Downfall
Buchalter's downfall began in the mid-1930s, when he went underground to elude the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which wanted him on a narcotics charge, and New York City special prosecutor Thomas Dewey, who wanted him tried for Syndicate activities. He surrendered to the federal government in exchange for not being turned over to Dewey. An urban legend spread that he surrendered to both columnist Walter Winchell and FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. Buchalter was sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas for 14 years for narcotics trafficking. After he was convicted on the narcotics trafficking charges, Buchalter was turned over to Thomas Dewey on racketeering charges, which resulted in a sentence of 30 years to life.
Even more serious legal problems and consequences followed in 1940. The state of New York indicted him for a murder committed four years earlier, on September 13, 1936. On that day, Murder Inc. killers, acting on Buchalter's orders, gunned down a Brooklyn candy store owner named Joseph Rosen. Rosen was a former garment industry trucker whose union Buchalter took over in exchange for ownership of a Sutter Avenue candy store. Rosen had aroused Buchalter's ire by failing to heed warnings to leave town. Although no proof exists that Rosen was cooperating with the District Attorney, Buchalter nevertheless believed it to be true.
Buchalter's order for the Rosen hit had been overheard by Abe Reles, who turned state's evidence in 1940 and implicated Buchalter in four murders. Returned from Leavenworth to Brooklyn to stand trial for the Rosen slaying, Buchalter's position was worsened by the testimony of Albert Tannenbaum. Four hours after they were handed the case, the jury arrived at a verdict at 2 am on November 30, 1941, finding Buchalter guilty of first degree murder, the penalty for which was death by electrocution. Also convicted and sentenced to death for the same crime were two of Buchalter's lieutenants who had participated in the planning and commission of the Rosen murder, Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss, and Louis Capone (no relation to Al Capone).
Read more about this topic: Louis Buchalter
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the hearts drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)