Bad Guy: Roy Cohn, Part 2

Mobsters! Disco! Ew, Trump. Roy Cohn was a busy evil-doer. Here's the second and final part of his story.  Your support means a ton: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1239281/supporters/new

Chapters

• 0:00 The Defiance sinks. Was it sabotage?
• 7:34 Babwa Walters and me.
• 15:37 Roy and the mob.
• 23:30 Roy disco-dances down at 54.
• 29:48 Roy and President 45. Gross.
• 34:13 Roy in P-Town.
• 37:04 Roy is disbarred.
• 40:50 Roy's illness and death.
• 46:21 Bye bye. Thanks for listening.

Transcript

June 22, 1973, West Palm Beach, Florida

[yacht/marina sounds][boat moving sounds][sinking sounds]

A 97-foot yacht called The Defiance had been headed for New York City that night. but sunk off the Florida coast. Out of the four-man crew, three survive the sinking. 22-year-old Charles Martensen doesn’t, and tragically goes down with the ship. The yacht, which had once been owned by Malcolm Forbes, had been leased for several years by a law firm in New York City. and chiefly used by the firm’s star attorney, one Roy Cohn. Roy used it to impress and entertain his clients, as well as his famous friends in legal and political circles. He also used it for rest and recreation,  tanning his scales in his speedo during his downtime, while surrounded by the well-built young men he liked to keep close at hand in his off hours. The Defiance was widely known as Roy’s yacht.

Prior to its sinking, a suspicious series of events occurred, The West Palm Beach’s sheriff and the Coast Guard had been investigating reports that the Defiance was going to be scuttled. Scuttling, for you landlubbers, is the deliberate sinking of a ship. Also prior to its sinking, the Defiance’s captain declared the boat to be unseaworthy and refused to sail it to NYC unless certain repairs were made. The boat’s owners Pied Piper Yacht Charters refused and the captain quit. At the helm, that night was one David Vogel, whose qualifications as a sailor were unknown, but what was known is that Vogel had a rap sheet in three states and had served time in a Lewisburg, Pennsylvania federal prison. 

According to his grieving father, young Charles Martensen had told his his dad that he too felt the Defiance shouldn't be sailing anywhere and that the boat wasn't going to make it to New York. 

According to Capt. Vogel’s testimony, a fire had broken out on the boat that night. As the ship began to sink, Vogel and two other crew members saved themselves by leaping overboard. Captain Vogel said that he was the last person to see Charles Martensen alive, and assumed that Charles had gotten trapped in the ship’s galley while fighting the fire.

Charles’ dad accepted this account. At first. It was when Captain Vogel called to offer his condolences that he began to suspect something was off. Mr. Martensen asked for details about his son’s last hours. Vogel said he was in the galley with Charles when they noticed the engine room’s bulkhead door was glowing a bright red. Mr. Martensen, an engineer, and Navy veteran thanked the shady Captain for his call and went to bed. At 4 AM, that night though, He awoke thinking ‘wait a minute, bulkheads don’t glow red!’. Charles’ dad also decided that the captain had sounded like he was reciting a rehearsed account. 

This inspired Mr. Martensen to go to the FBI, and he spent several years trying to convince authorities to investigate the Defiance’s sinking and his son’s death, convinced that something malevolent had occurred. He wrote letters, spoke to salvage experts, and interviewed the other two surviving crew members. In July of that year, one of them admitted to Martensen that the FBI had asked him if he thought the ship’s sinking was deliberate, and he had answered yes, he thought there had been sabotage.

Mr. Martensen eventually made some very serious allegations in a letter to the Justice Department which read in part "I am convinced that Capt. Vogel murdered Charles Martensen by gunshot prior to the arson of the vessel." He urged authorities to salvage the ship and collect Charles’ remains so they could do an autopsy. They didn’t retrieve Charley’s body or the boat but they did open an investigation. Unfortunately, the FBI didn’t agree with Mr. Martensen’s findings. 

"I must conclude." Assistant Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh wrote to him on April 5, 1976, "that we have not developed such evidence as would demonstrate the criminal activity with respect to either the sinking of the Yacht Defiance or the presumed death of your son, Charles Martensen."

In an interview with Esquire magazine, for a lengthy story they were doing on Roy Cohn which ran in the December 1978 issue, Mr. Martensen said  "1 do think Cohn told them to scuttle the boat, I have no question about that." He also said he believed it was possible that Cohn gave the order to murder his son over his suspicions that something untoward was going on with the Defiance. He noted that the motive could have been the $200,000 insurance policy on the yacht.

