Ohio bootlegger’s murder trial probed
Cincinnati might seem an unexpected setting for a lurid true story of socialclimbing bootleggers involved in a murderous love triangle, but Karen Abbott's satisfyingly sensational and thoroughly researched “The Ghosts of Eden Park” provides evidence that it was so.
German immigrant George Remus, whose lavish lifestyle and romantic yearnings provided inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Great Gatsby,” started as a pharmacist in Chicago and then became a criminal attorney in the early years of the 20th century.
Known for courtroom histrionics, the lawyer noticed that the clients he was defending at the beginning of Prohibition were making considerably more money than he was, so he decided to remedy the situation.
The teetotaling Remus concocted an elaborate scheme that relied in part on a loophole in the law that allowed alcohol to be prescribed for medicinal purposes and, in even larger part, on generous payouts to public officials who could be persuaded to look the other way.
In 1920, he moved his center of operations to Cincinnati, a strategic location because “80 percent of the country's pre-prohibition bonded whiskey was stored within 300 miles of the city.” Within a year of the move, he would own “35 percent of all the liquor in the United States.”
Before making the move, he divorced his first wife and married 35-year-old Imogene Holmes. Once established in the mansion they bought, they began throwing elaborate parties where guests would find $1,000 bills tucked under their plates as party favors, and women attendees would be handed keys to new cars.
But by 1924, Remus had been convicted of bootlegging and other crimes and was sentenced first to a federal prison in Atlanta for two years and then to a state prison in Portsmouth for one.
Meanwhile, Imogene had begun a romantic • "The Ghosts of Eden Park" (Crown, 432 pages, $28) by Karen Abbott
relationship with Franklin Dodge, the federal official who was supposed to be investigating her involvement in Remus' empire. He resigned from his position, and the two of them stripped everything but the swimming pool out of the mansion and hired someone to kill Remus in between his stints in prison.
The attempt on Remus' life never happened, and the Remuses headed for divorce court. On the day the divorce was scheduled, George followed Imogene to Cincinnati's Eden Park and shot and killed her. He served as his own lawyer in the murder trial against him, arguing that he was temporarily insane.
Court records from the case provided Abbott with ample material for the book. Excerpts from the testimony of multiple witnesses, ranging from the truck driver who moved belongings out of the mansion to the manager of a cigar stand who observed Remus behaving oddly in the weeks leading up to the murder, punctuate the chapters.
Abbott also weaves in the stories of those who were attempting to pursue the bootleggers, including the beleaguered assistant attorney general, Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who had the thankless task of supervising the underpaid federal prohibition agents often more than willing to take a bribe or two, and rising star J. Edgar Hoover.
Anyone who thinks the 21st century has a lock on excess and corruption should take a look at what was going on a hundred years ago.
margaretquamme@ hotmail.com