The Beer Baron of New York
Schultz, born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, was a bootlegger and racketeer who tussled with the Mafia's Five Families, including Lucky Luciano and Irish mobsters. "The Beer Baron of New York" killed multiple people who stood in his way. He was arrested on tax evasion charges, partly due to FBI taps on his phones, though he was acquitted. He asked the Five Families for permission to kill US attorney Thomas Dewey. When they refused, he threatened to kill Dewey himself, and the Mafia, fearing law enforcement retribution over the killing of a prosecutor, arranged a hit on Shultz themselves. Shultz was shot on October 23, 1935, in the Palace Chop House restaurant bathroom and died two days later.
1931 Lincoln
Dutch Schultz Armored CarFlickrDutch Schultz Armored Car
Schultz owned a luxurious black 1931 Lincoln, armored with steel plates, seen here. After his death, the car passed through a variety of hands, including Al Capone and President Franklin Roosevelt. The car was never attacked, but after its purchase here the new owner decided to make the car more "gangster-like", brought the car out, and shot at it a few times with his pistol.Arthur Flegenheimer, better known by his moniker "Dutch Schultz", was a mobster who made his fortune bootlegging rum during Prohibition, followed by gambling and the restaurant racket afterwards. Schultz was known for his extreme brutality and the accumulation of a frightening body count of those opposed to him. By 1935 he was in open conflict with US attorney Thomas Dewey. Schultz was arrested, then freed (to the utter surprise of everyone) when he bribed the venue of his trial, but as Dewey continued to pursue he started hemorrhaging money and power.
According to legend, Schultz called an emergency meeting of the Mafia Commission for permission to kill Dewey. Worried that there would be immense law enforcement pressure on the Commission if such a popular public official was murdered, the members refused. Schultz was furious, blaming the commission for "feeding him to the law", and vowed to kill Dewey himself. After Schultz stormed off, the Commission agreed to kill Schulz to prevent the hit on Dewey. A few days later, Schultz was murdered at his chophouse headquarters by hit men from Murder Inc. while using the urinal.
Bootleggers, mobsters, and criminals were a signature staple of the 1920s and 1930s. One of them was a notorious mobster known as Dutch Schultz. Born Arthur Flegenheimer in the Bronx, New York, he turned to burglary and bootlegging-and later, murder-after his father abandoned his family.Arthur Flegenheimer
(Dutch Schultz)The first time he was arrested for burglary, he spent time in prison on Blackwell's Island, in New York City's East River. He proved to be too much for prison staff to handle and was transferred to a work farm from which he escaped; he was eventually re-captured and his sentence extended. When he returned to the streets, his old associates dubbed him Dutch Schultz-the name of a deceased strong-arm notorious for dirty fighting tactics.
The Prohibition era proved lucrative for gangsters and gave rise to the mafia families that dominated New York City for years. Schultz entered the ring, determined to make a name for himself. He created an enterprise, forming his own gang with a friend and fellow criminal, Joey Noe. Their business grew as they sold beer all over the Bronx, intimidating rival saloons into buying from them.
For Schultz, no tactics were off limit as he and Noe tried to "persuade" people to buy their beer. As the bootlegging business spread from the Bronx into Manhattan, there were territorial conflicts from rival mobsters such as Legs Diamond and Vincent Coll and their gangs, leading to significant bloodshed. Schultz won both of these conflicts, as members of his gang reportedly killed both Diamond and Coll. However, in the process, Noe was killed by Diamond's gang.
Schultz continued to build his enterprise, adding illegal gambling and tax evasion to his criminal resume. In 1933, he was indicted on a tax charges and spent months hiding out before surrendering in November 1934. The FBI's investigation of Schultz was related to this period during which he was a fugitive from justice. The Bureau pursued an investigation to learn who helped him evade capture.
In 1935, Schultz was tried twice for income tax evasion. The first case ended with a hung jury, and he was acquitted in the second one. In 1935, Schultz was again indicted, on different federal tax charges. He was able to avoid prosecution again, but not the reach of his fellow mobsters, who attacked him on the night of October 23, 1935. Schultz and four of his associates were shot at Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. Schultz died the next day.
Shortly before his death, he gave a rambling statement to the authorities, but he never named his killer. At the time, it was thought Schultz was killed in a turf battle with other New York organized crime groups, but historians later learned that Schultz had tried to take a hit out on Thomas E. Dewey, the special prosecutor who pursued him. However, the recently formed Mafia Commission declined to approve Dewey's murder as the prosecutor was a very public figure and his death would not go unnoticed.
