Final_Judgment

240 The Errand Boy [179]
Belli and Cohen had known each other for years. In fact, Belli was a
regular at the Los Angeles nightspot, Rondelli's, of which Cohen was the
secret owner. And, as we've noted, he was also Cohen's lawyer.
The two were so close that Belli even once had Cohen introduced as
"Professor O'Brien from Harvard who's going to give you a talk on tax
laws," 486 to a meeting of the American Bar Association in Miami.
According to Cohen, writing in his memoirs, the Los Angeles mobster
assumed the platform and then began rattling on for some time, essentially
saying nothing. He then concluded, "My advice to all of ya is to be sure to
pay your goddamn taxes right to the letter." 487
Blakey and Billings, in The Plot to Kill the President, addressed the
circumstances in which the Lansky henchman's attorney came to represent
Jack Ruby:
"How Melvin Belli, a nationally known trial lawyer, was brought in to
handle the Ruby defense was a matter of some dispute. We heard a report
that Seymour Ellison, a lawyer associated with Belli, got a phone call from
`a Las Vegas attorney' who said, 'Sy, one of our guys just bumped off the
son of a bitch that gunned down the President. We can't move in to handle
it, but there's a million bucks for Mel if he'll take it.'
"Ellison confirmed to us that he received the phone call, but he said he
did not remember the name of the Las Vegas attorney and nothing developed
from the call. Belli told us a different story. He said Earl Ruby came to
California three days after his brother was arrested; he watched Belli sum up
a murder defense in a Los Angeles courtroom and he asked him to take the
case.
"Belli said he declined at first. He had learned that his fee would be paid
by the sale of Ruby's story to newspapers, and he did not care to be
involved in that sort of exploitation. Nevertheless, Earl Ruby talked him
into it, Belli told us, and he took the case with five goals in mind: to save
Jack Ruby; to strengthen the law; to show that current legal tests for
insanity were inadequate; to wed modern law to modern science; and to help
Dallas 'solve its problem.'" 488
Interestingly, Blakey and Billings report further that Ruby's brother
Earl had told yet another version of the "official" story. They also make
passing reference to the Ruby-Cohen relationship.
Noting that "Ruby liked to tell friends that he knew Mickey Cohen,"
they concluded: "We could not be certain just how well Ruby knew Cohen,
who also grew up in Chicago, but he admired him and tried to emulate
him." 489 As far as Belli's decision to defend Ruby, Blakey and Billings
said: "We found it difficult to believe that Belli did not receive a substantial
fee for his defense of Ruby." 490 The two also noted that “We considered the
possibility that Belli went to Mexico to pick up a fee for the Ruby defense,
but we found no proof that he did." 491
Whatever the case, Belli's defense of Ruby failed. Ruby was convicted
and sentenced to death. Ruby's family formally fired Belli as Ruby's
attorney. But Ruby's death was announced just shortly before he was