Most recent edit on 2008-02-13 11:04:37 by MarD

Additions:
From the World Encyclopedia of Con Artists and Confidence Games

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Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2008-02-09 11:05:02 by MarD []
Jacob, Biblical. In collusion with his wife Rebekah, Jacob swindled his father Isaac out of the inheritance that was to be left to Esau, Jacob's elder brother. Jacob achieved this confidence game by impersonating Esau before his blind father.

Jarrell, Sanford, prom. 1924, U.S., hoax. On Aug. 13, 1924, the New York Herald Tribune received a report that alcohol was being sold from a large ship that was located between West Hampton and Bay Shore. A cub reporter, Sanford Jarrell, was sent to investigate. During the next two days that Jarrell was out on the assignment, he contacted the city editor, confirming the reports. His article appeared on Aug. 16, 1924, under the headline: "NEW YORKERS DRINK SUMPTUOUSLY ON 17,000-TON FLOATING CAFE AT ANCHOR FIFTEEN MILES OFF FIRE ISLAND." Jarrell described the vessel's chorus girls and the rich clientele dancing and drinking on board. When Jarrell returned to collect follow-up information on Aug. 18 and 19, his accounts were not as detailed. Newspaper officials became skeptical and ordered a separate investigation. Finally, Jarrell confessed that the story was a fraud. The newspaper printed a retraction on Aug. 23.

Jennings, George Augustine (AKA: E.W. Watts, Frank Oswald Charteries, Bishop of Coventry, Bishop of the Falkland Islands, Bishop of Bradford, Rev. John Knox, Gen. A.C. Critchley, Sir Piers Mostyn), b.1890, Brit., forg.-fraud. In one of his earliest frauds, George Augustine Jennings, along with Austin Henry Dockney, executed a swindle involving advertising orders for a foreign trade directory. The two netted about £20,000, but they were caught, tried and convicted of fraud and sentenced to a year in prison. Between 1920 and 1933, Jennings was involved in numerous swindles. One of his boldest moves was to stand as a National Liberal Candidate for Parliament with his comrade, Dockney, as one of his Election Agents. He won 6,444 votes, an impressive showing for a convicted criminal.

In 1930 and 1931, Jennings used the aliases "Bishop of Coventry," "Bishop of the Falkland Islands," "Bishop of Bradford," and "Rev. John Knox" to solicit £50 donations for "noble" causes such as the thwarting of the "white slave traffic." Jennings was arrested, convicted of fraud and related crimes on numerous occasions, and received sentences ranging from three to five years.

Jernegan, Prescott Ford, and Charles E. Fisher, prom. 1897, U.S., hoax. In 1897, Baptist minister Prescott Ford Jernegan of Middletown, Conn., promoted the idea that gold could be extracted from sea water. With his partner, Charles E. Fisher, he displayed an apparatus which apparently collected by means of a mercury-covered device. The machine was lowered into the ocean and brought up coated with gold. To sell the gold extractor, the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company was formed in Portland, Maine, capitalized at $10 million and selling stock at $1.00 per share. Construction soon began on a larger plant and the company sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock. When the plant was finished, the current was switched on to start the process. After a full day of operation, no gold appeared in the accumulators. The stockholders called for Jernegan and discovered that he had fled to France with $100,000 of
company funds. It turned out that Fisher, a con man, had a primitive diving suit. At the demonstration, he had groped about underwater, salting the zinc -lined boxes with enough gold to make the process look viable. During the testing period, Fisher used the proceeds from the sale of stock to buy gold to plant in the accumulators. The theory that Jernegan was an innocent party in the hoax was supported by the fact that he voluntarily sent back $80,000 to repay the corporation's debts. But he could not be extradited from France. Jernegan later returned to the U.S. and lived the rest of his life quietly.

Jessup, Charles (AKA: C.E. Jessup, Jack Charles Jessup), 1916- , U.S., fraud. Border radio, with its immensely powerful transmitters broadcasting into the U.S. and Canada from just over the U.S.-Mexico border (safely outside the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission) provided an irresistibly attractive opportunity for many a con man. In the 1940s and 1950s, advertisements for everything from live baby chicks to guaranteed cures for sexual impotence were aired. Charles Jessup, one of America's foremost charlatans, used these uncensored radio broadcasts, along with direct mail solicitations and revival meetings, to amass his $10 million fortune.

