His father was a crazy Chinese killer, and his mother was an Irish alcoholic. Despite the lack of proper family education, the mission of George Appo in life was to become the quintessential “Good Employee”.
George Appo's definition of “Good Employee” is a person who was an expert thief, one who would not cooperate with the authorities, and who categorically refused to testify in court even against his enemies. Appo wrote in his 99-page autobiography, which was never published: “What constitutes a good person in the eyes and an assessment of the underworld is a nervous fraudster, a recipient of money and a spark. arrest, even if the crime was committed by others. “A good employee” was a member of the brotherhood of thieves. ”
At the end of 1840, George Appo's father Quimbo Appo launched his own tea business in New York before moving to New Haven, Connecticut. In 1855, Quimbo Appo met with Catherine Fitzpatrick, an Irish immigrant who was only in America for a few short years. They were married, and in 1856 Katherine Appo had two children. The first one reportedly died during childbirth, but the second was described as “A handsome, healthy boy, very vigorous, as white as his mother, a Yankee boy, apparently with a width of a queen between his eyes.”
Shortly after the birth of George Appo, his father returned to New York with his family. After working as a tea tester for several companies, in 1859, Quimbo Appo opened its own tea shop on Third Avenue, between 7th and 8th streets.
Quimbo Appo had a strong temper, which aggravated his continued drinking. March 8, 1859 Kembo Appo returned from work and, as usual, found his wife on three sheets in the wind. He began to beat Catherine Appo, so noticeably the owner of their building, Mary Fletcher and two other tenants Margaret Butler and Mary Gavigan, stood up and tried to stop the beating. Quimbo Appo became so furious that he threw the knife and twice hit Fletcher in the chest. Fletcher is mortally wounded on the floor, shouting, "My God." Then Kembo Appo hit Gavigan in the hand and Butler in the head.
Quimbo Appo ran to another Chinese guesthouse, but soon he was discovered by policemen hiding under the bed. After he was arrested, Quimbo Appo told the police, “Yes, I killed her.
On the front page of the Herald Tribune read the following day: “Murder in the Fourth Chamber”.
The Quimbo Appo trial took place on April 11, 1859. The jury demanded less than one hour for a conviction. Even though the attorney, District Attorney Nelson J. Waterbury, recommended life imprisonment, a month later Judge Davis sentenced the Quimbo Appo to death. However, Quimbo Appo's lawyer appeared in this case, and on May 8, 1860, Governor Morgan commuted the death sentence to Kembo Appo and instead gave them a 10-year sentence in prison in Sing Sing.
However, the 10-year battle of Quimbo Appo turned into a lifelong sentence due to Quimbo Appo's inclination to violence, and also because he was mostly crazy. As a result of several violent incidents and bizarre behavior on his part, Kembo Appo never again became a free man. On June 23, 1912, he died in the Wathwawan hospital for criminal madness.
After the conclusion of his father, George Appo and his mother returned to their slum apartment on Oliver Street. Soon after, Catherine Appo decided to take her son and his younger sister to the Golden Gate ship to visit Catherine's brother in San Francisco. However, the ship underwent a strong storm and sank. Appo's mother and sister died, but Appo somehow survived.
Appo wrote: “I cannot explain how I was saved, only that the sailor brought me to New York and left me in a very poor family named Allen.”
The Allen family lived in an apartment lane in the backyard of Donovan Road, also called the Killer's Alley, located on a tiny strip of hidden dirt, with apartment buildings so close to each other, with almost no daylight could penetrate the lane.
Appo wrote: “One entrance was on Baxter, and the other entrance was on Pearl Street. Poor people of all nationalities lived on this Donovan lane. The effect of pyatsentovym rum, bought in the "Black Mike", which was located at 14 Baxter Street, to get rid of their stolen goods. Above Cohen's shop was the place where all the Chinese of the city lived. At that time, there were only about 60 Chinese in the whole city, and then the lane was named Chinatown. ”
Donovan Road, or, if you will, Chinatown, was in the heart of the worst slum in New York called Five Points. In this cesspool of humanity Appo learned about the tricks of trade that allowed him to live with dignity in a criminal life. Apo, at about the age of 10, became part of a group of scavengers, which people at the time called “street hedgehogs,” “Arabs,” “street rats,” or stallions. “While Appo did an honest job at low-level jobs, such as shiny shoes, wide sidewalks and newspaper sales, Appo also refined his true love - the art of picking pockets.
It was very easy for the boy to sell newspapers to pick the pocket of the unsuspecting. Appo used the reproof of a “newspaper ploy”, a trick in which when he allegedly sold newspapers, Appo, on the one hand, waved a newspaper on the client’s face, and on the other, # 39; d select the victim's pocket.
Mentor pickup Appo was a master named Jim Caulfield. Caulfield once told a police officer: "If you stand behind a newspaper under your chin, I can take your watch, your watch and chain, and even your socks."
In the winter of 1871, Appo was caught picking a pocket of a businessman in the center of the city. The businessman grabbed Appo by the neck and handed it to a passing policeman, saying: "This boy just robbed $ 28 from his vest pocket."
