Posted By: Toodoped
The "Jewish Arm" of the Chicago Outfit - 03/20/15 08:25 PM
Organized crime in America existed since the 19th century and it was compiled by many different nationalities like the Irish, Polacks, or Greeks. But in the early 20th century the two most powerful ethnic groups in the underworld were the Italian Mafiosi and the Jewish gangsters. With the amalgamation of these two groups, one of the most powerful criminal underground was created. It has been always said that the Italians mafia was the iron fist, and the Jewish mob was the velvet glove, but in some cases these two groups were ruthless and violent at the same level. Unlike in other cities, the Jewish mobsters in Chicago never achieved true independence from the Italians that took turns calling the shots for the local syndicate. But in the end, one Jewish criminal called his own shots and brought the Italian crime syndicate to its knees.
During the early 1920’s in Chicago the prime architects of the so-called Jewish or Kosher Nostra, as some journalists referred to it, were infamous criminals like Hershel and Maxie Miller, Samuel “Nails” Morton and Maxie Eisen who ruled the West Side. During that period Chicago’s West Side was the center for the Jewish community and of course of its own criminals. These guys pulled the strings that brought many powerful politicians and gangsters around the country under the umbrella of the emerging national crime syndicate. For example, the Miller brothers worked as extortionists and election enforcers for the 20th Ward alderman Emanuel “Manny” Abrahams and controlled the vice activity among the Orthodox Jews. In 1920 Hershel Miller and Nails Morton were charged with the murders of two police officers but later both were acquitted, claiming self defence. Morton was a known hijacker and protector of the Jewish community and also had connections throughout Chicago’s criminal underworld. He often fell into gang warfare with other ethnic groups such as Irish, Italians, Germans, Poles, and Greeks. Soon he became a leader of the Jewish crime scene and offered protection against non-Jewish gangs.
Samuel Morton
Later the men in the Jewish mob had to pick sides because they were surrounded by the more powerful Irish and Italian gangs. Samuel chose the Irish Dion O'Banion gang. Maxie Eisen, close associate of the Miller brothers and Morton, was a bootlegger and also confidant of the Irish Dean O’Banion gang. Once he served as the facilitator for a legendary sit down between the Capone and O’Banion gangs. This criminal group of Jewish gangsters was known as the 20th Ward Group or later as the Lawndale area Jews.
Part of the Lawndale area
By 1930 most of the West Side Jewish community had moved to the Lawndale area and the 24th Ward. The area became the birth place for many legendary gangsters and was also the home base of the Jewish criminal faction and their criminal activities. When Prohibition ended, the illegal gambling operations were very important for Chicago’s organized crime syndicate and the Jewish gambling bosses and politicians like Jake Arvey and Moe Rosenberg, a former junk dealer, were making sure that the illegal profits kept rolling in. Jake Arvey was Rosenberg’s attorney and was considered his protégé. Now because gambling became the new “deal”, the newly formed Chicago Outfit needed a new army of ruthless thugs with the ability to count numbers.
The Outfit’s most famous Jewish gangster Jake Guzik also grew up right along Roosevelt Road and just a little bit west of Maxwell Street and later moved to the Loop. His father, Max Guzik was one of the first Jewish criminals to make an alliance with the Italian mob. He and his partner Big Jim Colosimo were heavily involved in the prostitution business. During the early 1920’s, with the changing of the guard, Jake Guzik became Johnny Torrio’s and Al Capone’s closest ally. With Guzik around, everybody made money and nobody went to jail. In those days, it cost Guzik a hundred dollars just to walk through the Loop. He made no bones about it. He paid off all of the cops that stood in his way while walking around the Loop, Michigan Avenue and Main Street. He had parties once a month by having all of the best prostitutes there, booze and of course his favourite judges, lawyers and policemen would be at these things. Everything was for sale. The Capone gang were even selling murders for 10 grand. Cicero, Capone’s headquarters, lay just west of Lawndale, and a lot of new Jewish “students” worked occasionally for the gang. Guzik became the recruiter who brought a lot of new young Jewish gangsters into the newly formed Chicago Outfit and developed a lot of new schemes. Also the young hoods started noticing these “underworld stars” that walked the streets of Chicago like gods and with their non-profit legitimate jobs, the young bloods felt disappointed and cheated by society and decided to dedicate their lives to crime and fast money. In other words they became a product of the West Side Jewish neighbourhood.