When he spoke with Roy for the story, journalist Ken Auletta, who later referred to Roy as “evil” and the “worst human being I’ve ever profiled’  taped many hours of conversations with Cohn. At some point, the Defiance was brought up, as were Mr. Martensen’s accusations against the intimidating legal lizard. Here’s a clip of Roy’s response from a documentary called Where’s My Roy Cohn? 

[clip]

Roy was sort of mumbling, so I’ll offer a translation - "He thinks I murdered his son?" Let's look at it this way; A, I didn't own the boat; B, I didn't get the insurance; C, the statement is an outrageous falsehood; Four, how am I going to get angry at a man who lost his son? ... You got to feel terrible about it. I'm certainly not going to get into a name-calling contest or a criminal lawsuit against a father who lost his son. All I can tell you is that I understand his bitter feelings, and if he read someplace that I gave a party on the boat or it was my boat, even though I never met his son, never heard of his son, never hired his son, never saw his son in my entire life, and never had any insurance come to me, directly or indirectly, I'm still not a bit angry at a man who reacts emotionally ... Wow when you lose a son. I couldn't be sorrier for him and for what happened."

That sounds like Roy actually had some empathy for the Martensen family (believe it or not, Roy was capable of a little empathy now and then), but keep in mind - Roy was also a master bullshit artist. 

And Roy lied in that interview. He did make some money on the sinking of the Defiance, although probably not as much as he would have liked if indeed he was responsible. The breakdown of the $200,000 insurance policy paid to the Pied Piper Yacht Charters Corporation  (which, by the way, $200,000 in the mid-70s was equal to a little over a million dollars today) so part of the insurance money went to pay off the yacht's mortgage; another $15 grand and change went to Cohn's law firm for legal fees; another $7,000  went to the law firm as reimbursement for personal property lost on the boat, and $7,950 ($52,000 today)  was paid to Cohn directly for lost property, 

So when the Esquire writer confronted Roy with this lie,  Roy about-faced, didn’t admit lying, and said, "This is possible. I'm not sure whether we were paid by the insurance company or by Pied Piper." 

Did Roy Cohn have the Defiance scuttled which made him directly or indirectly responsible for a young man’s death? There was ultimately no evidence of wrongdoing. But considering his track record and his amoral, ruthless nature, I mean, we wouldn’t put it past him, right? And if he did, it blew back on him. Because the sinking of the Defiance was just one of many marks against him which resulted in his eventual disbarment. You’re listening to Wicked Gay, a true crime podcast about gay people doing awful things.

[theme music]

“Roy Cohn was the strangest looking man I ever met.  He would have been neatly typecast as Richard III, or maybe even Caliban.  His body seemed to be perpetually atilt, and his diminutive zigzag frame presented the overwhelming impression that he wasn’t quite straight.  Roy’s characteristic pose was whispering conspiratorially to someone with his hand over his mouth, lest he be overheard plotting some piece of skullduggery.  His face was contorted in a perpetual ugly sneer that seemed to project an air of unbridled malevolence.” 

Hello and Happy New Year! I’m your host J Harvey. That was a description of Roy Cohn by Forbes writer Jim Zirin. I just wanted to bring you back to the topic at hand, as we head into Part 2 of the life of malicious and duplicitous legal giant Roy Cohn. 

Before we trudge into the muck, a Roy Cohn-related story. I touched on this very briefly in Part 1, but I wanted to expand on it because she died.

I’m talking about trailblazing journalist and television personality Barbara Walters who jjjuuusssttt missed living until 2023, just like Betty White jjjuusstt missed turning 100. Baba WaWa, and by the way, don’t @ me about that cuz’ I researched it and while she was initially pressed about Gilda Radner’s impressions of her back in the 70s, her daughter told her to lighten up about it and Babwa I mean Barbara did. And she was cool with Cheri Oteri’s impression, too although Cheri did hers again on NYE and I guess that's a nice tribute, but the nosey bitch wasn’t even in the ground yet! 

I bear a special kinship with Baba. Friends of mine are constantly comparing the two of us because. Ok, to preface this - I am an awkward individual. I look awkward. I move awkwardly. I would sound even more awkward than I already do but for the magic of Guitar Band’s editing suite. Awkward is my brand. I literally have to concentrate to align my mind and body not to awkward all over the place. I am especially socially awkward, particularly around new people. 

