Joseph "Newsboy" Moriarty
He got started in the numbers racket when he was 13 years old, around 1923. Joe "Newsboy” Moriarty always dressed in well-worn work clothes. During the Depression, Moriarty walked into a local bank to inquire about opening an account. The not very enthusiastic bank officer, expecting something along the lines of the usual thirty-eight or forty-nine cents, asked how much the initial deposit was going to be. Moriarty opened a satchel and started to pile large denomination bills on the desk. The shocked banker screamed for the guard to lock the door.
the 1950s he lived with his two sisters in a small brownstone in the Horseshoe section of Jersey City that housed poor Irish immigrants. One day, the none too responsible Miss Moriarty by mistake turned on the furnace. The house filled with smoke and the Fire Department was alerted. The firemen soon found the trouble’s cause. The flue was stuffed with bags full of cash.
On September 15, 1958 a Jersey Central commuter train carrying 200 passengers derailed and an Associated Press photo made the front pages of the newspapers with the numbers 9-3-2 appearing on the side of the train. That number received a large number of bets and was the winning number the following day. Moriarty was able to pay in full and that brought him to the attention of Mike Coppola, which may have led to Moriarty's arrest in Jersey City.
Joseph was arrested for possession of betting slips and was placed in New Jersey State Prison. While he was in prison on July 2, 1962, two day laborers, who were fixing a garage came across his 1947 Plymouth at 47 Oxford Avenue in Jersey City. In the trunk was $2.6 million in cash, and $13,000 in stocks and bonds. On July 3, 1962, FBI agents seized the assets. He originally denied ownership but then filed a tax form listing them as income.
For years, Moriarty denied that the cash was his. Many branches of government attempted to grab the money. An IRS agent visited “Newsboy” while he was on trial for a gambling charge. The revenuer explained to Moriarty that he was going to be convicted — whether or not he claimed the money. But, if Newsboy asserted ownership of the funds, then the IRS would take half the money for taxes and return the rest to him. “Newsboy” always had old cars but he bought a new Cadillac when he got out of jail which was given as proof of this Moriarty episode. Never having had a legitimate source of income before.
He was released from prison in 1965. He was rearrested and sent to prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in federal income taxes in 1972. By the end of his career in crime, he had been arrested 47 times. Around 1975, while serving another prison term on betting charges, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In 1976, in his mid-60s, his sentence was commuted by New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne. Moriarty died three years later, on February 26, 1979 in Christ Hospital, Jersey City.
One of the Moriarty’s secrets of success and longevity was that he did not tally his numbers records during normal business hours when the gambling squad worked. Instead, “Newsboy” hid everything during the daylight hours. He’d recover and go through the slips during the dead of night when most detectives were sleeping and any unusual activity was easy to spot.
http://hudsoncountyfacts.com/hudsoncounty/?p=312And I used wiki
which is why I am questioning the Coppola story. I'm guessing they mean Mike Coppola from the Harlem Genovese crew.
I happened to find this guy interesting...never heard of him. Has anyone ever heard of him? The bit about Mike Coppola is that true?
