Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Hearing

1951-01-17

Internet Archive, scan of the printed hearings, Part 6: Ohio-Kentucky (Boston Public Library copy)

Kefauver Committee, Cleveland: testimony of Governor Frank J. Lausche (January 1951)

Ohio Governor Frank J. Lausche described the gambling clubs 'run by Cleveland men' that moved out of Cuyahoga County, among them the Mounds Club, Pettibone Club, Jungle Inn and Colony Club, and the state action he took to close them.

Date
1951-01-17
Kind
hearing
Source
Internet Archive, scan of the printed hearings, Part 6: Ohio-Kentucky (Boston Public Library copy)
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Hearings before the Special Committee, 82d Cong., Part 6: Ohio-Kentucky
Rights
A work of the United States Congress, printed by the Government Printing Office. Public domain in the United States. 17 U.S.C. § 105. The scan is of a GPO printing; Internet Archive marks it not in copyright.

Printed pages 3 to 13 of Part 6, the first testimony of the Cleveland sittings. Governor Frank J. Lausche spoke from his experience as a municipal judge, a common pleas judge, mayor and governor.

He described gambling clubs that operated inside and outside Cuyahoga County, naming the Harvard Club, the Thomas Club and the Ohio Villa, and then “the Mounds Club in Lake County, Pettibone Club in Geauga County, the Jungle Inn in Trumbull County, and the Colony Club on the Ohio River, a large-scale operation with slot machines, roulette, crap tables, chuck-a-luck, horse-race betting, and every type of gambling in existence, run by Cleveland men.” He said that as governor he called in the sheriffs and told them, “Close up these places,” that the clubs closed “for a day or two, and then they would open,” and that the state then acted to close them.

Graphs of the Jungle Inn, Pettibone and Mounds Club operations were received as exhibit 1; the schedule of exhibits lists them, but they are not printed in the volume. In the passages read, Lausche does not name the operators of the clubs. His account is testimony.

itemKefauver Committee hearings, Part 6: Ohio-Kentucky (1951)Printed hearings of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 6, Ohio-Kentucky: sessions in Cleveland and Washington, January to February 1951.itemKefauver Committee, Cleveland: testimony of Public Safety Director Alvin G. Sutton (January 1951)Cleveland's Director of Public Safety, Alvin G. Sutton, gave the committee his account of the city's Prohibition bootleggers, naming Morris Kleinman, Lou Rothkopf, Moe Dalitz, Sam Tucker and Maxie Diamond, their move into gambling in Kentucky and Las Vegas, and the later numbers rackets.itemKefauver Committee, Cleveland: testimony of Thomas J. McGinty (January 1951)Thomas J. McGinty told the committee he had served six months for conspiracy under the National Prohibition Act, had been a partner in the Mounds Club, and was a partner in the Desert Inn at Las Vegas with Wilbur Clark, Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman and Sam Tucker.