Joseph Bruno's Blog, page 88

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Albert E. Hicks – The Last Man To Be Hung for Piracy in the United States of America

 

Albert E. Hicks, called "Hicksey" by his pals and "Pirate Hicks" by the police, was the last man to be executed for piracy in the United States of America.

Hicks was a freelance gangster, who lived with his wife and son at 129 Cedar Street in downtown Manhattan, only two blocks from the East River. Hicks felt he was better served if he worked alone, and as a result, he never joined any of the other gangs that prowled the waterfront in the treacherous 4th Ward. Working solo, the police suspected Hicks of scores of robberies and over a dozen murders, but Hicks scoffed at the notion. "Suspecting it and proving it are two different things," he said.

In March 1860, Hicks tied on a big one at a Water Street dive, and he was so drunk, he could not walk the two blocks home. Instead, he staggered into a Cherry Street lodging house, figuring he'd sleep until he was sober enough to manage the rest of the walk. The owner of the establishment was a known crimp, or a man who specialized in shanghaiing, which was the practice of "kidnapping men into duty as sailors on ships, against their will, by devious techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence." Hicks asked the crimp for a nightcap, and that he got, as the crimp, not aware of Hicks' reputation, laced his rum with laudanum, which is an alcohol solution containing opium.

His nightcap knocked Hicks out cold, and when he awoke the next morning, he found himself at sea on the E.A. Johnson, which was bound to Deep Creek, Virginia, to pick up a load of oysters. Five days later, the E.A, Johnson was found abandoned at sea, a few miles off the coast of Staten Island. The ship seemed to have collided with another vessel, and when it was finally secured, Coroner Schirmer and Captain Weed, of the second precinct police station, boarded the boat to examine the cause of its condition. No one was on board, but in the ship's cabin they found the room ransacked, and the floor, ceiling and bunks filled with blood. On the deck, they found four human fingers and a thumb lying under the rail.

The next day, two residents of the Cedar Street house where Hicks lived with this family, told the police that Hicks had returned home with a considerable sum of money, and was now gone, with no trace of him, or his family. In fact, Hicks had packed his belongings and escaped with his family to a boarding house in Providence, Rhode Island. New York City patrolman Nevins traced Hicks, and with the help of the Providence police, he arrested Hicks' entire family. When Nevin searched Hicks' belongings, he found a watch and a daguerreotype (an early version of a camera), which belonged to Captain Burr, the captain of the E.A. Johnson. The other two missing seamen were brothers, Smith and Oliver Watts, but nothing could be found belonging to them and their fate was a mystery.

As a result, Hicks was arrested and locked up in the Tombs. At his trial in May, it took the jury only seven minutes to convict him of piracy and murder on the high seas. He was sentenced to be hanged at Bedloe's Island on Friday the 13th, which was certainly a bad luck day for Hicks.

A week after his trail, Hicks decided to become downright chatty. He summoned the Warden and several newspapermen to his cell and began spilling the beans about the whole sordid affair. "I was brooding about being shanghaied," Hicks said, "and I decided to avenge myself by murdering all hands on the ship."

Hicks told the assembled crowd that he was steering the ship, and Captain Burr and one of the Watts brother was sleeping in the cabin. The other Watts brother was on lookout at the bow. Hicks lashed the steering wheel to keep the ship on course, then he picked up and iron bar, sneaked to the bow and hit the lookout over the head with the bar, knocking him out cold. The other Watts brother heard the noise and rushed topside. By this time, Hicks had found an ax, and when the boy climbed onto the deck, Hicks decapitated him with one mighty blow. He then then rushed down to the cabin and confronted Captain Burr, who had just awakened from a deep sleep. The Captain put up a brave battle, but in the end, he too was decapitated.

Hicks then said heard rumblings from up top. He rushed to the deck and found the first Watts boy staggering around the deck. Hicks knocked him down with a heavy blow, then picked him up, carried him to the rail and tried to throw him overboard. The boy clutched at the railing, and Hicks used the ax to chop off the boys five fingers, whereby the lad toppled into the murky waters below. Hicks threw the other two bodies overboard, then rushed below and ransacked the cabin for money and valuables. When he saw the coast of Staten Island, Hicks lowered a small boat and rowed the rest of the way to land.

Hicks confession made him an instant celebrity. Hundreds of gawkers paid the prison guards small fees to see Hicks shackled in his cell. And for a few pennies more, they were allowed to speak with Hicks himself. Among Hicks' visitors was circus man P.T. Barnum, who offered Hicks $25, a new suit of clothes and two boxes of cigars, in exchange for a plaster cast of of Hicks' head, which Barnum, the enterprising chap that he was, planned to display in his circus, after Hicks' demise. Hicks agreed, but later on his way to the gallows, he complained to the warden that the suit was cheap and did not fit properly. The warden advised Hicks it was certainly too late for alterations.

On the morning of July 13, Hicks, led my Marshall Rynders and a crowd estimated at 1500 people, started a procession to the docks. Rynders and Hicks boarded the boat with several policemen and sailed for Bedloe's Island, where a gallows had been erected 30 feet from the water. Hundred of boats had followed the doomed man and when the noose was slung around his neck, it was estimated that 10,000 people witnessed the public execution. Hicks struggled for a full three minutes before he stopped moving. He was cut down and pronounced dead. Hicks body was buried at Calvary Cemetery, but in a few days, it was stolen and sold to medical students, intent on studying the brain of a man who could commit such terrible atrocities.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Abe "Kid Twist" Reles – The Canary Who Could Sing, But Couldn't Fly

 

He was a vicious killer from the time he was 18 years old, but Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, was no man's man. When it came down to push and shove, he was nothing but a yellow-bellied canary, who ratted out his best friends to save his own skin.

Abraham Reles was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York on May 10, 1906. His father was an Austrian Jew, who had immigrated to American to seek a better life. But after working for years as a lowly piece worker in the garment trade, he wound up selling knishes on the streets of Brooklyn from a mobile stand.

