New book unravels the story of B.C. sports mogul and Australian fugitive Con Jones
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When the authorities tried to put a stop to all the gambling going on, Jones hired the best lawyers.
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'He managed to keep himself on the right side of the law through high-powered legal muscle,' said Fuller, who is selling his book online through Amazon and Chapters/Indigo.
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'His little trick was he never participated ever in the stakes of any game. He would have a little slot on the side of the table, (and) before each hand got dealt, you had to drop a penny in the slot.
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'It's amazing, (his) wealth was built up sort of a penny at a time.'
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Jones spent a fortune enticing star lacrosse players to play for a team he began in Vancouver. Some were also hockey stars. Jones paid Newsy Lalonde $5,000 to play for his lacrosse team, at a time when Lalonde made $1,300 per season to play for the Montreal Canadiens.
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It worked. Jones' lacrosse team won the Minto Cup over the archrival New Westminster Salmonbellies in 1911. His finances also grew with the Don't Argue chain, which included 20 East Hastings St., longtime home of The Only seafood restaurant.
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In Australia, Shortel/Jones also left behind an illegitimate daughter, Victoria Johnson, who reconnected with him when she was 17 and was constantly causing a kerfuffle. Victoria had a knack for conning wealthy men out of their money, which eventually landed her in an Australian jail.
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'She was a real talent, in a criminal sense,' said Fuller.
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'It was breathtaking, the scope of it. She would pretend to be someone really wealthy who had this huge inheritance coming, and then once she got to know somebody, she would borrow money from them, usually quite a big sum. And then disappear.'
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Jones and his family still managed to remain quite respectable in the public eye, building a handsome mansion in Shaughnessy in 1922 that was adorned with the latest rage, a King Tut-themed chandelier.
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Jones also put a $1,000 down payment on a site in east Vancouver to build Con Jones park in 1920, which was a major venue for lacrosse, soccer and baseball for decades. It's now known as Callister Park, after the man who had sold it to Jones, who had never paid off the mortgage on the land.
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Fuller discovered all this through his grandmother Margaret, whose second marriage was to one of Con Jones' sons, Dill.
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When his grandmother died in 2002, she left behind boxes of the Jones archive, including diaries, metal token/coins that were used at the Don't Argue, and a couple of dazzling scrapbooks featuring newspaper clippings, photos and illustrations.
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Sadly, the health of Jones declined in the 1920s after decades of alcoholism. He died on June 3, 1929, at only 59 years old.
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