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Al Wertheimer was a Detroit mobster, and member of The Purple Gang |
- Al Wertheimer was a member of Detroit's Purple Gang, founded by the Bernstein brothers, Abe, Joe, Raymond and Izzy, and mentored Henry Shorr and Charles Leiter. His reputation included co-orchestrating the Valentine’s Day Massacre with Al Capone. By 1935, the Purple Gang was out of business.
- In 1934, Al Wertheimer went to Palm Springs and promised the City Council he would build a fabulous palace with good food and music that would attract his friends from back east. Wertheimer opened his posh Dunes club in Cathedral City, with a special road leading to it; that street became Date Palm Drive. He built the Colony Palms Hotel, originally named The Colonial House, as a popular speakeasy, and a front for a brothel and gambling house.
- In 1941, the California Attorney General’s office and Riverside County Sheriff’s Department swooped down on Palm Springs' three gambling houses, definitively closing them. Al Wertheimer was fined $800, convicted of maintaining a gambling establishment and ultimately tax evasion. The Dunes’ furnishings were sold at auction, and the whole place burned down.
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