Rangers Alternate Jersey, Dewey, Thomas E. - Special Prosecutor From Hell
He was a mean-spirited runt; a little man with a large mustache that seemed to dominate his snarling face. But liberal Republican Thomas E. Dewey, a man who made his bones as a Special Prosecutor in New York City and who would stop at nothing to further his skyrocketing career, was just an eyelash away from becoming the President of the United States.
Dewey was born on March 24, 1902 in the little town of Owosso, Michigan. Dewey\'s father was the editor and publisher of the local newspaper -- the Owosso Times. Dewey senior\'s mission in life was to right the wrongs of the political world, especially the tyranny of Tammany Hall, a corrupt Democratic political machine, based in New York City, but with tentacles all around America. Dewey Jr. admired his father\'s zeal, and it was this that later motivated Dewey to go after organized crime figures in New York City, with a vengeance that not always adhered to the letter of the law.
But first Dewey wanted to sing.
Dewey was a talented operatic baritone, and while he was attending the University of Michigan he joined the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a national fraternity for men of music. Dewey was also a member of the University of Michigan Men\'s Glee Club. Following in his father\'s footsteps, Dewey wrote for The Michigan Daily, the university\'s student newspaper. However, Dewey was better at singing than he was at writing, so much so, in 1923, Dewey finished third in the National Singing Contest. However, Dewey soon developed throat problems, and although he briefly considered a career in music, he changed his mind and opted to be a lawyer instead.
With his father\'s money, Dewey traveled to New York City and enrolled at the Columbia Law School. One of his classmates was the radical socialist/communist Paul Robeson, who became a singer and actor of some note, in between moving to and from the country he really loved - Russia. However, Dewey was no idealist like Robeson. After he graduated law school in just two years, Dewey decided to hang up his own shingle and go into private practice, which he did from 1925-31. In 1928, Dewey married actress Frances Hutt. After their marriage, Dewey\'s wife quit acting, and they eventually raised two sons: Thomas E. Dewey, Jr., and John Martin Dewey.
In 1931, Dewey was named chief assistant to George Medalie, and was given the official title of Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. This was the springboard Dewey needed to further a political carer that knew no boundaries, and counted heavily on legal improprieties.
In 1933, Dewey first major case was the prosecution of former pickpocket Irving Wexler, better known as Waxey Gordon. Gordon was a protégé of Arnold Rothstein, considered \"The Godfather\" of the modern gangster. In 1928, after Rothstein was killed over a large gambling debt, Gordon took over all of Rothstein\'s operations -- in the bootlegging, and in the gambling business. Gordon\'s partners in crime included such illustrious gangsters like Lucky Luciano, Louis \"Lepke\" Buchalter, Gurrah Shapiro, and Meyer Lansky. Even after cutting in his partners, Gordon was said to have made over $2 million a year in profits.
However, Gordon and Lansky hated each other, and after Dewey unsuccessfully tried to prosecute Gordon for his crimes, Lansky, with the blessing of Luciano and Buchalter, funneled information, including documentation to Dewey that showed that maybe Gordon was not paying his fair share of this income taxes. Using the same tactic the government had used against Al Capone, Dewey, now in the possession of books that said Gordon had hidden $5 million in taxable income over a ten-year period, lowered the hammer on Gordon. He cross-examined Gordon with such cruelty, spit was proverbially flying from Dewey\'s mouth and down his copious mustache. Gordon, basically an oaf with the mentally and vocabulary of a ten-year-old, was no match for Dewey on the witness stand. After the most one-side trial that could possibly occur, Gordon was slapped with a ten-year prison sentence.
Dewey next set his sights on Dutch Schultz.
By the time Dewey was ready to prosecute Schultz, it was alleged that District Attorney William C. Dodge was not aggressively going after the mob and crooked politicians, and there were plenty of both in New York City. In 1935, Dewey got a bump up in rank, when Governor Herbert H. Lehman, bypassing Dodge, appointed Dewey as Special Prosecutor in New York County (Manhattan). With the backing of Governor Lehman, Dewey assembled a crack staff of more than 60 assistants, investigators, process servers, stenographers, and clerks. New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia chipped in with 63 of his best police officers to the cause, and Dewey was on top of the prosecutorial world.
