1965 CANADIAN GANGSTER TX LISTED FRANCIS MILLER VINTAGE PHOTO LIFE MAGAZINE RARE

Description: An original period photo, possibly a proof photo, measuring approximately 13 1/4 x 9 1/8 inches. By listed Life Photographer Francis Miller. Last found in Washington, DC, in all likelihood from Mr. Miller's estate. Appears to be a lawyer in the case. In pretty good shape as pictured. Thanks for looking. Lucien Rivard became a leader of the Canadian drug trade in the 1940s. He was considered to be a superior organizer and earned great respect in the Montreal crime world. He possessed international connections and often worked with the Cotroni brothers. His main lieutenants were Jean-Louis "Blackie" Bisson, who handled Rivard's Montreal activities, and Bob Tremblay, who distributed Rivard's heroin in Vancouver. By the time the 1950s rolled around, Rivard was the number one man in the heroin trafficking throughout the country. He expanded his business in 1954 by becoming partners with Giuseppe "Pep" Cotroni. While Rivard had better heroin connections at the time, the Mafia had much better connections in the United States narcotics market. In the late 1950s, Rivard moved to Cuba where he continued to run his empire. He was seen meeting with Corsican traffickers Jean-Baptiste Croce and Paul Mondolini and, when they were forced to return to France on criminal charges, Rivard took over their interests. In Cuba, Rivard also ran a large scale gambling ring and amuggled thousands of firearms into Canada. He was often followed as he met with influential underworld leaders, including Salvatore "Little Sal" Giglio of the New York based Bonanno Crime Family. Rivard even served as Giglio's best man at his March 22, 1957 wedding to Florence Anderson. On January 8, 1958, during a visit to Montreal, Rivard and his lieutenant Jean-Louis "Blackie" Bisson were arrested for illegal possession of firearms. He was released the next morning after he provided a registration certificate for his gun. Bisson pleaded guilty and paid a $50 fine. Rivard's stay in Cuba came to an end when Fidel Castro overthrew the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. A clean up against mobsters ensued and Rivard and many others, including Meyer Lansky, were imprisoned. Upon learning that Rivard had paid Batista $20,000 a week to operate freely, Castro wanted him executed. But Montreal lawyer Raymond Daoust contacted the minister of Eternal Affairs in Ottawa and intervened. Rivard was released and shipped to Montreal on June 24, 1959. After Rivard's partner, Giuseppe Cotroni, was sentenced to ten years in prison in November, 1959, Rivard completely took over the importation of heroin inCanada. The profits he began to rake in was enormous. In 1960, Rivard and Gerry Turenne purchased a large summer resort centre in Auteuil, Quebec. The property, valued at more than $200,000, included a marina, cottages, dance hall, swimming pool, restaurant, bar, and a beach. Rivard ran the business and even did much of the repairs himself. Quebec Provencial Police arrested Rivard and associates Gilles Brochu and Roger Beauchamp on March 7, 1962 for robbing and beating Gaétan Raymond, who had criticized the heroin trafficker. As Rivard was being led out in shackles, five thugs, led by gangster Réjean Lavoie, ambushed him and beat him severely before police could intervene. Lavoie was beaten horribly one night while serving Independent Criminals a prison sentence for theft and rape and murdered just four days after he was paroled. Few doubt who was behind the murder. Rivard avoided a jail sentence when the man he, Brochu, and Beauchamp had beaten, Gaétan Raymond, suddenly came down with amnesia and couldn't identify them as his attackers. They were freed for lack of evidence. On January 17, 1964, a United States federal grand jury, based mainly on the information of former Rivard henchmsn Michel Caron, indicted the French-Canadian mobster on international heroin trafficking charges. He was arrested and placed in Montreal's Bordeaux Jail, while awaiting extradition. Three of his followers were also indicted on similar charges. On March 2, 1965, while Rivard was still incarcerated in Bordeaux awaiting extradition, he and fellow prisoner André Durocher asked a guard for permission to get hoses from the furnace room to water the outdoor rink. When they entered the utility room, Durocher pulled out a gun (which was actually nothing more than a carved out piece of wood blackened with s hoe polish) and the two gangsters tied everyone up. They managed to sneak up behind the guard posted on the west wall and restrained him. The two French-Canadians then used a ladder to climb the small interior wall and hoses to get over the large exterior wall. They hijacked a man's automobile but not before giving him cab fair. He was called a half an