Quickly realizing his father's life was not for him, the five-foot-two-inch Reles, quit school after the eight grade. He soon worked as a gofer for the powerful Shapiro brothers, Meyer, Irving, and Willie, who ran the rackets in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Reles was reduced to running errands and doing light work for the Shapiros, for sometimes as little as five bucks a pop. One of these errands consisted of watching over one of the Shapiro's many slot machines, and for this, Reles took a bullet to his back, which caused nothing more than a flesh would, but a big blast to Reles' ego. It was about this time that Reles reportedly took the nickname "Kid Twist," in honor of a previous New York City Jewish mobster named Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach, who strangely enough, was also killed in Coney Island.

Annoyed, and not wanting to keep on getting the short end of the stick from the Shapiros, Reles formed his own small gang, consisting of childhood friend Bugsy Goldstein, and the Italian duo of Happy Maione and Dasher Abbendado. Soon sadistic killer Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss joined the crew, and Reles announced, at the ripe age of twenty, that he and his boys were going to take Brownsville and all its rackets away from the Shapiros. Reles named his motley crew of killers "Brooklyn Inc."

"Why do we have to take the left-overs?" Reles asked Goldstein. "We should cut a piece. The hell with those guys."

When word got back to the Shapiros what Reles was planning, Meyer, the boss of the clan, was furious. "Brownsville belongs to us," Meyer Shapiro said. "Nobody moves in here."

Meyer Shapiro fired the first salvo in the war for control of Brownsville by snatching Reles girlfriend off the street, and brutally beating and raping her. Now it was personal to Reles, and he and Goldstein stalked the streets of Brownsville, looking to kill the all three Shapiros, but Meyer mostly, because of the indignity of him desecrating Reles' girlfriend. During an entire year, Reles and Goldstein shot at Meyer Shapiro nineteen times, but only wounded him only once. Then one night, figuring they had Meyer Shapiro and his two brother ambushed in front of their apartment building on Blake Avenue, Reles was chagrined to find only Irving had bothered to show. As soon as Irving Shapiro entered his fifth-floor apartment, Reles and Goldstein emptied their guns, first hitting Irving twice in the face and then sixteen more times in the back.

A few days later, Reles and his boys cornered Meyer Shapiro on the streets of Brooklyn. A single bullet into Meyer Sharpiro 's ear fired by Reles, dislodged Shapiro as boss of the Brownsville rackets. It took Reles three years to finally eliminate Willie Shapiro, who had been threatening all along to kill Reles and his pals. After abducting Willie Shapiro in a bar, they brought him to a Brooklyn basement, beat him unmercifully, then buried him in a shallow sand dune in Canarsie Flats. Willie Shapiro's body was soon found, and the Medical Examiner doing the autopsy, located sand in his lungs, meaning he had been buried alive.

Reles and his boys' triumph over the Shapiro brothers caught the eye of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and soon Brooklyn Inc. became a sub-corporation of Murder Incorporated. It was said, Lepke had several dozen killers on his payroll, and in the decade of the 1930′s, police estimated Murder Incorporated was responsible for as many as five hundred hits throughout the country.

Yet nothing good ever lasts forever. On February 2, 1940, Reles, Goldstein and Anthony "Dukey" Maffetore were arrested for the 1934 murder of petty hood named Red Alpert. Maffetore was the first to turn states evidence against his crew, but the biggest rat jewel for New York District Attorney William O'Dwyer was Reles, who was the highest ranking member of Murder Incorporated under Lepke. At Lepke's trial, which also included Mendy Weiss and Louis Capone as defendants, Reles, who had a photographic memory, gave intimate details of over over 200 murders the defendants were involved with. All three of Reles' former pals were subsequently convicted and fried in the Sing Sing electric chair.

Yet, the government was not through with Reles' squealing. They wanted him as the prime witness at the upcoming trials of Murder Incorporated big shots Albert Anastasia and Bugsy Siegel. While Reles was awaiting several more trips to court, O'Dwyer hid Reles at the Half Moon Hotel, located on the sandy beaches of Coney Island. Reles was under constant police guard, with no less than six police officers at a time guarding him, even while he was sleeping.

Yet, in the early morning hours of November 12, 1941, Reles fell to his death from the sixth-floor window of the hotel. He was found laying askew on his back, with his suit jacket on, but his white shirt unbuttoned, exposing a fat belly. Several sheets were found tied together, and even though Reles' body was found twenty feet from the base of the hotel, the official cause of death was listed as "dying from a fall, while trying to escape." After Reles' death, O'Dwyer announced that his future cases went "out the window" with Reles.

Years later, it was said by Italian crime boss Lucky Luciano, that $50,000 was paid by Frank Costello, to be spread around in the New York City police department, to see if the man who could "sing like a canary," could fly like one too.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon – Tough Guy Turned Canary

 

He was said to be the toughest killer in "Murder Incorporated. Tougher than even the sadistic psychopath Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss. But in the end Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon turned out to be just another canary.

Magoon got the moniker "Blue Jaw" because he looked like he always was in need a shave. Of Irish decent, Magoon grew up in the mean streets of Brownsville, Brooklyn, and quit school at an early age. "Fourteen or Sixteen was when I left school," Magoon later said. "I'm not sure. You see I wasn't interested in school much." By 1933, Magoon had already shot two men, but to him that didn't count. "They were only wounded," he said.

Mogoon quickly caught the eye of Louie "Lepke" Buchalter, and was inserted as one of Lepke's top killers, along with Strauss, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, Buggsy Goldstein, Happy Maione, Dasher Abbandando, Dandy Jack Parisi and Allie Tannenbaum, in a group graciously called "Murder Incorporated." Magoon was the best driver in the bunch, so although he was as capable a shooter as anyone in the group, his usual job was to handle the getaway car after a big hit. All the shooters were given weekly retainers by Lepke, estimated to be one thousand dollars per week. But after an especially big "piece of work," Lepke was not adverse to paying them an added bonus.

Even though Strauss and Reles were stone killers, Magoon would take guff off none of them. "I can take care of myself," Magoon would say to anyone who would listen.

Once Magoon and homicidal Strauss got into a beef over a killing, "You can't talk to me like that," Magoon told Strauss. Those in attendance figured Strauss, who enjoyed killed as much as he loved his mother, and he loved his mother a lot, would murder Magoon on the spot. Yet is was Strauss who backed off, even apologizing to Magoon, who had murder in his eyes too.