Jake Guzik
One of the most prominent young criminals was Leonard “Blinkey” Patrick. In his prime years he became a real Chicago gangster and member of the most infamous organized crime group called the Outfit. Like most syndicate hoods, Lenny Patrick was all about money and nothing else. Patrick belonged to the so-called "Jewish arm" of the Outfit and started his criminal career as a robber and later became a ruthless killer and shrewd money maker. He was born on October 6, 1913 on Chicago’s West Side and was the son of poor Jewish immigrants from England. He had two older brothers, Jack and Mike. Their parents wanted a normal life for their kids so Patrick attended school at the Shepard Grammar Elementary, which was located at Fillmore and Francisco Streets in Chicago. But like any other poor family, Lenny left school after finishing seventh grade and went to work as delivery boy. By the age of 16 he quit his job, joined a small street gang and became involved in many hold-ups, robberies and also ran dice games with cabdrivers on the West Side sidewalks and started making small profits. A year later Patrick, and his two brothers, became members of the Danny McGeoghegan gang. Danny aka John Walsh came from Tampa, Florida and was rated by Chief of Detectives William Shoemaker of Chicago as the "No.4 toughest and most dangerous" man in Chicago’s gangland. Once he was indicted for $11,000 robbery of the Pulaski Building and Loan Association in which the treasurer, Michael Swiontkowski, had been shot to death.
In such company Lenny needed to show his gangster qualities. In 1932, at the age of 19, Lenny got into a quarrel during a dice game with an older boy named Herman Glick. Glick felt cheated by Lenny and kicked the shit out of him. A week later, Lenny bought a gun, found his target and shot Glick few times in the head. Glick was still alive but later died in hospital. While in his deathbed Glick identified Lenny as the gunman. Lenny was arrested and spent a month in the Cook County Jail but later was released because the prosecutors couldn’t use a dead man’s statement. This was Lenny’s first murder so he started gaining ruthless reputation among his fellow criminals in the neighbourhood. The same year Lenny and his brother Jack Patrick were participants in the robbery of the University State Bank of Chicago, in which cashier Carlson J. White was murdered. It is not known which one of the bandits took the shot.
In 1933 Lenny’s gang planned to do a robbery of the State Exchange Bank of Culver, Indiana. On May 29, six gang members got in a car and rolled into Culver. At the wheel was Joe Switalski aka Jack Shea, a former Chicago policeman and former chauffeur of Joe Saltis, the infamous Chicago beer baron. Other members in the car were the gangs leader Danny McGeoghegan, Emmett Kearns aka Edward Murphy, Walter Grabowski, Lenny Patrick and his brother Jack. Once the car got near the bank, they were noticed by a barber, who poked his head out for air and saw the bandits car, bristling with guns and yelled out "bandits" that was heard for blocks. The president of the bank was standing beside one of the windows and saw the robbers adjusting their masks and he instantly set off the burglar alarm. Five of the gangsters rushed into the bank, leaving their driver in the getaway car. Once in the bank they pistol whipped few pedestrians and bank clerks and forced the rest of the customers to lie down on the floor. One of the bandits ordered Carl Adams, the assistant cashier, to open the vault door, which he did. The bandits had scooped some $12,000 from the tills and vault. The robbery lasted for two or three minutes, but in that short interval, gun fire started out side. Switalski, with his automatic gun, exchanged fire with some vigilante group, formed by local men. A moment later, a bullet cut into the forehead of Switalski and another one into his shoulder. McGeoghegan rushed out and saw that his buddy was wounded and rushed back into the bank to assemble his associates. They all acted cool and at gun point they took few hostages and used them as shield from the vigilante’s fire. They threw the stolen cash into the car and shifted Switalski, who was bleeding profusely, from under the wheel to the back seat, and a new driver took the wheel. The hostages were ordered to stand on the running boards and the car thundered away to the west in a cloud of dust and gunfire. Outside the city limits, the bandits ordered their hostages to jump.
A local medical doctor, who had witnessed the bloody conflict, jumped into his car and rapidly went after the bandits. But he made a mistake because he came to close and one of the bandits noticed him, jumped to his feet and fired at the doctor’s car at close range, stopping him. They ordered him out and cursed him soundly for trying to follow them. An argument ensued between the bandits over leaving the wounded Switalski. McGeoghegan ordered them to leave him with the doctor. The robbers continued to a combined woods and swamp near the little town of Ober. While driving through the woods they crashed with their car and got stuck between two trees and could not go further. A small party of armed local vigilantes and government people followed the car tracks along the dirt road. They found and arrested the wounded Switalski who was left by the road and proceeded to chase the remaining five gangsters in the woods. They cautiously followed the tracks of the bandits car into the woods and in just few hours they found and arrested all of the gang members, including the Patrick brothers and McGeoghegan.
On June 28, 1933 all of the gang members stood for trial and received prison sentences. Most of the gangsters, including Lenny Patrick received a 10 year prison terms, except for McGeoghegan, who received 25 years. Lenny first went to the Indiana State Reformatory and on February 22, 1934 he was transferred to the Indiana State Penitentiary. During his stay in prison, Lenny met many high profile mob associates. They taught him that bank robbery is not the right thing to do because there was too much heat brought by the many ruthless and unorganized bank robbers, plus the take was always too small. So Lenny learned and “graduated” on other more profitable rackets like gambling and loan sharking. Gambling was the lifeblood of organized crime because it was socially acceptable, reaped huge profits and led to other revenue streams like loan sharking. After serving 7 years, Lenny was paroled on March 11, 1940 and was released from prison.