And I had never noticed this before it was pointed out to me, but my awkwardness manifests itself in conversation with these people by inadvertently asking incredibly personal questions at the wrong time. Witness - my interaction with a guy who is now a friend of mine but at the time of this incident, he was new to town and more like a friendly acquaintance. He’s also hot, and when someone’s hot, I can’t even look them in the eye. Talk about awkwardness. I feel like my face is going to solidify and fall off my skull and shatter on the floor when I’m faced with beautiful people. Like, their beauty is a snake-haired gorgon. I am literally almost half a century old and I am still experiencing this issue. Anyway, so I’m like chatting with this person and trying to come up with convo material and I know he came to town with a boyfriend who he lived with. Well, he DID live with him.

How’s so and so, I ask brightly.  Oh, we just broke up, he said sadly. Now, most people would say that’s too bad, maybe ask how they’re doing and probably change the subject so as to not drill down on the heartbreak and the fact that this person is now alone in the world, just crickets, nothing but the sound of sobbing and the shredding of love letters and the click as you delete them from all your social media platforms. But no, I had to stir the pot and said something to the effect of “hey, at least you weren’t engaged.” Oh, no, they were, he told me. I couldn’t stop trying to squeeze all the pathos I could out of this poor guy. And then I ended up bringing up the name of the guy his fiancee had cheated on him with. Yes, I got him to reveal that he found out his ex-fiance had been CHEATING on him. It was literally bam bam bam -horrible dissection of his recently ended engagement. 

And apparently, I do this a lot. I don’t even know I’m doing it. On my dad’s grave, I don’t. I’m just making conversation and “why aren’t you and so and so friends anymore” or “you got fired from your job, why” “why did your mom put you up for adoption?”  “lost the baby, huh? I don’t mean to do this. I guess I’m just trying to have meaningful conversations, and I get bored discussing the weather. I mean no harm.  I’m working on it. I bring this up because Babwa did almost the exact same thing. And that ho got paid for it. She would just PIERCE people to their very core, totally trying to make them cry. I mean there’s a reason why Babwa asked Katherine Hepburn about her pants and Ms. Hepburn told her she’d wear them to Babwa’s funeral. BITCH. 

She was probably irritated because I'm pretty sure that was the same interview where she asked the question if you were a twee, what twee would you be? 

A friend recently showed me a clip of her interviewing former NJ governor Chris Christie and she pointedly tells him he’s fat, and he’s like yeah. No shit. And then she asks a single question - WHY? HAHAHHA. She probably meant well, but Jesus, Baba Wawa. She was a first in her field, shattered glass ceilings in a big payday way, and battled the patriarchy, so go Baba Wawa. 

Except don’t go all the way Baba, cuz’ you were known to befriend some of your interview subjects, some of whom were kinda evil. Have you noticed that in high society, at least back in the day, you could like befriend trash and as long as everyone was rich in the room, people tended to overlook certain peccadilloes? I mention Babs cause she dated Roy Cohn! Did you know that? She was his longtime beard. She even testified on his behalf at his disbarment hearings in 1986  for being a shady fuck. 

When she described their first meeting she noted that she wasn’t particularly political at the time, but knew enough to detest Senator Joseph McCarthy's head poli-sci goon, the wily, cold-blooded Roy Cohn. A few years later, Walters’ dad introduced her to Cohn, telling him his daughter always wanted to meet him. Walters shook his hand but said to Cohn's face that she never wanted to meet him.

And yet, they became and remained friends until Roy’s death in 1986. Many of Walters' other friends were horrified that she would even talk to Cohn, but what Walters revealed for the first time in her May 2008 memoir was that Cohn somehow got a warrant for her father's arrest dismissed. He had failed to show up for a New York court date because the Walters family was in Las Vegas at the time.

Cohn liked to hint that he and Babs were more than friends "because I was his claim to heterosexuality," she wrote. He was quoted in the press at one point as saying they were engaged They weren’t. 

As Babara wrote "he never said that he was gay, he never admitted to me that he had AIDS. He was a very complicated man. He died, alone, up to his ears in debt. He had been disbarred and he was hated. And I might have thought the same way, but he did something when my father was in trouble, [and] I never forgot that."

Much like Roy, loyalty meant a lot to Barbara. I can get behind that, but if you’re loyal to assholes doing evil shit, maybe reexamine things. Then again, rich and powerful is a social stratum that sometimes exists sans morality.

I had a whole bunch of sources for the final and concluding part of Roy’s story including Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, Wikipedia, and Provincetown magazine, as well as the two documentaries I mentioned in the previous episode.