As for Reles, even though they worked together often, Magoon didn't care for Kid Twist too much either. "Reles is mean and cheap," Magoon told one of his fellow killers. "When he's with his superiors in the mob, he wines and dines them, and makes a show at splurging. With his equals, or subordinates, he argues when it's time to pay a check."

After almost a decade of murder, the boys were done in because of a hit gone wrong. On July 25, 1939, at 7:55 am, Magoon sat behind the wheel of a sedan parked in front of 250 E. 178th St. in the Bronx. Sitting next to him was Dandy Jack Parisi and in the back seat was a small-time hood named Jacob (Kuppy) Migden, who had spent a week tailing the the intended target. Suddenly, a short, stocky man came out of the building and Migden said, "That's him!" Magoon put the car in gear and slowly passed their mark. Then he made an easy U-turn, and Parisi stepped out on to the running board and pumped six 32 caliber bullets into the man's back. The only problem was, Midgen had identified the wrong man.

The dead man turned out to be Irving Penn, a 42-year-old executive with G. Schirmer Inc., a Manhattan classical music publisher. The intended target was Philip Orlovsky, a former garment union boss, who was ready to rat on his ex-partner, Murder Incorporated's top man, Louie Lepke. Unfortunately for the now dead Penn, he lived in the same building as Orlovsky. The men looked somewhat alike, but Penn was seventy five pounds heavier and wore eyeglasses. Orlovsky was alive only because he had left his apartment an hour earlier to get a haircut and a shave.

The local newspapers had a field day with this one, gleefully reporting on the gruesome murder of a man who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lepke gave orders to all his killers, who could tie Lepke to hundreds of murders, to go on the lam; someplace far far away, until the heat cooled down (which turned out to be never), or until Lepke himself was dead. Magoon split with Buggsy Goldstein by car on a cross-country trip, that led them through Canada, Kansas City, California, Mexico, then back east, until they settled in a known mob hideaway in Newburgh, New York.

One day, Goldstein trekked into town to pick up a money order that had been wired to them. But the cops were waiting and put the handcuffs on Goldstein. In jail, he tried to slip a note to Magoon, telling him to split quick, but the law intercepted the note and arrested Magoon at their hide out. Magoon tried to tell the police his name as Harry Levinson, and when they showed him a mug shot of Goldstein, he said he looked familiar, but couldn't place him. Because they had nothing concrete on Magoon, they gave him 60 days in the slammer for "vagrancy."

While he was cooling his heels in the can, Magoon found out that Goldstein had been indicted for murder and that Reles had decided to become a rat against Goldstein. This did not please Magoon the least bit. "It looks like I'm on my way, unless I get into the act," Magoon told the fuzz. "I better find a peg to hang my hat on too."

Magoon's old pals Strauss and Goldstein were tried together for assorted murders and mayhem. Reles took the stand for several days, putting countless nails in his former partners' coffin. But it was Magoon who put the finishing touches on the trial, when he took the stand and revealed all he knew about every murder Strauss and Goldstein had been involved with, and there were plenty. While Magoon was babbling away in front of the jury, Goldstein jumped to his feet and screamed "For God sake, Seymour, that's some story you're telling. You're burning me."

And burn him he did. Both Strauss and Goldstein were convicted and died in the electric chair soon after at Sing Sing Prison. Magoon did a few years in the slammer, but then disappeared from the face of the earth, or at least from Brownsville. There is no record of the time and cause of his death. But in 2003, more than 60 years after he turned canary, Magoon's skeleton was found in a desert near Las Vegas.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – The Murder of Joe Rosen Sat Louie Lepke Right Down Into the Electric Chair.

 

Joe Rosen was a legitimate business man, who never broke the law in his life. But when he was killed in 1936, on the order of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, it was the first link in the chain that sat Lepke right down into the electric chair.

Joe Rubin, from Brownsville in Brooklyn, had finally hit the jackpot. Through sweat and hard work, he had started a small trucking business, that catering to non-union, tailoring-contact customers in the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania area. These were solid accounts and they bought Rosen a partnership in the New York & New Jersey Truck Company. But Louie "Lepke" Buchalter, from the same neighborhood as Rosen in Brownsville in Brooklyn, had other ideas. Lepke was a founding partner in Brooklyn's infamous "Murder Incorporated, but his pal and sometimes partner Max Rubin controlled the Amalgamated Clothing Worker's Union. In 1932, Rubin and Lepke approached Rosen and demanded that he stop delivering to non-union tailor shops in Pennsylvania.

"But if I lose the Pennsylvania business, I lose everything," Rosen told them. "I've been in the clothing business all my life and now I'm being pushed out of it."

Which was exactly what Rubin and Lepke did. But as a consolation prize, the gave Rosen a job as a truck driver in Garfield Express, a trucking business that Lepke owned 50% interest in, with his partner Louis Cooper. Eight months later, Cooper fired Rosen and Rosen was out of work for 18 months. He used borrowed funds to open a small candy store in Brownsville, but Rosen was a loud and unhappy camper. Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey was a fierce investigator, concentrating on the labor rackets, and he began making noise about Lepke's involvement with the Amalgamated Clothing Worker's Union.

"This is bad," Rubin told Lepke. "Joe (Rosen) is around complaining he's got a family and he doesn't have anything to eat. We got a desperate man on our hands."

Lepke, in a display of sheer generosity, told Rubin to give Rosen a few bucks, but in return, before Dewey caught a whiff of what he was saying, Rosen had to split town immediately. Rubin met with Rosen in his candy store and said, "Here's two hundred dollars. Lepke wants you to go away and cool down. You better do what he says."

Rosen did as he was told, and he holed up with his son, who lived and worked as a coal miner in Reading, Pennsylvania. Less than a week later, Rosen's wife contacted him and told him his mother was sick. Rosen was sick too; sick of Reading, Pennsylvania. So he hopped on a bus and hightailed it back to New York City. He was back working in his candy store the very next day. This did not please Lepke too much. Lepke usually insulated himself from any direct connection to the scores of murders he ordered. Instead he had a small group of lieutenants, including Rubin, whom he gave orders to, and these orders were passed down the line to the eventual killers. Albie Tannenbaum was one of his killers, but not one of his confidants. Unfortunately, Tannenbaum was in the next room when Lepke blew his top about Rosen.

