Ziggy Wiseman made a ton of cash from illegal activities in the 1970s and often insisted on conducting meetings in the nude before ultimately flaming out as they all do.
He was a boxer as a kid, then tried to promote a Woodstock-style rock festival, which was floptastic and then he attempted to establish a stranglehold on the local skin-trade before getting caught and killing himself in prison.
Richard Siegfried Wiseman, aka Ziggy Wiseman, who made massive amounts of money in the 70s skin trade as the owner of a chain of massage parlours.
His downfall started when he attempted to bribe a cop with payments of $2,000 a week, rising to $5,000 per week after three months. At their early meetings Wiseman insisted that they talk in the nude so as to not have any wiretap surveillance happening. Or maybe he just liked to have conversations with other men while naked.
Wiseman was making $5 million a year and he was forced to testify at the crime commission hearings in the mid-70s.
His office was here on Cherrier.
He wrote a two page suicide note to his wife and two kids before killing himself with drugs on weekend leave at his home in mid-Dec. 1978. He was slated for parole two months later.
He had previously promised that in the event of his early death, documents would be handed over to police with evidence against his rivals.
Wiseman had been frequently treated for heart problems at the Royal Victoria Hospital and his death was originally described as heart failure.
About 30 attended his funeral.
joey horvath
ReplyDeleteZiggy Wiseman?
ReplyDeletePeabody
the hilton patriarch???
ReplyDeleteRobert MacNeil.
ReplyDeleteWas this guy involved in the Manseau rock concert in 1970?
ReplyDeletehttp://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19700804&id=p4o0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=vaAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1284,933909
His name is mentioned in a "Gazette" article from the previous day (Aug. 3, 1970). What a disaster that concert was - acts not showing up; those that showed up not getting paid; security staff walking out since they weren't paid; mud, rain, etc.
ReplyDeleteObront and Frank Cotroni were the ones to front the money to Ziggy for the concert.. didn't happen I guess
DeleteFor a few months I worked at a very small company on 55th avenue in Lachine. It was called Preferred Customer Card. The President was Mr. Dawson and had one employee me. Ziggy Wiseman and another man would come regularly to visit Mr. Dawson. One time, Mr. Dawson came out of his office with sweat all over his face. I figured something had happened while in a meeting with Ziggy. One day I was alone in the office. Two men came in and they wanted me to look at binders of photos of men. I realized they were detectives as they wanted me to identify anyone I might have seen. There was a photo of Ziggy
ReplyDeleteOnce they had left, I took all my possessions and left and never came back!
Allen Dawson and John R. Ferguson called cops on Wiseman and had him prosecuted for fraud after they bought shares in a company he owned that had no value. The company had $100 in their account in Ste. Anne's. The company Bottin Vert, aka Green Book, gave discounts to people who bought the book. The case went to a court and on 27 October 1976, Justice Emile Trottier acquitted Wiseman.
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