When last we left Roy, he had slid out from under the McCarthy hearings with nary a professional blemish and made his way back to NYC, where he moved back in with his corpse-concealing momma, and eventually took a job with the law firm of what is now Saxe, Bacon & Bolan, a job that he would hold for the remainder of his life. Note that Roy, despite his experience and talents, never made a partner. Whatever the reason, this was probably ok with him, because it probably made it easier to do sleazy legal things if your name wasn’t on the door 

As the 60s became the 70s, Cohn began his rise as one of the major power brokers in NYC. He became friends with the Archdiocese, and usually with whoever was mayor at the time, and he entered into high society, hobnobbed with the rich and famous, He also began an undercover social life in the city that involved lots of sex with various rent boys, and with the young men who entered into transactional relationships with him because he was so powerful and connected.. But that was kept hush-hush because Roy wasn’t gay. 

And he spent the rest of his life is, as Politico put it, as a lawyer who hated lawyers, a Jewish person who hated Jewish people, and a gay person, fiercely closeted if haphazardly hidden, who hated gay people, calling them “fags” and expressing his conviction that “homosexual teachers are a grave threat to our children.” WORST kind of gay. Worse than guys who refer to themselves as bois and spell it B-O-I-S. Worse than that. 

What was he like in person? He was classless, known for eating food off people’s plates and eschewing common courtesy and manners. He was whimsical, keeping a collection of ceramic and plastic frogs in his townhouse’s bedroom and driving Rolls Royces around his NYC neighborhood despite owing the IRS millions. He was cruel and calculating. Many was the political campaign ended by Roy releasing unflattering information about his candidate’s opponent to the press and gossip columns.

Roy always professed to root for the underdog. He claimed that he was actually in the business of protecting those being trodden under the foot of the corrupt and powerful abusing their power. This sounds like a noble endeavor, except to him - a mob boss trying to get out from under murder charges qualified as an underdog. Yeah, Roy and the mob were tight. He was so into these people that he was basically Robert Duvall’s character in the Godfather. The consigliere. Not an actual mobster but like adjacent to one, defending and protecting a lot of evil shit. 

Carmine Galante, sometimes known as The Cigar, was one of Roy’s clients. He’s mostly kind of known for his demise, which I’ll get to but Carmine was a longtime mobster with a long and storied career. He was head of the Bonanno crime family, one of the "Five Families" that dominated organized crime in New York City at the time. I honestly haven’t found a gay mobster with a long enough story for an episode yet, so I never thought I’d be delving into the mob. So this is fun. 

In 1962, Carmine was convicted on narcotics charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He got out in 1974 and proved to be a vindictive sort as he immediately allegedly ordered the bombing of the doors to the private mausoleum of his dead enemy Frank Costello. Costello died the year before Carmine's release.. Frank was an even more famous mobster and had been the boss of the Luciano crime family. So I guess Carmine was chagrined over Frank dying before he could kill him, so I guess the next best thing was blowing up his final resting place. That seems a little childish but were you gonna tell him that?

Anyway, after his alleged terrorist activities in the boneyard, Carmine got back to work, the work of mobstering, which culminated in him allegedly ordering the murders of eight members of the rival Gambino family. He apparently wanted their drug trafficking operation. Why do people get into this line of work? I mean - you’re doing evil things and stealing and murdering but even if you’re a sociopath and fine with that kind of thing, chances are you will be brutally murdered at some point. This sort of career sort of prohibits you from passing away peacefully in your bed when you’re older. And being shot, stabbed, and blown up hurts, right? My pain threshold is too low to be a mobster. Carmine’s parole was revoked in 78 and he was sent back to prison but was released again in February of 79.

Now, Roy had become a name legal eagle by this point  (McCarthy hearings what McCarthy hearings) and he was Carmine’s lawyer. Carmine even made an appearance during Roy’s first appearance on 60 minutes discussing gardening. So The other leaders of NYC’s five families were alarmed by the various hits and Carmine’s blatant attempt to completely take over the extremely lucrative narcotics market. And a contract was taken out on him. 

Carmine was murdered in broad daylight while lunching outside on the patio at Joe and Mary's Italian-American Restaurant at 205 Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn on July 12, 1979. He’d been eating with some Mafia guys loyal to him and his two bodyguards, who I’m assuming got fired after three guys in ski masks rolled up on the patio and began firing. Interestingly enough, neither of Carmine’s bodyguards had a scratch on them but everyone else at the table got clipped. Dead. Galante’s death became somewhat infamous as the press got to the restaurant almost as quickly as the cops did. There’s a semi-famous photo of Carmine on the patio dead with his cigar still clenched in his teeth. Roy was the sort of person who must have been pissed at Carmine’s method of skipping out on paying for those billable hours.

