Events
- James J. Hines, the leader of Tammany Hall, the New York City Democratic organization, goes to prison for arranging political protection for Dutch Schultz's policy and numbers rackets in Harlem, New York.
- Brooklyn mobster Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon agrees to become a government informant and provides information on the Murder, Inc. organization.
- After a failed attempt on his life, New Jersey racketeer Max Rubin agrees to cooperate with law enforcement.
- Brooklyn racketeer James "Dizzy" Feraco is murdered by rival gunmen.
- February 2 - Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, a member of Murder, Inc., is arrested. District Attorney William O'Dwyer charges Reles with robbery, assault, possession of narcotics, burglary, disorderly conduct, and eight charges of murder. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Reles would agree to testify against the members of Murder, Inc., and provides information on the National Crime Syndicate. Phil and Martin Goldstein, Emmanuel Weiss, and Murder Inc. leader Louis "Lepke" Buchalter are some of the mobsters who would be convicted by Reles' testimony.
- April - George Scalise, New York labor racketeer and president of the Building Service and Employee's International Union of New York, is indicted for extortion.
- May 23 - Murder, Inc. members Harry Maione and Frank Abbandando, based on the testimony of Abe Reles, are convicted of the 1937 murder of Brooklyn loan shark George "Whitey" Rudnick. While the decision would be overturned on appeal, a second trial would find them guilty and result in death sentences for both men.
- July 31 - Whitey Krakower, a government informant, is murdered by New York mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.
Read more about this topic: 1940 In Organized Crime
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematising the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Gray’s Anatomy.”
—J.G. (James Graham)