Leonard Patrick
Out of prison, Lenny Patrick first did minor chores like being a bagman, street tax collector and enforcer for Jewish mobsters and eventually drifted into the orbit of the "Jewish faction" of Chicago’s organized crime along Roosevelt Road. He became a legend for his easy use of violence and strong defence of his territory and also learned how to operate the gambling racket. Later Patrick took a job working for Jewish racketeer and gambling boss Ben Zuckerman. He was also known as "Zookie the Bookie," a gambling big shot who was a power in the 24th Ward under the protection of Alderman Jake Arvey. Arvey became a notorious political fixer who turned out record numbers of Democratic voters in every city election he was personally involved with. He served as alderman of the West Side ward from 1934 until 1940. Zuckerman had an army of criminals to do his dirty work and operations. Two of his top guys were Willie Tarsch aka William Galatch and Ben Glazer. Both worked as gambling operators for Zuckerman but story goes that Glazer was the real brains behind their operations. Tarsch was a part owner of Glazer’s R & K restaurant at 3216 Roosevelt Road, a widely known gambling house.
Also two of Zuckermans best protectors were politicians Patrick Nash and his partner Ed Kelly, who made sure that Zuckermans gambling profits kept rolling in. Zuckerman was a precinct captain and from that position he inherited the gambling concession in the 24th Ward and was making millions of dollars. He owned the biggest gambling establishments on the West Side and was practically immune from arrest and considered himself above the law. As a former bootlegger, Zuckerman also secretly owned a beer distributing company named The Central-West Beer Distributors Inc at 2408 South Pulaski Road. He had Dave Weinberger as a frontman and major stock holder in the company. Zuckerman had a no show job at the company allegedly working as a salesman and helper in the shipping room. From time to time, Weinberger transferred shares of stock to Zuckerman’s wife as a “gesture of good will”. Many of Zuckerman’s gambling parlors served as hangouts and headquarters for many hoodlums. Some of them were even members of the Chicago Outfit. One of Zuckerman’s most infamous gambling associate was Lawrence “Dago” Mangano, public enemy no.4 with high position within the Outfit. He was a very ambitious Mafioso with high connections throughout Chicago who had a famous saying “Us public enemies got to stick together.”
By now Lenny Patrick was involved in the biggest dice games in Chicago and in the process met many other rising Jewish gamblers, bookies and loan sharks. In 1943 Patrick was also doing jobs for Dago Mangano and with his help he also met many high profile Italian Outfit figures like Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and Tony Accardo. They were mostly impressed by his blood thirsty skills and of course for making the big buck. Patrick also became associated with bookies and enforcers like William Block, Harry “The Greener” Krotish, Jack Rubenstein aka Jack Ruby and he’s future partner in crime and best friend David “Yiddles” Yaras.
Dave Yaras was born on November 7th, 1912 in Chicago’s Lawndale area and was one of Jake Guzik’s best “students”. During the late 1920’s Yaras started working as a chauffer and bodyguard for Guzik. By that period the Capone/Guzik syndicate was muscling in the coin machine business, so Yaras began as a pinball and slot machine concessionaire. After the imprisonment of Al Capone, Yaras started working for Chicago’s West Side Italian boss Paul “The Waiter” Ricca. During the early 1930’s Ricca made a deal with the New York mob about financing and smuggling narcotics around the U.S. so Yaras worked as their smuggler in south Florida and transported narcotics up to New York. He also worked as a messenger for the Outfit’s top bosses.
David Yaras
During the early 1940’s gambling became the number one source of illegal income for the underworld in America. Most of the action in Chicago could be found in the South West side where Zuckerman and Mangano were two of the top gambling bosses. Their gambling interests were protected by the Kelly-Nash political machine and another Outfit political associate, Joseph Adduci. Even since the late 19th century there was a big competition in Chicago’s underworld over the gambling business, so this period was no exception. When 1943 arrived, it was the start of the gambling battles, which turned every bit as vicious as the bootleg wars of the 1920s. Also with new operations like union racketeering and narcotics springing into existence, the number of killings increased as syndicate figures battled for dominance. The Chicago Outfit was taking over almost every form of gambling business. Guys like Sam Giancana were taking over the policy racket from the black population and Mangano with his partner in crime Tony Accardo were taking over the bookmaking and wire service businesses on national level. By this time the Outfit picked up almost every gambling activity on all fields: casinos and nightclubs, horse race betting, betting on baseball, football, and basketball games.
