Troy

The Collar City was Mob City in the Prohibition era, and no bootlegger was a bigger rock star of the underworld than Jack "Legs" Diamond.

He swaggered through throngs lined up on the sidewalks around the Rensselaer County Courthouse, where he was put on trial two weeks before Christmas in 1931 on charges of kidnapping and assault.

Diamond walked a few blocks across Second Street each morning to the courthouse from the office of his lawyer, Abbott Jones, and basked in the adulation of Trojans who shouted Diamond's name, cheered and reached out to clasp his hand.

"He carried a big wad of cash and he'd peel off bills and hand them out to people. They loved him," said E. Stewart Jones Jr., third generation of the family law firm founded by his grandfather in 1898.

Jones was in the courtroom last week, which he called "the Diamond courtroom," where his grandfather served as Diamond's co-counsel alongside chief defense attorney Daniel H. Prior of Albany in the trial 82 years ago.

Standing in the ornate, wood-paneled chamber in which Jones, his father, E. Stewart Jones Sr., and his grandfather argued cases brought forth a flood of recollections and colorful courtroom stories passed down to the grandson.

The 18th Amendment and its national prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 led to an era marked by violence over control of the illicit booze trade. Diamond would stop at nothing — including hijacking truckloads of alcohol shipped by rivals, torturing competitors and coldblooded murder — to corner the market.

Despite his savage tactics, the celebrity of "Gentleman Jack" was buoyed by a fawning tabloid press that portrayed him as a populist folk hero. In the tarnished firmament of wiseguys, Diamond's persona shone brightest. He was a poor Irish street kid from Philadelphia who became as beloved as a matinee idol. He poked a thumb in the eye of a government poor folks distrusted and delivered the 80-proof product they desired. He smuggled whiskey from down Canada and beer and hard cider up from the Catskills to slake the thirst of this hard-drinking river city of the working class.

Diamond was a jazzy dancer, too, with a showgirl moll on his arm, and a big tipper at speakeasies and ballrooms on both sides of the Hudson. He was a 5-foot-7-inch hoodlum who wore his gray fedora at a rakish angle and bespoke pinstripe suits crisply pressed. His torso bore the scars of several bullet wounds, which led to the nickname of "the clay pigeon." He had cheated death many times and somehow seemed untouchable — immortal even.

In the spring of 1931, Diamond kidnapped and tortured Grover Parks, a trucker from Greene County hired to haul 26 barrels of hard cider from the Catskills without Diamond's blessing. The beating caused Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring the full weight of his office down on the gangland enterprise. He ordered the State Police and attorney general to crush Diamond's racket, bust up his booze ring and scatter his thugs.

Authorities thought they might finally put Diamond away and end his high-profile reign of terror at the Troy trial. But he had hired the two best trial lawyers in the region, and Prior — who helped Diamond beat an earlier rap with a hung jury in Catskill — got the trial moved to Troy, where Jones had served as district attorney and was a hero in his hometown.

"My grandfather knew there was no possibility of a jury in Troy convicting 'Legs' Diamond," the grandson said.

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In the law office, Jones hung a framed photograph of the Diamond trial from Dec. 16, 1931. The photo was shot from a mezzanine gallery in the back of the courtroom and it shows a hatless Diamond (his hairline clearly receding) seated at a table next to Jones, who has a shock of silver hair, listening intently to the testimony of Parks. Prior sat on the other side of Diamond, elbows on the table, staring down at a sheaf of legal papers. Diamond's wife, Alice, sat in the front row of spectators. The trial was brief. Diamond was acquitted of all charges on Dec. 17. He reached for his roll of cash and offered to pay Jones' legal bill of $30,000. "No, go out and celebrate tonight and we'll settle up at the office tomorrow," Jones told Diamond, his grandson said.

The party moved across the river to Rain-Bo Room of the Kenmore Hotel on North Pearl Street in Albany, a Diamond hangout. In the wee hours of Dec. 18, Diamond stumbled up the steps of a rooming house at 67 Dove St. in a drunken stupor and passed out on his bed.

He was killed with three bullets to the head, fired at point-blank range in the small room.

The Times Union published an extra edition on Dec. 18, 1931 with a 72-point Spartan Bold Condensed banner headline, all uppercase: "JACK DIAMOND SLAIN IN DOVE ST. HOUSE; KILLERS' WEAPON FOUND"

The story by W.F. Wood captured the noirish quality of the snuff-out: "Jack 'Legs' Diamond, survivor of a dozen skirmishes with the law and the lawless alike, today went from a clandestine tryst with Marion 'Kiki' Roberts, his showgirl sweetheart, to a tryst with death in an Albany rooming house. Unknown assassins, stalking down their prey with cool deliberation, pumped a stream of leaden pellets into the racketeer's head as he lay asleep..."

It was international news. The murder was never solved. A mob hit was suspected. William Kennedy spent years researching the life of Diamond, which he poured into his nonfiction book "O Albany!" and two novels, "Legs" and "Roscoe." He presented convincing evidence and multiple sources who pointed to an inside job, a killing by Albany cops at the behest of political boss Dan O'Connell.

By the time word reached the Jones law firm later that morning and an employee was dispatched to Dove Street to collect the $30,000 the lawyer was owed, there was no cash on the premises. "He was robbed, which was a fitting end for a master thief," Kennedy said.

Jones said he tried not to dwell on how much the lost $30,000 would be worth now — about $500,000 after inflation.

Jones said the Diamond case caused his grandfather to change office protocol, a lesson drummed into the grandson: "In a criminal defense case, you always get the money up front."

pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl