William Bioff

On the record

• 1934–1940 — United States v. Compagna (2d Cir. 1944), recounting the testimony the jury could believe, says that a Chicago group forced on Browne and Bioff an agreement to take "first one-half and, later two-thirds" of what they collected, that after Browne's election "Circella and Bioff were then given offices in the union as personal representatives of Browne, as president," and that in 1936 Bioff and a producers' representative agreed a "tariff" of $50,000 a year from the larger producers and $25,000 from the smaller.
• July 1938 — Russel v. International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (Cal. Ct. App. 1944) records that Browne, "accompanied by his personal representative, William Bioff," engaged a tax consultant because the Treasury was investigating local unions, and that Bioff executed a power of attorney for federal tax matters.
• 1939 — A Bureau of Internal Revenue Intelligence Unit memorandum of 30 October 1939 (Morgenthau Diaries, Book 220) names "the William Bioff case" among three tax cases referred to the Justice Department in June and July 1939 for criminal prosecution.
• 10–30 July 1940 — Habeas Corpus Case No. 84 in the federal court at Chicago: Bioff petitioned against the superintendent of the City of Chicago House of Correction on 10 July 1940; on 30 July the "Demurrer to petition for writ of habeas corpus sustained and petition for writ dismissed." The docket does not say why he was held.
• 5 September 1941 — United States v. Bioff (S.D.N.Y. 1941): the court overruled George E. Browne's demurrer and plea in abatement to the indictment in the case that bears Bioff's name.
• November 1941 — A House speech of 10 November 1941 (Congressional Record, pp. 8741-8742) says Browne and Bioff "were convicted this month." It is a partisan speech, used only for that point.
• 7 August 1942 — Ratner v. Paramount Pictures (S.D.N.Y. 1942) describes a stockholders' suit over "corporate funds allegedly paid by them to one Willie Bioff, to induce him not to cause a strike."
• October 1942 — The Treasury General Counsel's report for October 1942 states: "Bioff is presently serving a ten-year sentence as a result of his conviction last year on charges of extortion from moving picture producers," with a Los Angeles income-tax indictment for 1936 and 1937 outstanding.
• 1943 — The Second Circuit (1944) calls the case against the Chicago defendants "woven out of the testimony of two accomplices — Bioff and Browne," and calls Bioff "a man with a long, discreditable and criminal past, confessedly guilty of perjury in an earlier examination of the same transactions."
• Before April 1945 — Attorney General Biddle to President Roosevelt, 10 April 1945: "After Bioff and Browne had been convicted they testified for the Government against a group of Chicago racketeers, subsequently convicted," Judge Knox modified their sentence, "and they were recently released."
• 1949 — Nitto v. Commissioner (Tax Court, 1949): Bioff was a witness for the government; the petitioner argued he might gain an advantage "as a tax case in which he is involved is still pending."

The role field quotes two court opinions from 1944. The Second Circuit’s sentence is its account of the trial testimony; the California Court of Appeal’s is from a civil fee case and is cited only for the title. Neither is an organizational rank, and Bioff holds no seat on any chart in this archive.

No record opened for this archive gives his birth or death, the date of the 1941 verdict, his own sentence in a court record, or the date of his release. The House speech of November 1941 is used only for its statement that the conviction came that month.

Records