These 10 Historic Con Artists Prove There is a Sucker Born Every Minute

Nicky Arnstein and Fanny Brice

Nicky Arnstein was born Julius Arndstein in Prussia, acquiring the nickname Nicky from the nickel-plated bicycle he used to throw races as a boy in the 1890s. As a young man, he used the transatlantic ocean liners as his base for card games and fleeced many of the wealthier passengers in games of bridge and poker. He also began to develop the reputation of a ladies’ man who wouldn’t hesitate to take money from elderly widows as well as young debutantes. After one passage to America, he became acquainted with Arnold Rothstein, one of the United States’ most dangerous and influential racketeers and stock manipulators.

By the time Arnstein met Rothstein the former was the epitome of the suave, international conman and gambler. He had been arrested several times on both sides of the Atlantic for fraud, usually involving conning money out of women or writing bad checks. These qualities no doubt endeared him to Rothstein. Arnstein was married, but through Rothstein’s connections, he met Fanny Brice, one of the largest stars of the stage in New York at the time. Arnstein was soon living with Brice, and operating various scams backed by Brice’s money.

In 1915, Arnstein was charged with using an illegal wiretap as part of a stock swindle scheme, and sent to prison. Brice visited him frequently and defended him in public, and may have used her considerable influence in New York to make his two-year stay more comfortable. Brice’s frequent visits led Arnstein’s first wife to sue her for alienation of her husband’s affection, Brice had only recently learned that Arnstein was not yet divorced. When Arnstein left Sing Sing prison in the fall of 1918 his divorce had become final and he and Brice were married.

In 1920, Arnstein and several others were involved in a stolen bonds scheme where messengers from several Wall street brokers were intercepted and securities were stolen. Whether Rothstein was part of the scheme has never been proven but Arnstein was caught with some of the securities in Washington DC. Arnstein went into hiding for several months before facing the indictment and for several years fighting the charges on legal technicalities with Brice footing the bills. Arnstein was eventually sentenced to federal prison in Fort Leavenworth in 1924. Following his release, Brice divorced him in 1927.

Depicted in the film Funny Girl as merely an unlucky gambler and an otherwise honorable man, Arstein was anything but, being a con artist and swindler until his release from Leavenworth. He used more than a half dozen aliases over the course of his career as a con artist, race fixer, swindler, and cheat, and successfully scammed numerous women, including while he was in Leavenworth and still married to Fanny Brice. After the murder of Arnold Rothstein in 1928 Arnstein sold his memoirs, only to beg the publisher to allow him to buy them back as he was under the threat of death if they were published. The publisher, a tabloid newspaper, complied.