-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Loud and Clear Lake Headly and William Hoffman©1990 Henry Holt and Company 115 W. 18th St. New York, NY 10011 ISBN 0-8050-1138-2 272 pps — out-of-print/one edition --[9]-- 9. Bradley Funk 's Emprise I couldn't return to Phoenix until January 4, 1979. A record-breaking blizzard caused the first extended closing ever of O'Hare. "I'm glad you're back," Terri Lee said when she met me at Sky Harbor Airport. She wore jeans and a designer silk top. "I missed you. I've been thinking about you." Wow. I loved the new open-type woman. "Well, I missed and thought about you, too. That could be dangerous." That night Terri Lee and I ate at the Spaghetti Factory, a restaurant in downtown Phoenix designed to resemble an industrial plant: machine parts hung from the ceiling, all manner of wrenches and tools on the walls. We each ordered linguini with clam sauce, and then I leaned forward to hear what she had to say. Terri had brought a briefcase, which she opened with a key on a rabbit's foot key chain. I asked her about the rabbit's foot, and she said her father gave it to her for good luck. Terri removed a four-inch-high stack of photocopies from the briefcase. "I don't know if this is what you wanted. I hope it helps." Helps? I guess it helped. After reluctantly driving Terri to her home, in north Phoenix, I read her research for several hours at the Westward Ho. I learned that Emprise, one of the last words on the lips of Don Bolles, began as a company founded in 1915 by Louis Jacobs, a man Sports Illustrated dubbed The Godfather of Sports. Louis Jacobs became quite a success. As a little boy he sold popcorn at the Gayety Theater in Buffalo, New York, and peanuts at the baseball park. In 1927 he landed his first concession contract, with the Detroit Tigers, and he was on his way. Under the name of an Emprise subsidiary, Sportservice, he ultimately gained control of the concessions for six major league baseball teams-Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Baltimore, the Chicago White Sox, Montreal. Also, the concessions for four hockey teams: Kansas City, Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis. And five basketball teams: Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Buffalo. Plus eight professional football teams: Green Bay (at games played in Milwaukee), Buffalo, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati. On May 26, 1972, Sports Illustrated revealed that Louis Jacobs's two sons, Max and Jeremy, Emprise's top two officers, had "the concessions at more than fifty horse and dog tracks in the U.S. and Canada, plus ten more in England and Puerto RICO. They had contracts with jai-alai frontons, bowling alleys, horse shows, golf tournaments, and ski lodges. In 1960 they were the concessionaires for the Rome Olympics. "But more important," I read, "they had taken a further giant step, vaulting from behind the hot dog counter into the front office. In 1963 Jeremy Jacobs obtained controlling interest in the Cincinnati Royals and the Cincinnati Gardens, where the Royals played. The Jacobses owned stock (off and on) in the Buffalo Bisons of the International League and in the Buffalo franchise in the American Hockey League. Emprise holds stock, bonds, and debentures in at least nineteen separate pari-mutuel entities, including controlling interest in the Buffalo raceway; Finger Lakes raceway (N.Y.); Latonia raceway (Ky.); Miles Park (Ky.); Southland dog track, in West Memphis; Daytona Beach (Fla.) Kennel Club; Daytona Beach jai-Alai Fronton; Melbourne (Fla.) jai-Alai Fronton; Centennial Turf Club (Colo.); and in Arizona, all six greyhound tracks and until recently two of the three thoroughbred tracks." It was this control of the Funk-Emprise Arizona racing empire that Bolles first wrote about in October 1969 in a story titled "N.Y. Firm in Quiet Control of Most Racing Tracks Here." "A huge New York firm," his article began, "is gradually getting control of all horse and dog racing in Arizona. The Emprise Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., has majority stock control in six of the seven firms which run dog racing in the state, and is part owner of the seventh." The deeper Bolles probed into Emprise, the more he learned: Sportservice alone (Emprise controlled at least 162 other corporations) by 1972 had become a hundred-million-dollars-a-year operation selling five million bags of peanuts annually, thirty million soft drinks, twenty million hot dogs, and twenty-five million containers of beer. Concessions seemed an even better deal than owning a major league franchise: for one thing, no highly paid ball players to negotiate with. How did Emprise pull it off? Well, sports franchises, like individuals, often need loans. Sports Illustrated revealed that Emprise loaned two million dollars to the Seattle Pilots in exchange for a twenty-five-year concession agreement with Sportservice. Emprise loaned two million dollars to the Montreal