Posted: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 | 7:57 p.m. Breaking story

By Bill Bryan
Of the St Louis Post-Dispatch

Paul J. Leisure, who headed an organized crime faction involved in a bloody underworld feud in St. Louis in the early 1980s, died early Monday in the hospital section of the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo.

Leisure, 56, who was serving sentences of life and 55 years in connection with the violence from the '80s, suffered from severe heart disease.

Leisure himself had been a victim of the violence; he was maimed Aug. 11, 1981, when a bomb placed under his car was detonated by remote control in front of his mother's home in the 4900 block of Nottingham Avenue. Leisure lost his right foot and part of his left leg.

Although heart disease was suspected as the cause of death, an autopsy will be performed, said Rick Veach, executive assistant at the federal prison in Springfield.

"Paul wanted to be the godfather of the Syrian community in St. Louis, like James A. Michaels Sr. had been," said a detective close to the investigation that sent Leisure and nearly a dozen others to prison.

"He wanted that respect. Of course, he never got it."

Three people were killed - two in other car bombings - and three people were wounded in the retaliatory feud from the 1980s. The incidents included:

The killing of Michaels, the aging underworld leader of the Syrian crime faction, in a car bombing in September 1980. Michaels, 75, died when the bomb was detonated on Interstate 55 near Reavis Barracks Road. Leisure had approved of the bombing so his brother, Anthony, could have more control of Laborers Union Local 110, according to court testimony.

The near-fatal car bombing of Leisure. Michaels' grandson, Jimmy Michaels III, and Milton Russell Schepp were later convicted of that bombing and have served their time.

The wounding of another of Michaels' grandsons and a friend in a daylight ambush in September 1981 on the parking lot of the Edge Restaurant, 2300 LaSalle Street.

The fatal car bombing of George M. "Sonny" Faheen in October 1981. Faheen, a nephew of the elder Michaels, was killed by a bomb put on his Volkswagen Beetle parked in the garage of the Mansion House Center downtown.

The fatal shooting of Michael Kornhardt in July 1980. Kornhardt was an associate of the Leisures and was charged with murder in Faheen's death. He was killed to keep him quiet and his body was dumped in a field in St. Charles County.

The killing of Kornhardt proved to be Paul Leisure's undoing. Afterward, Leisure's business partner in a towing company, Fred Prater - who constructed the bomb that killed Michaels - went to then U.S. Attorney Thomas Dittmeier and became a government witness.

Leisure had few living relatives, authorities said. His brother Anthony is one of several men serving long prison sentences. His cousin David Leisure was executed Sept. 1 at the Potosi Correctional Center for placing the bomb on Michaels' car.

Dittmeier, who has been credited with breaking the back of organized crime in St. Louis, had no comment about Leisure's death.

Leisure was convicted on federal racketeering, conspiracy and bombing charges in 1985, and convicted of the state charge of murder in the death of Michaels in 1987.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Leisure was a bodyguard for the late Anthony Giordano, the former head of the Italian organized crime faction in St. Louis.

Leisure had been at the Springfield facility since 1993. Earlier, he had served time in Potosi. In 1985, he was the last patient in the old City Hospital on Lafayette Avenue.

No funeral information was available Tuesday.

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