Appo pleaded guilty to Judge Joseph Dowling. The judge sentenced Appo to indefinite time in the floating school of reform, which was aboard the naval ship Mercury. Mercury placed on board 242 boys who were convicted of crimes such as vagrancy, absenteeism and theft. On board the Mercury, the boys learned navigation skills, such as navigation, navigation, military exercises and the creation of all kinds of rope knots that were important in the lives of sailors. There were also classes for boys in reading, writing and arithmetic.
However, life on Mercury was nothing more than idyllic. The food was paltry. The water was dirty, and infectious bacteria entered the ship.
In 1872, Mercury made a 9-month trip to Barbados and back. Upon returning to Hearts Island, off the coast of Manhattan, Appo and several other boys fled the ship, dropping down onto the boat with a rope. After they came ashore in the center of Manhattan, Appo fled back to Donovan Lane and gathered his pockets again.
In 1874, Appo was taken by a policeman who was collecting the pockets of the head of Wall Street. Appo tried to escape from the scene, but a fleeting detective followed him in a hot pursuit, firing a gun at Appo. Appo hit the stomach once, but managed to escape.
Appo stumbled in the building on 300th Pearl Street and went to the apartment where the Maher family was. While Mrs. Maher hid Appo under the bed, she ordered her son to go out in front of the building to see if there was a policeman in the area. When the coast was clear, Appo left the apartment and received treatment in St. Louis. Hospital Luke, from a doctor who was friends with one of the Confederate Appo. The bullet in Appo's stomach was removed, and soon Appo returned to the streets, doing what he had done before. Six months later, Apple caught the pockets again. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to two years and six months in Sing Sing prison.
In Sing Sing, Appo was united with his father, who entered and went out of clarity. Elder Apo was normal most days, but in his bad days he was delirious, and he said things like “I am the king of the world.”
In Sing Sing, Appo got a job at the laundry as a “clip” for shirts. After Appo accidentally burned one of the shirts, Appo's teeth were knocked out by one of the guards. Then three guards took Appo to the guard room, handcuffed him from behind and forced him to lie face down on the table for the paddle. There, Appo was given nine sharp eyelashes with a paddle on his back and spine, which made him unconscious. When he repeated the mind, the main guardian told Appo: "Do you think you can go back and do your job right now, and if not, we have a way to make you."
Appo told the keeper: "You punished me for nothing, and the next time they bring me here, you will punish me for something."
Appo returned to the laundry room. He immediately took the shirts that were on his desk, waiting to be ironed, and put them in a hot stove, where they were soon reduced to ashes. After his dirty deal was discovered, Appo was returned to the guard room. When asked why he did what he did, Appo refused to answer. Apo was immediately taken to one of the “dark cells”, where he was hospitalized for 14 days. During these 14 days, Appo made 2 ounces of bread and a glass of water every 24 hours.
After serving 30 months in Sing Sing Prison, Appo was released on April 2, 1876. Surprisingly, unexpectedly, he immediately returned to the collection of pockets. Over the next eight years, Appo was arrested twice more for execution and returned to prison in both cases, the last time on Blackwell Island. Appo escaped from Blackwell Island, waving a rope from the ship, where he worked, to the water below. Appo jumped into the small rowboat and galloped off until he docked in the center of Manhattan. Appo immediately sank in a boat and headed for Mulberry Street, where he could borrow some clothes. The next day, Appo hid in Philadelphia.
Appo was very good at collecting pockets in Philadelphia, but the lure of its old streets in the center of Manhattan, especially the opium lairs, was too big to resist. Returning to the sixth Ward, Appo decided to deviate from his usual pickup and go into the business of the flimflame. Appo's main fraud gave store owners the wrong change for $ 10 or $ 20. This racket went well for a while, until Appo was taken to a jewelry store to bite the owner. However, through the machinations of the vile law firm Hou and Hummel, Appo somehow managed to escape from prison.
In the early 1890s, deft pickpockets and Flimflame people became the favorite occupation of the New York police. Therefore, Appo decided to try a new scheme: a scheme in which he was less susceptible to arrest. This scheme was called “Green Product Fraud”.
The green goods fraud was a three-step one. It began with "operators" or bosses who hired "writers" who wrote circulars to be sent to all parts of the country. The basis of these circulars was to encourage people to agree to the purchase of counterfeit money. The “green goods” cycle contained words similar to this:
“I deal with articles, paper goods — one, two, five, tens, and 20s — you see, I can't be clearer until I know that your heart is true to me. , and a profitable article that can be used in any way and for all purposes, and no danger. "
Authors would also include in the circular prices for their products. A typical price list read: for $ 1,200 in my products (assorted), I charge $ 100. For 2500 dollars in my products (assorted), I take 200 dollars. For 5000 dollars in my product (assorted), I charge 350 dollars. $ 10,000 in my products (assorted) I charge $ 600. ”
These circulars were sent to people from all over the country who invested in various lotteries. The feeling of “operators” was that they were people who would most likely have done something illegal for monetary gain. Confederate soldiers were also sent circulars. New York City District Attorney Ambrose Purdy explained why: "Former Confederates were so emotionally protected and with economic debt that they considered green goods as a good way to damage the government."