hour later by Rivard and told where he could find his car. "The Rivard Affair", as the prison escape became known as, gathered national attention. The Canadian government put out a large reward for the drug trafficker's capture and the RCMP co-operated with the FBI, Interpol, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, and U.S. Customs since the first hours after the escape. Reports placed Rivard and Durocher in Florida, in Peru, in Mexico, in Spain, in New Brunswick, in Trois-Rivieres, and even in Montreal. Rivard enjoyed the attention and sent several letters to authorities, including an amusing postcard to the Prime Minister of Canada, Lester B. Pearson. André Durocher, Rivard's companion, was apprehended by police on May 28, 1965, after an anonymous call placed the fugitive in a Montreal apartment. Rivard was finally caught on July 16, 1965 in a Woodlands cottage, near Chateauguay. He and associates Fred Cadieux and Sébastien Boucher were lounging around in bathing suits when police burst into the cottage. After 136 days on the run Rivard was brought back to Montreal where the prosecutor agreed to withdraw charges of escaping and armed robbery so that the trafficker could be extradited to the United States as soon as possible. He was escorted to Houston, Texas, where his three co-accused were already jailed. The trial lasted only seven days and, after only three hours of deliberation, the jury declared Rivard guilty. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $20,000. Lucien Rivard was paroled on January 17, 1975. He returned to Montreal where, police claim, he continued to run his empire. He kept an extremely low profile until his death on February 3, 2002. He was 86 years old. Source: https://www.oocities.org/wiseguywally/LucienRivard.html When Francis Miller was about twelve years old he got his first camera, a Brownie, and began developing his films in the family bathtub. He studied journalism at the University of Texas, was sports editor of the Daily Texan, a college newspaper, and managing editor of the Texas comic monthly, The Texas Ranger. He studied art in the Chicago Academy in the summers. In 1927 when he was twenty-one, he went to work for the Houston Press as a combination artist, reporter and photographer. He had only dabbled in photography, but as a reporter he soon learned that the camera can tell a story better than words, so he became a pioneer in candid news photography. As a reporter covering the southwest, Miller was a journalistic jack-of-all-trades, writing news stories, taking the pictures for them and often making the layouts. He also drew cartoons, wrote a biography of W. Lee O'Daniel, which was a Texas best seller when O'Daniel became governor of the state, and published numerous short stories. Miller was the first to cover a Caesarian birth fully with pictures for the press, which, when published, attracted much attention, and then was finally used in TIME, before the advent of LIFE Magazine. 'Nig' (Francis' nickname) Miller freelanced for LIFE before the war and became a LIFE staff photographer in 1947, and was based in Chicago. During the war he worked for Naval Intelligence and was a combat photographer. In 1945, the Navy ordered him from Iceland to Australia where he met and married an Australian girl. They had two children. Miller was an artist at concealed camera photography. He had hidden miniature cameras rigged behind his tie, in half-open brief cases and in hollowed-out books to make pictures in closed political sessions where the participants would just as soon have no photography. Miller transferred to Washington D.C in 1964 and worked out of LIFE's Washington, D.C. and Atlanta news bureaus. Miller combined ingenuity and ability: in 1952 he photographed a Republican National Committee meeting in Chicago with two hidden cameras. Six years later, he used similar tactics to photograph a band of gamblers in Cuba. His warm heart for animals brought Miller, in 1964, to photograph the presidential beagles on the White House lawn. Miller brought with him for this assignment, not only his 30 years of experience, also a rubber bone, sack full of Dog Yummies, and a harmonica. Miller stretched himself out on the lawn of the White House and alternately barked like a dog, tossed the bone in the air, plied the beagles with Dog Yummies and huffed into the harmonica. This juggling act, which came easily to Miller, left his right hand and his right eye free to shoot the assignment. Miller retired from LIFE in 1968. He lived in Washington D.C. until his death on November 5, 1973 at the age of 67. On Jun-12-11 at 15:52:08 PDT, seller added the following information: Sellers: Get your own map of past buyers. Fast. Simple.

Price: 499.99 USD

Location: Chicago, Illinois

End Time: 2024-09-15T02:34:49.000Z

Shipping Cost: 3.99 USD