Also the same year the top echelon of the Outfit was indicted in the infamous Hollywood extortion case. Top level guys like Paul Ricca and Frank Nitti were heading to prison so the clouds of war were over the horizon and the backstabbing and double cross games were on the rise. On March 19, 1943 Outfit boss Frank Nitti decided to shoot himself in the head with a loaded .32 caliber revolver. Nitti had no choice because Ricca and the boys told him to take the fall in the extortion case for everybody or else. On December 30th, 1943 a Federal Grand Jury returned a guilty verdict against Ricca, Louis Campagna and others and sentenced them to 10 years in prison. The top layer of the Chicago leadership was removed. Also the same year, one half of the political Kelly-Nash combine died, Nash on October 6, and Kelly had to assume the chairmanship of the central committee. So Patrick’s boss Ben Zuckerman lost half of his protection and became vulnerable. Now the two top guys that remained on the streets were Tony Accardo and Lawrence Mangano.
As I said before, Lawrence Mangano was a very ambitious mafia hood with very greedy intentions and now he saw the chance to move in on Zuckerman’s vast gambling empire. Mangano reached out to Lenny Patrick, Dave Yaras and William Block to do the job on Zuckerman, promising them a portion of Zuckerman’s gambling operations. Besides taking over the gambling operations, Mangano also delivered an ultimatum to Zuckerman to confine his beer peddling operations to the district east of Sacramento Avenue. On January 14, 1944 Patrick, Block and Yaras visited Zuckerman in his office at the beer company at 4:30 pm. An hour later they left his office and went into their car and waited until Zuckerman got out. At 6:00 pm Zuckerman left his office and went home at 4042 Wilcox Street. He arrived in front of his house at 6:30 pm and was about to enter his home when a gunman jumped out from a car parked nearby, ran towards him and fired one shot. Zuckerman fell to the ground and the hitman fired two more shots into his head. The killer ran back to his car, which contained two other men and sped away. That was the end of 49 year old Benjamin “Zookie The Bookie” Zuckerman. Two hours later his closest partner Ben Glazer heard what had happened, instantly fell to the ground and died from a heart attack. Mangano was questioned about the murder but the cops got nothing. Also a suspect was one of Zuckerman’s associates William Galatch. Story goes that Mangano and Galatch made a deal to remove Zuckerman from the game and to divide his operations among them.
Now Mangano was the Outfit’s top man on Chicago’s West Side and became also known as “the king of the west side”. He controlled dice and card games, bookie joints, brothels, the vending machines business, the theft and kidnapping business and also the votes in that part of the city. Plus the top men above him were in jail, so he saw himself as the destined leader of the Chicago Outfit. But the problem was that other mobsters moved up the ladder also. As I said before, eventually two Outfit members were in contention for the top position…Accardo and Mangano. Both were big earners and also great leaders. When Capone went to jail, the Outfit always had something like a ruling panel at the top of the organization formed by few area bosses and one top advisor or chairman. With Accardo and Mangano at the top, the Outfit resembled like a two headed snake praying on society. Things were cool until the greedy Mangano decided to make a very stupid move. On July 9, 1944 a truck that transported cigarettes valued at $15,000 was hijacked by unknown criminals. It was Tony Accardo’s truck and the hijack occurred on Mangano’s territory. Later three men were arrested in connection with the theft and all three reported that the theft was engineered by Mangano. Accardo was big in the cigarette business, legitimate or illegitimate, so he didn’t tolerate this and asked for approval from the higher boss Paul Ricca, who resided in jail, to do a hit on Mangano. Theres also another story that Mangano on many occasions tried to move in on Accardo's gambling operations and he also refused to cut the Outfit into his gambling business at a time when the mob was bringing all gambling operation in the state under their control. Little did he know that few of his associates Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras were the informers for Ricca and Accardo.
So one night on August 3, 1944, Mangano together with his friend and bodyguard Michael “Big Mike” Pontillo and a young girl named Rita Reyes, visited a bar in Cicero named the Paddock Lounge for relaxation. After more than a few drinks, at 4:00 am they left the club, climbed into Mangano's shiny maroon 1941 Mercury and headed home. Mangano was at the wheel driving along Blue Island Avenue on the West Side when suddenly he spotted a black sedan following them. Mangano thought they were cops so he stopped the car and got out to talk to them. As the black sedan rolled towards him and slowed down, a gunman pulled a shotgun and blasted at Mangano hitting him in the chest. Mangano fell in the street as the sedan raced away, screeched around a corner and was gone. Pontillo and Reyes got out of the car and managed to drag Mangano to the sidewalk. Mangano was still alive but the killers took no chances. They circled the block and careened again. Pontillo saw them and pushed Reyes down to safety. Few more shotgun blasts roared and Pontillo fell beside Mangano, mortally wounded. With over 200 shotgun pellets in his body, Mangano managed to remain alive for at least an hour. When the cops asked who shot him he said “If I knew I’d tell you”. Mangano was rushed to the hospital where he begged the doctors to put him to sleep. He died at 5:48 a.m. and Pontillo followed him in death five hours later. Questioned about the Mangano murder were Dominic Nuccio, Dominick DiBella and Dominic Brancato. The trio was known as a hit squad for the Outfit at the time. There were only family relatives at Mangano’s funeral who embraced each other tearfully. None of his mob associates and alleged friends showed up which shows it was a sign of disrespect. With Mangano out of the way and Paul Ricca still in jail, Tony Accardo became the acting boss of the Chicago Outfit.