Even more famous than Carmine was Roy’s two other mafioso clients. Anthony Salerno who was the boss of the Genovese crime family and was once rated by Fortune magazine as the most powerful and wealthiest gangster in America. The magazine noted that his millions came from loan sharking, profit skimming at Nevada casinos, and charging a "Mafia tax" on New York City construction projects. I guess the reporters at Fortune had no problem with severed Seabiscuit heads ending up under their quilty bedspreads. 

At one point prosecutors charged Tony with accepting at least $10 million annually in illegal policy wages but then reporting only $40,000 on his income taxes. Roy told the courts that his client was a "sports gambler." Roy had no problem with telling the most bald-faced lies 

with nary a smirk on his lizard-face-lifted mug. And if reporters called him After court he merely stare malevolently at the impertinent reporters who dared not to believe that every word he uttered in court was true. We’re going to get to it but guess who it was that our 45th President learned from about calmly telling horrendous and obvious lies and convincing yourself that they were truths?  Hint: it wasn’t Ivana. 

Roy’s most famous mob client was the lord high god of mob clients - Mr. John Gotti, the boss of the Gambino crime family. Roy once got him a plea bargain deal for a 1974 killing where Gotti and some associates murdered a rival gangster as they were trying to kidnap him from a Staten Island bar while posing as police detectives.  Roy represented other mobsters but those three were the most prominent. But despite their fame, they weren’t even the most prominent people to have Roy on the payroll. 

Did I mention we’re in the 70s now? What’s that sound I hear? I think it’s disco music. And that other vacuum-like sound is Liza Minelli hoovering up coke in the secret downstairs basement where only the shiniest of stars are allowed. Did you see Halston? It was good.  That’s right - Roy Cohn was the lawyer for the disco of the zeitgeist Studio 54. Roy represented owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager after dumb ass Steve was spending more time shattering the dreams of bridge and tunnel guidos out front by denying them entry than actually paying his taxes. Steve was so convinced of his own invulnerability (success and veritable mountains of cocaine are a helluva drug) that he thought it just fine to brag to the press that only the Mafia made more money than the club brought in. Rubell and his slightly smarter partner Ian (he was the quiet one) had already been under surveillance on account all of the money the gym-shorted twink bartenders were probably stuffing down their jockstraps in order to transport to Steve’s safe upstairs and the one at his townhouse.

54 was raided on December 14, 1978, and Steve and Ian were charged with tax evasion, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy for supposedly nearly $2.5 million in unreported income from the club, in a system Rubell creatively called "cash-in, cash-out, and skim.” Authorities would later find incriminating receipts stuffed on top of the ceiling panels in Steve’s office, in addition to $600,000 in garbage bags and 300 quaaludes. Imagine how much money you could get for those nowadays? I don’t think they make em’ anymore. Drug nostalgia.   

After the club was raided a second time in December of 79, they hired Roy, who was already a fixture at the club, to represent them. Roy and 54. There are plenty of pics of Roy enjoying himself at 54. Well, he doesn’t look that happy probably because he was closeted and couldn’t just go right up to the busboys and have at it. But it’s interesting to see this sorta slight, nebbishy-looking man with the atrocious facelift scars partying it up with the biggest stars of stage and screen. The Daily Mail had an account of Cohn's 52nd birthday that was thrown at the disco on February 21, 1979. 'If you're indicted, you're invited!' a comedian named Joey Adams joked. Rubell revealed that Roy had invited 150 guests, and three thousand to four thousand people showed up to the disco that night to get in. I’m assuming not everyone knew it was Roy’s birthday. I’m sure some people just wanted to disco dance near Andy Warhol’s wig. The guest list included all his influential clients and  people with open accounts in what Roy called his 'favor bank.' It was a big mish-mash of the political, art, media, and social scenes with Republican party leaders, borough presidents, and a throng of judges including the chief of the U.S. District Court. Also, mingling was his reluctant beard Barbara Walters, President 45, Bianca Jagger, and Cardinal Spellman. Yes, Cardinal Spellman was there. A giant cutout of an anthropomorphic moon would come down out of the ceiling accompanied by an animatronic coke spoon that would go up its nose and one of the Catholic Church’s heavies was there. The Catholic Church is wild. Maybe Spellman was partaking of some of the blond boys that seemed to constantly orbit Roy whenever he wasn’t in court. Yeah, Spellman was kind of Ed Koch but the church lady version - closeted and unhelpful to his brethren. 

