After Roger Touhy was tried and convicted of
kidnapping him, life for Jake the Barber remained interesting. He got involved
in some questionable oil leases in Arkansas and had settled a federal income
tax charge against him with a cash payment of $120,000, but otherwise life was good.
However, trouble was never far from Factor
and on August 22, 1942, Jake the Barber and eleven others were indicted by an
Iowa grand jury for their part in the whisky swindle that conned a total of
$459,000 out of some 300 victims in a twelve-state area.
Factor was tried and found guilty.
On February 3, 1943, the court was called to
order. Judge John Bell-the same Judge who had heard the Hamm kidnapping case a
decade before- sentenced Factor to ten years at hard labor plus a $10,000 fine.
When Factor heard the sentence, he dropped down in his chair and covered his
head as if the ceiling were falling in on him. His attorney, Thomas McMeeken,
one of Roger Touhy's lawyers at
the Hamm trial, had to pull
Factor up to his feet so the court could continue reading the sentence. While
the judge was in mid-sentence, Factor broke down and begged loudly for the
judge to listen to him. All he wanted, he said, was not to go to jail. He
sobbed through the rest of the proceedings. When asked by the court if he had
anything else to say, Factor nodded his head and muttered something
unintelligible through his tears.
When he gained control of himself, he
whimpered something about how he had helped the government put away the Touhy
gang and how he feared for his life. His story fell on deaf ears. No one wanted
to hear about threats on Factor's life from a gangster grown old and gray long
ago; there was no Tubbo Gilbert or States Attorney's Office around to run
interference for him. Jake the Barber was going to prison.
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