"I've seen enough of this crap," Lepke screamed at Rubin. "That (expletives) Rosen, he's going around shooting his mouth off about seeing Dewey. He and nobody else is going any place and doing any talking. I'll take care of him."

On September 13, 1936, a band of Lepke's killers, led by Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, sat in ambush as Rosen opened his candy store at 7:30 am. In an extreme example of overkill, the shooters rushed into the store and emptied seventeen bullets into Rosen's body; the last four pumped by Strauss after Rosen was already dead.

For the next four years, Murder Incorporated committed hundreds of murders, but not one of them could be traced back to Lepke. Dewey was on Lepke's trail for slews of other crimes, so Lepke lammed it somewhere in New York City, which is is easiest place to hide, with eight million people milling about, minding their own business.

In 1940, at the urging of his partners Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Lepke tuned himself in to FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover, thinking the fix was in and he merely had to do a few years in the can for his crimes. But he was double-crossed by Luciano and Lansky, and also by Albie Tannenbaum and Max Rubin, who had been pinched too, and were looking to make a deal. Both rats agreed on the witness stand that Lepke had ordered Rosen's killing. After Tannenbaum quoted Lepke verbatim about taking care of Rosen, thereby confirming Rubin's account, Lepke's goose was cooked. On November 30, 1941, it took the jury a little over four hours to return a guilty verdict on Lepke for murder.

After several appeals were turned down, on March 4, 1944, Lepke was fried in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, and it was the murder of Joe Rosen, a poor nobody, who just wanted to live a decent, hard-working life in peace, that put him there.

To this day, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter is the only mob boss ever to be executed by the government.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein – The Man Who Could "Fix" Anything

 

Arnold Rothstein was the most notorious gambler of his time, a bootlegger of great proportions and a master-fixer of everything imaginable. Rothstein was so adept at what he did, he reportedly fixed the 1919 World Series.

Rothstein was born on January, 18, 1882 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His father, Abraham Rothstein, owned a dry goods store and a cotton processing plant. Rothstein's father, a devout Jew, was also a mover and shaker in New York politics, and was called by his friends "Abe the Just." Abe Rothstein was so popular with the New York Pols, in 1919 he was given a dinner in his honor, which was attended by New York Governor Al Smith and Judge Louis Brandeis.

Yet young Arnold wanted no part of his father's life. At the age of 15, Arnold began sneaking away from his fancy Upper East Side home to mingle with the fast-moving crowd on the Lower East Side. Rothstein loved to gamble, and soon he was a fixture at downtown card and dice games. Having limited finds at that age, Rothstein would "borrow" money from his father in strange ways. Abe Rothstein would stash his money and jewelry in a drawer as the sabbath approached. Young Rothstein knowing his father's habits, would take the money from the drawer, spend all day gambling, then replace the money before sundown. One time he even stole his father's watch and pawned it. He won big while gambling, redeemed the watch, then replaced it without his father being any the wiser.

Rothstein later explain his passion for gambling. He said, "I always gambled. I can't remember when I didn't. Maybe I gambled just to show my father he couldn't tell me what to do. When I gambled nothing else mattered. I could play for hours and not know how much time had passed."

Successful gamblers sometimes make enemies and Rothstein was no exception. In 1911, several gamblers he had regularly taken to the cleaners, decided to teach Rothstein a lesson. As good as he was with dice and cards, Rothstein was just as good with a pool stick. So his "pals" imported pool shark Jack Conway from Philadelphia to show Rothstein he could be beaten. After Conway challenged him, Rothstein got to pick the pool parlor which they would play in. He picked John McGraw's pool room, owned by the legendary former manager of the New York Giants. Every known New York gambler was in the pool room that night, mostly betting against the cocky Rothstein. After Rothstein lost the first match to 100 (probably on purpose), he and Conway engaged in a 40-hour marathon, in which Rothstein won every 2 out of 3 matches they played. During that 2-day period, Rothstein won thousands of dollars, and a reputation of being cool and collected under pressure.

Rothstein's prowess at gambling caught the eye of local politician, and a mighty fine crook himself, Big Tim Sullivan. Sullivan hired Rothstein, now called "The Brian" by his associates, to manage his gambling concession at the Metropole Hotel on Forty-Third Street. This was the big break Rothstein had been waiting for. He then parlayed his stint at the Metropole into owning his own gambling joint on Broadway, in the ritzy Tenderloin section of Manhattan. Rothstein's reputation attracted such known gamblers as Charles Gates (son of John W. "Bet a Million" Gates), Julius Fleischmann (the Yeast King), Joseph Seagram (Canadian Whiskey baron) Henry Sinclair of Sinclair Oil and Percival Hill, who owed the American Tobacco Company. Hill once lost $250,000 playing poker in one night to Rothstein.

In 1919, after Prohibition was enacted, Rothstein became a major bootlegger and he fell in with several young criminals, including Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, both of whom looked up to the classy Rothstein as their mentor. Rothstein made sure all the young turks made money, by cutting them into every whiskey deal he was involved in. In was during this period that Rothstein received his second nickname as "The Fixer." Rothstein sucked up to Tammany boss Charley Murphy, and using Murphy's clout, Rothstein fixed thousand of bootlegging criminal cases. Out of 6,902 liquor-related cases that made it to court, with Rothstein's influence, 400 never made it to trial and an incredible 6,074 were dismissed totally.

In 1919, several Chicago White Sox ballplayers approached Rothstein, through former featherweight champion Abe Attell, about fixing that year's baseball World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. It's not clear whether Rothstein actually bankrolled the fix, or turned them down completely. But what is clear is that Rothstein bet $60,000 on the Reds and pocketed a cool $270,000.

In 1928, the wear and tear of all his dealings and double-dealing had an effect on Rothstein. He started to lose more often than he won at cards. His downfall started when he got involved in a marathon poker game that began at the Park Central Hotel on September 8, and ended on September 12. Among the gamblers involved were Nate Raymond and Titanic Thomson. When the dust settled, Rothstein had lost $320,000 to Raymond and Thomson, which he refused to pay, because he claimed the game was fixed.

