Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss was a New York organized crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

 figure who was involved in drug trafficking and worked for the criminal organization known as Murder, Inc.

Murder, Inc.

Murder, Inc. was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1920s through the 1940s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American Mafia and Jewish Mafia groups who together formed the early organized crime groups in New York and...

 during the 1930s and up to the time of his arrest in 1941. He used several fake names like Hoffman and Kline.

Starting as an enforcer

Enforcer

Enforcer may refer to:*A thug who uses physical force or the threat of physical force to coerce others*Enforcer , a role in ice hockey*Enforcer - Gaming :*Enforcer, a units in the Battle Realms video game...

 for the labor rackets run by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter

Louis Buchalter

Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was a Jewish American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc. during the 1930s. After Dutch Schultz' request of the Mafia Commission for permission to kill his enemy, U.S. Attorney Thomas Dewey, the Commission decided to kill Schultz in order to prevent the hit...

, Weiss rose to become one of the organization's most dependable hired assassins, taking part in a number of high-profile contract killings for the National Crime Syndicate

National Crime Syndicate

The National Crime Syndicate was the name given by the press to a loosely-organized multi-ethnic organized crime syndicate. Its origins are uncertain....

. One of his best-known murders occurred on October 23, 1935. That night, he and another hired killer, Charlie "the Bug" Workman, walked into the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey

Newark, New Jersey

Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...

, and fatally shot mob boss Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz was a New York City-area Jewish American gangster of the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in organized crime-related activities such as bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket...

 and three of Schultz's associates. Immediately after the shootings, Weiss, fearing the imminent arrival of police, fled the scene and jumped into the waiting getaway car. He ordered their getaway driver, Seymour "Piggy" Schechter, to drive off without Workman, who was still finishing off Schultz in the restaurant's restroom. As a result of his being left behind, Workman was forced to travel back to New York alone, on foot.

The next day, Workman filed a complaint to the "board" of Murder, Inc. that he had been abandoned by Weiss and Piggy at the murder scene, an offense punishable by death. Weiss defended himself by arguing that Workman had returned to the men's room not for the purpose of making sure the job had been completed (as Workman claimed), but simply for the purpose of stealing Schultz's money and other belongings. Therefore, argued Weiss, the job was already done and Workman had chosen to remain at the scene strictly for selfish personal reasons, thereby jeopardizing their escape and increasing their risk of capture. The board decided it had to make an example of somebody, and that Piggy was more expendable than Weiss. Despite his protestations that he was only following Weiss's orders, the hapless Piggy was tortured and killed by the mob, while Weiss escaped punishment. See Ron Ross, Bummy Davis vs. Murder, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Mafia and an Ill-Fated Prizefighter, pp. 164–70 (New York: St. Martin's, 2003)

Another of Weiss's most notorious "hits" occurred September 13, 1936 when he, along with James Ferraco and Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss

Harry Strauss

Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss was a prolific contract killer for Murder, Inc. in the 1930s. He killed over thirty men using a variety of methods; shooting, stabbing with ice picks, drowning, live burial and strangling rope. Strauss never carried a weapon unless he was about to make a hit.Most...

, murdered Brownsville, Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen. Buchalter had ordered the murder in order to prevent Rosen, whom Buchalter had earlier forced out of the garment trucking business, from making good on a threat to expose Buchalter and his rackets to prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Previously unpublished crime scene photos of the Rosen candy store murder appear in a book titled "New York City Gangland". This crime eventually proved to be the undoing of Buchalter, Weiss, and Louis Capone

Louis Capone

Louis Capone was a New York organized crime figure who became a supervisor for the notorious Murder Inc. Louis Capone was not related to the boss of the Chicago Outfit, Al Capone.-Murder, Inc.:...

, a Buchalter lieutenant who helped to set up and carry out the murder.

The Rosen murder went unsolved for nearly four years. Since the police knew of no connections between Rosen and the mob, and, moreover, knew of no enemies Rosen may have had, police had no leads at first. Police finally learned of the mob link to the slaying in 1940, when Abe "Kid Twist" Reles

Abe Reles

Abe "Kid Twist" Reles was a New York mobster who was widely considered the most feared hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for the National Crime Syndicate. Reles later turned government witness and sent several members of Murder, Inc...

, a fellow Murder, Inc. enforcer, turned informant for Brooklyn district attorney William O'Dwyer

William O'Dwyer

William O'Dwyer was the 100th Mayor of New York City, holding that office from 1946 to 1950.-Biography:O'Dwyer was born in County Mayo, Ireland and migrated to the United States in 1910, after abandoning studies for the priesthood...

. Reles implicated Weiss and colleagues in this murder and helped police clear up numerous other unsolved murders as mob "hits". Fleeing to Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Weiss posed as a mining company executive but was eventually arrested and returned to New York, where he was formally charged with Rosen's murder.

In late 1941, Buchalter, Weiss and Capone stood trial by jury, in the Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 courtroom of Judge Franklin Taylor, for the first-degree murder of Joseph Rosen. The information provided by Reles and other mob turncoats, such as Allie "Tick-Tock" Tannenbaum and Max Rubin, resulted in a guilty verdict and sentence of death for each of the three defendants. On Saturday night, March 4, 1944, Weiss, Capone and Buchalter died in the electric chair

Electric chair

Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

 at Sing Sing

Sing Sing

Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...

 for the Rosen murder. Weiss's last words before his execution were: "I'm here on a framed-up case, and Governor Dewey

Thomas Dewey

Thomas Edmund Dewey was the 47th Governor of New York . In 1944 and 1948, he was the Republican candidate for President, but lost both times. He led the liberal faction of the Republican Party, in which he fought conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft...

 knows it. Give my love to my family, and everything."

Emanuel Weiss was put to death at Sing Sing on Saturday, March 4, 1944. Weiss was portrayed by Joseph Bernard

Joseph Bernard

Joseph Bernard was a modern classical French sculptor, featured on the frontispiece of Elie Faure's 1927 survey of modern art, "Spirit of Forms". Bernard was trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of Pierre-Jules Cavelier.- External links :*...

 in the movie Murder Inc.

Buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing NY

See also

• List of individuals executed in New York
• Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
  
  

External links

• The Last Days of Lepke Buchalter by Allan May
• Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss at Find-A-Grave