Seymour Magoon

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Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon (occasionally Seymore Magoon ) (* 1908 ; †?) Was an American mobster from New York City - actually of Irish descent - and contract killer of Murder, Inc. He is attributed to the Kosher Nostra .

Life

Early years

Magoon was involved in the infiltration of the painters' union ( “labor racketeering” ) in the 1920s and 1930s together with Martin Goldstein . When the National Crime Syndicate was formed by Castellammare after the war , Murder, Inc. emerged as the central killing organ in which mainly mobsters of the Kosher Nostra and La Cosa Nostra worked together. Magoon was one of a number of contract killers who committed murders in New York on the orders of high-ranking organized crime leaders. However, the orders are said to have come mainly from the two gang leaders and union criminals Louis Buchalter and Albert Anastasia .

In 1934 Magoon was arrested for the murder of Jacob Cooperman, a private Brooklyn lender. However, there was no conviction.

In 1936 a court sentenced Magoon and Martin Goldstein to prison for their involvement in infiltrating the painters' union.

In March 1937, a few weeks after Magoon's release from Sing Sing Prison , he was arrested on suspicion of murder in the borough of Queens . However, the charges were dismissed by a grand jury in April of that year.

Benjamin Tannenbaum is murdered

In February 1941, Magoon allegedly murdered the Murder, Inc. relative and alleged Pentito Benjamin Tannenbaum . Tannenbaum, a friend of the New York real estate agent Max Heitner, was shot twice in the chest while he was supervising his four-month-old child in Heitner's apartment. Magoon was initially taken into custody for the murder. Allegedly, Tannenbaum wanted to give the authorities details about the murder of Dutch Schultz in the Palace Chophouse Restaurant in 1935 and in particular charged Charles Workman with the fourfold murder.

Criminal witness Max Rubin

After the trade unionist Max Rubin had survived a shot in the head in 1937, Magoon was hired to commit a new offense to inform Rubin, who had been informed about the machinations of the Buchalter-Shapiro gang and Buchalter's involvement in the murder of Joseph Rosen, of a cooperation with the public prosecutor to hold.

Joseph Rosen, a friend of Max Rubin, had asked for money to be paid for his silence regarding Buchalter's involvement in the infiltration of the trade unions. Since Rosen constantly made new demands and tried to blackmail Buchalter, Buchalter ordered his murder. Rubin did not succeed in preventing the act and in convincing Buchalter of the harmlessness of Rosen. Rather, Seymour Magoon was later commissioned to murder Max Rubin and prevent his possible testimony before a jury .

After Magoon had observed Rubin over a long period of time and found that he was being protected by police officers day and night, he informed Emanuel Weiss , one of Buchalter's henchmen, that he could not commit Rubin's murder without a police officer to murder. According to a later statement from Magoon, Weiss first pushed for the police officer to be killed as well. Ultimately, however, the plan was completely abandoned.

When Abe Reles , a member of Murder, Inc., and shortly afterwards Albert Tannenbaum and Sholem Bernstein testified before the district attorney Thomas E. Dewey against supporters of organized crime, Magoon decided in 1941 to act as a witness against others Members of the organization to appear in order to obtain mitigation themselves.

Magoon's role in the Feinstein murder trial

Irving Feinstein , a disgraced member of Murder, Inc., was abducted to Abe Reles' home at E.91 St. in Brooklyn in 1939 and tortured there. Ultimately, Harry Strauss killed Feinstein with an ice pick. The perpetrators then tried to make the body unrecognizable by fire. More Tatbeteiligte were Harry Maione and Martin Goldstein.

In the murder trial, Magoon testified against his former accomplice and childhood friend Martin Goldstein. Goldstein and Strauss were sentenced to death and executed on the electric chair in Sing Sing in 1941.