On November 4, 1928, Rothstein was eating at Lindy's, when he received a phone call, requesting his presence at the Park Central Hotel to discuss the payment of his gambling debt. Before he left Lindy's, he told the waitress, "I don't pay off on fixed poker." Because guns are not allowed at such meetings, he gave his gun to an associate.

Hour later, the Park Central doorman found Rothstein slumped over a banister in the hotel. "Please call a taxi," Rothstein told the doorman. "I've been shot."

Rothstein was taken to the Polyclinic Hospital with a bullet in his gut. When the police asked him who had shot him, Rothstein replied, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

Rothstein fell in and out of delirium for several days. One afternoon, his estranged wife came to see him. He told her, "I want to go home. All I do is sleep here. I can sleep at home." He died a few hours later at the age of 46. No one was ever arrested for his murder.

Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein's funeral was attended by every card-shark and gangster in town. Lucky Luciano said later about Rothstein, "He taught me how to dress. He taught me how not to wear loud things, how to have taste. If Arnold had lived longer, he could have made me real elegant."

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Boss Tweed — The Most Crooked Politician in New York City's History

 

William "Boss" Tweed was so outlandishly a crooked politician, what he did in elected office in New York City was almost too devilish to believe. He stole so much cash from the New York City coffers, by 1870, Tweed had become the third largest land owner in the entire city.

William Tweed, a third generation Scottish-Irishman, was born on April 3, 1823 at 24 Cherry Street on the Lower East Side. His father was a chair maker and the young Tweed tired to follow in his father's footsteps, but the lure of the streets was too much for him to overcome. He ran with a motley crew of juvenile delinquents called the "Cherry Street Gang," who wrecked havoc on local merchants, by stealing their wares and selling them on the street's black market. Soon Tweed became boss of the "Cherry Hill Gang," and he (as did most gang members of that day) joined various volunteer fire companies, which were a springboard for men with big political ambitions. Tweed helped found American Fire Engine Company No. 6, which was called the Big Six. During his time in the volunteer fire business, Tweed forged friendships with people of all ancestries; Irish, Scottish, Germans, anyone who could help him climb the ladder of public services, with only one thing in mind, steal often and steal big.

In 1850, Tweed ran unsuccessfully for assistant alderman on the Democratic ticket. But a year later was elected alderman, a non-paying job, but with unlimited power for anyone smart enough and crooked enough to take advantage of its perks. Just scant weeks after he became an alderman, Tweed brokered a deal to buy land on Wards Island for a new potters field. The asking price was $30,000, but Tweed paid $103,450 of the city's money for the land, then split the difference between himself and several other elected civic-minded officials.

In 1855, Tweed was elected to the city board of elections, which was another cash cow for the greedy Tweed. He sold city textbooks for his own profit and sold teacher's jobs to whomever had the money to buy one. In once instance, he peddled a teacher's position to a crippled schoolmarm for $75, even though the job only paid $300 a year. In 1857, Tweed was appointed to the New York County Board of Supervisors, which propelled Tweed into a much more profitable form of thievery. He formed what was known as the "Tweed Ring," which was nothing more than Tweed and his buddies controlling every job and work permit in the entire city of New York. Every contractor, artisan and merchant, who wanted to do business with the city, had to cough up cash, and they coughed up plenty. It is estimated that Tweed's board of supervisors pocketed 15% of every dollar spent on construction in New York City.

Concerning Tweed and his cronies, American lawyer and diarist George Templeton Strong wrote in 1860, "Our city government is rotten to the core."

By 1865, Tweed's wealth had grown to impressive proportions, as did his girth. Standing 5 feet 11 inches, Tweed's weight ballooned to 320 pounds. His reputation for eating was legendary and he consumed enormous amounts of the finest foods. He floundered around town like a whale out of water, with a huge diamond stuck right in the middle of his fancy shirt, flouting his tremendous wealth.

It is estimated, from 1865 to 1871, Tweed's gang stole as much as 200 million dollars from the New York City treasury. They did this by over-billing the city for everything imaginable. They paid out of the city's coffers $10,000 for $75 worth of pencils; $171,000 for $4,000 worth of tables and chairs, and $1,826,000 for the plastering of a municipal building that cost only $50,000 to plaster. Tweed also gave citizenship to over 60,000 immigrant, none of whom could read or write, but who could vote for Tweed and his cohorts on election day.

Tweed's downfall began on December 25, 1869, when Harper's Weekly published a cartoon of Tweed and his gang breaking into a huge box, with the caption "Taxpayers' and Tenants' Hard Cash." Upon seeing the cartoon, Tweeds reportedly said, "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures!"

With the pressure mounting to unveil the extent of Tweed's corruption, a blue ribbon panel, headed by future Presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden, was formed to investigate New York City's financial documents. When the books were checked, it was discovered that money had gone directly from city contractors into Tweed's pocket. The next day, Boss Tweed was arrested.

His first trial, in January 1873, ended in a hung jury — a jury many people thought was bought by Tweed's money. But in November of that same year, Tweed was convicted on 204 out of 220 counts and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He was incarcerated at the Ludlow Street Jail, but was allowed home visits. During one such visit, Tweed fled the country and traveled to Spain, where he worked as a seaman on a commercial ship. He was recognized, because his picture was frequently in the newspapers, and returned to America. He again was imprisoned at the Ludlow Street Jail; this time with no home visits allowed.

On April 12, 1878, Boss Tweed died in the Ludlow Street Jail from a severe case of pneumonia. He was buried in Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery, and due to Tweed's outlandish treachery, New York Mayor Smith Ely would not allow the City Hall flag to be flown at half staff in Tweed's memory.

No one could account for what became of Boss Tweed's vast amounts of ill-gotten gains, since there were no reports of a Wells Fargo stagecoach following his horse-drawn hearse.

Local Mob Author Reflects on Life, Time in Sarasota

 

"When you're from up north, especially a New Yorker, you're an outsider [here] … I'm the only guy in Sarasota with a baseball bat near every door," said author Joe Bruno.

