Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Theodore Roe

A Chicago witness before the Kefauver Committee in October and December 1950, who testified that his business was "Operating a policy wheel" in partnership with the Jones brothers and that he had begun working for them in the later 1920s. Everything on this page is his sworn testimony or a staff exhibit drawn from his records.

Source
Kefauver Committee, Part 5: Illinois, printed hearings (Internet Archive)
Rights
The hearings are a work of the United States Congress printed by the Government Printing Office, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The page is limited to what the hearing record states.

On the record

  • 1950-10-18 — Testimony in Chicago (Part 5, pp. 743-749): asked his business, he answered "Operating a policy wheel," said he had been a partner "about 10 years" with the Jones brothers, who were in Mexico, and that he had worked for them from "about 22 or 23 years ago," opening a wheel himself when they "got indicted and were closed."
  • 1950-12-19 — Evening testimony (Part 5, pp. 1137-1163): named his partners in the "Maine, Idaho, and Ohio" wheel as "Davis, Edward Jones, and George Jones, and their mother, Mary Jones," and the earlier owners as "Edward Jones and McKissick Jones and George Jones."
  • 1950-12-19 — Same session: described the kidnapping of Edward Jones, which he dated to "1946, I think," a $250,000 demand, and a settlement at $100,000: "George paid the money."
  • 1950-12-19 — Exhibit 60 (Part 5, p. 1407), a staff table of the earnings of the Jones Bros. and the Idaho and Maine Club "obtained from the records furnished by Theodore Roe," lists him as a partner of the Idaho and Maine Club. Shown the figures, he said: "If the records show that, that must be what it is."

No birth or death date, family or role is set. The committee did not charge him. His testimony speaks of the Jones brothers’ indictment and of payments to police only in answers to questions, and he denied knowing about a syndicate; no court record about him has been opened. He gave his home address in December 1950, and it is not repeated here. “Colored belt,” which he used for the area where his books were written, is his phrase and the committee’s.

Records

itemKefauver Committee, Chicago: testimony of Theodore Roe (18 October 1950)Theodore Roe told the committee in Chicago that his business was "Operating a policy wheel," that he had been a partner for about ten years with the Jones brothers, then living in Mexico, and that he had started working for them about twenty-two or twenty-three years earlier.itemKefauver Committee, Chicago: Theodore Roe's second testimony (evening of 19 December 1950)Recalled in December, Roe named his partners in the Maine-Idaho-Ohio policy wheel, said the earlier owners were the Jones brothers Edward, McKissick and George, and described the kidnapping of Edward Jones, which he dated to 1946, and a ransom of $100,000 paid by George Jones.itemKefauver Committee, Part 5, Exhibits 60 to 62: the Jones brothers' and Idaho-Maine Club's earnings and the Chicago policy-wheel chartAppendix exhibits printed at pages 1407 to 1409 of Part 5: a staff table of the gross and net earnings of the Jones Bros. and the Idaho and Maine Club from 1939 to June 1950, taken from records Theodore Roe furnished; a further table; and the staff chart of Chicago policy wheels, 1945 to 1950.itemKefauver Committee, Chicago: testimony of Edward P. Jones (evening of 19 December 1950)Edward P. Jones, living in Mexico City, told the committee he shared in the profits of the Maine-Idaho Club policy wheel, agreed that he had been convicted of an income-tax violation on income from the wheel, and described being kidnapped near Forty-third Street and South Parkway and held blindfolded for almost a week.