Did he die trying to escape with bedsheets, or was he thrown out to his death from the 5th floor window?

Lol. What do you think? He was "The Canary that could sing but not fly!"

The NYCPD "allegedly" had the motel protected by a detail of police and detectives assigned to "protect" Reles. So he'd be "safe."

But the prevailing theory is that they were bought off by the mob (a very common daily occurrence back then,) and he was thrown out of the window. In fact, its believed that the cops themselves threw him out that window as a favor to their "friends."

Anyone who thinks they weren't tough on organized crime back in that era is full of shit. They had the electric chair, and used it often.

Well, it is true that the penal laws were generally much weaker toward offenses like gambling, shylock, even narcotics. And the courts and judges themselves generally took a very light hand toward "vice like" crimes.

But they did have "Old Sparky." So thats a major thing. And if they wanted, they could pull out all stops and maneuver to stick it to a guy. Just look what happened to Lucky with the prostitution conspiracy case?

Exactly, RICO didn't even exist and yet they were able to basically give him life for a bullshit prostitution case.

All a judge, any judge, has to do is to "run em wild." Meaning that if a guy is charged with 20 gambling counts (that carry a maximum of 1 year each,) that fella ends up with a 20 year bid. Now, that never happened with gambling because it was generally looked at as a bullshit offense (except policy, which was viewed as preying on poor people.) But even numbers guys got 1 year max.

But prostituton was viewed with distain, as degrading and subjugating women to a form of slavery. So it was much easier and more acceptable to bang Luciano over the head. Understand?

I view pimping as profiting from an activity that's going to happen anyway. With or without pimps those women were going to sell their bodies. Now if they were actually forced into prostitution, that's different.