#29: George Remus: The "King of the Bootleggers"

The Gangland History Podcast: An Organized Crime & Mafia History Podcast

In this episode, featuring myself and Australian lawyer Tony Taouk, we discuss the life and times of George Remus who was famously dubbed, "The King of the Bootleggers" in the 1920's.

George Remus, born in 1878, was a German-born American lawyer who was probably most famously well-known as a bootlegger during the early days of Prohibition, and who later became even more infamous for the murder his wife Imogene, for which he was acquitted.

In popular culture, many believed that George Remus served as the inspiration for The Great Gatsby, and he was even famously portrayed on the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Remus birth in Landsberg, Germany in the 1870's and his arrival in the United States in the 1880's

• The Remus family's beginnings in Chicago, Illinois

• Remus' early experience working at his uncle's pharmacy, as well as his attendance of the Chicago College of Pharmacy, where he became a certified pharmacist

• George Remus' collegiate attendance of the Illinois College of Law in which he gained admittance to the Illinois Bar, specializing as a defense attorney

• Remus' involvement in the 1914 murder trial of William Cheny Ellis, and the first successful use of the "transitory insanity" defense in the history of the United States

• Remus' beginnings as a bootlegger after he was able to exploit a loophole in the Volstead Act, allowing him to grow his bootlegging business on a technicality

• Remus' move from Chicago, Illinois to Cincinnati, Ohio and the growth of his bootlegging empire in the 1920's, run from his sprawling property on the west side of Cincinnati, dubbed "Death Valley"

• Remus' divorce from his first wife, and marriage to socialite Imogene Holmes (later Remus), as well as the extravagant mansion, "The Marble Palace"

• The eventual arrest of Remus for violations of the Volstead Act and his prison sentence

• The collapse of Remus' marriage to Imogene after a cheating scandal with a Bureau of Investigation agent, Franklin Dodge

• The murder of his wife Imogene in October of 1927, the subsequent trial in which Remus again pleaded "temporary insanity," and his acquittal after just 19 minutes of jury deliberations

• The remainder of Remus' life and his ultimate legacy in the annals of the underworld

• The truth of Remus' peculiar tendency to talk about himself in the third-person

• Remus' death in 1952 of natural causes in Covington, Kentucky