Tony Accardo
During the early 1920’s in Chicago the prime architects of the so-called Jewish or Kosher Nostra, as some journalists referred to it, were infamous criminals like Hershel and Maxie Miller, Samuel “Nails” Morton and Maxie Eisen who ruled the West Side. During that period Chicago’s West Side was the center for the Jewish community and of course of its own criminals. These guys pulled the strings that brought many powerful politicians and gangsters around the country under the umbrella of the emerging national crime syndicate. For example, the Miller brothers worked as extortionists and election enforcers for the 20th Ward alderman Emanuel “Manny” Abrahams and controlled the vice activity among the Orthodox Jews. In 1920 Hershel Miller and Nails Morton were charged with the murders of two police officers but later both were acquitted, claiming self defence. Morton was a known hijacker and protector of the Jewish community and also had connections throughout Chicago’s criminal underworld. He often fell into gang warfare with other ethnic groups such as Irish, Italians, Germans, Poles, and Greeks. Soon he became a leader of the Jewish crime scene and offered protection against non-Jewish gangs.
Samuel Morton
Later the men in the Jewish mob had to pick sides because they were surrounded by the more powerful Irish and Italian gangs. Samuel chose the Irish Dion O'Banion gang. Maxie Eisen, close associate of the Miller brothers and Morton, was a bootlegger and also confidant of the Irish Dean O’Banion gang. Once he served as the facilitator for a legendary sit down between the Capone and O’Banion gangs. This criminal group of Jewish gangsters was known as the 20th Ward Group or later as the Lawndale area Jews.
Part of the Lawndale area
By 1930 most of the West Side Jewish community had moved to the Lawndale area and the 24th Ward. The area became the birth place for many legendary gangsters and was also the home base of the Jewish criminal faction and their criminal activities. When Prohibition ended, the illegal gambling operations were very important for Chicago’s organized crime syndicate and the Jewish gambling bosses and politicians like Jake Arvey and Moe Rosenberg, a former junk dealer, were making sure that the illegal profits kept rolling in. Jake Arvey was Rosenberg’s attorney and was considered his protégé. Now because gambling became the new “deal”, the newly formed Chicago Outfit needed a new army of ruthless thugs with the ability to count numbers.
The Outfit’s most famous Jewish gangster Jake Guzik also grew up right along Roosevelt Road and just a little bit west of Maxwell Street and later moved to the Loop. His father, Max Guzik was one of the first Jewish criminals to make an alliance with the Italian mob. He and his partner Big Jim Colosimo were heavily involved in the prostitution business. During the early 1920’s, with the changing of the guard, Jake Guzik became Johnny Torrio’s and Al Capone’s closest ally. With Guzik around, everybody made money and nobody went to jail. In those days, it cost Guzik a hundred dollars just to walk through the Loop. He made no bones about it. He paid off all of the cops that stood in his way while walking around the Loop, Michigan Avenue and Main Street. He had parties once a month by having all of the best prostitutes there, booze and of course his favourite judges, lawyers and policemen would be at these things. Everything was for sale. The Capone gang were even selling murders for 10 grand. Cicero, Capone’s headquarters, lay just west of Lawndale, and a lot of new Jewish “students” worked occasionally for the gang. Guzik became the recruiter who brought a lot of new young Jewish gangsters into the newly formed Chicago Outfit and developed a lot of new schemes. Also the young hoods started noticing these “underworld stars” that walked the streets of Chicago like gods and with their non-profit legitimate jobs, the young bloods felt disappointed and cheated by society and decided to dedicate their lives to crime and fast money. In other words they became a product of the West Side Jewish neighbourhood.
Jake Guzik
One of the most prominent young criminals was Leonard “Blinkey” Patrick. In his prime years he became a real Chicago gangster and member of the most infamous organized crime group called the Outfit. Like most syndicate hoods, Lenny Patrick was all about money and nothing else. Patrick belonged to the so-called "Jewish arm" of the Outfit and started his criminal career as a robber and later became a ruthless killer and shrewd money maker. He was born on October 6, 1913 on Chicago’s West Side and was the son of poor Jewish immigrants from England. He had two older brothers, Jack and Mike. Their parents wanted a normal life for their kids so Patrick attended school at the Shepard Grammar Elementary, which was located at Fillmore and Francisco Streets in Chicago. But like any other poor family, Lenny left school after finishing seventh grade and went to work as delivery boy. By the age of 16 he quit his job, joined a small street gang and became involved in many hold-ups, robberies and also ran dice games with cabdrivers on the West Side sidewalks and started making small profits. A year later Patrick, and his two brothers, became members of the Danny McGeoghegan gang. Danny aka John Walsh came from Tampa, Florida and was rated by Chief of Detectives William Shoemaker of Chicago as the "No.4 toughest and most dangerous" man in Chicago’s gangland. Once he was indicted for $11,000 robbery of the Pulaski Building and Loan Association in which the treasurer, Michael Swiontkowski, had been shot to death.
