Black Caesar
by Ron Chepesiuk
We are delighted to welcome author Ron Chepesiuk to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of Partners in Crime Tours, which is coordinating his current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find his schedule here.
Ron's new true crime account is Black Caesar: The Rise and Disappearance of Frank Matthews, Kingpin (Strategic Media Books; July 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats), and we are pleased to introduce you to the book with an excerpt, below.
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BLACK CAESAR'S CRIMINAL LIFE MIGHT not have come to law enforcement's attention if it had not been for some bad luck. Black Caesar did not know it, but one of his neighbors at 130 Clarkson Avenue was a veteran of the New York Police Department named Joe Kowalski. "My (astrological) sign is Virgo and we tend to be nosey people," Kowalski explained. "That was bad news for Frank Matthews."
Kowalski joined the NYPD on October 1, 1962, and worked in uniform duty in New York Police Department's (NYPD) 84th Precinct before being assigned to its Central Investigation Bureau (CIB). According to one NYPD report, Kowalski's assignment to the CIB was predicated on his knowledge and experience as a former telephone company employee and the fact that he had "continually performed his duties with the Command in an efficient and highly commendable manner."
Observing Matthews' movements for several months, Kowalski found it strange that while his neighbor looked as if he had money, he exhibited no visible means of support. "I did not like him the first time I saw him," Kowalski recalled. "He was loud and flashy, drove fancy cars and never seemed to go to work."
Kowalski recalled the day he was on the elevator for the first time with Matthews and one of his associates. Always a cop, Kowalski thought it would be a good opportunity to size up the suspicious neighbor. The detective noted, "The 5' 8" or 5' 9" tall Matthews was muscular, from 180 to 190 pounds, and appeared to be in his mid 20s. He had short-cropped hair, but his clothes could have made him stand out in a pitch-black room. He wore a white mink coat and fashionable platform shoes and he sparkled with jewelry.
"Matthews was talking in a soft voice to his associate when suddenly he exploded, ‘That Guinea bastard! That son-of-a-bitch. Who does he think he is? If I had a gun, I'd blow him away!'" Watching Matthews spew venom, Kowalski had no doubt the gangster was capable of doing just that. While suspicious of the new neighbor, Kowalski did not want to alert his superiors until he had enough evidence proving Matthews was involved with some kind of criminal activity, so he conducted his investigation while off duty.
Kowalski had access to the investigative tools of the CIB and he quietly and unofficially began to look into Frank Matthews' background. His investigation revealed that neither Frank Matthews nor Barbara Hinton had a criminal record. The detective further learned that Matthews had a gold Cadillac registered to a company called Mattrank Enterprises, Inc., at 1475 Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Matthews had no broker's license, and records contained no listing for Mattrank Enterprises, Inc. Matthews had bought a 1970 Cadillac, and when Kowalski did a check of the car registration, he found out that, for some strange reason, it was registered to a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania address.
Meanwhile, Barbara Hinton was driving an expensive green 1970 Cadillac El Dorado registered in her name. In the months after Matthews moved in, the parking lot at the Clarkson apartment building began to look like a luxury car sales lot filled with high-priced Mercedes, Mercuries, Cadillacs and Buicks. People began streaming into the building at all hours of the day to see the residents in 4B. The visitors were black and as flashy and loud as Matthews. They would block the driveways with their cars and park in other people's parking spaces. Many of them carried paper bags that looked as if they might contain money.
Looking out his apartment window, Kowalski would sometimes see black men strategically located around the apartment building. The deective knew from his experience that this kind of activity was a good sign a drug buy was going down.Kowalski began keeping the visitors under surveillance. He took down license plate numbers and did background checks, using NYPD resources. He put the license plate numbers through the Motor Vehicles database and was not surprised to learn that many of the cars were registered to known drug dealers living not just in the Big Apple but in cities throughout the east, Midwest and the south, including Durham, a small town in North Carolina.
There was Albert Phillip Wylie, a male negro, 35-40 years old, from Baltimore, who worked for James Westcott, a major drug trafficker in the city. An "unknown negro" appeared to drive a car registered to Nathaniel Elder, a major trafficker in narcotics who "has been a target of the federal authorities in the Atlanta, Georgia area." Another unknown "male negro" visitor, 35-40 years, drove a 1971 Cadillac Eldorado registered to Scarvey McCargo, a major trafficker from New Haven, Connecticut.
Kowalski began checking the telephone records of Frank Matthews and discovered that he was in contact with individuals whom the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), the DEA's predecessor, had identified as major narcotics violators. They were located all over the eastern U.S. and included some notorious big time dealers, such as James Craven (Cincinnati, Ohio), James Olive Rowland (Durham, North Carolina) and Shelby Cotton (Chicago, Illinois). Obsessed with finding out more about Matthews, Kowalski began keeping a detailed log of the suspect's activities.
"I took a lot of chances," Kowalski conceded. "When I thought Matthews wasn't around, I'd go to the garage and look into his car. I'd test his car door; it was always locked, but I'd see an attaché case in the back seat. Matthews seemed to be really careless."
One day in February 1971, Kowalski saw Matthews acting suspiciously in the garage area of the apartment complex. He searched the area when no one was around but found nothing. A few days later, he did another search near Matthews's car and found a small silver foil package wrapped in wax paper and hidden within the padding placed around a support pole. It contained one ounce of white powder.
More searching uncovered another one-ounce package of white powder, wrapped in wax paper. Kowalski took samples of both packages back to the NYPD headquarters where he had them tested at the police lab. The powder was found to be cocaine of good quality. Although the discovery could not have gotten Matthews arrested, Kowalski knew he was onto something criminal.
The detective's investigation went on for months as he continued to gather a small mountain of information. Finally, he decided it was time to submit a detailed report of his findings to his superiors.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Ron Chepesiuk
Ron Chepesiuk is an award-winning author and a publisher, screenwriter and documentary producer and director. He's a two-time Fulbright Scholar to Bangladesh and Indonesia and a consultant to the History Channel's Gangland TV series. His books include Sergeant Smack, Gangsters of Harlem, Gangsters of Miami, among others. He is also Executive Producer and co-host of the popular radio show Crime Beat.
For more information about other books by Ron Chepesiuk visit Strategic Media Books.
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Black Caesar
Ron Chepesiuk
The Rise and Disappearance of Frank Matthews, Kingpin
In 1973, 29-year old Frank Matthews jumped bail and disappeared with $15-20 million and beautiful mistress and has never been seen again.
Black Caesar chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of Frank Matthews, history's biggest African American drug dealer, and one of history's biggest manhunts to apprehend him.