Arthur "Dutch Schultz" Flegenheimer (Dutch Schultz) (1902-1935) was a New York City racketeer known for bootlegging, income tax evasion, and a number of other crimes.
Dutch Schultz FBI Records
Dutch Schultz
Gangster Dutch Schultz built up a criminal network that included bootlegging, illegal gambling and murder. His biggest enemies were Legs Diamond and the IRS.Biography.comWho Was Dutch Schultz?
Infamous gangster Dutch Schultz first turned to burglary after his father left his family and later began bootlegging. Soon he expanded into illegal gambling, clashing with rival gangsters Legs Diamond and Vincent Coll. In the 1930s he was targeted by both the IRS and special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Schultz was killed by members of the notorious hit squad "Murder, Inc." in 1935.Dutch Schultz was born Arthur Flegenheimer on August 6, 1902, in the Bronx section of New York City. During his relatively brief life, Schultz became a powerful figure in the New York crime world, earning the nicknames "Beer Baron of the Bronx" and "The Dutchman." The son of Jewish immigrants from Germany, he grew up in the slums of the Bronx. His father abandoned the family when Schultz was in his early teens, and soon after, Schultz left school and started working odd jobs.
But Schultz soon discovered that crime was more lucrative than a day job. At the age of 17 he was arrested for burglary and served 17 months in prison for the crime - the only prison sentence he would ever serve. After his release, Schultz returned to the streets and his gang of thugs. His associates gave him the nickname "Dutch Schultz," after a local gangster who was known for his violent, brutal ways.
Bootlegging Empire
In the 1920s, Schultz became involved in bootlegging during the Prohibition and became associated with the likes of gangsters Lucky Luciano and Legs Diamond. Schultz eventually bought a partnership in an illegal saloon. Ruthless and determined, Schultz formed a gang with friend and fellow criminal Joey Noe, and they built an illegal business selling beer in New York, intimidating rival saloons into buying from them. Schultz even went as far as kidnapping and torturing a man who refused to buy their booze. The group soon expanded its operations from the Bronx into Manhattan, but this led to a territorial conflict with Legs Diamond. In October 1928, Noe was shot and killed by members of Diamond's gang. Schultz is believed to have ordered the killing of Diamond's associate Arnold Rothstein in retaliation, and Diamond himself met a bitter end in 1931, reportedly at the hands of one of Schultz's thugs.In his quest for power and wealth, Schultz clashed with other gangsters as well, including former associate Vincent Coll. During the 1930s, the two were embroiled in a vicious gang war, which led a number of men dead in both camps. The conflict lasted until Coll was killed - reportedly by members of Schultz's gang - in February 1932.
Violent Death
On the night of October 23, 1935, Schultz and four of his associates were shot at a restaurant in Newark, New Jersey. A brutal man believed to have been responsible for the deaths of many others at his hand or by his order - Schultz died the next day. Shortly before his death, he gave a rambling statement to the authorities, but he never named his killer.Dutch Schultz's Last Words
As he lay dying from bullet wounds on a hospital bed, Schultz uttered strange thoughts that were incomprehensible to the police who were hoping to get information from him. Some of Schultz's last words were:
- "A boy has never wept…nor dashed a thousand kin."
- "You can play jacks, and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it."
- "Oh, Oh, dog Biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn't get snappy."
Treasure
Afraid of being sent to jail by Prosecutor Dewey, Schultz had a special safe constructed and used it to hide cash and bonds worth $7 million. He and his bodyguard hid the safe in a secret location in upstate New York, but when the two were murdered, they took to the grave the knowledge of where the treasure was. To this day, it's never been recovered.Quick Facts
- Name: Dutch Schultz
- Birth Year: 1902
- Birth date: August 6, 1902
- Birth State: New York
- Birth City: New York City
- Birth Country: United States
- Gender: Male
- Best Known For: Gangster Dutch Schultz built up a criminal network that included bootlegging, illegal gambling and murder. His biggest enemies were Legs Diamond and the IRS.