In such company Lenny needed to show his gangster qualities. In 1932, at the age of 19, Lenny got into a quarrel during a dice game with an older boy named Herman Glick. Glick felt cheated by Lenny and kicked the shit out of him. A week later, Lenny bought a gun, found his target and shot Glick few times in the head. Glick was still alive but later died in hospital. While in his deathbed Glick identified Lenny as the gunman. Lenny was arrested and spent a month in the Cook County Jail but later was released because the prosecutors couldn’t use a dead man’s statement. This was Lenny’s first murder so he started gaining ruthless reputation among his fellow criminals in the neighbourhood. The same year Lenny and his brother Jack Patrick were participants in the robbery of the University State Bank of Chicago, in which cashier Carlson J. White was murdered. It is not known which one of the bandits took the shot.
In 1933 Lenny’s gang planned to do a robbery of the State Exchange Bank of Culver, Indiana. On May 29, six gang members got in a car and rolled into Culver. At the wheel was Joe Switalski aka Jack Shea, a former Chicago policeman and former chauffeur of Joe Saltis, the infamous Chicago beer baron. Other members in the car were the gangs leader Danny McGeoghegan, Emmett Kearns aka Edward Murphy, Walter Grabowski, Lenny Patrick and his brother Jack. Once the car got near the bank, they were noticed by a barber, who poked his head out for air and saw the bandits car, bristling with guns and yelled out "bandits" that was heard for blocks. The president of the bank was standing beside one of the windows and saw the robbers adjusting their masks and he instantly set off the burglar alarm. Five of the gangsters rushed into the bank, leaving their driver in the getaway car. Once in the bank they pistol whipped few pedestrians and bank clerks and forced the rest of the customers to lie down on the floor. One of the bandits ordered Carl Adams, the assistant cashier, to open the vault door, which he did. The bandits had scooped some $12,000 from the tills and vault. The robbery lasted for two or three minutes, but in that short interval, gun fire started out side. Switalski, with his automatic gun, exchanged fire with some vigilante group, formed by local men. A moment later, a bullet cut into the forehead of Switalski and another one into his shoulder. McGeoghegan rushed out and saw that his buddy was wounded and rushed back into the bank to assemble his associates. They all acted cool and at gun point they took few hostages and used them as shield from the vigilante’s fire. They threw the stolen cash into the car and shifted Switalski, who was bleeding profusely, from under the wheel to the back seat, and a new driver took the wheel. The hostages were ordered to stand on the running boards and the car thundered away to the west in a cloud of dust and gunfire. Outside the city limits, the bandits ordered their hostages to jump.
A local medical doctor, who had witnessed the bloody conflict, jumped into his car and rapidly went after the bandits. But he made a mistake because he came to close and one of the bandits noticed him, jumped to his feet and fired at the doctor’s car at close range, stopping him. They ordered him out and cursed him soundly for trying to follow them. An argument ensued between the bandits over leaving the wounded Switalski. McGeoghegan ordered them to leave him with the doctor. The robbers continued to a combined woods and swamp near the little town of Ober. While driving through the woods they crashed with their car and got stuck between two trees and could not go further. A small party of armed local vigilantes and government people followed the car tracks along the dirt road. They found and arrested the wounded Switalski who was left by the road and proceeded to chase the remaining five gangsters in the woods. They cautiously followed the tracks of the bandits car into the woods and in just few hours they found and arrested all of the gang members, including the Patrick brothers and McGeoghegan.
On June 28, 1933 all of the gang members stood for trial and received prison sentences. Most of the gangsters, including Lenny Patrick received a 10 year prison terms, except for McGeoghegan, who received 25 years. Lenny first went to the Indiana State Reformatory and on February 22, 1934 he was transferred to the Indiana State Penitentiary. During his stay in prison, Lenny met many high profile mob associates. They taught him that bank robbery is not the right thing to do because there was too much heat brought by the many ruthless and unorganized bank robbers, plus the take was always too small. So Lenny learned and “graduated” on other more profitable rackets like gambling and loan sharking. Gambling was the lifeblood of organized crime because it was socially acceptable, reaped huge profits and led to other revenue streams like loan sharking. After serving 7 years, Lenny was paroled on March 11, 1940 and was released from prison.
