In the time between their trials, the two men and their cohorts sent "collectors" around The Patch to raise money for their defense fund. Men like Henry Spignola and Antonio Morici were murdered. The main "collector", a fearsome mobster named Orazio "The Scourge" Tropea, was discovered to be keeping most of the collections for himself. Tropea was shotgunned to death on Halsted Street on February 15, 1926. Other deaths followed before Scalise and Anselmi were both acquitted of the murder of Patrolman Harold Olsen.