Jake Guzik
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Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik (May 20, 1886-February 21, 1956) was the financial and legal advisor, and later political “fixer”, for the Chicago Outfit.
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[edit] Early life
Born in Moscow, Russia (although other sources state near Kraków, Poland) on May 20, 1886, Guzik immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. He later became involved in prostitution, and allegedly white slavery, in the South Side's Levee vice district with his brother Harry Guzik eventually driving rival Jack Zuta out of business. He later became a powerful political "fixer" operating from St. Hubert’s Old English Grill and Chop House; Guzik received bagmen who delivered scheduled payoffs to various police precincts and city officials.
[edit] Chicago Outfit
In the early 1920s Guzik, supposedly hearing a plan to murder Al Capone, informed him and later allied with the Chicago Outfit. On May 8, 1924 Capone personally killed gang member and hijacker Joe Howard in a saloon on South Wabash Avenue after he had assaulted Guzik. Guzik continued to act as a bagman for the Chicago Outfit until April 1930 when Guzik and Ralph "Bottles" Capone, brother of Al Capone, were convicted of tax evasion. Guzik himself, found to have earned over $1 million, was charged with paying only $225,000. In October Judge John H. Lyle issued arrest warrants for twenty-six gangsters, including Guzik, charging them with vagrancy. Guzik's defense claimed he was a horse player and, as proof he was an honest citizen, noted that he was living less than a block away from the state attorney. Guzik was later sentenced to five years imprisonment.
[edit] Later years
Upon his release Guzik assumed total control over the Chicago Outfit's finances for the next twenty years as a high ranking member of the Chicago Outfit, representing the Chicago crime syndicate in the Mafia Commission known as the "Big Six", until his death from a heart attack on February 21, 1956.
His only surviving American relatives, Marian Guzik (nephew) and Marian's daughter Wanda K. Guzik, live in Los Angeles, California. The rest of his family lives in Poland, France, Germany,Central and South America.
[edit] Further reading
- Binder, John. The Chicago Outfit. Arcadia Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7385-2326-7
- Johnson, Curt and R. Craig Sautter. The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. ISBN 0-306-80821-8
- Reppetto, Thomas A. American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2004. ISBN 0-8050-7798-7
[edit] References
- Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
- Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
- Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2001. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0