Rubell commissioned a birthday cake that bore a giant image of Roy crowned, sarcastically Im assuming, with a big halo. Later on that hot-ass Justin Trudeau (you guys know you can still objectify straight white cis guys, right? They basically owe us for centuries of patriarchal bullshit), mom Margaret Trudeau later fell into the cake, which Roy forgave her for. Sidenote - Look up the adventures of Justin’s mom in the 70s. She was a trip, hanging out with the Stones and doing coke in Warhol’s office bathroom while her estranged husband Pierre was back up north prime ministering. Shockingly, Roy didn’t sue Margie for fucking his cake up. 

But despite Roy’s attempted legal maneuverings, Steve and Ian went to jail on February 4, 1980, and the club was sold in November of that year. The end of a really shiny sleazy star-studded era. Would you have been allowed in 54? I wouldn’t have. I would have been the bitch who died trying to get in by climbing through the air ducts in hot pants and platforms.

Don’t let it be said that Roy didn’t work his ass off to try and get his clients off. He had no problems with dragging others into his legal dramas, including the White House. It must have seemed extremely fortuitous then when Stevie Rubell told his lawyer that then president Carter’s White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan had been giving himself a cocaine nose job down in the 54’s secret celebrity-only basement one night. Roy must have actually cracked his reptile lips into a chilling smile at this news. Cohn went to the Feds and tried to get Rubell immunity for testifying. Didn't work, but Roy definitely tried it.

Ian and Steve became hoteliers when they got out of prison and they were a big success. Steve and Roy had the closet in common, and Rubell kept it very hush-hush when he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985. He was lucky and got a hold of an AZT prescription but his drinking and drugging didn't help him and he died in July of 89.  End of an era. 

Now let’s stay in NYC but ease on down the road to a certain giant golden tower looming over the city like a big tacky dil-sexual aid. It belongs to the United States of America’s 45th president. Donald Trump. I’m guessing you know of him. 

So, it’s probably not surprising that Trump and Roy were tight. In fact, Cohn served as somewhat of a mentor to him. Yes, many of Trump’s modes of behavior were learned at Roy’s knee. There’s an image. 

As Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner put it:

“Deflect and distract, never give in, never admit fault, lie and attack, lie and attack, publicity no matter what, win no matter what, all underpinned by a deep, prove-me-wrong belief in the power of chaos and fear.”

Sound familiar? Trump came to rely on Cohn’s guidance as well as his legal prowess so much so that he kind of became his daddy. In fact, one of the docs I watched for this ep, was called Where’s My Roy Cohn? That’s supposedly what Trump says to this day when he encounters trouble. 

That was until word got out that Daddy Mr. Cohn was A) gay and B) had AIDS. Then Trump wouldn’t touch Roy with a 10 ft. urinating Russian hooker.

Cohn first hooked up with the Trumps, Donald, and his odious father Fred in 1973, when he became their lawyer after the Department of Justice sued them for racist rental practices. At 39 Trump-owned properties, according to the lawsuit, widespread practices were used to avoid renting to blacks, including implementing a secret code. When a prospective black renter would apply for an apartment, the paperwork would allegedly be marked with a C—indicating “colored” (which was a violation of the Fair Housing Act). The Trumps took Cohn’s advice, which is so Trumpian, counter-sued the Feds for 100 million. 

Under Roy’s guidance, the Trumps settled by agreeing to stipulations in place to prevent them from future discrimination at their properties—but it was without having to admit guilt. It was a legal strategy that Trump puts into effect to this very day. Pay them if you must, but never admit you’re guilty.

For about a decade, the tax abatements and legal loopholes that Donald Trump utilized came about because of legal savant Cohn. And he didn’t charge them for his billable hours. He was like family. He only asked for payment when his own personal supply of cash was running low. 

And Roy LOVED Donald, who bore just a bit of resemblance to his long-ago alleged love G. David Schine. About Trump, there’s video footage of Cohn taken around 1980 where he compares Trump to a meteor that’s rising from New York to go on to touch every part of the country and eventually the world. Which - tragically - is accurate.

This gross symbiosis and I’d compare them to Palpatine and Anakin but the Book of Boba Fett snippet I saw was so boring that I won’t even give Lucasfilm the satisfaction; this gross symbiosis went on til’ around 1985 - when the rumors started that the glass closeted Cohn…you know when everyone knows you're gay but pretending to your face that they don’t because they feel bad, or realize you need to come out in your own time, or they’re scared you’ll sue them for their firstborn child if you ever utter a word about them - the rumors started that Cohn had AIDS.