Leonard Patrick
Out of prison, Lenny Patrick first did minor chores like being a bagman, street tax collector and enforcer for Jewish mobsters and eventually drifted into the orbit of the "Jewish faction" of Chicago’s organized crime along Roosevelt Road. He became a legend for his easy use of violence and strong defence of his territory and also learned how to operate the gambling racket. Later Patrick took a job working for Jewish racketeer and gambling boss Ben Zuckerman. He was also known as "Zookie the Bookie," a gambling big shot who was a power in the 24th Ward under the protection of Alderman Jake Arvey. Arvey became a notorious political fixer who turned out record numbers of Democratic voters in every city election he was personally involved with. He served as alderman of the West Side ward from 1934 until 1940. Zuckerman had an army of criminals to do his dirty work and operations. Two of his top guys were Willie Tarsch aka William Galatch and Ben Glazer. Both worked as gambling operators for Zuckerman but story goes that Glazer was the real brains behind their operations. Tarsch was a part owner of Glazer’s R & K restaurant at 3216 Roosevelt Road, a widely known gambling house.
Also two of Zuckermans best protectors were politicians Patrick Nash and his partner Ed Kelly, who made sure that Zuckermans gambling profits kept rolling in. Zuckerman was a precinct captain and from that position he inherited the gambling concession in the 24th Ward and was making millions of dollars. He owned the biggest gambling establishments on the West Side and was practically immune from arrest and considered himself above the law. As a former bootlegger, Zuckerman also secretly owned a beer distributing company named The Central-West Beer Distributors Inc at 2408 South Pulaski Road. He had Dave Weinberger as a frontman and major stock holder in the company. Zuckerman had a no show job at the company allegedly working as a salesman and helper in the shipping room. From time to time, Weinberger transferred shares of stock to Zuckerman’s wife as a “gesture of good will”. Many of Zuckerman’s gambling parlors served as hangouts and headquarters for many hoodlums. Some of them were even members of the Chicago Outfit. One of Zuckerman’s most infamous gambling associate was Lawrence “Dago” Mangano, public enemy no.4 with high position within the Outfit. He was a very ambitious Mafioso with high connections throughout Chicago who had a famous saying “Us public enemies got to stick together.”
By now Lenny Patrick was involved in the biggest dice games in Chicago and in the process met many other rising Jewish gamblers, bookies and loan sharks. In 1943 Patrick was also doing jobs for Dago Mangano and with his help he also met many high profile Italian Outfit figures like Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and Tony Accardo. They were mostly impressed by his blood thirsty skills and of course for making the big buck. Patrick also became associated with bookies and enforcers like William Block, Harry “The Greener” Krotish, Jack Rubenstein aka Jack Ruby and he’s future partner in crime and best friend David “Yiddles” Yaras.
Dave Yaras was born on November 7th, 1912 in Chicago’s Lawndale area and was one of Jake Guzik’s best “students”. During the late 1920’s Yaras started working as a chauffer and bodyguard for Guzik. By that period the Capone/Guzik syndicate was muscling in the coin machine business, so Yaras began as a pinball and slot machine concessionaire. After the imprisonment of Al Capone, Yaras started working for Chicago’s West Side Italian boss Paul “The Waiter” Ricca. During the early 1930’s Ricca made a deal with the New York mob about financing and smuggling narcotics around the U.S. so Yaras worked as their smuggler in south Florida and transported narcotics up to New York. He also worked as a messenger for the Outfit’s top bosses.
David Yaras
During the early 1940’s gambling became the number one source of illegal income for the underworld in America. Most of the action in Chicago could be found in the South West side where Zuckerman and Mangano were two of the top gambling bosses. Their gambling interests were protected by the Kelly-Nash political machine and another Outfit political associate, Joseph Adduci. Even since the late 19th century there was a big competition in Chicago’s underworld over the gambling business, so this period was no exception. When 1943 arrived, it was the start of the gambling battles, which turned every bit as vicious as the bootleg wars of the 1920s. Also with new operations like union racketeering and narcotics springing into existence, the number of killings increased as syndicate figures battled for dominance. The Chicago Outfit was taking over almost every form of gambling business. Guys like Sam Giancana were taking over the policy racket from the black population and Mangano with his partner in crime Tony Accardo were taking over the bookmaking and wire service businesses on national level. By this time the Outfit picked up almost every gambling activity on all fields: casinos and nightclubs, horse race betting, betting on baseball, football, and basketball games.
Also the same year the top echelon of the Outfit was indicted in the infamous Hollywood extortion case. Top level guys like Paul Ricca and Frank Nitti were heading to prison so the clouds of war were over the horizon and the backstabbing and double cross games were on the rise. On March 19, 1943 Outfit boss Frank Nitti decided to shoot himself in the head with a loaded .32 caliber revolver. Nitti had no choice because Ricca and the boys told him to take the fall in the extortion case for everybody or else. On December 30th, 1943 a Federal Grand Jury returned a guilty verdict against Ricca, Louis Campagna and others and sentenced them to 10 years in prison. The top layer of the Chicago leadership was removed. Also the same year, one half of the political Kelly-Nash combine died, Nash on October 6, and Kelly had to assume the chairmanship of the central committee. So Patrick’s boss Ben Zuckerman lost half of his protection and became vulnerable. Now the two top guys that remained on the streets were Tony Accardo and Lawrence Mangano.
