POLACK JOE DEVEN was not Polish at all. He was born to Italian immigrant parents Pietro and Angelina Davino on, according to Social Security records, February 19, 1893. Census records indicate he was born in Pennsylvania, and he apparently fudged a bit when he registered for the draft in June of 1917, not at all surprising considering his known exploits over the next 15 or so years. Pietro Davino was a stone mason by trade. The 1900 Census shows the family which included older siblings Theresa and Frank at 4 Harkins Place in Philadelphia. The family had moved to to 326 Spruce Street in South Camden by 1906, father having Americanized his name to Peter Deven, and gone into business as a contractor. A younger brother, Albert, had been born in 1905. The 300 block of Spruce Street, 

where the Devens lived was a block that produced a number of notorious characters during this period, as well as some families who went on to great success and whose names are still prominent in the area. 

The 1914 City Directory shows Peter Deven still at 326 Spruce Streets, and sons Frank and Joseph there as well, both working as stone masons. By 1917, when he registered for the draft Joseph Deven had married and fathered two children. He lived at 318 Joint Alley, around the corner from his parents home on Spruce Street, and was working as a bartender. The 1920 Census shows that his wife had died, He was again working as a stone mason, and had rented a house at 639 Locust Street, a few doors away from the notoriously corrupt police detective and political leader George V. Murry, who quite possibly was also his landlord. While the census record indicates Joseph Deven was working as a stone mason, he may also have been working in part for George Murry in some capacity. As part of the charges made against Murry by City Soilicitor E.G.C. Bleakly, Joe Deven was alleged to have been involved in selling drugs out a house at 210 Pine Street in November of 1921.

In any event, soon after Murry's mysterious death on January 29, 1922 the investigation of the late man's activities ceased and Polack Joe Deven emerged as a political leader. The 1924 City Directory lists Joseph Deven as still living at 639 Locust Street and working as a bartender. The reverse directory for that year, however, indicates that he was operating a saloon at 801 South 2nd Street under a soft drinks permit. 801South 2nd Street had been operated as a bar since the 1870s by the Gordon family, who apparently still held ownership of the building. 

Joe Deven attracted the attention of the local press in 1925, when at the behest of “prominent Republican leaders” in Camden, primarily William D. Sayrs, then a field agent in the office of the Internal Revenue Department, and later a city commissioner, he was employed by federal authorities as a deputy U.S. Marshal to guard the padlocked Poth brewery at Bulson Street, just off Broadway. This was an ironic situation as at the time Deven had been arrested once or twice for violating the Volstead Act and was was also still involved with the bar at South 2nd and Pine Streets. The Camden Courier newspaper publicized the matter, and Joe Deven was fired. 

An effort was made after Deven was fired by Sayrs and other Republican leaders to find a job in city government under the Non-Partisan administration of Mayor Victor S. King, but nothing came of it.

In May of 1926 he attempted suicide by shooting himself after he had failed to effect a reconciliation with his estranged wife. At that time, he shot himself but the bullet only grazed his chest. The 1927 City Directory states that Joseph Deven was again working as a stone mason, and had relocated with his wife Anna to 626 North 8th Street. 

Sayrs and Deven parted company, politically for a time, but rejoined forces in 1927. A new city administration was elected in the spring of that year, and Deven's patron William D. Sayrs, was elected to the City Commission. This however, did not translate into a city job for Joe Deven. He was arrested on a charge of drunken driving in 1927, and while influential, may have been considered "too hot to handle" by the local political establishment.

On January 13, 1928 Polack Joe Deven shot Joseph Cimino to death at the Sixth Ward Republican Club on Broadway, while in the company of another politically active crime figure, Joseph "Mose" Flannery. Still a political force, the charges were reduced to manslaughter and he was sentenced to a five year term in prison, which he served at Trenton. Flannery in turn was gunned down in September of 1928.

Joe Devon served two years for the Sixth Ward Republican Club shooting, before being paroled in 1930. Less than five months later, he and a companion drove into the yard of an alleged disorderly house at Atco as state troopers were raiding it. Deven, who was driving, attempted to drive away, but troopers stopped the machine. A .38 caliber pistol was found on Deven. He was subsequently sentenced on March 30, 1931, to two and one-half years for carrying the weapon. He was paroled for this offense and for the original parole violation in June of 1933.  

Out on parole, he was again arrested in 1933 for carrying a gun and returned to prison. 