By Marc Maturo | Email the author | 1:19am

 

Joe Bruno is perhaps one of the most direct people I know. When he speaks his mind, you know precisely where he stands – just as he has done for many years in epistolary fashion with a local newspaper columnist.

This should not be surprising perhaps for a transplanted New Yorker who, he clearly recalls, was ripped from the outset for his accent. Ripped or not, the former parking lot owner and writer hosted his own radio show—"In the Know with Joltin' Joe — on WQSA (1220) from 4 p.m.-6 p.m. each day. He did that for about two years without a co-host. "That wasn't easy — and I can talk," Joe noted, with an obvious  but unintended understatement.

One of his early guests was an 11- or 12-year-old Russian tennis player, Maria Sharapova, who was taking boxing lessons for her conditioning on the advice of Floridian Harold Wilen.

Bruno – who served in Vietnam aboard the USS Constellation in the Gulf of Tonkin — also sold commercial real estate as well (bars and restaurants) and kept writing, kept writing and kept writing.

Bruno's latest novel, Find Big Fat Fanny Fast, is the second he has had published; the other is Angel of Death.

So, Joe, can we now call you a novelist? To which the 63-year-old Atkins diet proponent – he works out five days a week at Lifestyle Gym – bellowed in his patented staccato-like manner: "Novelist! I've been a novelist for 30 years! I had two in the 80′s, but didn't get published; you don't have to be published to be a writer."

Bruno relocated to Sarasota in 1995 following the breakup of his marriage to be near his children Nancy Cason, an associate at the Ringling Blvd. law firm of Syprett, Mishad, Resnick and Lieb; and his son Joe Jr., a preacher with the Church of Christ in Charlotte, N.C. – "Can you imagine this!" Bruno the Elder exclaims, himself in amazement.

Bruno had met a gal named Jeanie in 1988 and, lo and behold, they formally tied the knot this past April.

"Now they can say, Joe Bruno finally did the right thing," Bruno pontificated.

But, Bruno still feels like an outsider. "Accepted? Yeah – no," he says. "Not really. When I sold bars and restaurants I was out almost every night. What abuse I took. When you're from up north, especially a New Yorker, you're an outsider. I hide in my house. I'm the only guy in Sarasota with a baseball bat near every door."

On  a sign attached to his front door are various messages. Among them:

Don't knock unless you are leaving a package.

If you knock, I won't be very happy.

If you want a friend, get a dog.

"Even the post office is afraid to knock on my door. Let's face it I'm a fish out of water. I've been here 15 years and never met anyone from New York City … just one guy from Brooklyn. I have one good friend and he's not from Sarasota, he's from Scotland.  He lives outside London now. He comes here on a visa; comes after Thanksgiving and stays six months. He was the best man at my wedding and I can't understand a word he says."

What then, would keep Joe the Patriot here in Florida despite the drawbacks, perceived or otherwise.

"Where am I going to go?" asks the Patriot, who spent his pre-Sarasota  years in New York at Knickerbocker Village on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. "It's like paradise here. I have a house with a pool. I'm 63 now, can't drink every night and my wife works. I have four dogs, one cat and a bird. We have to take separate vacations because someone has to watch the animals.

"They're going to have to carry me out of this house in a box. If I was younger, I'd be back in New York. But if I went back, it would cost me $4,000 a month for two bedrooms. And at my age, No. 1, the cold is no good for me; No. 2 it's paradise (here). The only problem is, all my friends, my real friends are in New York. "

Although he's "still a maniac in a cage," – his own words – Bruno keeps pounding the keyboard, producing 800-word essays on American mobsters, dating back to 1825. One book of excerpts is his next project, and then two more volumes will focus on New York. (Access http://joebrunoonthemob.wordpress.com.)

"Another book I'll be doing will be on 'rats', informers — you know, like Sammy The Bull (Gravano)," Bruno rattles on, relentlessly. "I'm tied up with book deals for the next five years, and I have a screenplay that will be turned into a novel."

And with that, abruptly, the stream of consciousness ends. "Got enough?  If you need more, let me know."

The print version of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast is available at: https://www.createspace.com/3494622 ?.

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Harry Strauss, a.k.a. Pittsburgh Phil – Murder Incorporated's Top Hit Man

 

Harry Strauss, who called himself Pittsburgh Phil, was the most cold-blooded killer our country has ever seen. Strauss started out as a small-time hood in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and he was soon famous for being an efficient contract killer, who never carried a weapon unless he was "on a job." Strauss, who had never been to Pittsburgh in his life (he just liked the name), was called "Pep" by his homicidal associates. He liked committing murder so much (it was reported he killed anywhere from one hundred to five hundred people), he often volunteered for murder contracts because, as Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer once said, "just for the lust to kill."

Strauss was so good at his "job," other big-time mobsters began to take notice. Strauss explained, "Like a ballplayer, that's me. I figure I get my seasoning doing these jobs. Someone from one of those big mobs spots me. Then, up to the Big Leagues."

Which is exactly what eventually happened. In the early 1930′s, Strauss caught the eye of Louie "Lepke" Buchalter, who had just formed his group of trained contract killers called Murder Incorporated. Strauss was invited into the "Big Leagues," and soon Strauss' murder output exceeded those of Murder Incorporated's next two most prolific killers, Happy Maione and Abe Relles, combined. When an out-of-town contract was required, it was almost always Strauss who was requested. When those occasions arose, Strauss packed a bag with a shirt, change of socks, underwear, a gun, length of rope and an ice pick, just in case. Most times, Strauss didn't even know the name of the man whom he had killed, and didn't care anyway. Still, Strauss sometimes got copies of the newspaper of the city in which he had recently finished a contract, just to admire the efficiency of his handiwork.

As proficient as he was at killing, Strauss was just as good in the art of seducing members of the opposite sex. Tall, dark and handsome, Strauss wore $60 suits, which in the time of the Depression, was a kingly sum. Once, while he was in a lineup at a local police station, New York City Police Commission Lewis Valentine remarked, "Look at him! He's the best dressed man in the room and he's never worked a day in his life." Strauss had a steamy love affair with Brooklyn beauty Evelyn Middleman, who was called "The Kiss of Death," because in order to win her affections, Strauss had to murder her former boyfriend.

