Wednesday, Feb 23, 2022 • 13min

WE HAVE A NEW PODCAST! SCOUNDREL: HISTORY'S FORGOTTEN VILLAINS IS AVAILABLE NOW!

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From Jason and Carissa Weiser, the hosts of Myths and Legends, comes Scoundrel: History's Forgotten Villains. History consists of heroes and villains (and, I suppose everything in between)... but it's usually the villains who are the most interesting: Their flaws, their quirks, the voids in their hearts that force them to do the unthinkable. These are the characters that fascinate us, that pull us in, that compel us to watch and don’t let us look away. And these are the characters that Scoundrel: History’s Forgotten Villains is all about. Scoundrel, is a new bi-weekly anthology podcast from Kast Media and the award winning creators of Myths & Legends, that tells the stories of the rapscallions through time who were just a little more adept at hiding their evil from historians than others. By joining them on their treacherous journeys, we not only learn about what makes them tick, but more importantly, the times that created them. Sidney Gottlieb, George Remus, Hetty Green, Thomas Blood, James McClintock. They’ve all done horrible things...on varying scales. If there’s anything we can salvage from their misdeeds and incalculable human suffering, it’s the opportunity to use them to elucidate the times they’ve lived… so that we can better understand ourselves. Listen anywhere you get podcasts: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scoundrel-historys-forgotten-villains/id1609801925 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scoundrel-historys-forgotten-villains/id1609801925 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3KRjtrNffxIZzCb6gGxPCN?si=2ae9d508ac5744e9 https://open.spotify.com/show/3KRjtrNffxIZzCb6gGxPCN?si=2ae9d508ac5744e9 Support the show: https://www.mythpodcast.com/membership https://www.mythpodcast.com/membership See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talking about

Speakers

(2)

Carisa Wiser

Jason Weiser

Transcript

Verified

Jason Weiser

00:00

Hey everyone. I'm Jason Weiser

Carisa Wiser

00:02

And I'm Carisa Wiser

Jason Weiser

00:03

And you may know us from our award-winning podcast Myths And Legends, but now we've partnered with Cast Media to create a new podcast called Scoundrel: History's Forgotten Villains, a series that tells the true stories of some of yesterday's most fascinating forgotten bad guys.

Carisa Wiser

00:18

For example, you'll follow the career of

Sidney Gottlieb

, not only learning that through

Sydney

and his

CIA

team,

the

US literally sanctioned mind control experiments and torture. But the story will open a window allowing you to really feel what Cold War America was like.

Jason Weiser

00:35

Each episode will feature a new villain and a new time period. You may not have heard about, but really should.

Carisa Wiser

00:40

So if you like crime, evildoers and the darker parts of history, join us on Cast Media's new podcast, Scoundrel: History's Forgotten Villains.

00:49

Every other week, wherever you get your podcasts

Break

Carisa Wiser

01:09

He slides boxes away from the storefront windows faded from the sun on one side during the day, they provide camouflage for the emptiness inside the store. At night, they form a well-worn path to the back of the room. It's 1933 and the country is in the middle of what will be known as

the Great Depression

. Empty storefronts aren't the exception.

Jason Weiser

01:33

The rule Marino runs an illegal speakeasy out of the back of the store has been ever since the start of prohibition back in 1920, but he's seen the writing on the wall and knows he needs a plan B. An exit strategy.

01:47

He needs Mike.

Carisa Wiser

01:51

Marino walks to the front and unlocks the door, right on schedule.

Michael Malloy

waltz is inside, he's beyond first name basis, he's a regular and so he sits down and orders his usual. Only, it doesn't go on his tab because the guy doesn't have one. Somewhere along the line. Malloy signed a paper in exchange for never going thirsty again. Free booze. It was a deal. Malloy couldn't ignore, and

Tony Marino

knew it.

Jason Weiser

02:24

Marino leans on the counter and says something to Red Murphy, the bartender. If he and his buddies have their way, Michael Malloy's unlimited whiskey ends tonight. They said free drinks for the rest of his life.

02:38

They never said how long that would be. Marino and his crew patiently wait for Malloy to drink himself to death. They're depending on it, except it isn't happening, and their patience is running out. Mike Malloy needs to die, now. Marino nods to Red, "Give it to him".

Carisa Wiser

03:02

The bartender switches out a bottle, it's still rotgut whiskey, that's a given, but this other one has a little something extra.

Michael Malloy

downs it in one gulp, then another. Then one twice as potent and still more, it seems, no amount of poison is enough to take this guy down.

03:24

Marino and Red look at one another as Malloy leans drowsy on the bar. They would find over the course of the next month that

Michael Malloy

Iron Mike

, the Rasputin of the

Bronx

as he would become known, would be surprisingly hard to kill.

Jason Weiser

03:40

This may have been a mistake. How are they going to kill Mike Malloy? History happened. The good bad, the ugly.

Carisa Wiser

03:52

But some stories get less attention than others. This is the other side of history. The lesser known pieces lost, redacted untold.

Jason Weiser

04:01

You've heard of

Al Capone

, but what about

George Remus

, whose bootlegging empire made Capone's operation look like a lemonade stand? Sure, you know

Billy the Kid

. But while he was robbing cattle with a pistol,

James McClintock

was blowing up men by the dozen with his newfangled war machines.

