From: C. Bollyn
American Free Press
Washington, D.C.
To: Mark Wolper
Executive Producer
Penn & Teller
OPEN LETTER TO MARK WOLPER, PRODUCER OF PENN & TELLER
Dear Mr. Wolper:
I am researching the Penn & Teller program of May 9, 2005, which attempted to deal with the conspiracy theories surrounding the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the "faked" NASA Apollo moon landings, and the JFK assassination.
As the executive producer of this show, perhaps you can tell me why the 30-minute program of May 9 included a gratuitous act of desecration of the Holy Bible? Was the destruction of the Bible done to foment anti-Semitism among American Christians? It is completely out of place and obviously insulting to hundreds of millions of Christians.
Would you desecrate the Torah or Talmud in the same way?
I also have a few questions about the Wolper family and its ties to organized crime.
In your father's autobiography, Producer, David L. Wolper writes: "The closest anyone in my family came to show business was my uncle, David J. Wolper. He was an attorney, and among his clients was gangster Mickey Cohen's glamorous moll, Virginia Hill. To settle a 1942 bill, Virginia Hill gave my uncle, the lawyer, the famed Hurricane nightclub on Broadway." (Producer, page 7)
"Which is how the Wolper family first got into the entertainment business," your father continues. It seems this is not the complete truth.
From the book, Bugsy's Baby: The Secret Life of Mob Queen Virginia Hill, we read that the Hurricane was a mob-run outfit and that your uncle was simply acting as a "racketeer," the front man for a gangster operation:
"As part of their trade accord with New York, the Chicago gang was allowed to invest in a nightclub called the Hurricane Club, at 1619 Broadway in New York. It had all the promise of a money-maker and could provide a great way to launder money as well. The Chicago mob was, of course, a silent partner, and the names of the backers were not to appear in any legal registers. Virginia was ordered to act as the front and travel to New York to work the deal.
"Depending on who told the story, Virginia put down anywhere from $6,000 to $60,000 cash, but for some unexplained reason her name never appeared on the license as an owner." (Bugsy's Baby, page 62)
No, but your great uncle David J. Wolper's name certainly did.
The book about Bugsy's Baby continues: "But when she fronted for the Hurricane Club, federal agents activated the Virginia Hill file: No. 136246. She was 'elevated," if on can call it that, from 'known associate of gangsters' to 'suspected racketeer.'"
Because David J. Wolper's name is on record as the sole owner of the Hurricane Club, by the logic of the federal agents, he should also be considered as a 'suspected racketeer."
David J. Wolper is recorded as being the lawyer for Virginia Hill, which is to say a lawyer for Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.
As your father wrote in his autobiography: "We named our company Flamingo Films after Bugsy Siegel's Las Vegas hotel."
Mr. David J. Wolper is also on record as having been the "former president of the B'nai B'rith in Florida." (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 1, 1956)
So, as your father says, it is thanks to David J. Wolper, the lawyer and front man for the Mob that the Wolper family got into show business.
And then there is the question about "Dr." Max Wolper, your father's grandfather.
Max B. Wolper appears on all U.S. Census reports as being born in Russia, but by the time his obituary was written in 1949 in the New York Times, he had upgraded himself to becoming a Berliner, born in Berlin and being a magna cum laude graduate (1888) of Berlin University.
Was he German born, or did he come from some village in the Pale of Settlement as the U.S. Census indicates?
Where is the truth here? Was he born in Berlin or was he a Russian speaking Jew, born in Russia, as the Census records of 1900, 1910, 1920 all indicate? Furthermore, did "Dr." Max Wolper attend "Berlin University" and was he a doctor at all? Or was he a fraud?
And lastly, where did your family live during the first part of 1969? Where were you when the first man walked on the moon? Were you in Las Vegas working near Area 51 or were you in Los Angeles? Do you know where the fake moon landing footage was filmed?
Was your father the producer of that film too?
Regards,
Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
Photo: Bugsy Siegel's infamous mob hangout, the Flamingo Hotel.
Credit: Nevada State Museum and Historical Society
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