Looking through these old articles, it seems Abe Reles was being held under protection for the upcoming trial against Lepke. He had testified earlier that members of his gang killed someone on assignment from Albert Anastasia, but Anastasia was a fugitive at the time. When he was finally found, Reles was dead.
https://www.nytimes.com/1940/09/20/...victed-strauss-and-goldstein-to-die.html"It was testified that they got the assignment to kill Feinstein as a "contract" from Albert Anastasia, fugitive leader of the Brooklyn waterfront rackets, because Feinstein had "crossed" Vincent Mangano, active in Brooklyn politics at one time."
https://www.nytimes.com/1941/11/13/...pe-sheet-rope-fails-after-he-lowers.html"The report that Reles had tried to escape to avoid appearing as a witness against Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, one of the ring's head men who is now on trial in Kings County Court..."
https://www.nytimes.com/1942/07/02/...gang-romeo-exlongshoremens-delegate.html"On one occasion Romeo was arrested in a racket slaying with his close friend, Albert Anastasia, the overlord of the Brooklyn waterfront, who was accused by Abe Reles, leader of the murder ring, with giving assignments for killings to the murder syndicate. Both men were freed in the killing charge.
Recently Anastasia, long a fugitive, was found living in Utica, N.Y., but the prosecutor's office explained that he no longer was wanted since the death of Reles and other key witnesses had weakened the inquiry against him."