As I said before, Lawrence Mangano was a very ambitious mafia hood with very greedy intentions and now he saw the chance to move in on Zuckerman’s vast gambling empire. Mangano reached out to Lenny Patrick, Dave Yaras and William Block to do the job on Zuckerman, promising them a portion of Zuckerman’s gambling operations. Besides taking over the gambling operations, Mangano also delivered an ultimatum to Zuckerman to confine his beer peddling operations to the district east of Sacramento Avenue. On January 14, 1944 Patrick, Block and Yaras visited Zuckerman in his office at the beer company at 4:30 pm. An hour later they left his office and went into their car and waited until Zuckerman got out. At 6:00 pm Zuckerman left his office and went home at 4042 Wilcox Street. He arrived in front of his house at 6:30 pm and was about to enter his home when a gunman jumped out from a car parked nearby, ran towards him and fired one shot. Zuckerman fell to the ground and the hitman fired two more shots into his head. The killer ran back to his car, which contained two other men and sped away. That was the end of 49 year old Benjamin “Zookie The Bookie” Zuckerman. Two hours later his closest partner Ben Glazer heard what had happened, instantly fell to the ground and died from a heart attack. Mangano was questioned about the murder but the cops got nothing. Also a suspect was one of Zuckerman’s associates William Galatch. Story goes that Mangano and Galatch made a deal to remove Zuckerman from the game and to divide his operations among them.
Now Mangano was the Outfit’s top man on Chicago’s West Side and became also known as “the king of the west side”. He controlled dice and card games, bookie joints, brothels, the vending machines business, the theft and kidnapping business and also the votes in that part of the city. Plus the top men above him were in jail, so he saw himself as the destined leader of the Chicago Outfit. But the problem was that other mobsters moved up the ladder also. As I said before, eventually two Outfit members were in contention for the top position…Accardo and Mangano. Both were big earners and also great leaders. When Capone went to jail, the Outfit always had something like a ruling panel at the top of the organization formed by few area bosses and one top advisor or chairman. With Accardo and Mangano at the top, the Outfit resembled like a two headed snake praying on society. Things were cool until the greedy Mangano decided to make a very stupid move. On July 9, 1944 a truck that transported cigarettes valued at $15,000 was hijacked by unknown criminals. It was Tony Accardo’s truck and the hijack occurred on Mangano’s territory. Later three men were arrested in connection with the theft and all three reported that the theft was engineered by Mangano. Accardo was big in the cigarette business, legitimate or illegitimate, so he didn’t tolerate this and asked for approval from the higher boss Paul Ricca, who resided in jail, to do a hit on Mangano. Theres also another story that Mangano on many occasions tried to move in on Accardo's gambling operations and he also refused to cut the Outfit into his gambling business at a time when the mob was bringing all gambling operation in the state under their control. Little did he know that few of his associates Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras were the informers for Ricca and Accardo.
So one night on August 3, 1944, Mangano together with his friend and bodyguard Michael “Big Mike” Pontillo and a young girl named Rita Reyes, visited a bar in Cicero named the Paddock Lounge for relaxation. After more than a few drinks, at 4:00 am they left the club, climbed into Mangano's shiny maroon 1941 Mercury and headed home. Mangano was at the wheel driving along Blue Island Avenue on the West Side when suddenly he spotted a black sedan following them. Mangano thought they were cops so he stopped the car and got out to talk to them. As the black sedan rolled towards him and slowed down, a gunman pulled a shotgun and blasted at Mangano hitting him in the chest. Mangano fell in the street as the sedan raced away, screeched around a corner and was gone. Pontillo and Reyes got out of the car and managed to drag Mangano to the sidewalk. Mangano was still alive but the killers took no chances. They circled the block and careened again. Pontillo saw them and pushed Reyes down to safety. Few more shotgun blasts roared and Pontillo fell beside Mangano, mortally wounded. With over 200 shotgun pellets in his body, Mangano managed to remain alive for at least an hour. When the cops asked who shot him he said “If I knew I’d tell you”. Mangano was rushed to the hospital where he begged the doctors to put him to sleep. He died at 5:48 a.m. and Pontillo followed him in death five hours later. Questioned about the Mangano murder were Dominic Nuccio, Dominick DiBella and Dominic Brancato. The trio was known as a hit squad for the Outfit at the time. There were only family relatives at Mangano’s funeral who embraced each other tearfully. None of his mob associates and alleged friends showed up which shows it was a sign of disrespect. With Mangano out of the way and Paul Ricca still in jail, Tony Accardo became the acting boss of the Chicago Outfit.
Tony Accardo