Jessup professed to be an ordained minister and liberally used the title "Reverend," though he had no ministerial credentials. As a boy of fourteen, he had had an affiliation with a small Fundamentalist sect in Mississippi, but it had never ordained him. He was actually dropped from its membership when he was nineteen for questionable moral behavior.

Jessup was born in 1916 to an itinerant Mississippi River valley preacher known as Brother Jessup. Perhaps from this genetic connection and early training, Jessup developed a style of preaching (and soliciting) that provided him with willing victims throughout his career.

Whether over the airwaves, in person, or through the mail, the majority of Jessup's victims were women. In exchange for their donations and, in some cases, tithes, Jessup offered them inspirational messages, "prayer insurance" (for a substantial enough premium Jessup would single out the policy holder by name in his daily prayers), and individual "prayer records" (messages from Jessup to God on behalf of the concerned party). Jessup's other cons included a faith healing hospital and fasting-and-praying expeditions to the Holy Land.

Jessup's troubles began with investigations into complaints of fraud being perpetrated against American citizens by the users of Mexican broadcasting facilities. In 1961, the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Post Office Department joined forces to investigate these complaints. By 1964 they had compiled sufficient evidence to indict and arrest Jessup. Freed on bond, Jessup claimed he was being persecuted and resumed his evangelistic activities with renewed vigor. A trial date was finally set for Jan. 22, 1968. When his former wife, Rose Jessup, and former assistant Murphy Maddux, Jr. agreed to give voluntary statements to the prosecution detailing the inner workings of many of Jessup's schemes, Jessup pleaded nolo contendere. Nine months later, Jessup was sentenced to one year in federal prison; he was also given five years' probation and a fine of $2,000. The sentencing judge summed up Jessup's career by saying, "Instead of praying for the multitude, he preyed on the multitude." Jessup served only nine months of his sentence.

Joan, (AKA: Joanna), prom. 872-82, Italy, hoax. Posing as a male monk, Joan allegedly ascended to the papacy under the name of John VIII. Breaking another of the church's rigid canons, she also allegedly gave birth to a baby girl while riding in a papal procession.

Although Catholic laymen question her existence, Joan appears in Lives of the Popes, by the fifteenth-century historian Platima. In 1886, her story was retold in Greek by Emmanuel Royidis and in 1954 translated into English by Lawrence Durrell. Fact or fiction, the story of Pope Joan has survived for a thousand years.

Johnston-Noad, Edward, prom. 1950s, Brit., fraud. As a young man, Edward Johnston-Noad inherited £100,000, allowing him to host lavish parties, and making him popular with fashionable women. He was also a swindler, known as the Count.

During an acute shortage of London housing, the Count offered two flats for sale. He then took deposits from seventy people for the property and even sold the furniture to several different people. When his victims became wise to his scheme, he fled to Paris, finding a job with the British Embassy.

Scotland Yard suspected that he might have fled to the continent and dispatched his picture to Interpol. Detective Roger Ravard happened to be carrying the picture in his wallet when his wife, who worked for the British Embassy, recognized her fellow employee's photo. The Count was arrested and sentenced to four months for possessing false papers. Extradition took a year, but when he was returned to court at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to ten years for fraud.

Jones, William (AKA: Canada Bill), d.1877, U.S., fraud. One of the great gambling legends of the old Mississippi riverboats, William "Canada Bill" Jones' specialty was cheating suckers with three card monte. Born in England, Jones migrated with his family to Canada and became an accomplished card cheat at an early age, studying the techniques of a con man Dick Cady. For years, Jones traveled across Canada, fleecing suckers with three card monte, losing only when he wished to convince gullible players that they could win. He employed the bent card routine in being able to pick the correct card. (Three card monte was a game where three cards, two aces and a queen, were dealt face down. The sucker would then be told to point to the queen in order to win the bet. It appeared easy, and they were permitted to win several hands before Jones so dazzled and confused the suckers that he invariably won the escalating stakes.)