And that’s when the relationship began to sour. Vanity Fair had a story about Roy (who as I said, could be a loyal person and did have maybe a scootch of empathy in him). The story had Roy asking Trump if he had a room for his current lover, who preceded Roy into dying from AIDS. Trump did put the guy up, but then in a few months, Roy started to get bills. He didn’t pay but the writing was on the wall. It was pretty much solidified when Trump gifted Roy a pair of diamond cufflinks for decades of service and loyalty. Roy, cuz’ untrustworthy people don’t trust, had them appraised. They were fakes. Cohn was later quoted as saying that Donald Trump pissed ice water, and probably in a very drippy manner because you know that guy's prostate isn't right. It’s telling though that Trump was supposedly the last person Roy, a notorious phone freak; imagine him with a smartphone, spoke to on the phone right before hwe died.

We’re going to get to the lifelong legal troubles that led to Roy’s disbarment in 1986, shortly before his death. Like the time he allegedly physically puppeted a comatose man’s hand to sign off on a will for one of his clients. Weekend at Roy’s. 

Before that though, I wanted to talk about how Roy handled his sexuality during his time as the legal powerbroker and kingmaker in NYC in the 70s and 80s. Specifically when it came to Provincetown, MA. p-Town - the mystical, magical, terrifyingly overpriced land we, meaning the gays, all flee to in the summer…well those of us who can afford it. Get past that, though, and it’s a storied, historic place where you can be yourself and stop looking over your shoulder (some of us older gays still do that even though it’s a different time) and get blown underneath a dock to this very day. Plus there are all sorts of camaraderie and drinking and dancing and drugs and sheesh - gays. Roy, like most well-to-do gays who decided not ’t take the boat across to Fire Island, thinks about it, could run into too many people he could run into back in the city, Roy, spent his summers in P-Town where he was almost universally reviled, although I noted in all the stories I read about his demonic presence on COmmerical St, no one like - banned him from anything. Despite Lavender scaring. I guess money is money. And Roy could be himself to a point. Because Ptown is a place to flee from the horrors of a conformist society, what happened there usually stayed there, so there were no Page Six stories of Roy at the dick dock until after his death. 

Still, he was hated. He had fucked the gay community over and actively hated on them to appease high society and the politicians who loved him,  yet was still reaping the benefits of being a gay guy who was fucking everything in sight that he could get his money on. 

Like i said, to a point. Provincetown magazine tells of Roy 

often having a beautiful woman at his side as a beard every summer which is bordering on schizophrenic in its self-delusion. Old habits. Wait, did Babwa go down there? Honestly, Babs, if you were a tree you’d be a weeping willow cuz that friendship was sad.

 In addition to the chinstrap, he also had an ever-revolving chain of young dudes as an entourage whom the locals came to refer to as Roy’s Boy Scout troop. He tended to stick to the beach, and private parties around friends' pools and darkened restaurants. But he would turn up once in a while at the more popular places. For instance, the Crown and Anchor, where, at last call, he would rise to his feet or hop on the piano and sing “God Bless America” at the top of his lungs.

“He was creepy, creepy, creepy,” one piano player said. “He would sit in this corner at the old Crown and Anchor with a boy that looked like a child. He seemed so little. Hunched over. Just a little guy. He never made himself known until it was time to sing ‘God Bless America.’” Yikes.

 As you can guess, despite benign a registered Democrat for most of his life, Roy was the darling of the Republican party and considered himself a staunch patriot. He was so up the Republicans' ass that He and Nancy Regan were kinda sort besties. Well, maybe she was giving him beej lessons. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. It’s common knowledge. 

As I've noted before, Roy didn’t pay bills. He stiffed clients, He was sued multiple times by multiple people for his shady practices both legal and financial. And not to mention but he sorta kinda murdered the Rosenbergs and maybe the poor young man on the yacht. But It wasn’t until he got caught stealing from a client that the Teflon started to wear thin. 

The feds were on Roy’s ass all through the 70s and 80s, He was charged three times with professional misconduct, which included perjury and witness tampering, and he was also accused of financial improprieties in New York City having to do with city contracts and private investments. He was acquitted on all of these charges. But they finally got around to beginning disbarment proceedings in 1986. He fought hard. He had a whole bunch of famous people with clout show up to be character witnesses on his behalf including the aforementioned Barbara Walters, William F. Buckley Jr., Alan Dershowitz, you know, I’ve never liked that guy, and of course Donald Trump.  However,, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Roy for unethical and unprofessional conduct, which included misappropriation of clients' funds, lying on a bar application, and pressuring a client to amend his will. 

