Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Hearing

1950-09-30

U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, printed hearings, Part 4-A: Missouri, via Internet Archive

Kefauver Part 4-A: testimony of William Molasky on the Pioneer News Service and the Annenberg shares (30 September 1950), pp. 652-672

A St. Louis witness testified that in 1932 a half-interest in a St. Louis race-news distributor was bought by "Annenberg, myself, Kruse, and Ragen," and that in 1940 Annenberg gave him his shares for $1.

Date
1950-09-30
Kind
hearing
Source
U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, printed hearings, Part 4-A: Missouri, via Internet Archive
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A hearing print of the United States Senate, published by the Government Printing Office. A work of the United States Congress, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The scan is the Internet Archive copy of the Boston Public Library's printed volume.

William Molasky testified in St. Louis with William Brown, both represented by Morris Shenker (Part 4-A; the 30 September 1950 session is at pp. 652-672, and pp. 652-656 were read). He said that in January 1932 the two owners of a St. Louis business distributing race information received from Chicago offered him half of it, and that he took the offer to Moses Annenberg, with whom he “was associated” in “my news agency at that time.”

The half-interest, he said, was bought by “Annenberg, myself, Kruse, and Ragen” for $100,000, and he gave the shares as he recalled them: Annenberg 22½ percent, himself 12½, and Kruse and Ragen 7½ each. He said that in 1940 Annenberg gave him his 22½ shares of the Pioneer News Co. for $1 and told him he was getting out of that end of the business. Asked whether Annenberg had been indicted at that time, he answered “I believe he was”; asked whether he had been convicted, again “I believe he was”; asked about a sentence, “I don’t remember.”

The OCR prints the fractions in garbled form; the readings here follow the arithmetic of the exchange. Molasky was also a defendant in the Consensus Publishing tax case, United States v. Molasky. His earlier appearance of 13 June 1950 and his third, on 24 February 1951 (p. 686), were not read for this page.

itemKefauver Committee hearings, Part 4A: Missouri (1950–1951)Printed hearings of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 4A, Missouri: sessions in Washington, St. Louis, and Kansas City, June 1950 to February 1951.itemUnited States v. Molasky, 118 F.2d 128 (7th Cir. 1941)Seventh Circuit decision of 26 February 1941 reversing the tax-evasion convictions of William Molasky, the two James Ragens and the two Kruses in the Consensus Publishing Co. case, on an indictment of 22 August 1939 that had also named Moses L. Annenberg.itemUnited States v. Ragen, 314 U.S. 513 (1942)Supreme Court decision of 5 January 1942 reinstating the tax-evasion convictions of James Ragen, Sr. and Arnold and Lester Kruse in the Consensus Publishing Co. case, and describing Moses Annenberg as "the dominant figure" in several horse-race betting enterprises.itemKefauver Part 4-A: testimony of H. E. Vermillion, Western Union, on money orders to C. J. Rich & Co. (30 September 1950), pp. 614-630Western Union's St. Louis-area superintendent described how bettors in distant cities wired money to C. J. Rich & Co. in East St. Louis, whose manager collected the money orders up to three times a day.