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Boston Public Library, Print Department

Ponzi appealed to Calvin Coolidge, sending the president an urgent telegram claiming persecution and proposing his own deportation to avoid more prison time: “May I ask your excellency for official or unofficial intervention in my behalf? The Ponzi case has assumed the proportions of a national scandal fostered by the state of Massachusetts with the forbearance of the federal government. But, for the best interests of all concerned, I am willing to submit to immediate deportation. Will your excellency give his consideration of the eventual wisdom of my compromise?” Coolidge ignored the plea.

Desperate, Ponzi sent a cable to Italy appealing to the dictator Benito Mussolini. No help there either, making Ponzi one of the rare topics on which Coolidge and Mussolini agreed. Ponzi was returned to Texas to await extradition, a process he fought for months. While Ponzi battled, Rose accompanied Imelde Ponzi home to Italy, where she wanted to spend her final years.

Finally Ponzi was returned to Boston in February 1927 to begin his sentence in the Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown. His prison job was sewing underwear. Ponzi sought a pardon in April 1930 when he learned that his mother was on her deathbed, but the request was denied. Ponzi maintained that Imelde Ponzi died without knowing the trouble he was in, but that was certainly wishful thinking.

When the final payment to Ponzi’s creditors was made in December 1930, Time magazine took note of it. “Glittering in the archives of financial fraud is the record of Charles Ponzi, duper extraordinary, personification of quick riches,” the item began. It went on to recount his aliases and his occupation—“thief”—and to claim that in his prime Ponzi slept in lavender pajamas. Ponzi wrote a lengthy, jocular reply from his cell, which the magazine gleefully printed. First he set the record straight on his sleepwear, insisting that he never wore purple nightclothes, “nor pink ribbons on my night shirt. Fur coat and overshoes on extremely cold nights have been my limit.” In his letter, Ponzi mused about challenging the editor of Time to a duel, then thought better of it. “You know,” he wrote, “I like you in spite of your jabs because you have given me an opportunity of spending an hour writing this letter. If you come over to Boston after I am out, I have a damned good mind to buy you a drink. Two if you can stand the gait. Will you libate with me?”

Ponzi was released on parole in February 1934 with seventy dollars he had earned in prison. He declined the customary free suit of clothes given to departing prisoners. Outside the walls, he stepped into a clutch of reporters. Balding and thicker around the middle, he was still Ponzi. “It’s great to see you boys,” he said, posing for photos. Though Ponzi’s debt to society was paid, U.S. officials had still not forgiven him.

After completing his state prison term, Ponzi is escorted up the gangplank of S.S. Vulcania for his deportation to Italy in 1934.

Boston Public Library, Print Department

Ponzi had never obtained citizenship, so federal authorities moved immediately to deport him. Ponzi, Rose, and Dan Coakley pleaded for mercy and a pardon, even enlisting Ponzi’s old nemesis publicity man William McMasters. At one point Ponzi went to the Post, hoping to persuade his former pursuers that he had suffered enough for his misdeeds. On his way into the newsroom, Ponzi walked past the Pulitzer Prize on display. He strolled over to Eddie Dunn’s desk. The two shook hands and talked quietly about the old days. But there was nothing Dunn or anyone else could do. Appeals to the governor for a pardon were denied. Ponzi was deemed an undesirable alien.

On October 7, 1934, Ponzi’s three-decade American adventure came to an end. At times crying softly, the fifty-two-year-old Ponzi was escorted to the S.S. Vulcania for deportation to Italy. He carried a suitcase filled with newspaper clippings, wore a new brown suit Rose had bought him, and in