Few lawyers attempt to take on players in the gangster world at their own game. When they do, they risk coming to a grisly end, writes James Morton

It seems as though the recent knife attack on Leslie Cumming outside his home in Edinburgh (see The Times, 28 January 2006) may be a rare example of organised crime striking at judges, prosecutors, lawyers and, in this case, an accountant. As chief accountant of the Law Society of Scotland, Mr Cumming has been looking into accounts of solicitors who may have become involved with money laundering.


He also helped rewrite Law Society of Scotland rules to ensure lawyers who helped their clients launder money would be harshly dealt with. And it is understood that Mr Cumming regularly receives threats as a result of his role.


Generally, on the basis that the killing of a judge or prosecutor only means that person will be replaced and that inquiries will intensify, lawyers are safe unless they cross over the line and become players in organised crime.


While Mr Cumming is clearly one of the good guys, other lawyers have crossed the line.


One assistant state prosecutor and later municipal judge, John Sbarbaro, who played both sides, escaped lightly. During prohibition in the US, his garage in Chicago was used to house illegal liquor, and he served as the undertaker of choice to the families of dead racketeers such as Dion O’Bannion.


Sbarbaro lived to tell the tale. The worst that happened to him was that the garage was blown up. He appeared mystified by this, saying it must have been a revenge for the harsh sentences he had handed down.


One lawyer who became a player and died as a result was Samuel Rummel, the long-time representative of, and probably the brains behind, Mickey Cohen, who thought himself to be the tsar of California of the 1940s.


Rummel had been taking far too close an interest in the Normandie Club in Gardena, where he had assumed a 40% interest – and there had been no professional courtesy in the way he acquired his stake. Another lawyer had been forced by Cohen to take $1,000 for the stake, which passed to Rummel.


On 11 December 1950, Rummel was shot in the back from about ten yards outside his home in Laurel Canyon Drive, Los Angeles. The weapon used was left in the crotch of a tree across the driveway from where the lawyer’s body was found. It was traced back to Riley, Kansas, where it had been stolen as long ago as 1913. Although the police rounded up the usual suspects and more, no one was ever charged with the murder.


The 42-year-old Gino Gallina, a former district attorney turned Mafia defence lawyer, was another who crossed the line and for a few seconds must have regretted the words ‘grand jury’. Gallina ended his prosecutorial days under something of a cloud when a witness in a 1967 murder case claimed that Gallina had pressured him into giving false evidence. He crossed over to defence work, and on 4 November 1977 was shot seven times in Greenwich Village in New York as he got out of his car, just as he had been appearing in front of a Newark grand jury giving evidence about mafia executions and how money was being laundered through real estate deals.


Corrupt police officers always like a bagman to act as the intermediary between themselves and the criminals from whom they are extracting favours, money or both. The danger for the officer is that one day, if it suits him or he feels the officer is taking more than his fair share, the criminal may turn. A ‘cut-out’ is therefore an extremely welcome addition to the game. In Sydney, in the 1970s, Brian Alexander was a solicitor’s clerk who filled the position admirably. One of the men with whom he dealt was the notorious Neddy Smith, now serving life for murder.


However, Alexander was involved not only with Smith but also with some heavy players in international drug smuggling, members of the so-called Mr Asia Syndicate led by Terrence John Clark, who was later convicted of murder in England and died in Parkhurst. If a member of the syndicate was arrested, Alexander would be contacted and would not only provide legal representation but would also report back to Clark on whether they were remaining staunch.


On 25 March 1981, Alexander was arrested and charged with conspiracy with two federal narcotic agents. The allegation was that the three of them had disclosed confidential information to Clark. The case was dismissed at the committal proceedings, but then it was learned that Alexander was likely to give evidence and name names, dates, places and amounts.


On 21 December 1981, shortly after he had been seen drinking with three men in the King’s Head Tavern on Park Street, Alexander disappeared. Two weeks later his car was found abandoned near The Gap at Watson’s Bay, a place known for suicides.


According to Smith in his book Catch and Kill Your Own, Alexander was too much of a coward to commit suicide in that way, and he heard a story that he had been driven to the Darling Street wharf and, hands cuffed behind his back, was thrown from a launch with an old gas stove tied around his body. He was apparently still alive and crying when he went in the water. Smith concludes this moral tale: ‘But I had no part in it. That was something I wouldn’t wish even on someone like Brian Alexander.’


Still, his death should be a salutary warning for those who even think of crossing the line.


James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist