Editing Dutch Schultz (section)

==Criminal career==
===Bootlegger===
In the mid-1920s, Schultz had begun work as a [[Bouncer (doorman)|bouncer]] at the Hub Social Club, a small [[speakeasy]] in the Bronx owned by a gangster named Joey Noe. Noe was impressed with Schultz's reputation for brutality and made him a partner. Together they soon opened more illegal drinking establishments around the Bronx. Using their own trucks to reduce high delivery costs, they brought in beer made by Frankie Dunn, a brewer in [[Union City, New Jersey|Union City]], [[New Jersey]]. Schultz often [[Riding shotgun|rode shotgun]] to guard the trucks from hijackers.

Schultz and Noe soon had to deal with brothers John and Joe Rock, who were already running a [[rumrunning|bootlegging]] operation in the Bronx. Initially the brothers refused to buy beer from Noe and Schultz, but eventually John, the elder brother, agreed to cooperate; however, his younger brother Joe refused. One night the Noe-Schultz gang kidnapped Joe, beat him and hung him by his thumbs from a meat hook. They then allegedly wrapped a gauze bandage smeared with discharge from a [[gonorrhea]] infection over his eyes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=205 |title=Schultz, Dutch – The Free Information Society |publisher=Freeinfosociety.com |access-date=December 28, 2010 |archive-date=April 13, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200413112334/http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=205 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Joe's family reportedly paid $35,000 for his release. Shortly after his return, he went blind. From then on, the Noe-Schultz gang met little opposition as they expanded across the entire Bronx.<ref name="five families book"/> Bootlegging during Prohibition made Schultz very wealthy.<ref name="five families book"/>

===Gang wars===
The Noe-Schultz operation, which had begun to flourish in the Bronx, soon became the only gang able to rival the network of Italian crime syndicates that became the [[Italian-American Mafia|Mafia]]'s [[Five Families]].<ref name="five families book"/> When the gang expanded from the Bronx over to Manhattan's [[Upper West Side]] and the neighborhoods of [[Washington Heights, Manhattan|Washington Heights]], [[Yorkville, Manhattan|Yorkville]] and [[Harlem]], they moved their headquarters to [[List of numbered streets in Manhattan|East 149th Street]] in the Bronx. However, this brazen move led to a bootleg war with New York's [[Irish mob]], led by [[Legs Diamond|Jack "Legs" Diamond]].

In the early hours of October 16, 1928, Noe was shot several times outside the Chateau Madrid, a speakeasy at 231 [[54th Street (Manhattan)|West 54th]].<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/10/20/91723801.pdf |title=Fatal Pistol Battle Brings Night Club Raid |date=October 20, 1928}}</ref> Although seriously wounded, he managed to return fire. A blue [[Cadillac]] was seen hitting some parked cars and losing one of its doors before speeding away. When police found the car an hour later, they discovered the body of a Louis Weinberg (no relation to Schultz gang members [[Abraham Weinberg|Abraham "Bo" Weinberg]] and [[George Weinberg (mobster)|George Weinberg]]) in the backseat. Noe's wounds became infected, and he died on November 21.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/11/22/95851016.pdf |title=Sheriff Aide Dies of Shots |date=November 22, 1928}}</ref> Schultz was left angry and distraught by the loss of his friend and mentor.

Retaliation started a few weeks later when [[Arnold Rothstein]], a [[crime boss]] in the [[Jewish-American organized crime|Jewish mob]], was found fatally shot near the service entrance to the [[Park Central Hotel]] on November 6, 1928. Although George "Hump" McManus supposedly killed Rothstein over an unpaid gambling debt, Schultz is believed to have ordered the killing in retribution for Noe's death. This theory is supported by the fact that the first individual McManus rang after the killing was Schultz's attorney, [[Dixie Davis]]. Schultz's trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg, then picked up McManus and drove him away from the murder scene. McManus was later cleared of the killing.

On October 12, 1930, Diamond was shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on Manhattan's [[West Side (Manhattan)|West Side]]. Two gunmen forced their way into Diamond's room and shot him five times before fleeing. Still in his pajamas, Diamond staggered into the hallway and collapsed. When asked later by the [[New York City Police Commissioner|New York City police commissioner]] how he managed to walk out of the room, Diamond said he drank two shots of [[whiskey]] first. Diamond was rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan, where he eventually recovered.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/10/13/102169864.pdf|title=Jack Diamond shot five times by gunmen in a 64th street hotel|date=October 13, 1930|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 28, 2013}}{{subscription required}}</ref> On December 30, 1930, Diamond was discharged from Polyclinic.<ref name="diamond case">{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/08/08/92162468.pdf|title=Diamond case goes to the jury today|date=August 8, 1931|work=The New York Times|access-date=May 5, 2013}}{{subscription required}}</ref> During his absence, his gang was forced to leave the city. When he returned home, Diamond began carving out a new territory for himself in [[Albany, New York|Albany]]. He was killed in an Albany rooming house at 67 Dove Street by two gunmen in December 1931.<ref>{{cite news|title='Legs' Diamond Slain In Sleep At Albany By Two Assassins; Just Before Gang Murder |url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0714FE3E591B728DDDA00994DA415B818FF1D3 |quote=Jack (Legs) Diamond, human ammunition dump for the underworld, was killed in a cheap rooming house at 67 Dove ... |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=December 19, 1931 |access-date=August 9, 2012}}{{subscription required}}</ref>

