6.

Jim Braden (Eugene Brading) and The Mafia

Investigator Noyes began a thorough investigation of Braden based upon all available police records and documents.

What soon clearly emerged was a long record of involvement by Braden (Brading) with many of the most notorious Mafia leaders in the nation, a record of close association with key figures in the national crime syndicate.

Following a string of arrests in the 1940's, dating all the way back to his young adulthood, Eugene Brading had moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1950.

(BRADING AND PEREIRA)

In El Paso, Brading became closely associated with Victor Pereira, a man who was a close associate and confidante of several Mafia members. Brading and Pereira became involved in a number of schemes involving marriage to and embezzlement of wealthy widows.

In 1951, Brading and his close friend Pereira were arrested by the FBI in New York on a fugitive warrant issued in Texas. The two men were charged with embezzling over $50,000 from a wealthy widow whom Pereira had married shortly before fleeing with her money. Brading and Pereira were soon convicted of the charges and were each sentenced to 12 years in prison.

However, Brading and Pereira were out free during the three years of their appeals, and Brading was later paroled in 1959 after having served just five years of his sentence.

(BRADING AND THE SMALDONES)

During the three years of freedom under their appeals of the convictions, Brading and Pereira left Texas (following still another fleecing of another wealthy widow) and moved to Denver, Colorado.

In Denver, Brading became very closely associated with two leading Mafia bosses in the Rocky Mountain area, Clyde and Gene Smaldone.