By 1947 younger brother Albert had founded a printing business, Deven's Printing Press, on West Street. Joseph Deven spent his last years living with his younger brother. He died in Glendora NJ in April of 1971. Albert Deven had moved to Glendora by the mid-1950s, and resied there more most of the rest of his days. He last lived in Magnolia NJ. Albert Deven died in 1975, survived by his wife, the former Rose Pologruto, who passed in October of 2001.

GANGSTER SHOT
DURING MELEE
IN SIXTH WARD

Joseph Deven Held On Murder Charge After Death
Boxer’s Brother; ‘Mose’ Flannery
and 4 Others Held as Witnesses;
Was Craps Game Says County Police
HOLDUP ATTEMPTED CITY COPS DECLARE

Victim of a shot fired in a melee, the exact cause of which remain undetermined, Joseph Cimini, 31 years old, was killed in the Sixth Ward Republican Club, 908 Broadway.

Cimini, declared by police to be a Philadelphia
gangster, was killed before the eyes of two district

Headquarters of the Sixth Ward Republican Club on Broadway below Spruce Street is shown in the picture. The entrance is to the left, the first floor front being occupied by a barber shop. The arrow indicates the room where the shooting occurred

 detectives, Clarence Arthur and Clarence Bunker, who had been summoned to the club by warning that a fight was in progress.

Joseph Deven, 28 years old, known to his associates as “Polack Joe’” and a colorful figure in 

Third Ward politics, fired the shot that killed Cimini.

Declaring that he had fired in self-defense, after Cimini struck him with the butt of a revolver, Deven was locked up without bail on a charge of murder.

Joseph 'Mose’ Flannery, 26 years old, picturesque Eighth ward political worker, was held as a material witness. Detectives had seized Flannery who was to have precipitated the battle by brandishing a revolver just before Cimini was shot. The officers say that Flannery fled –after the shooting and was captured afterward at Broadway and Federal Street.

The name of the dead man was given as Joseph Gannon, but shortly before one o’clock this afternoon, he was identified as Joseph Cimini, 1301 Ellsworth Street, Philadelphia. The identification was made by a brother, William Cimini, a pugilist who has boxed in this city several times under the name of “Billy” Gannon.

Six Others Quizzed

Six other men who were present at the time of the shooting, or when the argument began, were questioned by city and county detectives.

They are Newton Blanchard, 30, 923 St. John Street, former Camden boxing referee and declared by some of the witnesses as the man who conducted the crap game at the club; Michael Dandrea, 26, 1067 Norris Street; Russell Sage, 26 years old, of 1102 Marion Street a taxicab driver who is said to have driven Gannon and Flannery to the club in his car; Maurice O’Brien, 27 years old, of 1429 Bradley Avenue, a former New Jersey State Trooper, Harry 

Trooper, Harry Waterhouse, 28 years old, whose address was given as the same as Sage’s; and Charles “Chick” Hunt, 27 years old, of 1218 Broadway, a former Camden boxer.

Blanchard and Dandrea were released after questioning and after each had made a statement to Chief of County Detective Lawrence T. Doran. The others were held with Flannery as material witness.

Differences of opinion between county and city detectives investigating the shooting were heightened during the afternoon.  The county sleuths insisted upon the theory that the shooting had resulted from a feud between Flannery and Hunt, with Cimini taking the former's side and Deven the latter and said that the heat of the argument had possibly been heightened by disagreement over a crap came.

The city police, on the other hand, declared that the entire affair was the result of an attempt by Flannery to hold up the other men. Deven’s statement to Chief Doran made no mention of a hold-up.

Building up a case against Flannery, the officers this afternoon lodged charges of attempted hold-up, carrying concealed deadly weapons, atrocious assault and battery and assault to kill against him. The two latter charges were made as the result of identification of Flannery as a participant in two recent robbery attempts. J.E. Feinstein, café proprietor of 508 Kaighn Avenue, declared that Flannery, Cimini, and Sage were thereof four men who held him up on New Year’s Day. He defied them and they left when he said, “Go ahead and shoot,” he asserted. Flannery was also identified, according to police, as the man who had beaten and attempted to rob Henry Mehrer, an Audubon policeman, and his two companions outside the Ringside Inn, on the Black Horse Pike, a fortnight ago. Mehrer and Feinstein were taken to police headquarters by County Detective Howard Smith, who is authority for the statement that they identified Flannery.

