Working out of his saddlery shop and gun store at 111 South Flores Street in San Antonio, Lebman provided specialized and custom-made weaponry to several well-known bank robbers and outlaws during the Great Depression.
This machine pistol featured an extended magazine for increased ammunition capacity, a muzzle brake or compensator, and a fore grip adapted from the more familiar Thompson submachine gun.
When Chicago bootlegger Roger "The Terrible" Touhy was arrested in Wisconsin on July 19, 1933, one of Lebman's "baby machine guns" was found in his car.
[6] A full-auto Lebman Colt belonging to Dillinger was found at one of his hideouts in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March 31, 1934, as well as one left behind at the Little Bohemia Lodge three weeks later.
[1][2][3] His most famous customer was perhaps Baby Face Nelson, whose earliest known purchase of weapons from Lehman occurred while visiting San Antonio in early 1933.
[1][2][3] A month later, Nelson used one of his special automatics to kill federal agent W. Carter Baum and seriously wound two others during the shootout with authorities at the Little Bohemia Lodge on April 22.
From there, authorities followed the trail to a large Fort Worth pawn shop and firearms distributor, Wolfe & Klar, who sold the unmodified weapon to Hyman Lebman.
[6] Federal prosecutors suspected jury tampering in the retrial, specifically with the lone holdout juror, but were never able to offer any evidence to support their suspicions.