Thursday, April 23, 2009

Sidney Korshak

Sidney Korshak whom the FBI once called "the most powerful lawyer in the world": Korshak started out in Chicago and moved to Beverly Hills, where he was the "fixer" for Chicago mobsters doing business there, labor bosses and politicians, and good friends with men like Lew Wasserman, Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Barron Hilton and Hugh Hefner. "He was the godfathers' godfather, and he was my godfather," Evans told Page Six.
Within months of opening his law practice, according to extensive research conducted by Seymour M. Hersh and Jeff Gerth for The New York Times in 1976, he was defending members of the Al Capone crime syndicate. His reputation was made in 1943 when a mobster on trial for extorting millions of dollars from Hollywood movie companies testified that when he had been introduced to Mr. Korshak by a high-ranking Capone mobster, he had been told, "Sidney is our man."
Mr. Korshak, who sometimes boasted that he had paid off judges, solidified his standing among Chicago's business, civic and social leaders by giving ribald late-night parties featuring some of Chicago's most beautiful and willing showgirls. * * * He added to his reputation and his usefulness when it became known that he could arrange loans of millions of dollars from the teamsters' infamous Central States Pension Fund, which, among other things, helped finance the growth of the Las Vegas casino industry, often with Mr. Korshak serving as the intermediary and sometimes as silent partner.

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