Dutch Schultz, born Arthur Flegenheimer on August 6, 1902, was the most visible mobster in New York City, but he was only one of the nine-member National Crime Commission, that included Italians gangsters Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello, as well as fellow Jewish members Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Louis \"Lepke\" Buchalter. During Prohibition, Schultz made millions in the sale of illegal beer, and was nicknamed \"The Beer Baron of the Bronx.\" In the early 1920\'s, Schultz bulldozed his way into the Harlem numbers rackets, pushing aside notable black number kings Madame Stephanie St. Clair, Bumpy Johnson, and Casper Holstein. Noted crime author and former cop Ralph Salerno once said, \"Schultz asked the black numbers to a meeting in his office. When they came in, Schultz put his forty-five on the desk and said, \"I\'m your partner.\'\"
Holstein backed off quietly, but St. Clair, and her muscle Johnson, decided to fight back against Schultz. Johnson Rangers Alternate Jersey went as far as to visit Lucky Luciano downtown in Little Italy to plead his case. Luciano admired the spunk of Johnson, but he told Johnson that Schultz was his partner in other endeavors, and that he had to back his partner. Luciano advised Johnson to tell St. Clair it was in their best interest to work under Schultz in the Harlem numbers game. St. Clair refused at first, but after the word was put out on the Harlem streets that St. Clair was to be shot on sight, she agreed to Luciano\'s proposition.
Schultz also made a ton of cash taking bets on illegal sporting events. Schultz owned the Coney Island racetrack in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the daily Harlem number were used from the last three digits of the total mutual handle for the day. Schultz was able to manipulate those daily numbers by having his numbers wiz Otto \"Abbadabba\" Berman determine which three-digit numbers were bet heavily that day, then call the track before the last race to change the last three digits to numbers which were bet lightly, or maybe not at all. Schultz also had a vast array of illegal slot machines placed all over New York City, that pumped out cash like water gushing down Niagara Falls.
As much money as he had accumulated, Schultz dressed like a broken-down valise. Luciano once said of Schultz, \"He has all the money in the world, but he dresses like a bum.\"
Schultz claimed he never spent more than two dollars for a shirt in his life. \"Only queers wear silk shits,\" Schultz said.
The Feds had their first shot at Schultz, when they indicted him on income tax evasion. But the wily Schultz went into the wind for several months, and when he did turn himself in, his lawyer was somehow able to move the venue to the sleepy upstate town of Malone, New York. Schultz went to Malone months before the trial and gave out money to local worthy causes like he was the Salvation Army. Schultz, a non-practicing Jew, even converted to Catholicism in order to garner the support of the Malone locals, who were overwhelmingly Catholic. The trial was a slam dunk for Schultz, and he walked out of the Malone courtroom with a loopy smile on his face, a free man.
However, a prosecution ordered by the mighty Dewey was a different proposition for Schultz. When Schultz got word that Dewey had Schultz right in his cross hairs, Schultz called for an emergency meeting of the nine-man National Crime Commission. At this meeting Schultz said, \"Dewey will not stop until all of us Commission members are in jail.\" Schultz then slammed his hand on the table for emphasis, \"We have to take Dewey out!\"
The other commission members were skeptical of Schultz\'s demands. But they decided to table Schultz\'s request to see how easy it might be to gun Dewey down. They gave the chore to Albert Anastasia, a ruthless killer, and one of the bosses of Murder Incorporated. Anastasia was known on the streets as the \"Lord High Executioner.\" In order to clock Dewey\'s movements, Anastasia borrowed a baby from a friend for several days. Anastasia pushed the baby in a carriage around 214 Fifth Avenue, the posh apartment building where Dewey lived. As Anastasia strolled the streets pushing the baby carriage, he was able to ascertain Dewey\'s exact daily movements.
Dewey exited the apartment building at 8 a.m. sharp every weekday morning. Surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards, Dewey would walk a few blocks to a neighborhood drug store for his morning cup of coffee, and to make a phone call from a pay phone in back. While Dewey was alone in the back of the drug store, his men stood guard like mastiffs out front. Anastasia figured he could be waiting at the counter when Dewey entered, and kill him before he could reach the pay phone in back. Other Murder Incorporated killers would take care of Dewey\'s bodyguards in front of the drug store.
The following week, after Schultz was asked to leave the room, Anastasia presented his plan to the rest of the Commission. Even though the deed could possibly be done, it was decided that if they did kill Dewey, all hell would break loose on their rackets. The only one, besides Schultz, who voted for the hit was Gurrah Shapiro.
