OCR Text |
Show U. S., Illinois Move to Cut Racing Communications CHICAGO, Not. 2 (AP) Federal and county prosecutors united force today in an unprecedented acton to destroy organized organ-ized gambling by cutting off communications services to the vast M. L. Annenberg racing news empire. A government attorney said this was the first time in history that such a cooperative effort was undertaken. un-dertaken. William J. Campbell. . United States district attorney, and Thomas J.' Courtney, state's attorney attor-ney of Cook county (Chicago), addressed to three communications companies an ultimatum that they cease serving the Annenberg net- work. t The companies were the American Ameri-can Telephone and Telegraph company, the Illinois Bell Telephone Tele-phone company and the Western Union Telegraph company. The utilities previously had been sent copies of an Indictment accusing Annenberg and others of using interstate in-terstate wires In the furtherance of a lottery scheme. Campbell at the time said that merely was a warning. Conferences between the government, the . utlltles and Annenberg agents followed. While the ultimatum covered only activities In the northern dls- trict of Illinois, Campbell said compliance with it would be a death blow, since contracts between be-tween the utilities and Annenberg Annen-berg Interests were executed in Chicago. Asked what noncompliance would mean, Campbell said: "It they fail to obey, the only recourse Is grand jury action." On August 30, Annenberg; Charles Bldwlli, owner of the Chicago Chi-cago Cardinals' professional football foot-ball club and of a ticket printing company, and James Ragen Sr., general manager of Nation-wide News, were Indicted by a federal grand Jury which charged use of interstate wires for carrying "a list of prises awarded by means of a lottery scheme." These prise lists, the Indictment stated, were the results of horse races and the prises paid to backers back-ers of them in the races. Another Indictment charged use of the mails in the furtherance of the alleged lottery. |