Louis Buchalter
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Louis "Lepke" Buchalter (12 February 1897 - 4 March 1944) was a major Jewish American mobster of the 1930s. He is the only major mob boss to ever have been executed by state or federal authorities for his crimes.
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[edit] Early career
Born in 1897 to Eastern European Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Buchalter took on the nickname "Lepke" at an early age. The name was an abridgement of the affectionate diminutive "Lepkeleh" ("Little Louis" in Yiddish) his mother had called him when he was a small boy. As a boy, Lepke began his liftime of crime by stealing from pushcarts and stores in his neighborhood. By 1919, at the age of only 22, he had already served two prison terms.
Upon his release, he teamed up with his childhood friend, Jacob Shapiro ("Gurrah"), gradually gaining control of the garment industry unions on the Lower East Side. He used the unions to threaten strikes and demand weekly payments from factory owners while simultaneously dipping into union bank accounts. His control of the unions later evolved into a general protection racket, extending into such areas as bakery trucking. The unions were an extremely profitable venture for him, and he kept an iron grip on them even after becoming a big-time player in the mob.
[edit] Establishes alliances
In the early 1930s, Luciano, Buchalter, and Johnny Torrio (the former Chicago boss and mentor of Al Capone) formed a loose alliance. To take care of any "problems" that arose, Luciano's associates Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky formed Murder, Inc. Originally a band of Brooklyn killers of mostly Jewish origin, they were highly effective and eventually used to fulfill most murder "contracts." Control of the group soon passed to Buchalter and Albert Anastasia, as Siegel and Lansky had larger concerns to deal with. Murder, Inc., the name given to it by the media in the 1940s, was credited with carrying out numerous contract killings throughout the country, including the slaying of Dutch Schultz.
[edit] The bloodiest one of all
Buchalter was probably the bloodiest Jewish gangster of all time. He was adept at commanding others to murder for him, ordering assassinations on the phone from his grandmother's house without so much as batting an eye.[citation needed] As many as a hundred corpses have been attributed to Buchalter himself; those under his control may have slain a thousand more nationwide. Some of the more notorious hitmen at Buchalter's disposal included Abe Reles, Seymour Magoon, Frank Abbandando, Harry Maione, Albert Tannenbaum, and the especially brutal Harry Strauss (known as "Pittsburgh Phil," despite his having no known connection to that city).
The rubout of Dutch Schultz on 23 October 1935 was a major killing for the group, as was the murder of Louis Amberg the same day. Buchalter naturally attracted a lot of attention from the FBI during the early 1930s, but thanks to bribed federal judges and other friends in high places, Buchalter got off scot-free every time.[citation needed]
[edit] Downfall
Buchalter's downfall began in the mid-1930s when he went on the run from both the FBI, who wanted to nail him on a narcotics charge, and from New York City special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who wanted him put away for his Syndicate activities. He was tricked by a childhood friend into surrendering to the federal government in exchange for his not being turned over to Dewey. Lepke ended up being incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas on a 14-year term for narcotics trafficking. The sentence was later extended to 30 years on account of Buchalter's involvement in union racketeering.
Even more serious legal problems and consequences loomed on the horizon for Lepke in 1940. That year, the state of New York indicted him for a murder committed over four years earlier, on 13 September 1936. On that early Sunday morning, a crew of Murder, Inc. killers, acting on Lepke's orders, had gunned down Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen. Rosen was a former garment industry trucker whom Lepke had forced out of business. He had aroused Lepke's ire by failing to heed Lepke's warnings to keep quiet and leave town. Rosen then signed his own death warrant when he began threatening to expose Lepke and his vast crime operations to special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey.
Lepke's order for the Rosen hit had been overheard by Abe Reles, who turned informant for New York State in 1940 and fingered Buchalter for four murders. Brought back from from Leavenworth to Brooklyn to stand trial for the Rosen slaying, Buchalter's position was worsened by the testimony of another turncoat, Albert Tannenbaum. A mere four hours after they were handed the case, the jury arrived at a verdict at 2 a.m. on November 30, 1941, finding Buchalter guilty of murder in the first degree. The penalty at the time for such a crime in the state of New York was death by electrocution. Also convicted and sentenced to die for the same crime were two of Lepke's lieutenants who had participated in the planning and carrying out of the Rosen murder, Emanuel Weiss, and Louis Capone (no relation to Al).
[edit] Conviction
Buchalter's conviction took place in December 1941, and the New York State Court of Appeals, upon review of his case, upheld his conviction and death sentence in October 1942. At the time, Buchalter was serving out his racketeering sentence at Leavenworth, and New York state authorities demanded that he be turned over to them for execution. The gangster put up a valiant fight, calling in favors from friends in the Department of Justice and the courts, and managed to remain in Kansas and out of New York's hands until January 1944.
[edit] In popular culture
The 1975 film Lepke, starring Tony Curtis, was based on his life story. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he would also be portrayed by David J. Stewart in the 1960 film Murder Inc., Gene Roth and Joseph Ruskin in The Untouchables as well as John Vivyan and Shepherd Sanders in The Lawless Years tv series. Other portayals include the 1981 film Gangster Wars by Ron Max.
Robert Lowell's seminal poetry collection Life Studies (1959) contains the poem "Memories of West Street and Lepke" , supposedly recording the poet seeing Lepke while in prison.
[edit] Further reading
- Messick, Hank. Lansky. London: Robert Hale & Company, 1973. ISBN 0-7091-3966-7
- Kavieff, Paul R. The Life and Times of Lepke Buchalter: America's Most Ruthless Labor Racketeer, Barricade Books, 2006. ISBN 1-56980-291-2
[edit] External links
- The Last Days of Lepke Buchalter by Allan May
- Louis Buchalter at Encyclopædia Britannica
- Spartacus Educational: Louis Lepke
- Louis Lepke at Virtualology.com
- Lepke, 2 Pals Die In Chair At Sing Sing
- Federal Bureau of Investigation - Freedom of Information Privacy Act - Reading Room: Louis "Lepke" Buchalter
- Louis "Lepke" Buchalter at FindAGrave.com
- Louis "Lepke" Buchalter from Ron Arons' lecture "The Jews of Sing Sing"
- Louis "Lepke" Buchalter surrenders to J. Edgar Hoover