Once, during the course of a hit, when Strauss was injured himself, and as a result, he made his victim's death all the more gruesome. One night, Strauss and a few of his confederates lured Puggy Feinstein into a Brooklyn home and Strauss commenced stabbing Feinstein numerous times with an icepick. But Feinstein would not go away easily and he bit down hard on Strauss' pinkie finger, almost severing the mangled digit. "Give me a rope. I'll fix this bum," Strauss said. With the help of his pals, Strauss formed a nose with the rope and put it around Feinstein's neck. He tied the other end of the rope around Feinstein's feet, trussing him up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Then they gleefully watched, as Feinstein struggled frantically, slowly strangling himself to death.

After Feinstein took his last breath, they dragged him to a nearby vacant lot and used his body to start a barn fire. They resisted the urge to roast marshmallows and instead, absconded to a Sheepshead Bay restaurant to celebrate. While the boys were chowing down their hardy meal, Strauss was none too happy. When asked what was wrong, Strauss said, "Maybe I'm getting lockjaw from being bit." He hardly finished his lobster dinner.

Not all of Strauss' contact hits went according to plan. Once he was summoned down to Jacksonville, Florida to do a "piece of work," for the local mob boss. His contact in Jacksonville took Strauss to the mark's house and told him the hit would be an easy one, because the man left his home every day at exactly the same time. But Strauss didn't like the set-up. The target's house was on a busy two-way street corner and there was no expert wheelman, or even a getaway car, to flee the scene after the deed was done. So Strauss decided to follow the mark, and that he did, first to a busy restaurant, then to a nearby movie house. When Strauss entered the movie house, he was happy to see that his man had taken a seat in the back row, all by himself. Strauss was then overjoyed, when he looked to his right and spotted an ax in a glass case, with the sign under it saying, "To be used in case of a fire." Strauss felt as if the ax had been placed there by the hand of God.

Strauss took the ax from its case and slowly made his way to where his mark was sitting, when suddenly, a lady stood up from one of the front row seats and exited the movie house. Strauss' intended target immediately jumped to his feet and hurried to the empty seat up front. Convinced this job was jinxed, Strauss put the ax back into its case and exited the movie house. He went back to his hotel, packed quickly, headed for the airport and hightailed it back to Brooklyn. He explained to his confederates why the hit went awry.

"Those Florida jerks wanted me to do a cowboy job," Strauss said. "And then just when I go set him up properly, the bum turns out to be a God-damned chair-hopper."

Speaking of chairs, after Abe Reles squealed to the cops on his confederates at Murder Incorporated, on June 12, 1941, Strauss was given the chair himself; the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, at exactly 11:06 pm Eastern Standard Time, thereby elevating Strauss from the Big Leagues, to the Posthumous Hit Man Hall of Fame.

 

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Abe Wagner – Whacked By Murder Incorporated

 

Abe Wagner was a lower East side thug/bootlegger who fashioned himself as the quintessential Jewish hood, the new "Kid Dropper," he told people; Dropper being a tough New York City Jewish gang leader who had bought the ranch himself in 1923. Wagner thought he such a tough guy, he once roughed up the son of Italian mob kingpin Joe "The Boss" Masseria, then told the kid to go home and show his old man what Abe Wagner had done. Luckily for Wagner, Masseria was gunned down before he could avenge his son's indignity.

Wagner and his brother Allie were making a nice living in the bootlegging business on the Lower East Side, when the upstart Mazza gang decided to move in on them and take over their operations. On February 20, 1932, Wagner was riding down Suffolk street in his brand new car. As Wagner was weaving slowly past the numerous street pushcarts, a half a dozen shooters appeared from out of nowhere and opened fire. As his car was being shot into swiss cheese, Wagner was somehow able to roll out the passengers door, then escape by dashing though the crowded street.

Not being the bravest of souls like he claimed, Wagner decided to make peace with his enemies. He sent his partner Harry Brown and brother Albie to the Mazza gang's headquarters at the Hatfield Hotel on the Upper East Side. "See if you can pay them off," Wagner said. The two men arrived at the Hatfield Hotel with a large sum of money. The Mazza's accepted the cash, but then shot Albie Wagner dead, leaving Harry Brown alive, so he could deliver the message to Abe Wagner, that no peace could be made until old Abe was dead too.

Wagner's mother Paulie was mortified her youngest son Albie was murdered and didn't want the same fate to befall Abe. "Take Goldie (Abe's wife) and go away someplace for awhile," Mama Wagner told her son. "Go now so I won't worry. Hurry."

Wagner did as his mother said and quickly left town. A month later, the Lindberg baby was abducted in Hopewell, New Jersey, and Wagner immediately came under suspicion. "We have a tip that Wagner was seen in the vicinity of Hopewell about a month before the kidnapping," said Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf, head of the New Jersey state police.

The cops couldn't find Wagner, but the Mazza Gang, now aligned with Lucky Luciano, had scores of eyes and eyes and feet on the ground throughout the country, and they put this apparatus into motion. After Wagner laid low with his wife in various out-of-town locations, he decided to sneak back into New York City to see his mom. He was in his mother's apartment for a few hours, when word got back to Mama Wagner that her son had been spotted. "Go quick," she said. "Don't wait."

Wagner picked up his wife and hightailed it out west, stopping at St. Paul, Minnesota. He changed his identity to Abe Loeb, and decided to get into the fruit selling business. In weeks, the Mazza Gang had located Wagner, and Luciano contacted his old pals Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, who along with Louie "Lepke" Buchalter, had formed a neat business called Murder Incorporated, which was comprised of a nasty bunch of contract killers for hire. They dispatched two of their best men, Joseph Shaefer and George Young, out to St. Paul to push the button on Wagner. Both men were on the lam already, for killing federal agent John J. Finiello, during a raid two years earlier on an Elizabeth, New Jersey, illegal brewery. Both men also knew St. Paul intimately, since it was one of their hideouts during their two years on the run.

