Enoch L. Johnson - Tax Evasion Charges

Tax Evasion Charges

Nucky Johnson's name was mentioned frequently in a series of articles about vice in Atlantic City published in 1930 by William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal. According to some accounts, bad blood existed between Johnson and Hearst because Johnson had become too close to a showgirl who was Hearst's steady date when he visited Atlantic City. Johnson subsequently was the focus of increased scrutiny by the Federal government, allegedly as a result of Hearst's lobbying of Roosevelt administration officials.

In 1933 a property lien was filed against Johnson by the Federal government for additional taxes he owed on income earned in 1927. 1933 also saw the repeal of Prohibition, which eliminated a major selling point for Atlantic City among tourists and conventioneers, as well as a source of income for Johnson and his machine. On May 10, 1939 he was indicted for evading taxes on about $125,000 in income he received from numbers operators during 1935, 1936 and 1937. A two week trial concluded in July 1941, and Johnson was convicted. He was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and fined $20,000. On August 1, 1941, Johnson, then 58 years of age, married 33 year old German American Florence "Flossie" Osbeck, a former showgirl from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to whom he had been engaged for three years. Ten days later, on August 11, 1941, Johnson entered Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.

Following Johnson's 1941 conviction, Frank S. Farley succeeded him as the leader of the machine.