By 1850, Canada Bill Jones was known throughout Canada, and with his game played out, he moved south and began to ply his tricky trade on the Mississippi riverboats. He met another talented sharper, George Devol, and formed a partnership with him, occasionally using other card cheats to back his crooked play. Jones' favorite ruse was to pretend to be a country bumpkin who attempted to outwit his patrons but who acted in such a bumbling, idiotic manner that the sucker was easily convinced that he could take advantage of Jones. As a card sharp, few could rival the dexterity and delivery of Canada Bill but as an actor, he had no equal in the world of cheating.

George Devol described him thusly: "Imagine a medium-sized, chicken-headed, tow-haired sort of a man, with mild blue eyes, and a mouth nearly from ear to ear, who walked with a shuffling, half-apologetic sort of a gait, and who, when his countenance was in repose, resembled an idiot. His clothes were always several sizes too large, and his face was as smooth as a woman's and never had a hair on it.

"Canada Bill was a slick one. He had a squeaking, boyish voice, and awkward gawky manners, and a way of asking fool questions and putting on a good-natured sort of a grin, that led everybody to believe that he was the rankest kind of sucker--the greenest sort of a jake. Woe to the man who picked him up, though. Canada was, under all his hypocritical appearance, a regular card shark, and could turn monte with the best of them."

Jones and Devol suckered thousands of riverboat gamblers and passengers through the 1850s, but following the Civil War the river trade diminished and the sky-high gamblers and plungers vanished. Canada Bill was not without flaws. He was himself an inveterate gambler, one who insatiably sought action, no matter the risk. This was never better demonstrated than on the occasion when Devol found Jones in a Natchez gambling den, playing faro.

Devol walked up to his partner and said in a startled voice: "Bill, you here! What's the matter with you? Of all people--you know this faro game is fixed, it's always been fixed! You can't win!"

"I know, I know," replied Canada Bill, as he delivered the classic gambler's lament, "but it's the only game in town."

The partnership between Jones and Devol dissolved when Canada Bill discovered that Devol was trying to swindle him out of his share of their mutually pooled funds. Taking his enormous earnings, Jones left for Kansas City and there he teamed up with another sharper named Dutch Charley. The pair roped a group of wealthy Kansas City bankers into an investment swindle and realized more than $200,000 before the city big shots learned they had been suckered. By then Canada Bill was long gone from the city, relocating in Omaha. He then took to riding the trains between Omaha and Kansas City, fleecing anyone foolish enough to play three card monte with him. For fifteen years he rode the rails, gleaning a fortune.

Officials of the Union Pacific heard of this one-man confidence plague and they ordered train detectives to eject anyone playing three card monte on their trains. Canada Bill was incensed when he heard this edict and he wrote to the president of the line, complaining how unfair the new rule was. He then offered to pay the Union Pacific $10,000 a year, plus an annual percentage of his take, if he were allowed to have an exclusive franchise of playing three card monte on its trains. Moreover, he promised that he would only swindle wealthy passengers and Methodist ministers. The railroad authorities declined Canada Bill's offer, generous though it was.

Railroad officials had posters of Canada Bill plastered on the walls of its trains. Every conductor and railroad detective knew him and looked for him. Though he disguised himself, Jones was repeatedly recognized and thrown off the Union Pacific cars. He finally quit the railroads in 1874 and moved to Chicago where, with gamblers Charles Starr and Jimmy Porter, Jones established four huge gambling dens in the Levee or the Red Light District (Chicago's First Ward). Within six months, Jones had taken in more than $150,000 but he lost almost every dime in crooked casino games and he moved on to Cleveland. Here he was known and shunned, too infamous to convince anyone that he was anyone other than the celebrated Canada Bill. In 1877, Jones appeared in Reading, Pa., where he grew ill. He was taken to the Charity Hospital where he died broke in 1877.

Dozens of gamblers, including Devol, attended Canada Bill's funeral. One sharper bet $100 that "Bill is not in the box," but no one took this jesting wager to heart. Another stepped up and delivered the gambler's eulogy:

O, when I die, just bury me
In a box-back coat and hat
Put a $20 gold piece on my watch chain
To let the Lord know I'm standing pat.