Carisa Wiser

04:17

Never heard of them. Just wait, you'll see. And it's all true. Each episode, we want to give you a window into a moment in time. A glimpse into real life, the stories thought to be too small to focus on in the history books, but which revealed the truthful answers to the questions. What was it really like back then? How did it feel?

Jason Weiser

04:40

From the creators of Myths and Legends and from Cast Media, this is Scoundrel: History's Forgotten Villains we're Jason and Carisa Wiser

Carisa Wiser

04:48

Join with us every episode as we explore. Dark quirky and bizarre history that you might not have heard before, but really should.

05:01

Tony Marino,

27, gaunt with a hungry look in his eye, is desperate.

The Great Depression

is ravaging the country,

New York City

is destitute, people are sleeping in shanty towns in

Central Park

, Marino feels the flames licking at his feet.

Jason Weiser

05:20

He's managed to stay off the streets, thanks to the principle of supply and demand.

05:25

The Alcohol Prohibition Act put into effect on January 17th 1920, created a major demand for hooch among the economically hobbled New Yorkers, looking to drown their sorrows at the bottom of a bottle and Marino supplies them with, well, whatever toilet swill booze he can scrounge up to sell on the back of his

Bronx

storefront.

Carisa Wiser

05:45

But there's a problem, and Marino knows it. His customer base is thinning out, and of the remaining barflies racking up tabs at his speakeasy. Few of them are any good for it. He's constantly losing money when customers refused to pay. The entirety of

New York City

is a wallet opening up and a little moth flying out. You can only make money from peddling moonshine to the huddled masses if they can pay for it.

Jason Weiser

06:13

What's worse, prohibition? A failed experiment with a whole truckload of baggage that doomed it from the start is ending. Everyone's happy about it except for the impoverished speakeasy owners like Marino, who built their entire livelihood on the supply and demand model.

06:28

Built and maintained by the continued governmental control of alcohol. He knows that once alcohol is legal again, nobody is going to come to his hole in the wall gin joint anymore.

Carisa Wiser

06:39

He needs to come up with a plan or start scouting out a prime location at his nearest shantytown

06:46

And then in walks Marino's most loyal customer,

Michael Malloy

, a sporadically employed alcoholic living on the streets. That is, if you can call someone a customer, if they won't pay you.

06:59

The guy has been nothing but a thorn in Marino's side for the last several years of all the speakeasies, regulars, he is the most regular, but also the least likely to pay for his drinks. Marino has an idea. His ticket out of poverty would be life insurance fraud.

Jason Weiser

07:18

Nobody fully knows who

Mike Malloy

is. His paper trail only goes back as far as the early 20s. He's an Irish immigrant, worked as a firefighter before losing his job to the depression, and eventually took to living on the streets and working any odd job he could find in exchange for alcohol.

07:35

His records are so sparse that

Mike Malloy

might not even be his real name. Some accounts from this time say he's about 40 years old.

Carisa Wiser

07:43

Some claim he's in his 60

Jason Weiser

07:46

And the fuzziness of all these details, paved the way for what's about to go down.

Carisa Wiser

07:50

By the time he wanders into Marino's speakeasy, he's a full-blown alcoholic who hasn't worked in months. Marino takes pity on Malloy, at first tossing him a few free drinks here and there, and eventually gives him a part-time job, sweeping up the shop in exchange for whiskey. But as the depression worsens, that all goes away. Every night, Malloy shows up begging for another drink and depending on Marino's mood, he either tosses him to the curb or relents and has the bartenders slide him a few shots. He becomes a nuisance to the already stressed Marino.

Jason Weiser

08:28

And so, he becomes the perfect target for the scheme because unbeknownst even

Mike Malloy

, the group had taken out multiple life insurance policies against his well-being.

Carisa Wiser

08:41

This all starts in July 1932. Marino, Kreisberg and Pascua sit around a table in the back of the bar playing cards. The thick blanket of smoke above their heads provides cloud cover as they throw out ideas for potential, get rich quick schemes. Selling magazines, door to door, no too much work, gambling, nah, none of them are very good at cards. Maybe one of them could become one of those organ grinder guys with the little dancing monkey on a leash. "Now, I think that's just a thing from the cartoons. Is that real?" Either way, where would they get a monkey?

Jason Weiser

09:23

Then Pascua looks at Marino and gives him an unknowing smirk. There's always life insurance. Marino knows what he's getting at. They've had some history there, but we'll get to that later. If one of them has a sick relative, they can take out a policy on them and just wait for the cash to roll in. This isn't even a particularly novel idea, committing some form of life insurance fraud is actually a fairly common crime during

the Great Depression

. However, try as they might, none of them can think of any alien and Edna's or grim faded grandpa Joe's tucked away anywhere. Oh well, maybe there's something to that monkey thing.

Carisa Wiser

10:02

But wait, somebody has an idea what if they made a family member, Marino looks to Pascua who looks to

Michael Malloy

sleeping at the bar. He's a street vagrant, an Irish immigrant with no family, no friends to speak of and a hopeless alcoholic. Every night he stumbles into the bar and guzzles as much booze as he can get down his throat, passes out, stumbles back onto the street. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Jason Weiser