They were overdressed, with too much makeup, skirts too short, eyes red as if they had come directly from the smoke-fogged nightclubs. It was late spring, and the courtroom’s tall narrow windows poured in bright sunshine that warmed the courtroom and made the gangsters tug at their tight collars and shift uneasily as sweat trickled down their backs under silk shirts and wool suits.
“That’s rather an impertinence,” the judge added, lifting his chin to glare coolly at the gangland defendants and their lawyers. He recognized a few local celebrities in the crowd. Red Masterson. Screw Andrews. Pete Schmidt. Just like roaches when you turn on the lights, he thought.
Judge Northcutt wore a high-collared white shirt and black bowtie under his robe, making him look almost priestlike. He was 43, but looked uncommonly youthful for a judge, as clean-cut as his University of Kentucky yearbook picture. His short dark hair could have been parted with a ruler and was combed close to the scalp. He had worked for and supported Governor Happy Chandler, so the underworld gangs figured the new judge’s promises of reform were just the usual campaign mouthwash. But now the word on the street was that Chandler had given up trying to talk sense into Judge Northcutt, and Northcutt would not return the governor’s calls. Apparently, the man was actually serious.
“The state can call its first witness,” the judge said, turning to the smaller line of lawyers representing the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
“Elmer Ware,” the bailiff called. The master commissioner of the Kenton Circuit Court came forward and raised a trembling right hand as he swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As he took a seat in the witness box, he somehow managed to look officious and nervous all at once.
Commonwealth Attorney Ulie J. Howard stood, buttoned his jacket over his vest, and wasted no time. “Did anyone from the Lookout House ever approach you about gambling?” he asked. The spectators leaned forward and the courtroom fell so silent that passing traffic could be heard through the foot-thick walls.
“Yes, sir,” Ware replied, straightening, looking more confident. “Ed Curd visited me three times.” He nodded toward one of the men at the defendants’ table. “He talked about the Lookout House and Judge Northcutt’s attitude. He said he had been told that everything was all right in Kenton County, so he invested $15,000 to develop the Lookout House into one of the most elaborate and finest night clubs in the United States, outside of New York and Chicago.”
“What else did he tell you?” Howard prompted, approaching the witness stand.
“He said that if Judge Northcutt would be reasonable in his conduct, we could all get along. He said he would go along with Judge Northcutt politically, and the club would be run quietly and without embarrassment to the judge.”
“Did he mention anyone else who is in the courtroom today?”
“Yes, he mentioned Jimmy Brink and said that if Judge Northcutt insisted on driving them out, he would be the heavy loser. He asked me to introduce him to Judge Northcutt, but I refused.”
After a few more questions, the defense declined to cross examine and Ware was dismissed. The prosecutor next called Justice of the Peace John L. Cushing, who backpedaled and stalled until he was finally cornered and forced to admit that he had approached Judge Northcutt on behalf of the gambling syndicate. He shot a look to Brink and shrugged as if to say, “I did my best.”
The judge leaned over toward the witness and interrupted: “Didn’t you say to me, ‘They want to know what you want. Political control or what?’”
Cushing was caught like a rabbit in a snare. “Yes, your honor,” he mumbled.
‘Machine guns were discussed’
B.H. Elierman of Covington testified next, and told the court that he had been asked to “persuade” Judge Northcutt “to let the Lookout House alone.” The mob’s messenger who asked him to help the judge “see the light” was a Kentucky State Trooper, he admitted.
Then Kentucky Constable J. C. Spicer testified about raids on the Lookout House: “The judge talked to us and told us he knew we weren’t afraid to arrest the people at the Lookout House. The judge offered to help us with warrants and get us anything we needed, including a machine gun.”
Again, Northcutt interrupted to clarify, acting as witness and judge. “Yes, let the record show that machine guns were discussed,” he said, “but I dismissed the idea as unnecessary.”
The case dragged on for weeks. Defense attorneys accused Northcutt of leading raids while carrying a gun. The judge insisted he had never left the car during a raid on the Lookout House, but did not deny being armed.
Finally, a permanent injunction against gambling at the Lookout House and other casinos in Kenton County was granted—and enthusiastically ignored. In June, Judge Northcutt had the Covington city manager, the police chief and the county sheriff in court. Each of them swore under oath, with his hand on a Bible, that they knew nothing about illegal gambling in the county.
During that court proceeding, a new attorney joined the defense table and objected strenuously to questions by the prosecutors. But when prosecutors and the judge challenged him and threatened to put him under oath, he refused to identify his client, then said he was only a spectator.
There was speculation that he came from Cleveland, or maybe Chicago or Detroit as a favor to Sleepout Louie, to keep an eye on the bosses’ interests, or maybe send a message to the judge. But cars with out-of-state license plates were not unusual in downtown Covington near the courthouse—not with so many nearby brothels and tiger blinds to entertain visitors.
Frustrated by see-nothing politicians and do-nothing police, Judge Northcutt impaneled a “Blue Ribbon Grand Jury” of handpicked citizens whom he hoped were untouchable by the mob.
“Every man, woman and child of sufficient intelligence to keep out of the fire knows that gambling is rife in the county and city,” the judge instructed them. “You will do nothing to minimize, whitewash, or evade the fixing of the direct and proper responsibility, if it is within your power, for conditions that have not merely become obnoxious, but putrid.
“If you fail, I shall not hesitate to say to you that you have done so, and other grand juries will be called who have the courage and will to drive these gamblers and their allies from the county.”
It was the first serious talk of reform in 30 years, since The Rev. Robert Nelson at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church had preached to Newport about driving out “the gambling element, whose profession is robbery,” and warned that “public morals are, to say the least, threatened with falling into destruction and disgrace,” earning “the contempt of every honest citizen.”
Eureka Lodge No. 7 of the Knights of Pythias supported Rev. Nelson with a resolution demanding “strict enforcement of the laws prohibiting lawlessness in our city.”
City leaders yawned.
But finally it looked like one judge might sober-up Newport’s wild sister, Covington. The long mornings and hot afternoons of witnesses and testimony were over. Now the day had come for the grand jury to report its findings.