Arlyne Brickman (1934–2020) was a mafia informant.

Biography

Brickman was born in New York's Lower East Side in 1934. When growing up in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

's Lower East Side, Brickman chose as her role model

Virginia Hill Virginia Hill (born Onie Virginia Hill; August 26, 1916 – March 24, 1966) was an American organized crime figure. An Alabama native, she became a Chicago outfit courier during the mid-1930s. She was famous for being the girlfriend of mobster B ...

, girlfriend of gangster

Bugsy Siegel Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was not only influential within the Jewish Mob, but along with his childhood fri ...

. Brickman said of Hill, "here was a broad that really made it good." As a teenager Brickman became involved with Italian mobsters, hanging out in

mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

nightclubs, seducing them in Cadillacs, and in later years running drugs. At 35, Brickman was beaten and raped by gangsters and learned none of her mafia friends would help since she was a woman and Jewish. According to Brickman, she turned on the mob eight years later when a

loan shark A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

threatened to hurt her eighteen-year-old, only daughter Leslie, unless Brickman paid off a loan. Brickman contacted the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

, agreeing to wear a wire, hiding the microphone in her brassiere or purse. In return, the government paid her debts and gave her a plea bargain. Over the next decade, Brickman worked as an informant and in 1986 her testimony helped convict gangster Anthony Scarpati of the

Colombo crime family The Colombo crime family (, ) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and is the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was duri ...

and several others of racketeering conspiracy. After the Scarpati trial, Brickman refused to participate in the

Witness Protection Program Witness protection is security provided to a threatened person providing testimonial evidence to the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after a trial, usually by police. While a witness may only require p ...

because, in her words, "That's the quickest way to get killed." Brickman resided in Bal Harbor Florida. She died in an assisted living home, alone, suffering from dementia in January 2020. Brickman was the subject of the non-fiction book '' Mob Girl: A Woman's Life in the Underworld'' by

Teresa Carpenter Teresa Carpenter (born 1948) is an American author. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for best feature writing. Biography Teresa Carpenter was born in Independence, Missouri. She lives with her husband Steven Levy in New York's Greenwich Vill ...

, published by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

. Much of her families connections were "fabricated and taken out of context", according to Brickman. Her father "was never a racketeer". "He was a true gentleman, highly respected by all that knew him". She and Carpenter had a tumultuous relationship. They never spoke again after the book was published. Her life was also detailed in an episode of Mobsters, an AE series, in Season 1 Episode 27 "Mobsters: Mob Ladies"., archived a
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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brickman, Arlyne American drug traffickers American Mafia Jewish American gangsters People from the Lower East Side 1934 births 2020 deaths