The Other Hollywood (59 page)

MARILYN CHAMBERS
:
I went to visit Jim in prison, and he was a beaten man. I mean, it was a tragic mistake.

One of the reasons I went to visit him was that Robert DeNiro and I had sat down for, like, four hours, to talk about a movie. The book
The Bottom Feeders
had just come out, and Universal Studios wanted to do
the Mitchell brothers’ story. I was under contract to Universal as a consultant. I don’t know if they sold it to Tribeca Films, but Tribeca was going to do it.

DeNiro was either going to direct it or play Artie and Jim’s father. And when we met, DeNiro said, “Jim will not have anything to do with us.” He said, “Unless I can talk to him, I really don’t feel comfortable doing this because I don’t want to do it above the waist. I want to do the whole story the way it is, but I need to know from Jim what his story was.”

DeNiro asked, “Will you go talk to him?”

So I went to talk to Jim in prison.

Jim said, “I know why you’re here, Mar. You know I love you, and I’m glad you came to see me, but I’m not interested.”

JACK BOULWARE
:
Jim was given a six-year sentence, which means he served half of it, and now he’s back running the business. I don’t think he can go anywhere besides his home and the business—he’s very restricted in where he can go in San Francisco—but he is back running the business.

MARILYN CHAMBERS
:
Jim said, “I don’t care if it’s DeShmiro or anybody else. I will not have anybody capitalizing on my family’s tragedy, and that’s it.”

I felt stupid for bringing it up. I said, “Okay, fine. I understand. And I agree.”

So I had to go back and tell DeNiro to forget it. Then Sean Penn was going to do it, and then they shot something in Canada with Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez for Showtime.

LOS ANGELES/PHOENIX/MILWAUKEE/CHICAGO
1991–1992

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
Reuben Sturman was out on bond, and we saw an opportunity to create serious problems for him by telling the bookstores, “You send him money, you’re going to prison.”

By that time, we had developed serious credibility within the industry; Reuben needed to motivate the people to do what he said.

We, on the other hand, were motivating them to do what
we
said. I’d have IRS people go in and say, “Hey, you know, he owes us. Don’t transfer any money to him, transfer it to us.”

They’d say, “Well, geez…”

NAOMI DELGADO
:
I heard Reuben yelling at Mickey Feinberg. I really don’t remember exactly what he said, but he was very upset. I could just hear Mickey saying, “But Reuben! But Reuben!”

TAMARA GREEN
:
My husband, Howard, owned and operated EWAP Incorporated and Book Cellar Incorporated—adult bookstores. When he died in June of 1990, I started looking through contracts. I found a lease agreement between the Hispano American Finance Company and the Book Cellar relating to the lease of peep-show booths.

I understood Hispano American Finance to be owned by a Reuben Sturman. Laura Murphy, who I hired as a controller, discovered it first and pointed out to me that for several months we had made double payments to the Hispano American Finance. At that point, I instructed Laura to stop making payments until we were caught up.

KEVIN BEECHUM (PORNOGRAPHER)
:
In early December 1991, Mickey Feinberg came to my office in Northridge and asked if I knew anyone who
would be willing to smash an adult bookstore in Phoenix for ten thousand dollars…half down and half when the job was finished.

I told him I didn’t, but he kept asking, at least three or four times. So I talked it over with Jay Brissette because we were close friends; he had moved out to California when about seventy of us came out here from Bay City, Michigan.

Jay said he’d do it, so I told Mickey I had someone who would do the job.

TAMARA GREEN
:
Laura Murphy had several conversations with Reuben Sturman about the payments, and he, of course, kept insisting that they should be the double payments, and she kept insisting, no, we are paying according to the contract.

JAY BRISSETTE
:
Kevin told me we would be smashing up a few video machines, and he kind of put the crime as being malicious destruction…. They were peep-show machines, and bashing them would put them out of business for a day or two.

So I got some help—Donald Mares and Paul Mahn—and in late December 1991 we drove to Phoenix and stayed there for three days. On the first day we went into the store, Pleasure World and checked it out. It was just a salesperson behind a counter with video magazines, videocassette boxes—all types of items for sale—and a back room with approximately fifty peep-show booths.

TAMARA GREEN
:
Reuben told Laura, “The payments have to be as I have said, and if not it’s going to be too late.”

And Laura said, “Well, what does ‘too late’ mean?”

But there was never an answer to that.

JAY BRISSETTE
:
We decided we would go in separately at 6:00 or 7:00 the next morning—meet up after, when there would be no patrons there—and get into the back room, smash the machines, and then run out the exit door.