Cimini was shot shortly after 3:00 this morning and died almost instantly. Doctors at Cooper Hospital pronounced him dead on arrival. He had been shot just above the heart by a bullet from Deven’s gun.

Events preceding the shooting remain, to some extent clouded today. Chief Doran said he learned of an enmity existing between Flannery and Hunt. Deven appeared to have attempted to quiet “Mose”, the county detectives said. Cimini struck Deven and Deven fired.

Chief John Golden of the Camden city detective bureau stated, on the other hand, that the shooting had apparently followed an attempt to hold up the other men in the room. Golden based his view on the statements of Clarence Arthur, a city sleuth. According to Arthur, when he and Bunker appeared at the door of the room, Flannery and Cimini held revolvers and the other men in the room were standing with their hands upraised.

According to the story pieced together by county detectives from the statements of witnesses, a group of men had apparently gathered at the club for a crap game. Blanchard, it was stated, acts as the “stick man,” the term used in gambling parlance to designate the man who conducts a crap game.

City and County agree that Flannery and Cimini arrived together in Sage’s taxicab. Whether there was an argument, the result of an enmity between Flannery and Hunt, or whether the attempted hold-up theory is correct, remains to be learned by additional official investigation.

Chief Doran stated the witnesses had told him that words passed between Flannery and Hunt and that the former had gone downstairs. Returning he brandished a revolver.

Two Flee Place

It was at this point that Blanchard and Dandrea left the room and fled down the stairs. On the street, they encountered Detectives Arthur and Bunker, who were patrolling Broadway in a police automobile.

In describing the subsequent events today, Arthur declared that Blanchard had informed him that “two Philadelphia gunmen are up in the Sixth Ward Club holding up a bunch of fellows”.

The detectives did not immediately go to the club, but found Patrolman Frank Del Rossi and followed him up the stairs of the building.

“There were about fifteen men in the room,” Arthur asserted. “When we got to the door Flannery and Cimini had their guns out and apparently were about to search the others. The other men had their hands in the air.

“When they saw us Flannery and Cimini threw their guns down and the others lowered their hands. I went up to Flannery and started to frisk him. Bunker went to another man, whom I don’t know, and started to frisk him”.

It was then he said that he heard the shot. Believing that it was Bunker who was shot, he released his hold on Flannery and swung around. As he did Flannery turned and fled downstairs, Arthur declared.

Bunker said he believed that it was Arthur who had been shot and he too released his grasp on the man he had been searching. The detectives turned in time to see Cimini fall.

“I did it! I shot him!” Deven is declared to have shouted, throwing his revolver on the table.

According to the story told by witnesses to the county detectives, however, Deven had stepped up to Flannery just before the shot was fired and had said” “Mose, you can’t get away with this here.”

Flannery is said to have had a gun in his hand at the time.

As Deven spoke, the witnesses say, Cimini stepped behind him and struck him with the butt of a revolver. Just then detectives entered. Devin whirled and, drawing his gun, fired.

Cimini was placed in a police ambulance and taken to the hospital. After he had been pronounced dead his body was taken to the morgue, where it was awaiting identification today. Neatly dressed, Cimini is of Italian extraction. He has coal-black hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. Coroner Charles T. Murray will perform a post-mortem examination, he said.

Flannery Captured

When he fled from the club, according to Arthur, Flannery jumped on a Public Service bus driven by David Smith, of 423 Haddon Avenue, which was passing at the time.

“Faster! Faster” he is declared to have urged Smith as the latter drove along Broadway in the direction of Federal Street.

At Federal Street and Broadway, Arthur and Bunker caught up to the bus and arrested Flannery as he descended from the vehicle.

“Why don’t you give me a chance to get to Philadelphia?” Arthur declares Flannery asked him. “I can get bail over there.”

Seek Written Statement

Chief Doran stated this afternoon that he was attempting to obtain a written statement from Flannery and would also seek to have Deven sign a statement regarding the shooting. During the morning, Flannery refused to talk while Devin, although admitting that he fired the shot, declared that he shot in self-defense. He made no reference to the hold-up attempt, according to the county detectives.

Cimini has a Philadelphia police record but, according to his pugilist brother, “was not bad but just wild.” He was recently arrested in Philadelphia after a fight with policemen.

“But he never held up or robbed anybody,” his brother declared this afternoon after identifying the body. “He got into a jam now and then. Yes, I know that he knew 'Mose' Flannery, but I never mixed with that crowd.”

