12 Facts About Roy Olmstead

Roy Olmstead was one of the most successful and best-known bootleggers in the Pacific Northwest region during American Prohibition.

Roy Olmstead, noting the potential for profit, began his own bootlegging operation while still a policeman.

On March 22,1920, Roy Olmstead was identified driving around a roadblock set by Prohibition Bureau agents raiding a rum-running operation.

Roy Olmstead was fired from the force and paid a fine of $500, but now could devote his full attention to his smuggling operations.

Roy Olmstead ran his illegal operation like a business and before long he became one of the largest employers in Puget Sound.

Roy Olmstead did not engage in these activities, and many did not regard him as a "true criminal" as a result.

Largely on the basis of evidence obtained through police wiretapping of his telephone, Roy Olmstead was arrested and tried for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act.

Roy Olmstead was sentenced to four years with hard labor and fined $8,000; Finch receiving a sentence of two years and a fine of $500.

Roy Olmstead appealed his case, arguing that the incriminating wiretapping evidence, which had been obtained without a warrant, constituted a violation of his constitutional rights to privacy and against self-incrimination.

However, in February 1928 the Supreme Court upheld the conviction in the landmark case of Olmstead v United States.

Roy Olmstead was a vibrant and active community member for his remaining years, teaching Sunday school and visiting prisoners in the King County Jail every Monday morning.

Roy Olmstead died April 30,1966, at the age of 79.