On July 25, 1932, Wagner and his new parter Al Gordon, left a drug store on University Avenue after having a prescription filled. They were followed by Schaefer and Young, who were riding in a dark green Packard. Suddenly, the hit men jumped out of the car and began firing. Gordon was killed instantly, but Wagner was only wounded. He ran for his life down University Avenue, then turned onto Snelling Avenue. The gunmen caught up with Wagner as he ran into the Green Dragon Restaurant. There, in front of witnesses, they shot him six times, then beat him over the head with their gun butts for good measure. Wagner died hours later at Ancker Hospital and the gunmen were arrested by a passing patrolman minutes later on Roy Street. The were tried and convicted, and sentenced to life in prison, despite the attempts of Lansky and Siegel, who spent thousands of dollars to help them avoid the death sentence.

The dead "Loeb" was not identified by the St. Paul police as the fugitive Wagner. As a result, on the following Thursday, Mama Wagner held a "press conference" in her apartment on Rutgers Street. She told the newspapermen, "My boy Alie was murdered in St. Paul last Monday. The same murderers killed him as killed my Allie here. I knew they would. But why? Why? My boy was always so good to me."

As proof of her son's murder, she produced a telegram from Wagner's wife Goldie, asking her to wire twenty five dollars so she could transport Wagner back to New York for a proper burial. "That was all the money I had," Mama Wagner said. "If it wasn't my son, why would I have the telegram?"

Joe Bruno on the Mob – Louis Pioggi (Louie the Lump)– The Man Who Killed Kid Twist

 

Louis Pioggi, affectionately called Louie the Lump, was a diminutive and dapper Italian Five Point Gang member, who thrust himself into the spotlight one starry night in Coney Island, when he snuffed the life out of Kind Twist, the boss of the former Monk Eastman Jewish Lower East Side gang. Twist's gang and the Five Pointers were in a constant battle for the Lower East Side rackets, and under Twist's reign, his gang had made great inroads into the Five Pointer's territory. The ire was so great between both gangs, they made the Hatfields and the McCoys seem like choir boys singing in a church.

Born in 1889 on the Lower East Side, Pioggi was basically a footnote in the history of the American gangster. He was a small timer, who as fate would have it, fell in love with the same dance hall girl, the more illustrious Kid Twist ( Maxwell Zwerbach) was seeing on the side.

It was the custom at the start of the 20th Century for gangsters who had more than a few bucks in their pockets, to break free from the dumps and dives on the Lower East Side and "go out on the town," to the wondrous expanses of Coney Island in Brooklyn. On May, 14, 1908, Pioggi took a trip out to Coney to see Carroll Terry, a gorgeous Coney Island dance hall girl. who was the regular squeeze of Twist's. Unknown to Pioggi, Twist was also in Coney Island to see Miss Terry, and was accompanied by his bodyguard Cyclone Louie, real name Vach Lewis. Cyclone Louie was a killer for Twist, but was better known as a Coney Island circus strongman, who bent large pieces steel around his neck for a living.

Pioggi went to the dance hall Terry worked in and enticed her to have a few dances with him, which was her job anyway. Pioggi became hopelessly lovesick and before he left, he begged Terry to promise him she'd comeback to New York City with him after her shift ended. Saying anything to get rid of Pioggi, Terry said she would, but only if Pioggi left at once, so she could do her job without his undue interference.

The real reason Terry gave Pioggi the bum's rush was because she expected to see Kid Twist shorty. And that she did, when just moments after Pioggi left, Twist and Cyclone Louie made their grand entrance. She joined them at a table and after a few drinks, her lips loosened and she told Twist about Pioggi's amorous advances. Soon after, Pioggi returned to the dance hall and he saw Twist holding hands with Terry, and Cyclone Louie standing guard. Knowing he had been had, Pioggi wandered into into a dive on Surf Avenue to drown his sorrows on the second floor of the saloon. Minutes later, Twist and Cyclone Louie burst into the saloon and confronted Pioggi.

"I just seen Carroll," Twist said. "And she said youse in the biggest bum she knows. So she says you are an active cuss, always jumpin' around. Let's see how active youse is." Twist pointed to the open window. "Take a jump out of the window."

Now Pioggi was in no mood for the twenty-five-foot dive, but when Twist made a move for the revolver in his belt, Pioggi quickly jumped out of the window. He landed on all fours and later found out his had fractured his ankle. Pioggi limped to a telephone and called Paul Kelly, the boss of the Five Points gang. Pioggi told Kelly what had transpired concerning Kid Twist.

"I've got to cook him," Pioggi told Kelly.

Kelly agreed with Pioggi's assessment. "Sure you got to cook him," Kelly said. "I'll send a fleet down. When my boys get there you get these bums in the street and open up with your cannons."

Kelly's boys arrived an hour later and when they did, they saw Twist and Cyclone Louie having a grand old time in Terry's dance hall, laughing and talking loudly about Pioggi's daring dive. Terry had vacated the premises for a while and was nowhere to be seen. Pioggi sent a kid inside with a note telling Twist that Terry was waiting for him outside. As soon as they made it to the sidewalk, Twist head a voice call him from the side. "Over this way Kid," Pioggi yelled. Before Twist could react, Pioggi put one in his head, killing him instantly. Cyclone Louie stood with his mouth open for a second, then he started to run. Pioggi and the Five Pointers chased him, pumping bullets at a dazzling rate. Finally, shot five times in the chest and back, Cyclone Louie fell dead as a rock to the pavement.

Pioggi, still outraged, refused to stop shooting. As luck would have it, Terry showed up seconds later, and just for the fun of it, Pioggi pumped a slug into her hip. Terry fell on top of the dead Twist, but lived to dance another day. As Pioggi jumped into a getaway car, a cop showed up at the scene. Pioggi fired again. This bullet knocked the cop's helmet right off his head, but otherwise did him no damage.

Pioggi made his getaway and went into hiding, while Kelly contacted Tammany Hall, to see if he could negotiate Pioggi a favorable deal.

A few days later, Pioggi turned himself in and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He also testified that he had acted completely alone, which was quite disingenuous of him, since scores of people had seen the Coney Island executions.

Pioggi was sentenced to eleven months in Elmira State Prison. He left the courthouse sneering. "What's eleven months?" Pioggi said. "I could do that standin' on me head."