Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1902 – October 24, 1935) was a New York City-area German Jewish-American mobster of the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Schultz's rackets were also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an attempt to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, which they refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935.

Early years

Schultz was born to German Jewish immigrants Herman and Emma (Neu) Flegenheimer, who had married in Manhattan on November 10, 1900. He had a younger sister, Helen, born in 1904. Herman Flegenheimer apparently abandoned his family, and Emma is listed as divorced in the 1910 census. (In her 1932 petition for U.S. citizenship, however, she wrote that her husband had died in 1910.) The event traumatized Schultz, and he always denied his father had left them. Schultz would drop out of school in the 8th grade to help support himself and his mother. From 1916 to 1919, he worked as a feeder and pressman for the Clark Loose Leaf Company, Caxton Press, American Express, and Schultz Trucking in the Bronx. He then worked at a neighborhood night club owned by a minor mobster, and began robbing craps games before turning to burglary. Schultz was caught breaking into an apartment and sent to the prison on Blackwell's Island (now called Roosevelt Island). A photograph of Schultz at age 18, during his incarceration, was published in the 2010 book "New York City Gangland."