Schultz also had to deal with internecine conflicts within his own gang. In 1930 one of his enforcers, [[Mad Dog Coll|Vincent Coll]], demanded to be made an equal partner. This was because Schultz's subordinates received a flat salary instead of the customary percentage from the take—a unique arrangement compared to other major gangs in [[organized crime]]. When Schultz refused, Coll formed his own crew with the ultimate goal of murdering Schultz and taking over his territory. In the bloody gang war that followed, Coll lost his older brother Pete and earned the nickname "Mad Dog" from the press after a child was killed during a botched assassination attempt committed by his gang. In February 1932, while Coll was taking a call in a drugstore phone booth, gunmen armed with [[machine gun]]s entered the store and shot him to death. The killers may have included Edward "Fats" McCarthy and the brothers Bo and George Weinberg.

===Racketeer===
Along with the [[policy racket]]s, Schultz began extorting New York restaurant owners and workers. Working through a hulking gangster named Jules Modgilewsky (also known as Julie Martin), Schultz made deals with the leaders of Waiters Local 16 and Cafeteria Workers Local 302 to [[extortion|extort]] money by forcing restaurant owners to join the Metropolitan Restaurant & Cafeteria Owners Association, an employer association that Schultz had founded. Those who refused to join the Association were faced with exorbitant wage demands from [[labor union]]s, followed by [[labor strike|strike]]s and [[stink bomb]] attacks. The Association then stepped in to arrange a settlement of the strike with a [[Sweetheart deal|sweetheart contract]] for low wages contingent on the employer joining the Association. Martin successfully extracted thousands of dollars of tributes and "dues" for Scultz from the terrorized restaurant owners.

During his tax trial, Schultz began to suspect that Martin was [[skimming (fraud)|skimming]] from the shakedown operation; Schultz had recently discovered a $70,000 disparity in the books. On the evening of March 2, 1935, Schultz invited Martin to a meeting at the Harmony Hotel in [[Cohoes, New York|Cohoes]], [[New York (state)|New Yotk]]. At the meeting, at which chief [[Mob enforcer|enforcer]] Bo Weinberg and mob lawyer Dixie Davis were also present, Martin belligerently denied Schultz's charges and began arguing with him. Both men were drinking heavily as the argument continued, and Schultz sucker-punched Martin. Finally, Martin admitted that he had taken $20,000, which he believed he was "entitled to" anyway. Davis related what happened next:

{{blockquote|Dutch Schultz was ugly; he had been drinking and suddenly he had his gun out. Schultz wore his pistol under his vest, tucked inside his pants, right against his belly. One jerk at his vest and he had it in his hand. All in the same quick motion he swung it up, stuck it in Jules Martin's mouth and pulled the trigger. It was as simple and undramatic as that—just one quick motion of the hand. Dutch Schultz did that murder just as casually as if he were picking his teeth.<ref name="five families book"/>}}

As Martin contorted on the floor, Schultz apologized to Davis for killing someone in front of him. When Davis later read a newspaper story about the murder, he was shocked to find out that the body was found on a snowbank with a dozen stab wounds to the chest. When Davis asked about this, Schultz replied, deadpan, "I cut his heart out."

===Trials for tax evasion ===
In the early 1930s, [[United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York|United States Attorney]] [[Thomas Dewey]] had set his sights on convicting Schultz for [[tax evasion|non-payment of federal taxes]]. Schultz was [[indictment|indicted]] in New York in January 1933 and became a fugitive. He surrendered in Albany in November 1934 as part of a plan to have his trials moved from New York City to [[Upstate New York|upstate]]. His first tax evasion trial, in [[Syracuse, New York|Syracuse]], ended in a [[hung jury]], with many speculating he'd [[jury tampering|bribed the jurors]]. He would face retrial in [[Malone, New York|Malone]].

With the case going to a second trial, Schultz quickly set about presenting himself to the townspeople of Malone as a [[gentleman|country squire]] and good citizen. He donated cash to local businesses, gave toys to sick children and performed other charitable deeds. The strategy worked, as he was [[acquittal|acquitted]] in late summer 1935.<ref name="five families book"/><ref>{{cite news |title=Schultz Is Freed. Judge Excoriates Jury Of Farmers. Acquittal 'Blow To Law' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1935/08/02/archives/schultz-is-freed-judge-excoriates-jury-of-farmers-acquittal-blow-to.html |quote=Arthur (Dutch Schultz) Flegenheimer was acquitted of income tax evasion charges here at 8:55 o'clock tonight after the jury had been out 28 hours and 23 minutes. It was his second trial.... |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 2, 1935 |access-date=August 16, 2012 }}{{subscription required}}</ref> [[Mayor of New York City|New York Mayor]] [[Fiorello La Guardia]] was so outraged at the verdict that he issued an order that Schultz should be arrested on sight should he return to the city. As a result, Schultz was forced to relocate his base of operations across the [[Hudson River]] to [[Newark, New Jersey]].