Expos and received a thirty-year concession contract, with option to renew. It loaned twelve million dollars to the city of St. Louis to help finance Busch Memorial Stadium in exchange for a thirty-year concession deal. Often, when Emprise loaned money, it acquired partial ownership in the sports franchise. When Louis Jacobs died, in 1968, ownership of Emprise passed to his sons, Max and Jeremy. A year later U.S. Congressman Sam Steiger of Arizona, fed information by reporter Don Bolles, began to make noise about the Funks and Emprise. On the floor of Congress, Steiger charged that Emprise did business with Sam Tucker of River Downs racetrack in Ohio, a member of the Mafia's infamous Purple Gang; with Moe Dalitz of Cleveland, named by the Kefauver Committee as a member of the Mafia; and with Raymond Patriarca, head of the New England Mafia. Steiger raged about Emprise's 12 percent interest in Hazel Park, on whose board of directors sat Anthony J. Zerilli, Giacomo W. Tocco, and Dominic P. Corrado, all named by the McCellan Committee as belonging to the Detroit Mafia. Charges were also leveled that Louis Jacobs had financed Russell Bufalino in the purchase of four amusement parks in the Pittsburgh area, and that Jerry Catena, Vito Genovese's successor in the New York Mafia, arranged for Emprise to fund a Mob takeover of the Finger Lakes racetrack. On April 26, 1972, Emprise was convicted of criminally conspiring to obtain secret ownership of the Frontier Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, a verdict that threatened the entire Jacobs empire. Many states prohibit a convicted felon from owning shares in a pari-mutuel business, and other, states prohibit felons from obtaining a liquor license. Still, Emprise's involvement with the Frontier wasn't its first move on Las Vegas. Louis Jacobs, during the fifties, arranged loans that permitted Moe Dalitz to gain control of the Stardust. Sports Illustrated revealed deal after deal that Emprise made with Mafia figures and with major professional sports franchises. Louis Jacobs loaned money to Bill Veeck, chief owner of four major league baseball franchises, and even to the so-called Grand Old Man of Baseball, Connie Mack. Often owners regretted these deals when they tried to sell their teams, encumbered as they were by lengthy concession contracts with Emprise. >From Terri Lee's own research, I discovered that the purported fifty-fifty relationship between the Funks and Emprise didn't really exist. The Funks owed Emprise money, and as collateral pledged their 50 percent of the racing empire to the Buffalo conglomerate. The Funks remained as well-paid managers. In 1971, Terri Lee's research revealed, Bolles was approached by a military school roommate of Bradley Funk's named George Johnson, who told the reporter that the previous year, 1970, Bradley Funk and Emprise had paid him sixteen thousand dollars to "dig up dirt" on Bolles and Congressman Steiger. Johnson said he had arranged for wiretaps on the phones of Bolles and Steiger, and had paid bank employees and phone company workers for personal information on Bolles. Bolles checked the story out and printed it, whereupon the Funks sued, asking for twenty million dollars. The Arizona Republic countersued for harassment, and the case got settled in 1973, with no admission of wrongdoing on either side. Terms of the settlement weren't announced, though apparently one of them involved a promise by the Republic that Bolles would never again write about the dog tracks. "As he told friends, including Steiger," the New Times, an Arizona weekly, reported, "he was bitterly disappointed. Friends remember he never forgave his newspaper for pulling the rug out from under him. 'I think when we filed the lawsuit, his stories just stopped,' Funk recalls innocently." But, as I learned, Bolles didn't stop investigating the Funks and Emprise just because his paper, for whatever reason, took him off the story. In May 1972, between the time (1970) when Bolles revealed the tapping of his telephone and various other illegal invasions of privacy, and his being pulled off the Funk-Emprise investigation (1973), he and Bradley Funk each testified before the Select Committee on Crime, chaired by Congressman Claude Pepper, on the influence of organized crime in sports. Bradley Funk, questioned by chief counsel Joseph Phillips, testified first, and it didn't take long for Don Bolles's name to be raised: MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Funk, as near as I can make out, you say there are individuals who are in some type of concerted action to destroy you and your family's interests; is that correct? MR. FUNK: That is our belief, Sir. Yes. MR. PHILLIPS: Could you tell us who you believe are in this concert of action to destroy you and your family's interests? MR. FUNK: Mr. Phillips, if I might, if I could answer that question as I feel it, with some explanation, I think I can give you a pretty good idea and help the committee