Members of the Cohen crime syndicate

After watching gangster squad and seeing only one guy (John stompanato) as a member of his gang i'm wondering who else was beneath him

I'm not sure exactly as to members of hiss gang but I'm I remember reading that he was formerly a part of Bugsy's gang in LA

Cohen was once arrested with seven of his men that the LA Times dubbed his "seven dwarfs". They were Neddie Herbert, Frank Niccoli, David Ogul, Harold Meltzer, Eli Lubin, Lou Schwartz and Jimmy Rist.

The first 3 were killed by the LA family. The only other person I can think of his Hooky Rothman who Frank Bompensiero shot in the face with a shotgun.

Cohen's crews also included such men as William "Stumpy" Zevon (father of musician Warren Zevon), Mike Howard (Meyer Horowitz), Joe and Fred Sica.

Stompanato was not, as compared to others, a tough guy. He was among other things a bisexual gigolo and possible pimp who Cohen used for blackmail opportunities.

Cohen was a former member of Siegel's crew who was smart enough not to be around when Siegel was hit and strong enough to rise to the top over Dragna and LA cops for a short period of time. The book by Tere Tereba is informative.

Meant to mention previously that the Cohen "Seven Dwarfs" photo came about after Cohen, on behalf of police organized a public "intervention" against a local electronics store shop owner, Alfred Pearson, who was known to rip people off and who had recently managed to turn a dispute over an inflated unpaid bill into a lien against an elderly widow.

When the widow couldn't pay, Pearson was able to foreclose on her house, buy it dirt cheap and then rent it back to her at an inflated rate. She complained to the police who organized to pay her rent and look into legal action. Pearson then sued the police captain who was helping the widow. Big mistake.

The captain was friendly with Mickey Cohen. During a protest at the electronics shop over Pearson's shoddy merchandise and dirty tactics, Cohen's boys took the opportunity to give Pearson a pretty vicious beating. They then left and were not stopped by the captain's men. But rookies from another precinct supposedly saw them make an illegal u-turn and hauled them in. An amateur photographer took pics and left them with the LA Times. The editors didn't realize initially who the men were but when Cohen showed up to try to buy the prints they put two and two together.

I still don't understand the Mickey Cohen story. As I understand it, Jack Dragna was the official LCN boss of Los Angeles. Yet Cohen went out there with backing from New York and set up his own crew but was NOT under Dragna's authority. Clearly the Commission in NY had no respect for Dragna. Can anyone explain that whole deal?

Cohen was originally part of Siegel's organization. Siegel outranked Dragna in Syndicate importance. So Dragna had to eat s*** while Siegel was alive. Cohen and Dragna were theoretically equivalent in power while Siegel lived.

After Siegel's death all bets were off.
But Cohen also had good connections with powerful people like Costello, Lou Rothkopf and Anthony Milano. So when Dragna made his attempts to remove Cohen from the planet, he didn't have the full backing of the syndicate. He had some backing from elements in Chicago and New York. Evidently the syndicate took a "kill what you eat" approach to the Dragna-Cohen conflicts.

Probably it would have been even more dangerous for Dragna to ask for more help because that would have further confirmed his status as a third-tier player.

I saw a documentary on Micky Cohen and they painted him as more of a rebel than anything else, marched to his own drummer and if I'm not mistaken had his house blown up once when he was sleeping..

Jimmy Fratianno's book explains it pretty well. After Siegal's death it was open season on Cohen. Dragna's men tried several times to kill him (including putting a bomb in his house) but he survived every time. All they were able to accomplish was killing several of his men. The dispute ended when Cohen was convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison. I've never heard of Cohen ever striking back against Dragna. He probably knew it was a war he would not win.

It's a shame the Los Angeles family was considered a joke. You would think a strong family out there could have been a mob powerhouse. They could have potentially controlled Las Vegas or at least split it with Chicago. And if you could grab the bay area and San Diego rackets. So much potential out there.

San Diego was their territory. So was Orange County and San Bernardino. According to Fratianno, Dragna and Siegal were going to partner together on a casino but Seigal was killed before it could happen. Compared to the East Coast, California didn't have a high concentration of Italians to be dominate. Dragna was the only one with any pull to get a casino, but he failed on his first attempt and died shortly after. His successor was just plain incompetent.

Didn't Bomp get whacked at a payphone in San Diego?
If John Roselli had transferred to L.A. when Fratianno did,the L.A. Family would have become quite a powerhouse compared to what it did during Fratiannos short reign as acting boss.Who knows,maybe Roselli would have been the one chosen for the acting boss spot.He was definitely more qualified and very well connected.Too bad about that C.I.A. and Castro plot...

Didn't know that, thanks Lilo!