Charles Baron
Charles "Babe" Baron (b?-d?) was an organized crime figure in Chicago, Illinois. He owned a successful Chicago new car dealership ( Charles Baron Ford) as well as holding the rank of Brigadier-General in the Illinois National Guard. He was involved in illegal gambling as a handbook operator for the Chicago Outfit.
Along with Dave Yaras and Lenny Patrick, Baron served as a protégé to Democratic Party ward boss Jacob Arvey.[citation needed] Baron was an associate of Meyer Lansky.(see: Peter Dale Scott, 1993:199)[clarification needed] He was also a close associate of Patrick Hoy, a Henry Crown employee of General Dynamics who was later able to arrange a job for Sidney Korshak at the Hilton Hotels.[1]
Twice arrested for murder, including that of bootlegger James Walsh, whom he shot and killed following a prize fight in 1929, and of North Side Gang financier 'Smiling' Gus Winkler, on October 9, 1933.[1] Baron was identified as an associate of John Roselli during the Kefauver Hearings, in the 1950s.[1]
According to Jack Ruby and Baron associate Tony Zoppi, Baron knew U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay.(see: Peter Dale Scott, 1993:199, 355)[clarification needed]
A former general manager of the Havana Riviera in pre-revolutionary Cuba, Baron was one of the first to be granted a gaming license by the Gaming Control Act, in 1960, and served as the official greeter of the Sands Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, under Joseph "Doc" Stacher.[2]
References
Further reading
- Rothman, Hal. Neon Metropolis: how Las Vegas started the twenty-first century. London: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-92612-2
- Scott, Peter Dale. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 0-520-08410-1