understand why we feel this way. MR. PHILLIPS: I did not ask you why you feel this way. I asked you who these people were who are in the concerted effort to destroy your business. I would like to know particularly, individually, who you have in mind as part of this concerted interest to destroy you, your family, and your business. The question is: Who is the group, so we can start off and know who we are talking about. MR. FUNK: Primarily Mr. Donald Bolles of the Arizona Republic; Mr, Eugene Pulliam, publisher of the Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.; Congressman Sam Steiger; a man named Gene Mondue from Tucson, Arizona; a man named Sam Jenkins; and others that we are not sure who they might be. MR. PHILLIPS: You don't include Mr. Osman in that par-ticular category? MR. FUNK: No, Sir. I don't believe so. Although Mr. Osman has made some misleading statements also, to the press. MR. PHILLIPS: Does the fact you disagree with a man on a statement indicate to you he is part of the conspiracy to destroy you? MR. FUNK: Mr. Phillips, I believe in an article carried in the Arizona Republic, Mr. Osman stated that MR. PHILLIPS: I didn't ask you that. I am not asking you what he said. I am asking you, particularly, whether you think if someone criticizes you or makes some statement you have disagreement with, automatically he is in con spiracy to destroy your family and business interests? MR. FUNK: Yes, Sir; when they lie. I certainly do. MR. PHILLIPS: Anyone who lies about you is in conspiracy with Mr. Steiger and other people to destroy you; is that correct? MR. FUNK: They appear to have been working very closely together; yes, Sir. Bradley Funk's paranoia—for that's surely what it was—must have diminished somewhat when the Pulliams took Bolles off the Funk-Emprise story. Nevertheless, what he viewed as a conspiracy to "destroy" was simply Bolles doing stories he thought the public ought to know about. One of these, the payment to Racing Commissioner Frank Waltman by Funk-Emprise for construction work done at the Prescott Downs horse track, soon became a concern of the Pepper Committee. MR. PHILLIPS: Let's start with the matter involving payment to Mr. Waitman. According to the testimony of Mr. Osman, you paid $23,719.92 to Mr. Waltman. Is that correct? MR. FUNK: Yes, Sir. MR. PHILLIPS: Do you regard it as a conflict of interest for a public official to be taking money from a person he is supervising? MR. FUNK: No, Sir. If the work is performed by a public official, is paid for, and is done under the competitive prices. I see no conflict of interest any more than I see a conflict of interest where in the State of Arizona we have racing commissioners who have racing horses at privately owned racetracks which they supervise, and they earn purse money and breeders' awards, and everything else. Next the Pepper Committee tried to pin Funk down on the varying figures his racing operation submitted to the IRS and the Arizona legislature. MR. PHILLIPS: Do you think Mr. Osman deliberately mis-stated his findings? MR. FUNK: I believe Mr. Osman had some preconceived notions and went about his-not audit—examination with a certain amount of prejudice. Yes, sir. MR. PHILLIPS: And you believe the staff Mr. Osman had working on this particular report was also so biased and prejudiced that they produced a distorted result? MR. FUNK: No, Sir; I believe if you queried Mr. Osman's staff, they felt quite the contrary, that the report submitted wasn't quite what they had examined. MR. PHILLIPS: On what do you base that? MR. FUNK: Talking to different people who worked for the auditor's office, that it was doubtful. MR. PHILLIPS: Would you tell us who told you that? MR. FUNK: That was two years ago, Sir. But I am sure Mr. Osman knows. MR. PHILLIPS: I would like for you to tell this committee who said this report is invalid. MR. FUNK: I said I don't remember the names, sir. The Pepper Committee then turned to the bugging of Bolles's and Congressman Steiger's phones. As I read I remembered Betty Funk Richardson's suggestion that perhaps her exhusband, Bradley, learned of Bolles's knowledge of her lawsuit by wiretapping. MR. PHILLIPS: Did there come a time when you knew George Harry Johnson? MR. FUNK: Yes, sir. MR. PHILLIPS: When was that? MR. FUNK: I first knew George Harry Johnson probably about the third grade, fourth grade, Phoenix, Arizona. MR. PHILLIPS: Would you say you were good friends? MR. FUNK: Off and on, we went to different schools together. We went to Franklin School. We were pals there. We went to military school. MR. PHILLIPS: So you have been longtime friends, is that correct? MR. FUNK: Off and on. MR. PHILLIPS: Did there come a time when you commissioned him to conduct an investigation? MR. FUNK: I believe it was around February of 1970. We had been receiving a great deal of flak from the Phoenix newspapers, and George was around the track because he and I were developing a piece of property. We were also seeing each