- Industries: Crime and Terrorism
- Astrological Sign: Leo
- Death Year: 1935
- Death date: October 24, 1935
- Death State: New Jersey
- Death City: Newark
- Death Country: United States
Dutch Schultz
WIKIPEDIA Dutch Schultz
Born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer (August 6, 1901 – October 24, 1935) was an American mobster based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Schultz made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Schultz's rackets were weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, and also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, in an attempt to avert his conviction, which they refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935. Schultz was shot at a restaurant in Newark and died the next day.Bootlegger
In the mid-1920s, Schultz had begun work as a bouncer at the Hub Social Club, a small speakeasy in the Bronx owned by a gangster named Joey Noe. Noe was impressed with Schultz's ruthlessness and reputation for brutality when he lost his temper, and he made him a partner. Together they soon opened more illegal drinking joints around the Bronx. Using their own trucks to reduce high delivery costs, they brought in beer made by Frankie Dunn, a brewer in Union City, New Jersey. Schultz often rode shotgun to guard the trucks from hijackers.Schultz and Noe soon had to deal with the brothers John and Joe Rock, who were already running a bootlegging operation in the Bronx. Initially the brothers refused to buy beer from Noe and Schultz, but eventually John, the elder brother, agreed to cooperate; however, his younger brother Joe refused. One night the Noe-Schultz gang kidnapped Joe, beat him and hung him by his thumbs from a meat hook. They then allegedly wrapped a gauze bandage smeared with discharge from a gonorrhea infection over his eyes. His family reportedly paid $35,000 for his release. Shortly after his return, he went blind. From then on, the Noe-Schultz gang met little opposition as they expanded across the entire Bronx. Bootlegging during Prohibition made Schultz very wealthy.
Gang wars
The Noe-Schultz operation, which had begun to flourish in the Bronx, soon became the only gang able to rival the network of Italian crime syndicates that became the Mafia's Five Families. When the gang expanded from the Bronx over to Manhattan's Upper West Side and the neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Yorkville and Harlem, they moved their headquarters to East 149th Street in The Bronx. However, this brazen move led to a bootleg war with New York's Irish Mob, led by Jack "Legs" Diamond.In the early hours of October 16, 1928, Noe was shot several times outside the Chateau Madrid, a speakeasy at 231 West 54th. Although seriously wounded, he managed to return fire. A blue Cadillac was seen hitting some parked cars and losing one of its doors before speeding away. When police found the car an hour later, they discovered the body of a Louis Weinberg (no relation to Schultz gang members Abraham "Bo" Weinberg and George Weinberg) in the back seat. Noe's wounds became infected and he died on November 21. Schultz was left angry and distraught by the loss of his friend and mentor.
Retaliation started a few weeks later when Arnold Rothstein, a kingpin in the Jewish mob, was found fatally shot near the service entrance to the Park Central Hotel on November 6, 1928. Although George "Hump" McManus supposedly killed Rothstein over a bad gambling debt, Schultz is believed to have ordered the killing in retribution for Noe's death. This theory is supported by the fact that the first person McManus rang after the killing was Schultz's attorney, Dixie Davis. Schultz's trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg, then picked up McManus and drove him away from the murder scene. McManus was later cleared of the killing.
On October 12, 1930, Legs Diamond was shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on Manhattan's West Side. Two gunmen forced their way into Diamond's room and shot him five times before fleeing. Still in his pajamas, Diamond staggered into the hallway and collapsed. When asked later by the New York Police Commissioner how he managed to walk out of the room, Diamond said he drank two shots of whiskey first. Diamond was rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan, where he eventually recovered. On December 30, 1930, Diamond was discharged from Polyclinic. During his absence, his gang was forced to leave the city. When he returned home, Diamond began carving out a new territory for himself in Albany. He was killed in a cheap Albany rooming house at 67 Dove Street by two gunmen in December 1931.
Schultz also had to deal with internecine conflicts within his own gang. In 1930, one of Schultz's enforcers, Vincent Coll, demanded to be made an equal partner. This was because Schultz gang members received a flat salary instead of the customary percentage from the take-a unique arrangement compared to other major gangs in organized crime. When Schultz refused, Coll formed his own crew with the ultimate goal of murdering Schultz and taking over his territory. In the bloody gang war that followed, Coll lost his older brother Pete and earned the nickname "Mad Dog" from the press after a child was killed during a botched assassination attempt committed by his gang. In February 1932, Coll was lured into a trap. While he was taking a call in a drugstore phone booth, gunmen entered the store and machine-gunned him to death. The killers may have included Edward "Fats" McCarthy and the brothers Bo and George Weinberg.
