Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [20]
Though Grozier calculated his positions carefully in terms of circulation, he also took unpopular positions based on his sense of fairness. Boston’s Irish and blacks were often at odds, competing for scarce resources, but the Post refused to favor one group over the other. William Monroe Trotter, editor of the Boston Guardian, a black newspaper, once said that Grozier ran his newspaper under a policy of “identical justice, freedom, and civil rights for all, regardless of race, creed, or color.”
The combination of aggressive news coverage, community appeal, and dedication to fair play, along with a healthy dose of razzle-dazzle, worked beyond all expectations. In time, Edwin Grozier’s Post outsold the Globe. And in a much smaller city, its circulation exceeded that of Pulitzer’s New York World. But the Post’s status as Boston’s premier newspaper would soon be tested as never before.
Mug shots of young Carlo Ponzi from his 1908 arrest in Montreal.
The Boston Globe
CHAPTER FOUR
“ALONG CIRCLE OF BAD BREAKS”
Back on the bumpy streets of Montreal, Ponzi learned that his reputation was worse than his prison-issued suit. Not only was he a convicted forger and an ex-con, but his name remained linked to the fleecing of depositors and the collapse of Banco Zarossi. Hardly an impressive résumé for a would-be financier. Cordasco the padrone had taken to calling him “Bianchi the Snake.” He slept at a friend’s home and earned a few dollars working odd jobs, but his future in Montreal was ruined. He gathered his belongings and began planning a return to the United States.
Seventeen days after his release from prison, Ponzi boarded a southbound train with five other Italians, young men newly arrived from the old country, none of whom had proper papers and none of whom spoke English. As the train approached the New York border, a United States Customs inspector named W. H. Stevenson came aboard and questioned Ponzi about his companions. Ponzi insisted they were strangers to him. He told Stevenson that he had run into an old schoolmate at the depot, and the schoolmate had asked him to look after these men. Ponzi mentioned nothing about whether money had changed hands, telling Stevenson merely that he had generously, innocently agreed to his old chum’s request. Ponzi did not mention that the old friend was Antonio Salviati, his fugitive former colleague at the Zarossi bank, who was still wanted for allegedly pocketing money a customer intended to send home to Italy. Regardless, the customs man did not believe Ponzi’s story. Stevenson called an immigration inspector, who ordered all six men taken into custody as suspected illegal immigrants. Ponzi faced the most serious charge: smuggling aliens into the United States.
Ponzi was back behind bars. His thousand-dollar bail might as well have been a million, and he languished for two months in the Plattsburgh, New York, jail before being brought to trial. He insisted he was innocent, telling whoever would listen that he had done what any decent person would have done in his situation. After a heart-to-heart talk with a prosecutor, Ponzi got the impression that a guilty plea would cost him no more than a fifty-dollar fine or a month in jail. Fearing that an innocent plea and a guilty verdict would result in serious time, Ponzi bought the deal and pleaded guilty. But his luck turned from bad to worse. The judge stunned Ponzi by sentencing him to two years in a federal prison and fining him five hundred dollars. The five undocumented Italian immigrants testified as witnesses at Ponzi’s trial and afterward were set free.
Ponzi was soon back on a train, this time headed for the United States federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
To his surprise, Ponzi traveled to Atlanta in style, more like a chief executive than a felon. With deputy U.S.