other socially. He was aware of the newspaper, the bad press we were getting, and he came to me one day, as I recall, and said he had a friend that had some information on Congressman Steiger that might help us put this conspiracy together, because Steiger was probably the key to the whole conspiracy. I don't remember exactly. MR. PHILLIPS: What conspiracy are you talking about? Did you discuss the conspiracy prior to meeting Mr. Johnson? MR. FUNK: Sir, I don't know exactly when it was filed, but in relation to the dog breeders' problem we were having, the lies that were being told about us, we felt somebody-we didn't know who it might be-was pulling somebody's strings, so to speak, to try to destroy us, take over our business. Therewas bad legislation to be considered, there were racing commission problems, there. were all kinds of things going on, and George had also advised me of a pending strike months before it happened. I thought maybe, well, somebody is doing some things-and I thought, yes, very definitely, there is some kind of a conspiracy going on. I think that Is probably the legal term, but there were people out working to destroy us. MR. PHILLIPS:In retrospect, would you say that is para-noia? MR. FUNK: I don't think-my sitting here today, it seems to me that from all that has happened to me, and my family in the last year-that I was too far from wrong in 1970; no, sir. MR. PHILLIPS: In other words, in 1970 you felt there was a conspiracy, and you presently feel there is a conspiracy? MR. FUNK: I believe my being here is probably the result of that conspiracy, yes, sir; for one reason or another. MR. PHILLIPS: Who else was a conspirator? Congressman Steiger was a conspirator, I take it? MR. FUNK: Congressman Steiger was being very vocal. MR. PHILLIPS: Don't you believe a man has a right to be vocal, especially a public official? MR. FUNK: Vocal by innuendo, by traveling to other states and saying bad things when he wouldn't say it right in our own state. It kind of puzzled me-yes, sir—as to what his motives were. With Congressman Waldie questioning, the Pepper Committee returned to George Johnson's wiretapping of Bolles and Steiger. MR. WALDIE: In terms of the illegal activities in which Mr. Johnson admittedly engaged, what awareness did you have of those illegal activities? MR. FUNK: Sir, I don't think Mr. Johnson did any illegal activities. MR. WALDIE: Mr. Johnson said he solicited and got wiretaps. He solicited and got bank accounts. He solicited and got telephone records that were all confidential. Do you believe he did not get those illegally? MR. FUNK: Well, by the number, sir. The phone records: George came to me one day, some time in, I believe it was April or May, and said that he had a friend at the telephone company who worked in the computer room. He was a manager or something. And that he didn't like what the newspaper was doing to us, and he was going to get him a list of telephone numbers called between conspirators. That is what Mr. Johnson told me. MR. WALDIE: You did not construe that as being an illegal activity? MR. FUNK: No, sir. I asked him if he had to pay the man anything. He said, "No," and I said, "OK." I assumed it was like a credit check, or anything else. MR. WALDIE: What about bank accounts? MR. FUNK: Bank accounts: George came to me again. I believe this was subsequent to—I believe it was subsequent to the telephone records. He says, "I have a hunch or lead or rumor that Steiger, or Steiger's backers, are paying Bolles to do these articles, and if I can get their bank records, we can prove, we can match this movement of funds from Mr. Steiger's account." I said, "George, leave off that, we have a conspiracy suit going. When the time comes, we will subpoena them." Bradley Funk testified that neither Max nor Jeremy Jacobs knew about the employment of George Johnson, but that he told Jeremy Jacobs about it after Johnson's activities ceased. MR. WALDIE: What was Jerry Jacobs's response to that? MR. FUNK: I don't recall, sir. MR. WALDIE: Did he accept that as a proper activity on the part of the Funks? MR. FUNK: Sir, Mr. Jacobs was very upset with the speeches that Mr. Steiger had made. MR. WALDIE: Then, can I conclude from that remark that Mr. Jacobs was just as anxious as you were to determine something incriminating in Mr. Steiger's background? MR. FUNK: Probably more so; yes, sir. MR. WALDIE: It would appear—I really say this editorially—that Mr. Jacobs was just as aware as you were of what I have characterized as a shabby bit of business. I don't ask you to respond to that. For all their vaunted mission to complete Don Bolles's work, the IRE had gotten very little on this important corner of that work. Bradley Funk's testimony left me with new, clearer impressions of the man. So too would I see Don Bolles more clearly when I read what he told the Pepper Committee. pps. 89-100 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. 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