Magoon's role in the Rosen murder trial

In 1940, four years after the murder of Joseph Rosen, the Kings County Attorney's Office was able to bring charges against the accused Louis Buchalter, Louis Capone , Harry Strauss, James Ferraco , Emanuel Weiss and Philip Cohen .

Harry Strauss had already been executed before the actual trial in 1941. James Ferraco was murdered by unknown persons in 1940 or 1941 and Philip Cohen was struck off the list of accused for reasons unknown, but sentenced to prison for drug smuggling and shot in New York after his release in 1949.

When the three remaining defendants, Louis Buchalter, Emanuel Weiss and Louis Capone, had to answer for the murder of Joseph Rosen in 1941, accused Magoon Capone of plotting the murder. In December of the same year, a jury sentenced the three defendants to death .

In 1943, lawyer Leon Fischbein met Magoon in a New York restaurant. During the conversation, Magoon asked about Louis Capone's health. He also wanted to know from Fischbein what the chances of the three sentenced to death would stand with a retrial.

“I too hope that Louis Capone gets a new trial. I hated to testify against him, but I had to look out for myself, because the bosses were the ones who turned state's evidence first, and I being only a slob, why should I have stood up when others did not ... If Louis Capone gets a new trial, things will be different. "

- Seymour Magoon, 1943.

Leon Fischbein then asked Magoon if he meant to say that he lied in the process. Magoon evaded the question and once again emphasized that if the proceedings were reopened, things would be different for Capone.

However, the defense of the three convicts could not get the proceedings to be resumed. In 1944 the death penalty was carried out on Buchalter, Weiss and Capone.

To this day nothing is known about the further fate of Magoon.

Adaptations

In the television series Las Vegas from 2005, the fourth episode of the third season : “Whatever Happened to Seymour Magoon?” Only marginally addresses his disappearance and suggests that he could have been murdered and buried in Las Vegas.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b MONEY LENDER SLAIN; COMPETITOR SEIZED; Victim of Shooting in 1932 Is Held in Murder of Rival at Door of Home. , The New York Times - Retrieved January 23, 2013
  2. ↑ GANGSTER IS SEIZED IN SCHOOL JOB RACKET; Goldstein, 'Public Enemy No. 6, 'and 3 Others Are Jailed in' Kickback 'Inquiry. , The New York Times - Retrieved January 23, 2013
  3. ↑ 'PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 6 'GETS JAIL SENTENCE; Buggsy Goldstein and Bodyguard Operated 'Kickback' Racket on Brooklyn School Contracts. , The New York Times - Retrieved January 23, 2013
  4. ↑ MURDER SUSPECT FREED; Released as Grand Jury Fails to Indiot in Brooklyn Case , The New York Times - accessed January 23, 2013
  5. ↑ GANGSTER'S DEATH HELD WORK OF RING; Slaying of Benny the Boss, Lepke Aide, in Bronx Linked to Murder Syndicate HE WAS 'READY TO TALK' Police Say the Victim Knew of Many Killings - His Host Has Policy Case Record , The New York Times - accessed 7 October 2012
  6. ↑ RUBY RECOVERING; EAGER TO AID DEWEY; Rackets Witness Who Was Shot Critically Is Again Able to Give Information The New York Times , October 17, 1937
  7. ↑ Whatever Happened To Seymour Magoon? on www.tv.com (English)

literature

  • Rich Cohen: Murder Inc .: Not exactly kosher stores in Brooklyn . Fischer Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-10-010215-0 .
  • Rich Cohen: Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams. . Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998, ISBN 0-684-83115-5 .
  • Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder: Murder Inc. . Farrar Straus and Young, 1952, 1992, ISBN 978-0-306-80475-5 .
  • Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder: Murder Inc. . Da Capo Press, 2003, ISBN 0-306-81288-6 .
  • Alan A. Block: East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930-1950 . New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1983, ISBN 0-87855-931-0 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Magoon, Seymour
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blue Jaw
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American hit man
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
DATE OF DEATH 20th century