Manhattan D.A. Frank Hogan later said, \"I suppose they figured the National Guard would have been called out if Dewey was killed. And I guess they wouldn\'t have been far wrong.\"
When Schultz was called back into the room and told the bad news he exploded in rage. \"Dewey\'s got to go! I\'m hitting him myself in 48 hours.\"
This did not please the rest of the Commission members too much. They immediately decided that Schultz was the one who had to go.
Luciano and Lansky figured that since Schultz was Jewish, Jewish gangster were the proper choice in ending the life of a mob boss. Lansky decided to use two of Murder Incorporated\'s best men: Charlie \"The Bug\" Workman, and Mendy Weiss. The place for the hit was set to be Schultz\'s hangout -- The Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. A nobody named Piggy, who was familiar with the Newark streets, was selected to be the getaway driver.
On October 23, 1935, at approximately 10:15 pm, Piggy parked a dark sedan outside The Palace Chop House. Workman and Weiss exited the car, guns drawn. They entered the restaurant and found the front room empty, but there was lively chatter coming from the back room. When the killers entered the back room, they spotted Schultz\'s top men -- Lulu Rosenkrantz, Abe Landau, and Abbadabba Berman finishing the remains of their last supper. With blazing guns in both hands, Workman and Weiss opened fire. Landau and Rosenkrantz returned fire after they were hit, but were turned into swiss cheese and rendered quite dead.
\"It was like a Wild West show,\" Workman said later.
However, Dutch Schultz was nowhere to be found.
Workman emptied his.38, dropped it to the floor, then rushed with his.45 into the bathroom, where he found Schultz in a stall. Workman fired the.45 twice. Schultz ducked the first slug, but the second slug found its mark just below his chest. The bullet blasted through Schultz\'s stomach, large intestine, gall bladder, and liver, before falling on the floor next to him. Schultz was rushed to the hospital, and was in the state of delirium, taking utter nonsense, until he passed away Rangers Alternate Jersey the following evening.
Before Schultz died, a telegram was delivered to his death bed. It read, \"As ye reap, also shall ye sow.\" It was signed \"Madame St. Clair.\"
With Schultz out of the way, and Dewey still very much alive, Dewey turned his sights on the second most visible mobster in New York City: Charles \"Lucky\" Luciano.
Luciano was a high-ranking member on the National Crime Commission, and he metaphorically spat in Dewey\'s face by showing up almost every night in swank nightclubs all around town with a knockout broad on his arm. The problem was, Luciano, along with his close friend Meyer Lansky (who was a quiet homebody and didn\'t irk Dewey as much as Luciano did), were almost untouchable, because of the several layers of insulation they had placed between themselves and the crimes committed on the streets by their underlings. Plus, both Luciano and Lansky had several legitimate business interests, with savvy accountants, who made sure the proper amounts of taxes were paid to the government.
So what was Dewey to do?
Simple -- Rangers Alternate Jersey he would frame Luciano for one of the few crimes Luciano wasn\'t committing.
At the time, Luciano lived in a swank apartment (room 39D) at the Waldorf-Astoria under the name of Mr. Ross. Dewey was cutting a wide swath through New York City; first going after the gambling rackets, then setting his sights on prostitution. On January 31, 1936, Dewey order his men to raid more than 80 brothels, pick up every prostitute in sight (even ones walking the streets), arrest pimps of all colors and nationalities, and bring them one-by-one to his offices in the Woolworth Building. The broads were hardened hookers with colorful names like Sadie the Chink, Jennie the Factory, and Polack Francis. The pimps were low-level street hustlers who kicked up their money to mobsters, who in turn kicked it up the ladder, until some of it finally made its way into the hands of \"a Mr. Ross.\" All of the arrestees had one thing in common: they did not want to go to jail.
So even though Luciano detested prostitution and never had his fingers in its dirty pie, it was inevitable that some of the dough kicked up to him by his captains had sometimes originated in sex dens.
In mid 1936, spurred on by testimony of hooker and pimps who had never even met Luciano, Dewey ordered a warrant for Luciano\'s arrest on the charge of running a huge prostitution ring. Luciano, outraged at being charged with something he had nothing to do with, dodged the warrant by traveling down to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to a resort run by his old pal Owney \"The Killer\" Madden. After making untold millions in the rum running and gambling enterprises, Madden had retired from the rackets, and re-invented himself as a successful businessman and hotelier.