I mentioned that before. So supposedly, in 1975, Roy, in some accounts, was wearing a nurse’s uniform, I'm assuming a male presenting nurse but if he was in a wig and white lady nurse shoes I'm dying, Roy allegedly,  appeared in the hospital room of the dying and comatose Lewis Rosenstiel, was said to have forced a pen into his hand, and lifted it to the will, in an attempt to make himself and his client Cathy Frank, Rosenstiel's granddaughter, beneficiaries. The resulting marks were determined in court to be indecipherable and in no way a valid signature. So I’ve seen the signature, and I'll try to post it on social media. Cuz, Jesus, I laughed out loud. There are small children who could better fake a signature using the family dog’s paw to hold the pen.

That incident was described by the court as “particularly reprehensible”. I'll say. So Roy was barred from practicing law in New York, as well as giving clients legal advice. Roy claimed that he couldn’t care less, as preocci[ied as he was battling quote “liver cancer’. But allegedly, in private he cried and stopped eating. Roy was out of a job. He was also almost out of time.

Until the end of his life, Roy insisted to the general public and to most of the people he knew, including his close friends, that he was dying of liver cancer. This was despite several of his known lovers having succumbed to the plague that back then was stealing the lives of a whole generation of queer people in addition to plenty of other human beings. 

This is how one of his friends described it to writer Mary Ellen Mark:

"We talked a lot about life and the meaning of it, and his illness," he said. "I asked Roy, 'You don't have AIDS, do you?' And he said, 'Oh, God, no! If I had AIDS, I would have thrown myself out the window of the hospital. I have liver cancer. There would be no reason to stick around and live if I had AIDS.' He denied it to somebody who knew he was gay—with whom he was open about being gay—and who knew he was very sick."

Roy had tried to maintain the life he’d always led during his illness, but things began to deteriorate around the time of his disbarment. As you probably know, AIDS was a death sentence and we’re not talking about the gentle kiss of a lethal injection. People would die in the most gruesome and painful of ways. By the fall of '85 Roy was having trouble breathing and was suffering from short-term memory loss. But Roy was Roy.

Did you guys ever see Angels in America? Parts 1 and 2? There was also a movie version HBO did years back. Described as a "gay fantasia" on national themes, uber-playwright and Spielberg go-to screenwriter Tony Kushner included Roy as a character in his fictional play. And almost everything Tony had Roy doing and saying was fact. For instance, just like in the play, Roy used his clout to get to the head of the line for AZT, then an experimental drug, stepping on plenty of heads belonging to the little people who were also dying horribly. And the AZTt worked for him. For a while.

In March 1986, he was interviewed on "60 Minutes." By this time, the rumor mill had finally started, and everyone was speculating and assuming. Mike Wallace didn’t hold back:

Sound clip

Wallace put it to him: Are you now or have you ever been a homosexual? Ditto with AIDS. Roy fought it off the best he could: "I'll tell you categorically, I do not have AIDS." Well, then how did all this talk about you get started? "Oh, it's a cinch, Mike. Take this set of facts: bachelor, unmarried, middle-aged—well, young middle-aged. The stories go back to the [McCarthy] days."

After all, as another winner and friend of Trump’s and Roy’s, Roger Stone, yeah that guy, once explained:

“Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, and effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn't discussed. He was interested in power and access.”

As Kushner had Cohn say something similar in a now famous monologue in Millenium Approaches, Part 1 of Angels in America. In the scene, he’s speaking to his doctor who he’s just diagnosed him with AIDS:

“Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who in fifteen years of trying cannot get a pissant antidiscrimination bill through the City Council. Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry?”

Roy Cohn died on August 2, 1986, in Bethesda, Maryland, of complications from AIDS, at the age of 59. The IRS, an organization he despised and was determined all his life to die owing them millions, well, he did and they seized almost everything he had. What did he care? He was probably laughing his ass off down in hell.

And yeah, he went on to be a character in a Pultizer-winning play and played by Al Pacino in a movie. And this small reptilian hypocritical, ghastly, brilliant, powerful, despicable man has remained an important figure in our country’s history. He sort of heralded the more ruthless, cutthroat political age to come. Because as you know, he was a kingmaker, and his crowning achievement happened in November 2016. A dark day in our country’s history, And we haven't been the same since. Thanks a lot, Roy,

And that’s the Roy Cohn story. Thank you so much for listening. Season four of Wicked Gay ends next episode, which will go up at the end of February. I’ll try to make it special.

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Our theme song is by Gno and the Goons; look for them on FB and Spotify, Additional music by the prince of darkness JB, cover art by Paul Chapman, i miss you Paul, and if this episode sounds ok it’s because the other Mr, Harvey butted in and tried to make it sound professional. 

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