So the morning of the vandalization, we drove my truck, parked several blocks away, and walked to the store. We entered separately, just milled around, waiting for a few patrons to leave. We had baseball bats and hammers underneath our clothing.

Then we proceeded to the back room, smashing the machines, then ran out the door.

TAMARA GREEN
:
Michael Veto is the general manager of the Book Cellar, and after the vandalism, he and I talked about it. We decided that this could be a message that was being sent.

JAY BRISSETTE
:
On our way back to California, I contacted Kevin Beechum and told him the job was finished.

I received the final payment for the job from Kevin Beechum in mid-January 1992, and he said the people that were paying the money said I did a good job and gave me the balance of the money.

TAMARA GREEN
:
I was very frightened, and I didn’t want any more violence, so we decided to make double payments again.

REUBEN STURMAN
:
Those people refused to pay me. And so we went into one of their stores and broke it up, to send them a message. Sure enough, they started paying me again. I thought that was very nice of them.

JAY BRISSETTE
:
I met Mickey Feinberg, by accident, at Kevin Beechum’s office, in March of 1992. I was just talking to Kevin in his office, and Mickey walked in and asked if he could talk to Kevin in private. But Kevin said there was no need because I was the one doing the jobs. We all started laughing, and Mickey kind of said he thought so.

Then Mickey started going on about some more jobs, and Kevin kind of stopped the conversation and told him he didn’t want no more of that talk going on in his office. Kevin said if we were going to talk about it, get out of his office. So I met with Mickey in the parking lot. Mickey told me he had a few more jobs in Cleveland and asked if I would be interested.

I said sure.

NAOMI DELGADO
:
Reuben was screaming over the telephone at Roy May, and Roy hung up the phone. After that call, Sturman said, “Roy doesn’t know who he’s fucking with, and he owes me money.”

RICHARD ROSFELDER
:
We at the IRS and the Organized Crime Task Force created a serious dilemma for Sturman. Keeping the pressure on was part of our stategy, and it worked. It created problems for Reuben that we could have never envisioned. I mean, Reuben Sturman made some real bonehead moves.

NAOMI DELGADO
:
I know Reuben was upset with Roy because Roy wasn’t paying him. He said he made several attempts to contact Roy but couldn’t get through, and he said he was going to have Chuckie’s legs broken. Chuckie is Paula’s son. Paula Lawrence May, Roy’s wife.

And Reuben said he knew that Paula had a house in Aspen and that he was going to have it blown up or something. I told him, “Please don’t do this. I couldn’t bear to live like this and worry about our daughter constantly.”

JAY BRISSETTE
:
A few weeks later I met with Mickey Feinberg again, in a strip mall parking lot on Roscoe and DeSoto, in Canoga Park. It was just Mickey and myself in his car. He told me he had eight more jobs in Chicago and asked me if I would be interested, and how much I would charge.

I told him I would want ten thousand for each job. Mickey just said he would get back to me as soon as he heard something from his guy on what was going to happen.

We next met at Alphonso’s, an Italian restaurant in Chatsworth. Again it was just Mickey and myself. Mickey told me his guy would pay seventy-five hundred for each job. He also told me he didn’t get anything from the last job, and I told him I would pay him ten percent of whatever I made. I also told him I met this guy, Donald Mares, that knew something about bombs, and wondered if it would be all right to possibly use him on the next job. Mickey basically said he would leave it up to me.

NAOMI DELGADO
:
I first met Mickey at a party and then I would occasionally see him at a home on Weddington. I [spoke with him] maybe four or five, six times, just to say hello. [He and] Reuben—the two of them met in an office in the back portion of the house.

JAY BRISETTE
:
On April 13, me, Joe Martinez, Paul Mahn, and Donald Mares flew to Milwaukee, rented a car, and drove to Chicago. We stayed in a motel by O’Hare Airport. The next day, Tuesday, April 14, 1992, we had somebody go into each location and check it out. We had stink bombs—galvanized PVC pipe with stink vials inside—and we were going to put the bombs outside the stores by the coaxial cables. I figured it would blow up the cables and shut down all the video machines inside.

That night, Donny put everything together, and he went over how they worked with Joe and Paul. We decided we would go in two cars. Joe was going to do one. Paul was going to do two or three, and Donny was going to do the rest of them.

