Lepke

Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, (February 6, 1897March 4, 1944) was an American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor racketeers in New York City during that era.

Charles Birger and Buchalter are the only American mob bosses to be executed after being convicted of murder. Louis Buchalter was executed using the infamous " Old Sparky" electric chair after being sent "up the river" to Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

Background

Buchalter was born in the Lower East Side neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York in February 1897. His mother, Rose Buchalter, called him "lepkeleh" ("little Louis" in Yiddish), which later became "Lepke". Louis Buchalter had one sister and three brothers; one brother eventually became a dentist, another brother a college professor and rabbi, and the third brother a pharmacist. His father, Barnett Buchalter, was a Russian immigrant who operated a hardware store on the Lower East Side. The family was Jewish.

In 1909, when Buchalter was 12, his father died. In 1910, Buchalter finished elementary school and started a job selling theatrical goods. Reportedly, on the Lower East Side, he attended the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, where he was an "honor roll" student. Soon after, his mother moved to Arizona for health reasons, leaving Buchalter in the care of his sister, Sarah. However, Buchalter was beyond her control.

On September 2, 1915, Buchalter was arrested in New York for the first time for burglary and assault, but the case was discharged.

In late 1915 or early 1916, Buchalter went to live with his uncle in Bridgeport, Connecticut. On February 29, 1916, Buchalter was arrested in Bridgeport on burglary charges and was sent to the Cheshire Reformatory for juvenile offenders in Cheshire, Connecticut, until July 12, 1917. After a dispute with his uncle over wages, Buchalter moved back to New York City.

On September 28, 1917, Buchalter was sentenced in New York to 18 months in state prison at Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, on a grand larceny conviction. After a transfer to Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York, Buchalter was released on January 27, 1919. On January 22, 1920, Buchalter returned to Sing Sing on a 30-month sentence for attempted burglary. He was released on March 16, 1922.

Rise to power

Upon Buchalter's 1922 release from prison, he started working with his childhood friend, mobster Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro. Through force and fear, they began gaining control of the garment industry unions. Buchalter then used the unions to threaten strikes and demand weekly payments from factory owners while dipping into union bank accounts. Buchalter's control of the unions evolved into a protection racket, extending into areas such as bakery trucking. The unions were profitable for him and he kept a hold over them even after becoming an important figure in organized crime. Buchalter later formed an alliance with Tommy Lucchese, a leader of the Lucchese crime family, and together they controlled the garment district.

Buchalter and Shapiro moved into new and fashionable luxury buildings on Eastern Parkway (135) with family who were active synagogue goers ( Union Temple and Kol Israel Synagogue of Brooklyn). In later years, Buchalter and his family lived in a penthouse in the exclusive Central Park West section of Manhattan.

In 1927, Buchalter and Shapiro were arrested for the murder of Jacob Orgen (Little Augie) and the attempted murder of Irish-American bootlegger Jack Diamond, a criminal rival. However, the charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Buchalter was described as a quiet man who for years managed to avoid the public spotlight. In conversations with his criminal associates, Buchalter preferred listening over talking. Buchalter generously compensated his gang members and took them to hockey games, boxing matches, and even winter cruises. On August 20, 1931, Buchalter married Betty Wasserman, a British-born widow of Russian descent, at New York City Hall. Buchalter adopted Betty's child from her previous marriage.

Murder, Inc.

In the early 1930s, Buchalter created an effective process for performing contract killings for Cosa Nostra mobsters; it had no name, but the press 10 years later called it Murder, Inc. The Cosa Nostra mobsters wanted to insulate themselves from any connection to these murders. Buchalter's partner, mobster Albert Anastasia, would relay a contract request from the Cosa Nostra to Buchalter. In turn, Buchalter would assign the job to Jewish and Italian street gang members from Brooklyn.

None of these contract killers had any connections with the major crime families. If they were caught, they could not implicate their Cosa Nostra employers in the crimes. Buchalter used the same killers for his own murder contracts. The Murder, Inc., killers were soon completing jobs all over the country for their mobster bosses.

In 1935, Buchalter arranged his most significant murder: the powerful New York gangster Dutch Schultz. Schultz had proposed to the National Crime Syndicate, a confederation of mobsters, that New York District Attorney Thomas Dewey be murdered. Luciano argued that a Dewey assassination would precipitate a massive law enforcement crackdown. An enraged Schultz said he would kill Dewey anyway and walked out of the meeting. After six hours of deliberations The Commission ordered Buchalter to eliminate Schultz. On October 23, 1935, Schultz was shot in a Newark, New Jersey

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