Criminal Records Podcast

Mickey Cohen had friends in high places, from celebrities to televangelists to the LAPD. So what happened when one of the nation's most notorious mobsters tried to file his taxes as a legitimate hat salesman? Sources and show notes at this link

It's an illegal gambling, Nazi-punching, tax-paying good time with Mickey Cohen, a gangster who rose through the ranks during one of America's most infamous eras of organized crime. Just don't ask about who he might have shot on his way to the top. Sources and show notes at this link

As the internet creates new unmoderated spaces for ideas to spread, the sovereign citizen movement moves on to new audiences and finds a  lot of angry divorced dads who don't want to pay child support. Content notes: This episode continues our discussions of fascist ideology, racism, and antisemitism from part 1. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

Don't feel like paying your taxes? Want to start your own posse? Still mad about the gold standard? Looking for an excuse to blame all your problems on the Jews? Have we got a legally dubious ideology for you! Content notes: This episode contains discussion of fascism and anti-semitic ideology. Some violent incidents such as Ruby Ridge and Waco are mentioned but are not discussed in detail. Source...

When you're unhappy about the price of wheat, there's only one solution: Send a telegraph to the Australian government declaring war. Sources, show notes, and some pictures from a very real country at this link Support the show on Patreon

When an Englishman with the rare ability to speak Mandarin Chinese got into a dispute with a corrupt local official in Zhejiang, he took his complaints all the way to the top, kicking off a diplomatic incident involving the emperor himself. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

A negotiation over fishing rights took an unexpected turn when a Lithuanian fisherman jumped onto an American Coast Guard ship to seek asylum. But as investigators dug into the story of this Soviet citizen's attempt to defect, they discovered that the defector's legal status was far more complicated than anyone—even Kudirka himself—could have guessed. Sources and show notes at this link Support th...

In a country where gay sex is illegal, is a magazine for gay people a publication for criminals? Is the content obscene, even if there's no sexual content on the page, just because sex might be suggested somewhere off the page or in the pages of an entirely different publication? And most importantly, can you put this magazine in the mail? Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Pa...

Hello listeners! Isaac is entering final paper grading/rec letter writing season on top of planning an international exchange school trip for some of his students in May. I've also got plans to visit family on the east coast this month.  Instead of rushing out episodes to cover the time we'll be too busy to record, we decided to hit pause on Criminal Records Podcast for a month. If you're a patron...

If the obscene material you're distributing is so avant-garde that most readers can't tell it's actually obscene, did you commit a crime or not? This week, we're getting into the trial of the scandalous literary magazine editors who brought the work of James Joyce to America. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

Not all scam artists prey on suckers' desire to get rich quick or cheat the system. Some of them prey on their marks' better impulses, like their love for their pet dogs or their willingness to help a stranger in an emergency. Content note: This episode contains discussion of animal cruelty and inhumane and misguided medical practices. It contains some outdated language about epilepsy. Sources and...

With options for getting rid of its convicts drying up, Britain started thinking about reforming both its prisons and the prisoners inside them. The intention behind these prison reforms was great. But attempts to create a better prison system involved wild philosophy experiments in real life, a lot of Bibles, a lot of time to think in silence, and... treadmills? Sources and show notes at this lin...

Is abortion legal in Japan? No, but also yes. Join us on a journey through history to learn about how modern abortion law developed in a legal system that didn't treat fetuses as legal persons but d i d want to count them as future taxpayers.   Content note: This episode is about abortion. It contains discussions of miscarriages, the complications of improper administration of abortifacients, forc...

We're out of the country for a family memorial service and didn't have time to record a Criminal Records episode for the week. But that doesn't mean we're out of crime content! This week, we've cleaned up and cut together some of Isaac's very, very old History of Japan audio to bring you the history of Japanese organized crime.

Under Britain's most notorious era of criminal law, you could be sentenced to death for everything from destroying a fishpond to being a particularly malicious 7-year-old. But how many criminals actually died thanks to this wave of harsh legislation? Getting the answer requires a deep dive into the very weird world of crime and punishment in the industrializing United Kingdom. Content note: This e...

The law was out to take Emma Goldman down on a range of charges from distributing obscene material to assassination to sedition. But did the woman the papers called the Queen of Anarchy deserve her lengthy rap sheet? Sources and show notes (with some excellent political cartoons) at this link Support the show on Patreon

Something seemed a little less than ideal about governments and economies around the world in the late 1880s. One woman's solution? Anarchy. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

Thanks to Demetria's brilliant decision to get as many vaccines as possible on the same day, there's no new episode this week. Instead, we're releasing a bonus episode from our Patreon archives about one of our all-time favorite works of historical fiction. We'll be back on our regular posting schedule in 2024! Content warning: Babylon Berlin is set in the Weimar Republic and contains some admirab...

On one side, a crooked saloon owner with a side business running brothels and opium dens. On the other side, a moralistic tycoon with rail car full of beautiful vegetables. Which one of them did more damage to a frontier town in Montana? Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

Want to crown yourself the king of Germany? Want to conquer Europe because you have really strong opinions about public transit? Want to get rich quick selling fake government ID cards? With this one completely nonsense legal strategy, you too can claim the government of Germany isn't real and join the ranks of some very iffy far-right extremists. Sources and show notes Support the show on Patreon

To crown the monarch of the United Kingdom, you need a 336-pound block of sandstone. But who really owns that big chunk of stone, and who was the thief who stole it from its rightful place? Sources and show notes at this link Support the show and find our bonus episode about Braveheart on Patreon

If you're going to accuse a gang of spirit mediums of practicing a banned religion on the down low, you have to prove they're actually members of that religion. But what if your only understanding of how this religious group worships comes from stories about outrageous magical villains? Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

A group of spirit mediums found a way to use their psychic prowess to get rich in the physical realm. But when an investigator started looking into a suspiciously successful prosperity scheme, he uncovered a case of divine fraud. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

Let's dive into the dangerous, divine, and occasionally kinky history of trying to figure out who's telling the truth. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon

In the second part of our story, the Baron of Arizona has to create a Baroness so he can rise to great heights in Europe and use his connections to keep swindling in America. But while the upper crust in the old country buy into his wild story, Americans are starting to unravel his fraud. Sources and show notes at this link Support the show on Patreon