The LA Mob and the murder of Mickey Cohen's lawyer

Adolf Goebbels
Published on Nov 18, 2023
Samuel L. Rummel, attorney and business partner of LA gangster Mickey Cohen was shot as he was approaching the front steps of his home at 2600 Laurel Canyon Blvd in Los Angeles at 1:30 in the morning.
The shot from the double barrel shotgun blast hit him in the neck as he climbed the stairs to his sprawling mansion. The shells blew off the left rear quadrant of his head.
His body was found six hours later
Rummell and Cohen had been partners for years and the lawyer was tied in, deeply, with Cohen’s prostitution, blackmail and gambling operations. They were also partners in Casinos in Reno and Gardena California.
So why was he killed?
The long standing theory is that he was killed because of a series of schemes he was involved in including a plan to oust mayor Fletcher Bowron in a recall election, and to take control of the LAPD.
Rummel was not only the police and political bribe master for Cohen but for a series of less high profile thugs as well.
Oddly enough The insider theory was also that L.A. Sheriff's officers pulled the trigger.
Also Rummell, it was thought at the time, was killed to prevent his appearance before a grand jury to testify about an alleged conspiracy between the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and a company called Guarantee Finance, a front for a massive Cohen-controlled bookmaking operation.
The "Company" worked out of a storefront. Investigator seized the company’s ledgers which revealed $108,000 payoff to police sheriffs, more than probably on a vice squad captain once had ordered deputies to "lay-off the bookies".

By early December 1950 Rummel knew that an L.A. grand jury investigation was imminent. On December 11th, the corrupt LA police captain summoned Rummell for a meeting with himself and two others from the sheriff’s office.
Rummel arrive home late that night, pulling into the driveway 1:30 am. As he walked to the front door a loud blast rang out.
The murder weapon was found early the next morning across the street, lodged in the crook of a tree, apparently used by the assailant to steady his aim.
Two others suspected in the murder were Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino, Kansas City hoods who had relocated to LA and worked on and off for Cohen. On the side they delt drugs and hired themselves out as murders for hire.
They were both suspected of trying to murder Cohen to take over his operations.
After robbing the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas….. They and their three henchmen had been wearing hats, but Tony Brancato lost his mid-robbery, was caught on camera….. and ended up on the FBI’s most wanted list.
The pair were arrested for the Flamingo robbery, but made bail, then promptly headed to Los Angeles. There they shook down a mob bookmaker’s right hand man, which put them on L.A. crime boss Jack Dragna’s most wanted list.
Jimmy "the weasel" Fratianno set up a meeting with the two to discuss a bank robbery.
On August 6, 1951, Brancato and Trombino were found shot to death in the front seat of a car on Ogden Drive near Hollywood Boulevard. Decades later Fratianno confessed to murdering the pair.
As for Rummel’s murder, another theory was that Rummel had decided that he no longer needed the troublesome Cohen around and had proposed at that meeting, that the Vice cops kill Cohen and take over his operation. The cops took the plot to Cohen who ordered Rummel’s murder that night.