Harold "Hooky" Rothman (1910 – August 18, 1948), also known as Harry Rothman, was a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

mobster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

and

mob enforcer Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...

who was the right-hand man of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

kingpin

Mickey Cohen Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen (September 4, 1913 – July 29, 1976) was an American gangster, boxer and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century. Early life Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in New York City to Je ...

during "The Battle of Sunset Strip" for the control of illegal activities in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

and Los Angeles.

Early life

Harold Rothman was born to

parents in New York, New York. He had eight brothers and two sisters. Rothman had a lengthy criminal career and served a term of imprisonment in 1938 in

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

World War II

Rothman served in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

as a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

from 1942 to 1945, and received an Honorable Discharge.

The Battle of Sunset Strip

After World War II, Rothman went to

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in mid-late 1945. In 1946, on orders of former New York

mob boss A crime boss, also known as a crime lord, Don, gang lord, gang boss, mob boss, kingpin, godfather, crime mentor or criminal mastermind, is a person in charge of a criminal organization. Description A crime boss typically has absolute or near ...

and fellow

hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may ...

Benjamin Siegel and

, Rothman murdered rival

bookies A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Bookma ...

Benny "the Meatball" Gamson and George Levinson in their apartment. Cohen ordered their deaths, because Levinson and Gamson were moving in on his business, including:

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

, prostitution, narcotics and Siegel and Cohen's

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

rackets Racket may refer to: * Racket (crime), a systematised element of organized crime ** Protection racket, a scheme whereby a group provides protection to businesses or other groups through violence outside the sanction of the law * Racket (sports equ ...

. Jimmy Fratianno had considered Harold "Hooky" Rothman to be Cohen's toughest and smartest man. On June 20, 1947, Siegel was murdered by his East Coast bosses. After the hit,

Los Angeles crime family The Los Angeles crime family, also known as the L.A. Mafia or the Southern California crime family, is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in Los Angeles as part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Since its inception in the ea ...

boss

Jack Dragna Jack Ignatius Dragna (born Ignazio Dragna, ; April 18, 1891 – February 23, 1956) was an American Mafia member and Black Hander who was active in both Italy and the United States in the 20th century. He was active in bootlegging in Californ ...

(Cohen's rival) attempted a hostile takeover of Siegel's gambling rackets. Dragna ran into a road block in the form of Cohen, who wasn't about to let Dragna take it all over without a fight and the war was on.

Death

On August 18, 1948, Jimmy Fratianno used his wife and daughter to set up Cohen at his Sunset Boulevard men's

haberdashery In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a retailer who sells men's clothing ...

store. As Fratianno and his family left the store, he hand signaled the other Dragna gang members, and they rushed into Cohen's store. At that point, Cohen was washing his hands in the bathroom, from a phobia Cohen had of germs, after shaking Fratianno's hands.

Frank Bompensiero Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero (October 29, 1905 – February 10, 1977) was a Mafia hitman and longtime caporegime in the Los Angeles crime family. In 1956, with the death of boss Jack Dragna, Bompensiero was demoted to the rank of soldier by the new ...

forced Rothman back into the clothing store using a

sawed-off shotgun A sawed-off shotgun (also called a sawn-off shotgun, short-barreled shotgun, shorty or a boom stick) is a type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel—typically under —and often a shortened or absent stock. Despite the colloquial term, ...

. As two other hitmen ran past him, Rothman swung his hand at Bompensiero's shotgun, causing it to go off. The shot hit Rothman in the face, killing him instantly."Frank Bompensiero: San Diego Hit Man, Boss and FBI Informant"
Crime Magazine by Allen May

In media

Rothman is the basis for a hitman and close friend of Siegel in the

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

miniseries ''

Mob City ''Mob City'' is an American neo-noir crime drama television series created by Frank Darabont for TNT. It is based on real-life accounts of the L.A.P.D. and gangsters in 1940s Los Angeles as chronicled in John Buntin's book ''L.A. Noir: The Strug ...

''.

References