Rose Cherami supposedly said that she worked for Jack Ruby. Was she a stripper, or a dope runner, or was she just making it all up?
Is that Rose Cherami behind Jack Ruby? (Just a joke, people!)
James DiEugenio, in Destiny Betrayed, writes: (page 79)
"On November 26, Fruge flew Cheramie from Louisiana to Houston. In the back of the small Sesna [sic] 180, a newspaper was lying between them. One of the headlines read that the investigators had found no connection between Ruby and Oswald. When Cheramie read this, she started to giggle. She said that Ruby and Oswald did know each other. She understood this from working for Ruby."
and: (page 182)
"She told the doctor that the president and other Texas officials were going to be killed on Kennedy's upcoming visit to Dallas. Weiss told Magruder that, like Fruge, he did not pay very much attention to these meanderings by the patient. But after Kennedy was killed, he went back to her. She now said, after Ruby had shot Oswald, that Oswald knew Ruby since she had seen them together at Ruby's club."
His source is a memo from 2/23/1967 from Detective Frank Meloche and Sergeant Sedgebeer to Jim Garrison. Here is that memo:
There are two Garrison notations. The first, on the left side, reads:
"Indicates that she did say this before the assassination."
And, at the bottom, he wrote:
"Note: This version has the FBI coming to pick her up! If this were the case, how did she get to Houston with Fruge?"
And, Garrison is correct - she was not picked up by the FBI, she was picked up by Fruge. So Garrison should have realized that there was something not quite right with the statement. Also, there is the claim that Cherami worked as a "dope runner" for Jack Ruby. But, is there any evidence that Ruby was involved with dope in the 1960s?
Of course, all of this is second-hand - it's just what Mr. Magruder remembers three years after the fact. He never even considered whether he should contact the FBI or the Warren Commission about the story. [By the way, Dr. Weiss told the HSCA that he talked to Cherami after the assassination.]
We've previously posted Francis Fruge's memo to Jim Garrison from April 4, 1967 about Rose Cherami. Here is an excerpt from that memo:
Fruge writes that "it was verified" that she once worked for Jack Ruby as a stripper. But there is not one piece of evidence to support that.
Now look at what Fruge told the HSCA:
Now, "he thinks that this might have been checked later." That sure doesn't sound like "verified," does it? Further, Cherami did not strip at the Carousel, but that was the only strip club Ruby owned. He did not own a club called the "Pink Door," or the "Red Door."
Here's how James DiEugenio reports this in Probe Magazine: (July-August, 1999)
"In fact, Fruge later confirmed the fact that she had worked as a stripper for Jack Ruby."
But his source was just the Fruge memo shown above.
Fruge's memory improved during his deposition, just ten days later: (courtesy of the Larry Hancock website)
Now, it was definitely the Pink Door. And, now Cherami told Fruge that Ruby and Oswald had "been shacking up for years." Blackmer never asked Fruge about his earlier claim that he had "verified" that Cherami worked for Ruby.
No one has come up with any evidence that Rose Cherami ever worked for Jack Ruby.
Her FBI rap sheet provides another clue - when on earth could she have worked for Ruby? Jack Ruby opened the Carousel in 1960 - that was the only strip club he ever owned - so if she was a stripper, it would have been there.
Here is her FBI rap sheet from the 1960s:
As you can see, Cherami moved around quite a bit, and it doesn't appear that she was in Dallas all that much. She was arrested in Dallas on 5/15/63, but less than two weeks later, she was arrested in Norman, Oklahoma. So, when could she have worked for Jack Ruby?
Keep in mind that she was repeatedly using narcotics, and you can see what she looked like in 1964.
She doesn't look like a stripper to me.
It's not impossible that she worked, for a very brief time, for Ruby - but, in the absence of any evidence, I'd say that she didn't.