It was reported at City Hall this afternoon that Samuel Orlando had been retained as attorney for Flannery and that Walter Keown, Camden county solicitor, would represent all the other men. The presence of Keown at detective headquarters, during which he had a conference with Captain Golden, seemed to lend credence to the latter report but neither rumor could be confirmed.

Flannery for years has figured in police cases and in political warfare in the Eighth Ward, where he was sometimes a lieutenant and sometimes an opponent of “Mikey” Brown, the Republican leader of the ward. Last March he was arrested and indicted on charges of atrocious assault and battery on his wife and her mother. At one time he was held as a suspect is a Philadelphia shooting but later was released.

The accused man, Deven, is a short, slim little man with an air of meek complaisance. He has been a taxicab driver and was last arrested on a charge of drunken driving. In May of 1926 he attempted suicide by shooting himself after he had failed to effect a reconciliation with his estranged wife. At that time, he shot himself but the bullet only grazed his chest.

Joe Deven, long a political power in the Third Ward, first flashed into citywide prominence in 1925, when he was employed by federal authorities as a deputy U.S. Marshal to guard the padlocked Poth brewery at Bulson Street, just off Broadway. At the time Deven was thus maintaining the sanctity of the Eighteenth Amendment, he was also operating a bootlegging establishment downtown and had been arrested once or twice for violating the Volstead Act.

The Courier at that time exposed this paradoxical situation, with the result that the U.S. Marshal summarily dismissed Deven. He keenly resented the political chicanery that had been used to put Deven in office. In explaining how Deven was appointed, the Marshal said that he had been recommended by “prominent Republican leaders” in Camden, chief among whom was William D. Sayrs, no a city commissioner but then a field agent in the office of the Internal Revenue Department.

Sought City Job

Not long after Deven’s dismissal as brewery guard, Sayrs and other Republican leaders made strenuous efforts to secure a city job for him under the Non-Partisan administration. They sought to exact a promise from The Courier that this newspaper would remain silent in the event Deven was appointed to a city position. No such promise was made and Deven remained jobless, politically at least.

Then came a humorous twist to the situation. Sayrs disagreed with some of the Organization leaders and, for a time, walked his own political footpath. Some of the leaders, fearful of what Sayrs might attempt politically, killed two birds with one stone by hiring Joe Deven to shadow Sayrs and to report to them the number of times he conferred with Non-Partisans. Thus, Joe had a job and Billy was watched.

Sayrs knew he was being shadowed by his old friend, and apparently he knew who had hired Deven to do the work, but he refused to take the situation seriously and chortled, frequently, when he would see his “Shadow” trailing about town.

In the last year, however, Deven has again been the particular political protégé of Commissioner Sayrs and also has won the friendship of many other political leaders. Nevertheless, he has not been, so far as can be determined, the recipient of any particular political patronage, though his political influence in the Third and Fifth Wards is said to have expanded rapidly under the new administration.

Swap Punches In Street

BATTLE ECHO OF MURDER AT CLUB
Mrs. Rosalie and Her Rival for ‘Chick’ Hunt Describe Event in Court

Pretty, piquant Katherine Rosalie- for love of whom men are declared to have fought to the death in the rooms of the Sixth Ward Republican Club, today waged her own fight against her self-avowed rival for the attentions of Charles “Chick” Hunt.

In Camden Police Court this morning, Mrs. Rosalie appeared as complainant against Miss Elsie Berendt, 1901 Broadway who, by her own assertion, was “Chick’s girl” until Katherine came along .

The court battle, moreover, was merely an aftermath to a hand-to-hand encounter which both declared to have taken place yesterday at the corner of Fourth and Arch Streets. Today’s chapter of the comedy-drama was ended when Judge Bernard Bertman sent both young women home, after chiding Miss Berendt for being ’’too nervy” and “talking too much”. Miss Berendt was kept in custody by Judge Bertman for about five minutes and then dismissed. Meanwhile Mrs. Rosalie had departed in triumphant possession of Mr. Hunt’s company.

Mrs. Rosalie, 22year-old brunette, entered the official investigation of the slaying of Joseph Cimini, at the Sixth Ward Republican Club, after 

county detectives advanced the theory that the fight which resulted in the final shooting had been caused by an argument over “Chick's girl”. Hunt, a former South Camden pugilist, was in the club at the time of the shooting. According to detectives, the fight had started between Joseph "Mose" Flannery and Hunt; Cimini had entered the argument on behalf of Flannery, and Joseph “Polack Joe” Deven had shot Cimini when the latter struck him with the butt of a revolver.