As soon as the connection was established between the “marks” and the “operator”, the marks were sent to the train to New York or to suburbs close to New York. There, the marks will correspond to the third cog in Green Products fraud, which has been called the "manager".
The manager, one of whom was George Appo, met the marks at the railway station and took them to the operator or “turning point” who was waiting for the mark, either in a dummy showcase or in a hotel room, the Operator will show the sample marks of his “counterfeit” money that was actually legal tender. Satisfying that the money he showed, of course, looked legitimate, would provide the operator with the money that was agreed to buy the “weird bills”. The operator then puts the fake bonus money in a cheap suitcase. Then a leak will occur, temporarily diverting attention to the sign. During this diversion, the “operator” switched the suitcase and replaced it with what one of his Confederates had given him. Of course, the second suitcase was filled with plain plain paper, and sometimes even with sand.
This moment, the tutor's job was to quickly find a place in the country, before he realized that he had been deceived. As an additional insurance, the operator sometimes used the services of a local policeman or detective, and sometimes several local policemen or detectives. If the helm had a problem with marks, either on the way to the station, or on the train before he left the station, a crooked policeman, or a detective, would jump and threaten arrest with an arrest if the sign was not a & 39; leave the city immediately. The sign will not resort to help because he first tried to make an illegal transaction.
One of these illegal scammers, Green Commodity, almost cost George Appo his life. In February 1893, Appo worked with green goods fraud with Jim McNally as his operator. Appo was sent to McNally to meet with two men at a hotel in Poughkeepsie, New York. Appo went to the New York Hotel in Poughkeepsie and entered the room of two men named Hiram Kassel and Ira Hogshead, shady entrepreneurs from North Carolina. Appo sings a letter to people, denoting Appo as the link between the Old Gentleman (operator) and two men. Appo said he would take two people to the station to take the train for Motte Haven, where they would see the fake money they were buying. After the deal was completed, Appo said that he would take the men straight to the station, pay for their journey and send them on their way home. Appo told the people that they should walk 10 feet behind Appo on the way to the station, and they should not tell anyone, including Appo.
When Appo arrived at the station, he was met by Hiram Kassel, but Ira Hogshead stopped near the station and talked to a policeman, the same policeman who had recently encountered Jim McNally, the previous fraud. Appo approached Hogshead and asked him why he was talking to a policeman. Hogshead said, “I don't want to do business. I changed my mind".
Appo sent people back to the hotel room, where Hogshead insisted that the transaction was completed, and he demanded that Appo leave the hotel room immediately. When Appo was shaking Kassel’s hand, Hogshead fired Appo into the right temple. Appo was taken to a hospital in critical condition. A few days later Appo's right eye got infected, and had to be removed.
Cassel and Hogshead appear on trial for firing at Appo. However, since Appo, while remaining faithful to the “good guy” code, refused to testify against two men, prompting the judge to release Cassel and Hogshead with a simple $ 50 fine. Appo, however, was arrested for managing “green goods” fraud and was sent for three years and two months to hard labor. In addition, Appo was fined $ 250.
Fortunately for Appo, after spending only a few months in Clinton Prison, on November 28, 1893, the New York Court of Appeal reversed Appo’s conviction.
Feeling betrayed by Jim McNally and the operators of green goods in general, Appo agreed to testify before the Lexouw Committee, which studied police corruption and, in particular, their involvement in “green goods” fraud. Appo did not tell the committee anything that they didn’t already know, but he was denounced as a rat on the streets of New York, and was avoided by the people he had worked with for many years.
George Appo caught a break when, in September 1894, George W. Lederer, a refurbished producer plant, approached him. Lederer invited Appo to play his role in his new play called “In Tenderloin”, which Appo should have just played himself in the play about the underbelly in New York. Аппо гастролировал по стране в этой игре уже несколько лет, но когда игра закончилась, Аппо был зажат Ледерером за $ 15 000 за неоплачиваемую зарплату. Аппо, хотя он пробовал несколько лет, никогда не собирал свои деньги у Ледерера.
В начале 20-го века Джордж Аппо решил жить жизнью, свободной от преступлений. Он работал уборщицей в Большом Центральном Терминале, а также в качестве мастера на Голгофе, фабрике платья Салладе и в доме реформатора миллионеров - Александра Хаддена. В 1915 году Аппо начал работать в правительстве во время исследований опиумных логова. Аппо получил зарплату в шесть долларов в месяц, в дополнение к еще шести долларам в месяц в аренду для своей квартиры. Вскоре зарплата Аппо была увеличена до 10 долларов в месяц.
В последние годы о Джордже Аппо мало что слышали. Известно, что Аппо жил в маленькой квартире в Адской кухне, на западной стороне Манхэттена. 10 августа 1929 года Джордж Аппо был принят в Манхэттенскую государственную больницу на острове Уордс. К тому времени Аппо был почти глухим и почти полностью слепым.
17 мая 1930 года, несмотря на то, что он был расстрелян четыре раза, дважды ударил (один раз в горло) и жестоко избил в тюрьме, Джордж Аппо умер в возрасте 73 лет из ничего, кроме последствий старости.
