J. Richard Davis (1905 – December 30, 1969), also known as Dixie Davis, was the lawyer for mobster

Dutch Schultz Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1901October 24, 1935) was an American mobster. Based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, he made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the n ...

Biography

Davis was born in New York City in 1905 and grew up in

Tannersville, New York Tannersville is a village in Greene County, New York, United States. The village is in the north-central part of the town of Hunter on Route 23A. The population was 539 at the 2010 census, up from 448 in 2000. History The village was founded ar ...

after his father, a tailor named Davidowitz, relocated the family to the

Catskills The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...

. Davis attended Syracuse University Law School and was admitted to the

New York State Bar The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) is a voluntary bar association for the state of New York. The mission of the association is to cultivate the science of jurisprudence; promote reform in the law; facilitate the administration of justice; ...

in 1927. He served a clerkship, and then started his own firm 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 ...

specializing in defending mobsters. Many of Davis' clients were African-Americans involved in the numbers game in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

. In 1932 he decided that he could take control and brought in Dutch Schultz as enforcer only to lose control to Schultz. With the murder of Schultz in 1935, Davis took over his numbers racket. On July 14, 1937 a grand jury indicted Davis for racketeering. In exchange for his cooperation, Davis was sentenced to one year in prison and was disbarred. On December 30, 1969,
DIXIE DAVIS DIES; RACKETS LAWYER; Partner of Dutch Schultz Was Disbarred in 1937"Ex-Gang Lawyer Told of Theft, Dies," ''Los Angeles Times'', December 31, 1969. Dixie Davis died of a heart attack in his home in

Bel-Air, California Bel Air (or Bel-Air) is a residential neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Founded in 1923, it is the home of the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden and the American Jewish Universit ...

during a break-in. Two masked gunmen had bound his wife and grandson and had stolen jewels, furs and cash. The character Tommy Farrell in the 1958 film ''

Party Girl A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

'' is loosely based on him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Dixie 1905 births 1970 deaths Syracuse University College of Law alumni 20th-century American lawyers