Both Waiting For Hunt

Mrs. Rosalie, after recounting her story of her friendship with Hunt to Assistant Prosecutor Joseph Varbalow, denied she was “Chicks girl,” or “anybody’s girl.” But, apparently, Elsie didn’t look at it that way.

According to the testimony of the two young women and of Hunt, in Police Court today, the encounter between the girls took place late yester­day afternoon. Katherine said she was waiting for Hunt at Fourth and Arch Street. Elsie said she was waiting for Hunt at Fourth and Federal Street, a short block distant.

”Chick” arrived, it was testified and Elsie met him first. She asked the whereabouts of Katherine. Then she saw Katherine and went there. She accused Katherine of having called her a “bum” and of using other un­complimentary terminology. Katherine promptly denied it.

What happened then depends on whether Katherine’s story or Elsie’s is correct. Katherine said Elsie hit her. Elsie says Katherine hit her. Hunt apparently acted a peacemaker for the nonce and the match wound up in Police Court today.

Girl’s Story Is Denied

There. Elsie earned the disapproval of Judge Bertman by declaring, in great detail and in determined tones, that she had lived with Hunt for seven years as his wife; that she had gone to work as a waitress, and sup­ported him and that he had deserted her several weeks ago when Katherine appeared on the scene.

“Chick” denied all this, declaring he lived at 1213 Broadway and not with Miss Berendt. It was then Elsie received the Court’s opprobrium for “talking too much” and evidencing “too much nerve”. And that was about all there was to it.

Meanwhile, It became increasingly evident that it was a tangled case which Prosecutor Ethan P. Wescott is to present to the Camden County grand Jury in connection with the slaying of Cimini, otherwise “Joe Gannon” last Saturday morning.

“Polack Joe” Deven, held on a charge of murder, has admitted firing the shot that killed Cimini before the eyes of two Camden district detectives and nearly a score of other men.

Motive A Mystery

But just how it happened or why, or what led to the argument that seems to have preceded the shooting remained today as much of a mystery as though Cimini had been slain in some lonely DeRussey’s lane instead of in a crowded clubroom.

The investigation so far has focused definitely around the figures of Hunt and Flannery, the latter a storm-center of Eighth Ward politics and police records.

From the tangled web of evidence which county detectives have gathered, it appears only that the argument which resulted in the shooting of Cimini by Deven was caused by ill-feeling between Flannery and Hunt. Whether that ill-feeling had to do with the fading love motive that county detectives so confidently built up until yesterday, whether it was over the crap game supposed to have been in progress at the club, or whether It had a political tinge, is part of the mystery.

Clings to Love Motive

County detectives still cling to a somewhat obscure “love motive,’ though it is admitted that they’re not getting very far with it.

The latest development along this line is the arrival in the prosecutor’s office, late yesterday, of John Rosalie, estranged husband of the attractive young woman, who denied that he knew either Flannery or Cimini and stated Mat he knew nothing whatever concerning the latter’s death.

Assistant Prosecutor Joseph Varbalow, after bearing Mrs. Rosalie’s statement the day before, had announced yesterday that the authorities were ‘looking for Rosalie.” Mrs. Rosalie had told of the apparent jeal­ousy of her husband—a jealousy which she insists in unfounded—concerning Hunt. She had told how Rosalie and his brother-in-law, Howard Churchill, had set upon Hunt one day at her apartment and bad beaten him. She said that she believed her husband might have been acquainted with Cimini. 

The theory formed by detectives after that, was that Cimini had gone to the Sixth Ward Republican Club early last Saturday for the purpose of ‘getting” Hunt because of his, Cimini’s friendship for Rosalie.

Theories Break Down

This was the theory that seemingly broke down when Rosalie appeared and declared he didn’t know either Cimini or Flannery. It apparently broke down just as had a former theory, to the effect that Cimini and Hunt had been rivals for the affections of Mrs. Rosalie, for the latter also declares she knew neither Cimini nor Flannery.

It broke down just as had the city detectives’ theory that It all happened because of an attempted hold-up by Flannery and Cimini, for none of the witnesses mention a hold-up affair in their statements to Wescott. Flannery has made no statement, though apparently he holds the key to the story. His reply to all inquiries is “See my lawyer”. And no one knows who his lawyer may be.