RacketeerHarlem numbers racket
With the end of Prohibition, Dutch Schultz needed to find new sources of income. His answer came with Otto "Abbadabba" Berman and the Harlem numbers racket. The numbers racket, the forerunner of "Pick 3" lotteries, required players to choose three numbers, which were then derived from the last number before the decimal in the handle (total amount bet) taken daily at Belmont Park. Berman was a middle-aged accountant and math whiz who helped Schultz fix this racket. In a matter of seconds, Berman could mentally calculate the minimum amount of money Schultz needed to bet at the track to alter the odds at the last minute. This strategy ensured that Schultz always controlled which numbers won, guaranteeing a larger number of losers in Harlem and a multimillion-dollar-a-month tax-free income for Schultz. Berman was reportedly paid $10,000 a week.Schultz began extorting New York restaurant owners and workers.
Schultz, working through a hulking gangster named Jules Modgilewsky, also known as Julie Martin, made deals with the leaders of Waiters Local 16 and Cafeteria Workers Local 302 to extort money by forcing restaurant owners to join the Metropolitan Restaurant & Cafeteria Owners Association, an employer association that Schultz had founded. Those who refused to join the Association were faced with exorbitant wage demands from the unions, followed by strikes and stink bomb attacks. The Metropolitan Association then stepped in to arrange a settlement of the strike with a sweetheart contract for low wages contingent on the employer joining the Association. Martin/Modgilewsky successfully extracted thousands of dollars of tributes and "dues" from the terrorized restaurant owners for Schultz.During Schultz's tax evasion trial he began to suspect that Martin was skimming from the shakedown operation; Schultz had recently discovered a $70,000 disparity in the books. On the evening of March 2, 1935, Schultz invited Martin to a meeting at the Harmony Hotel in Cohoes, New York. At the meeting, at which chief enforcer Bo Weinberg and mob lawyer Dixie Davis were also present, Martin belligerently denied Schultz's charges and began arguing with him. Both men were drinking heavily as the argument continued, and Schultz sucker-punched Martin. Finally, Martin admitted that he had taken $20,000, which he believed he was "entitled to" anyway. Dixie Davis related what happened next:
Dixie DavisDutch Schultz was ugly; he had been drinking and suddenly he had his gun out. Schultz wore his pistol under his vest, tucked inside his pants, right against his belly. One jerk at his vest and he had it in his hand. All in the same quick motion he swung it up, stuck it in Jules Martin's mouth and pulled the trigger. It was as simple and undramatic as that-just one quick motion of the hand. Dutch Schultz did that murder just as casually as if he were picking his teeth.As Martin contorted on the floor, Schultz apologized to Davis for killing someone in front of him. When Davis later read a newspaper story about Martin's murder, he was shocked to find out that the body was found on a snow bank with a dozen stab wounds to the chest. When Davis asked about this, Schultz replied, deadpan, "I cut his heart out."
Shooting and Death
Schultz was shot on October 23, 1935, while he was at the Palace Chop House restaurant at 12 East Park Street in Newark, New Jersey. While Schultz was in the bathroom, two Murder, Inc. hit men named Charles "The Bug" Workman and Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss entered the establishment.Workman and Weiss entered the back room of the restaurant, where they fired numerous times at the Schultz gang members. Berman collapsed immediately after he was shot. Landau's carotid artery was severed by a bullet passing through his neck, and Rosenkrantz was hit repeatedly at point-blank range. Nevertheless, despite their injuries, both gangsters rose to their feet, returned fire, and drove the assassins out of the restaurant. Weiss jumped into the getaway car and ordered the driver to abandon Workman. Landau chased Workman out of the bar and emptied his pistol at him but missed. After Workman had fled on foot, Landau finally collapsed onto a nearby trash can.
Witnesses say Schultz staggered out of the bathroom, clutching his side, and sat at his table. He called for anyone who could hear him to get an ambulance. Rosenkrantz rose to his feet and demanded that the barman, who had hidden during the shootout, give him some change. Rosenkrantz called for an ambulance before he lost consciousness.
Schultz received the last rites from a Catholic priest at his request just before he went into surgery. He reportedly believed Jesus enabled him to beat an indictment and had promised to convert. He lingered for almost one day, speaking in various states of lucidity with his wife, mother, a priest, police, and hospital staff, before he died of peritonitis on October 24, 1935.
Schultz, born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, was a bootlegger and racketeer who tussled with the Mafia's Five Families, including Lucky Luciano and Irish mobsters. 'The Beer Baron of New York' killed multiple people who stood in his way. He was arrested on tax evasion charges, partly due to FBI taps on his phones. He asked the Five Families for permission to kill US attorney Thomas Dewey. When they refused, he threatened to kill Dewey himself, and the Mafia, arranged a hit on Shultz themselves.