Frank Wortman
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Frank L. "Buster" Wortman (December 4, 1904-August 3, 1968) was a St. Louis mobster and a former member of the Shelton Brothers Gang during Prohibition. Wortman would eventually murder the Sheltons in order to take over St. Louis's criminal operations and racketeering in southwest Illinois until his death.
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[edit] Early life
Born Worthmann Wortman in St. Louis, Missouri, Wortman was employed as a molder for a steel casting plant in East St. Louis and as a fire captain prior to Prohibition. During his youth, Wortman had been arrested for burglary and, by 1926, Wortman had begun running errands for the Shelton Brothers. By the 1920s and early-1930s, Wortman was a prominent member of the bootlegging gang as an enforcer in southern Illinois. Wortman was also reportedly involved in several gangland slayings against rival Charles Birger on behalf of Shelton ally Jimmy Michaels of the Cuckoos. Although arrested between 35 to 40 times, Wortman was never convicted of criminal charges.
[edit] Time in Alcatraz
In 1933, a federal agent was severely beaten by Wortman during a raid on one of the Shelton's distilleries which he had been guarding. Taken into custody along with Monroe "Blackie" Armes, the two were convicted of assault (although other sources claim their arrest was due to the June 1933 murder of a Prohibition official who had been killed after attempting to arrest the two gangsters) and sentenced to ten years imprisonment in Alcatraz while Armes was sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
[edit] War with the Sheltons
Following his release in 1941, Wortman briefly worked as a steamfitter before organizing an army of gunmen whose ranks included "Black" Charlie Harris, Elmer Sylvester "Dutch" Dowling and brothers Monroe and Tony Armes and launched a large scale campaign with the intention of driving the Sheltons from southern Illinois.
Establishing Wortman's Plaza Amusement Company, his company would soon control a virtual monopoly on gambling, specifically slot machines, pinball machines, horse parlors, crap games and card games. He would also establish legitimate businesses including trucking firms and taverns with his younger brother Ted.
By the late-1940s, with the murders of Carl and Bernie Shelton, Wortman had eliminated his rivals and was free to assume control over the regions illegal gambling, narcotics distribution and vice districts in southern Illinois and St. Louis.
[edit] Kingpin of St. Louis
Involved in local politics as a young adult, by the 1950s Wortman reportedly had extensive political connections on both sides of the Missouri-Illinois border including Illinois politician and state auditor Orville Enoch Hodge who was convicted of embezzling over $1 million in taxes in 1956.
That same year, an IRS agent was assaulted by Wortman while at "The Paddock" tavern and would result in his being audited. Although eventually convicted with two associates of tax evasion on February 26, 1962, the case was set aside after the death of one of the defendants. The two would be sentenced to five years imprisonment and ordered to each pay a $10,000 fine, however the convictions were overturned and subsequently acquitted.
During the 1960s, a black street gang known as The Warlords began moving in on Wortman's territory and, in one incident, threw a hand grenade into McCoy's Tavern. With the threat of retaliation, members of Wortman's organization were sufficiently able to intimidate the street gang into backing off.
[edit] Later years
Although his power began to decline in his later years, suffering financial losses from legal battles and losses from coin machines, Wortman remained in control of southern Illinois until his death following complications from larynx surgery on August 3, 1968 (although other sources claim his cause of death was of cancer in 1970).
[edit] Further reading
- Theising, Andrew J. Made in USA: East St. Louis, the Rise and Fall of an Industrial River Town. St. Louis: Virginia Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1-891442-21-X
[edit] References
- Fox, Stephen. Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989. ISBN 0-688-04350-X
- Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
