Brooklyn's Most Wanted

The Top 100 Criminals, Crooks and Creeps from the County of the Kings

Craig McGuire

• Publisher: WildBlue Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781942266976
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia nordamericana

A collected history of the 100 most notorious criminals to walk the streets of the New York City borough. Brooklyn's Most Wanted parades an impressive perp walk of 100 of the borough's most notorious, ranking them meticulously from bad to worst. From crime bosses to career criminals to corrupt politicians, pedophile priests to Ponzi scammers, this is not your usual crime chronicle. You want labor racketeering, Ponzi scheming, hijacking, murder, loan sharking, arson, illegal gambling, money laundering? Fugetaboutit! Take this guided gangland tour of Brooklyn, the broken land, and meet everyone from the South Brooklyn Boys to the Soviet thugs of Brighton Beach's Little Odessa. Want to know what Billy the Kid, John Wilkes Booth and the Son of Sam all have in common? Brooklyn. Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, Al Capone, Frankie Yale, Paul Vario, Roy DeMeo and so many more malicious malcontents and maniacs stalk these pages, as author Craig McGuire rank a rogues' gallery of the best of the worst from Brooklyn's crime-ridden past and present. This includes more than a century of screaming crime blotter headlines, spotlighting epic cases, like The Brooklyn Godmother, The Sex Killer of Brooklyn, The Nurse Girl Murder, The Long Island Railroad Massacre, The Thrill Kills Gang, and many more. From "Son of Sam" to "Son of Sal, " "Little Lepke" to "Big Paulie, " "The Butcher of Brooklyn, " "The Vampire of Brooklyn, " "The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, " and even "The Man Who Murdered Brooklyn Baseball, " they're all here. Much more than Murder Incorporated, this book features kingpins and lone wolves alike, with a line-up featuring many of the multi-ethnic mobs mimicking the original La Cosa Nostra—the Russian Mafia, the Albanian Mafia, the Polish Mafia, the Greek Mafia—in fact, this book contains more mafias than you can shake a bloody blackjack at. The author's proprietary Notorious Brooklyn Index analyzes criminal activity, socio-economic type, notoriety, relation to Brooklyn and more for a final score that's far from conjecture—though it will undoubtedly spark debate. Praise for Brooklyn's Most Wanted "Never has anyone put together a look into so many of Brooklyn's worst. This is a great read I highly recommend." —Thomas Dades, retired NYPD detective, bestselling author of Friends of the Family "If you love all-things-Brooklyn like I do, this is an absolute must-read you need on your shelf.... A revealing, rousing, rip-roaring tour that will slice you right into the underbelly of New York City's most historic borough." —Ron Valdes, co-founder, Brooklyn Creative Partners

About the Ranking System

no·to·ri·e·ty (noun)

The state of being famous or well known for some bad quality or deed.

The primary objective of the proprietary “Brooklyn’s Most Wanted Index Rankings” is to list the 100 most-notorious individuals produced by Kings County, U.S.A.

To compile such a list, I selected 34 individual indicators that each carry a different weighting when calculating the overall scores. Indicators range from type of criminal activity (i.e. murder, extortion, crimes against children) and type of criminal (i.e. white-collar criminal, pedophile priest, mob boss). While not revealing the actual weighting formula, the indicators are as follows:

Born or Lived in Brooklyn	Drug Dealer, Involvement in Narcotics in Brooklyn
Committed Major Crimes in Brooklyn	Dirty Police Officer or Federal Agent
Famous for Crimes Beyond Brooklyn	Corrupt Brooklyn Politician
Murderer	Pedophile Priest Preying on Children of Brooklyn
Contract Killer	Mentally Disturbed, Psychopathic Tendencies
Serial Killer	Government Witness, High Profile Informant
Mass Murderer	Made Local New York / Brooklyn Media
Rapist	Made National Media
Harmed Children	Featured Prominently in Book Treatment
Harmed Elderly	Featured Prominently in a Documentary
Thief of Historical Significance	Featured Prominently in a Hollywood Film
Con Artist	High Household Name Recognition
White-Collar Criminal, Embezzler	Did Prison Time
Lone-Wolf Criminal	Died While Incarcerated in Prison
Racketeer: Associate or Soldier	Died in Electric Chair, Other Capital Punishment
Racketeer: Captain or Consigliere	Died of Natural Causes
Racketeer: Don, Boss or Kingpin	Was Murdered

My formula takes into account elements of notoriety (i.e. media coverage, movie treatment, documentaries, household name recognition).

