The move was unlooked for. Ruef was known to have confessed; it had been confidently expected that he would be placed on the stand to answer the question, in whatever form it could be forced into the record: Did you divide the money which you received from the French-restaurant keepers with Mayor Schmitz?
But Ruef was not put on the stand. The public marveled, but those behind the scenes knew that Ruef was not the willing witness for the Prosecution that the public thought.
Ruef had confessed to Heney that he had given half the $8,000 which he had received from the French-restaurant keepers to Mayor Schmitz. But Heney, having trapped Ruef in deception, had very good reason for being distrustful of him.
Ruef, forever seeking to justify himself, had told Heney that he had refused to appear before the Police Commissioners on behalf of the French-restaurant keepers, until the San Francisco Bulletin had challenged him to dare represent them, and claim the money he received from them was a fee. Ruef insisted that the Bulletin’s challenge led him to take the case.
In this Heney trapped Ruef in his trickery.
Ruef’s purported contract with the mythical “French Restaurant Keepers’ Association,” under which the French restaurant keepers had paid him $8000, bore date of January 6. Ruef insisted to Heney that January 6 was the true date upon which the contract was signed. The oral agreement had been made January 5. Heney then confronted Ruef with files of the Bulletin which showed that the Bulletin had not mentioned Ruef as appearing on behalf of the French-restaurant keepers until January 7. This was one day after Ruef had signed the purported contract with the mythical French Restaurant Keepers’ Association.
A stormy scene between Ruef and Heney followed this exposure.[231] Heney charged Ruef with falsehood and deception, and declared the immunity agreement canceled. Heney then ordered Ruef from the room, and did not, until long after the Schmitz trial had closed, have conversation with him again.
When Schmitz’s trial opened, District Attorney Langdon, Hiram Johnson, all the rest of Heney’s associates, urged that Ruef be put on the stand, insisting that the case would be greatly strengthened if it could be proved by Ruef that Schmitz had received half the extortion money.
Heney conceded the strength of this contention, but held, on the other hand, that Ruef would lie so much about other things that he would do more harm than good to the case. Personally, Heney insisted, he wanted nothing to do with him.
Thus, in making his opening statement to the jury in the Schmitz case, Heney refrained from stating that he expected to prove Schmitz received any part of the money which had been paid to Ruef.