state auditor Orville Enoch Hodge, who was convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in taxes in 1956. That same year, Wortman assaulted an IRS agent at The Paddock tavern, which led to his being audited. On February 26, 1962, he was charged with two associates of conspiracy to evade taxes, but all three were eventually acquitted. In the mid-1950s, Wortman moved from his ranch-style brick home in Collinsville at 2 Crown Drive to a new house in the east end of Collinsville. This new "fortress" was surrounded by a water-filled moat with the only access being a narrow bridge. During the 1960s, a Black street gang known as The Warlords began moving in on Wortman's territory, and in one incident threw a hand grenade into McCoy's Tavern. With the threat of retaliation, members of Wortman's organization were able to intimidate the street gang into backing off. Later years Although his power began to decline in his later years, suffering financial losses from legal battles and closure of gambling operations, Wortman remained in control of southern Illinois gambling until his death on August 3, 1968, at age 63, in Alexian Brothers Hospital due to complications from surgery for laryngeal cancer. Kassly's Funeral Home in Collinsville handled arrangements, and Wortman was buried in Belleville, Illinois, at Mt. Carmel Cemetery. Ironically, Wortman lies some from his chief nemesis, East St. Louis policeman Robert "Tree" Sweeney, who killed 12 men in the line of duty. Gambling was legalized in East St. Louis after Wortman's death, and the local gambling casino is now the city's largest employer. References Fox, Stephen. Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989. Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. Nunes, Bill. "The Big Book of St. Louis and Southern Illinois Crime" St. Louis: Nostalgia Books, 2010 Further reading Theising, Andrew J. Made in USA: East St. Louis, the Rise and Fall of an Industrial River Town. St. Louis: Virginia Publishing, 2003. External links The St. Louis Family The John Gotti of St. Louis: The Rise and Fall of "Dinty" Colbeck by Walter Fontane Frank L. "Buster" Wortman's Tombstone 1904 births 1968 deaths People from East St. Louis, Illinois Prohibition-era gangsters American crime bosses