Early Criminal Career
A native of Chicago, Illinois, Tom O'Brien first appeared during the early 1880s becoming notorious for his con games and confidence tricks. This was most evident in such major cities as New Orleans, Chicago and New York City where he based his operations for much of his criminal career. He frequently visited in New Orleans throughout his life, both to devise new schemes and to see his mistress Anne Grey. Grey, a highly popular courtesan and madam in the city's underworld, ran a high-class "bagnio" on Burgundy Street and was extensively involved in confidence tricks in New York, Atlanta and Paris before arriving in Louisiana. During O'Brien trial for Waddell's murder, Grey sold off all her assets so she could join O'Brien in Paris and was able to use her wealth to spare O'Brien's from the guillotine.
O'Brien, according to former NYPD police detective Thomas F. Byrnes, referred to him as "King of the Bunco Men" in his book Professional Criminals of America (1886) and claimed he had been arrested "in almost every city of the United States" and had spent at least twenty years in prison during his criminal career. He was perhaps most infamous as a "bunco steerer" and was alleged to have stolen around $500,000 in his criminal dealings. In Harry Houdini's The Right Way to Do Wrong: An Expose of Successful Criminals (1906), one O'Brien's typical banco swindles was described as a popular variation of the "real Simon Pure Bunco Game" and explained as follows,
| “ | The victim, some wealthy farmer usually, was lured to a room at a hotel and a game was proposed. A confederate took the part of another player. A pack of forty-eight cards in eight sets, each numbered from one to six was produced, shuffled, and dealt out eight cards to each player. The total sum of the numbers in each hand was then compared with the number carrying a prize on the chart. If it corresponded, the hand won a prize. The cards are gravely counted and prepared. The dealer then says to the confederate and the dupe, "Gentlemen, you have drawn the grand conditional advertising prize. You're entitled to $10,000 a piece on condition that you prove yourself worth $50,000, and promise to advertise our battery, whether you win or lose. You will have to put up $10,000 against the prize; then you draw once more. If you draw a star number you get only the $10,000 prize and your money back. If you draw any other number you get its prize added to your own money and the big prize." The confederate says he is worth more than $50,000 and declares his intention of going and getting the $10,000 stake. The dupe is also persuaded to put up the cash, and both winners go away to get the money. They return, and the money is put up. Four cards are dealt each. The total of each hand is twenty-eight. "Why, gentlemen," says the bunco man in apparent surprise, "twenty-eight is the 'State number', the total blank! You have lost all." The confederate pretends to be very much broken up, condones with his "fellow victim" and gets him out of the room as soon as he can. In a few moments he gives the farmer the slip, joins his partner, and they escape from town as quickly as possible. |
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O'Brien was able to take a Michigan farmer for $21,000 using this ploy, perhaps his most successful effort, but was eventually arrested for the 1889 theft of $10,000 in bonds from Albany businessman Rufus W. Peck in December 1891. Arrested in England, he was extradited back to the U.S. and, on March 25, 1892, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in Clinton Prison. He was defended by William F. Howe. Other accounts claim he escaped from custody while being transported to Sing Sing.
Read more about this topic: Tom O'Brien (swindler), Biography
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