Roy was a restaurant keeper with several side enterprises, among them interests in a skating-rink. An ordinance regulating skating-rinks was pending before the Supervisors. Roy, acting under direction of the District Attorney, approached Lonergan with a statement that he wished the ordinance defeated. Lonergan accordingly met Roy at the skating-rink office. In an adjoining room, placed so they could see and hear, were Detective William J. Burns and two others. From their places of concealment the three men heard the bargain, and saw Roy pay Lonergan $500 to defeat the skating-rink ordinance.
Roy, acting for the District Attorney, then attempted to trap Gallagher. He offered Gallagher $1000 for his work on the skating-rink ordinance. Gallagher refused to take any money and said that Roy was a friend of the administration and it should not cost him anything. Roy urged Gallagher to accept the money, alleging that it came from a pool; that Gallagher was entitled to it; that he, Roy, had given money to several Supervisors already. Gallagher asked him to tell which ones. Roy refused, saying, “You would not expect me to tell on you.”
Gallagher immediately suspected Lonergan and told his suspicions to Wilson, and the two hunted up Lonergan and charged him with getting the money.
Gallagher hurried Lonergan to Ruef much the same as they would have rushed a man showing the symptoms of a deadly malady to a physician. Ruef warned him and advised him. The thoroughly frightened Supervisor assured Ruef that he would be careful in the future, and that he would return the money he had received from Roy.[156]
But even as Ruef was dealing with Lonergan, Supervisor Edward I. Walsh was walking into a trap set in duplication of that into which Lonergan had fallen.
Walsh, at the skating-rink, with the eyes of Burns and others upon him, accepted $500 from Roy—who was working as before under direction of the District Attorney—as the price of his vote on the skating-rink ordinance.
The third Supervisor to fall into the District Attorney’s trap was Dr. Charles Boxton.
Dr. Boxton[157] was a different type from Lonergan and Walsh. He had had the advantage of superior education and training. A specially prepared trap was set for him at Roy’s house. Boxton was introduced into the front room separated from the dining-room by folding doors. The dining-room had been darkened, and the folding doors left slightly ajar. Burns, with his assistants, was concealed in the dining-room, where they could see all that took place in the front room, as well as hear what was said. They saw Roy offer Boxton the money; heard him tell Boxton that the ordinance was to be defeated; saw Boxton take the money.
The trap was to be sprung once more, with Lonergan, for the second time,[158] the victim.
Lonergan, instead of returning the $500 he had accepted in the skating-rink transaction, as he had promised Ruef he would do, accepted an additional $500 from Roy. As before, Burns and his men witnessed the transaction.