Elmer Borst (died February 1924) was a New Jersey bootlegger. Borst was killed by undercover FBI agent James Tolliver alongisde corrupt agent Stan Sawicki in an event designed by Tolliver to get rid of two criminals.
Biography[]
Elmer Borst was born in New Jersey to a family of German descent, and he worked as a farmer before turning to bootlegging to earn a profit. Borst once bought liquor from Manny Horvitz to sell elsewhere, paying $50 for each case; however, after the murder of Horvitz, he was forced to pay $60 per case from Mickey Doyle's supply. Doyle forced Borst to accept this new price by claiming that he had murdered Horvitz and would do the same to Borst, and Borst decided to pay up.
Later, Borst would become an associate of undercover FBI agent James Tolliver, asking him for protection from backwoods thieves who attempted to steal his liquor. Borst told Tolliver about the limited protection that he already had; he rigged the back door with a shotgun booby trap to keep intruders away from his house. Tolliver decided to have his superior, the corrupt agent Stan Sawicki, murdered, hoping to sabotage Enoch Thompson's bootlegging. He convinced Sawicki to collect protection money from Borst, and had him walk through the back door; Sawicki was mortally wounded. Tolliver shot Borst in the head, and he let Sawicki die from his wounds.