In retaliation for filing a lawsuit against acting boss Tony Accardo and other senior Mafiosi, Touhy was murdered in an alleged contract killing by the Chicago Outfit less than a month after his release.

Rarely for the Chicago Police Department at that time, Patrolman James Touhy was known to be fiercely honest and incorruptible,[4] but he was also a strict disciplinarian who beat his children so severely that his neighbors complained.

[23] Des Plaines was still quite a rural area, and the family lived in a large home on a farm on River Road just north of Maryville Academy.

[22] Like nearly all bootleggers, he paid extensive bribes to judges, police, and prosecutors, and he supplemented his payments with free shipments of his high-quality beer (which often was more prized than the cash).

He aided law enforcement by keeping bottom-rung gangsters (who were more likely to cause problems for a community) out of Des Plaines, and refused to allow brothels to operate in the northwest and west suburbs of Chicago.

The men told Touhy that Capone felt the northwestern suburbs were "virgin territory" for brothels, illegal gambling, and taxi dance halls.

[30] Touhy's gang was small,[7] so he chose to intimidate Heeney and Rio: he lined his office walls with handguns and rifles, and borrowed submachine guns from the local police.

Humphreys and his driver/bodyguard, James "Red" Fawcett, met with Touhy and asked him to come to Capone's headquarters in Cicero, Illinois, to meet with underboss Frank Nitti and hammer out a deal.

[m] Marcus "Studdy" Looney of Chicago Outfit met with Touhy and showed him a list of various American Federation of Labor (AFL) unions in the area and how much money each of them had in their treasury.

"Paddy" Berrell, vice president of the IBT; and Art Wallace, secretary-treasurer of the Painters union met with Touhy in 1931 and asked him to hold on to $125,000 ($2,600,000 in 2024 dollars) which they had raised as a fund to fight Outfit takeovers.

[65][q] Thomas J. Courtney, who became Cook County State's Attorney in 1933,[70] was ostensibly a reformer who professed a desire to root out organized crime influence in the labor movement.

[100][66] On Friday, April 28, 1933, a group of men wielding machine guns entered the Teamsters District Council headquarters building at 637 S. Ashland Avenue in Chicago at about 8:30 A.M. and held about 80 people hostage for three hours.

[aa] The leader of the gunmen declared their purpose was to break the hold of Murray "The Camel" Humphreys, William "Klondike" O'Donnell, and "Three Finger" Jack White on the Teamster unions.

[103] A third theory held that Roger Touhy was seeking to take over unions in an attempt to raise money to pay for the medical care of his brother Tommy, who had recently been partially paralyzed.

[111][ad] Local gangster and casino owner Jack Peifer put the Barker-Karpis gang up in a rented cottage in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, on the outskirts of St.

[120][121][af] Some historians assert that the Barker-Karpis gang was manipulated into kidnapping Hamm so Touhy could be framed for the crime and eliminated as competition for the Chicago Outfit.

Factor conceived of the kidnapping as a way to avoid extradition, as American law enforcement and prosecutors would need to keep him in the U.S. as legal proceedings against the kidnappers went forward.

[157] Unconcerned about Gilbert's public statements, Touhy decided to go on a mid-July fishing trip in southern Wisconsin with fellow gangsters Edward "Father Tom" McFadden, Gustave "Gloomy Gus" Schaefer, and Willie Sharkey.

[173] FBI agents told the press that Touhy was a "callous killer; cruel by nature and devoid of any human attributes; driven by an insane desire for gangland power, which makes him absolutely ruthless and more deadly than a viper".

[160][180][ao] A grand jury indictment did not require that any accusatory evidence be revealed to the defendants or the court, quashing Touhy's habeas corpus effort.

[188][189] Schaefer and Sharkey, along with Frank "Blackie" McKee and "Silent Jim" Ryan (two other alleged members of the Touhy gang), were indicted for a mail robbery in Minneapolis in January 1933.

[198] Farm hand Charles Carlson positively identified Touhy, McFadden, and Schaefer as the men he saw loitering near the spot where the ransom money was left.

[199] Toward the end of the government's case, various law enforcement officers testified about the weapons found in the Touhy car, although none mentioned a pistol converted into a machine gun.

Three and a half days were spent reading into the record depositions from a wide range of individuals who claimed to have seen Touhy, McFadden, Schaefer, and Sharkey nowhere near Minneapolis during the Hamm kidnapping.

[202][203] Defense attorney Thomas McMeekin attempted to introduce extensive evidence that Walter Bowick was an inveterate liar who had fled town after his prosecution testimony.

[224] Thomas Courtney, Minnesota state's attorney prosecuting the case, convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to not deport Factor in the interest of law enforcement.

[240] On August 30, the Seventh Circuit declined Touhy's bid for habeas corpus, ruling he should remain in prison until the state's appeal was fully heard.

[255] Factor then sued autobiography co-author Ray Brennan, KCOP-TV, KCOP reporter Tom Duggan, and the two publishers of Touhy's book for a combined $4 million for libel in January 1960.

[260] Roger Touhy filed a habeas corpus proceeding in federal District Court against Ragen, the warden of Stateville Prison, alleging he was restrained in violation of the Due Process Clause.

As part of this proceeding, in 1949 he subpoenaed FBI agent George McSwain to provide documents showing his kidnapping conviction was based on conspiracy and fraud.