I dropped Joe Martinez off at Seventy-ninth Street and Cicero, and he took the bomb and placed it in the alley by the store. After I dropped him off I went to Camden Park and picked up Joe Martinez. It was approximately 8:00
P.M
., and there was no one else around I knew.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
, AUGUST 27, 1993: PORN TRIAL JURY TOLD OF BOMB SCENE
:
“With rain fast approaching, Florence Clanton was hurrying out of a clothing store in the Rush Street area when she heard a loud bang and saw the windows of a passing car blow out and flames engulf the interior.”

FLORENCE CLANTON
:
Immediately after the car passed there was a bolt of lightning. A few seconds later—BANG—all the windows blew out of the car. It was engulfed in heavy black smoke and flames.

The car continued to roll very slowly, and then I began to hear someone screaming, “OH, MY GOD, SOMEBODY HELP ME! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!”

The car banged a second time, and then it was engulfed in flames—and the screams became more intense.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
, AUGUST 27, 1993: PORN TRIAL JURY TOLD OF BOMB SCENE
:
“The driver, his head in flames, climbed out the window.”

FLORENCE CLANTON
:
I yelled to him,
“Drop and roll—don’t run!”
He stopped like he heard me. I said, “Get down so I can get your hair.
You’ve got to kneel down
.”

He dropped down. He had on a gray coat, and I pulled the coat up over his head so I could smother his hair, just to pull him into me, so I could get the fire off of him. He laid on the ground and said, “Do I look okay? Am I all right?”

I said, “You look fine; you’re okay.”

But there was still screams coming from the car.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES,
AUGUST 27, 1993: BOMB TESTIMONY OPENS EXTORTION TRIAL; WOMAN TELLS OF EFFORTS TO SAVE BLAST VICTIM
:
“The auto had smashed into a utility pole and Donald Mares emerged, on fire from the waist up.”

FLORENCE CLANTON
:
When I turned and looked back, the car slammed into the traffic light post in front of the Gap store—and out of the window comes the other guy, totally ablaze. All of his body—from his waist all the way up—was just on fire…

He was screaming, he was running, and I yelled to him,
“Don’t run, just stop running—drop!”

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
, AUGUST 27, 1993: BOMB TESTIMONY OPENS EXTORTION TRIAL; WOMAN TELLS OF EFFORTS TO SAVE BLAST VICTIM
:
“She chased him down as he ran, knocking him against the wall, trying to get his blazing nylon jacket off as it melted on him.”

FLORENCE CLANTON
:
He kept running, and when I caught up with him I slammed him up against a building so I could gain control of him. When I got him up against the building, the blood just splattered all over the building, and he fell to the ground so I could roll him over. I tried to push him. I couldn’t roll him over that good because he was on fire.

The driver of the car was a few feet away while I was trying to get the fire
off the passenger’s clothes. The driver was just sitting there. The passenger was saying, “Oh, my God, this is the worst I ever felt. I know I’m dying.”

I told him, “You are not going to die.”

He said, “It’s okay, you can talk to me about dying. I know I’m going to die.”

I told him, “Just shut up, you are not going to die, and you’ve got to listen to me. I’ve got to get all of your clothes off of you before they melt.”

I told his friend to come and help me. He just looked at me for a moment and then crawled over to where his friend was and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll tell them it’s not your fault.” Then he said to me, “Don’t worry about it; he ain’t gonna make it. Just get out of here.”

I said, “Hey, don’t leave your friend!”

Then he got up, and he ran into a restaurant.

JAY BRISSETTE
:
About fifteen minutes later Paul Mahn showed up with facial cuts and it looked like his hair had been burned a little bit, and his expression was pretty frazzled. He said a bomb blew up in the car, and he had to leave Donny there, and Donny was in pretty bad shape.

FLORENCE CLANTON
:
After I got his shirt torn loose, I saw a four-to six-inch hole blown through his chest. He had a sucking hole, so I tuck the shirt and stuck it in the hole to try to stop the bleeding, and I wrapped the arm of the shirt the rest of the way. His arm was severed. So I thought maybe I could tie the shirt around to stop the bleeding, but he wouldn’t hold still.

All his face was burned off—his hair, his eyebrows.

JAY BRISSETTE
:
I was pretty upset at the time and tried to collect my thoughts for a minute and decided I would call the car in stolen. We wanted to head back to Los Angeles, so we started driving back toward Wisconsin. We stayed at a motel that night then drove to the airport in Wisconsin, turned in the car, and bought new tickets to go back to Los Angeles. Me and Joe Martinez went together, and I left Paul Mahn with the remaining ticket.