Lastly, I looked at the individual in relation to Brooklyn (i.e. born in Brooklyn, percentage of crimes committed in Brooklyn).

The indicators were based on objective facts and data, as well as subjective opinion of the author and a select committee of researchers and real crime fans.

As with all such systems, the “Brooklyn’s Most Wanted Index Rankings” has its limits and these imperfections are certain to inspire criticism and heated debate. There is no perfect system, though I welcome your comments to improve my ranking methodology and expand this list.

You are encouraged to submit your comments, criticisms and candidates for this list at www.BrooklynsMostWanted.com.

Let the debate begin!

100

Julius Bernstein – The Last Jewish Mobster

The media is always looking for latest Last Mohican.

In 2012, the New York Daily News heralded the end of an era when it christened Julius Bernstein “The Last Jewish Mobster,” lowering the curtain on a storied chapter in Brooklyn crime lore.

Born in 1922, Bernstein was raised during the Great Depression in impoverished East New York, Brooklyn. This was the heyday of the Jewish Gangster, when Murder, Incorporated rose to prominence as the Italian Mafia’s personal hit squad. (Dubbed “Murder, Incorporated” by the media, the organized crime group comprised mainly of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters from the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill and terrorized the city in the 1930s and 1940s.)

Serving in the United States Army during World War II as an infantryman, Bernstein charged the beaches in Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion, before returning to Brooklyn for a long career as a low-level gangster.

While “Spike” Bernstein never earned the notoriety of such Jewish underworld luminaries as a Meyer Lansky or a Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, he was a solid earner for the Italian mob as an associate of the Genovese Crime Family. Forbidden from becoming a “Made” member of the Mafia, as he was not of Italian heritage, Bernstein formed a close relationship with Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello, who reached the rung of acting boss of the Genovese clan in 1995 when Vincent Gigante was packed off to prison. Ianniello went on to serve more than just jail time, standing in as Spike’s best man at his wedding.

Back in Brooklyn, fresh off the beaches of northern France, Bernstein became what was known as a bagman, collecting extortion payments for more than four decades, including a bus union, the Sbarro Italian restaurant chain and other Brooklyn businesses bent backwards for shakedowns.

According to FBI records, by 1971 Bernstein was bumped up in the Brooklyn underworld, placed by the Genovese family in a leadership position in Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, a union for New York City school bus drivers and matrons. But Bernstein was no bus driver. His sole role was managing the Genovese family’s shakedown for Ianniello. He held the post for 35 years, siphoning off thousands of dollars in hard-earned union dues and channeling it to the mob. Bernstein also ran a successful gambling book under the watch of notorious Brooklyn Genovese crime boss Frank “Funzi” Tieri.

Most notable of Bernstein’s criminal exploits was his role in the extortion of the popular Sbarro restaurant chain. Gennaro Sbarro opened his first salumeria on the corner of 65th Street and 17th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in 1956. Sbarro opened his first mall location in 1970 in the Kings Plaza Shopping Center on Flatbush Avenue in Marine Park, Brooklyn, and grew the business to become the fifth-largest pizza chain in America.

Taking a slice of the American Dream, Sbarro debuted its Initial Public Offering in 1977, and by the early 1990s was launching up to 100 stores per year. The company was brought private by the family in 1999 and sold for $450 million in 2006, though it has struggled in recent years, declaring bankruptcy in 2011 and again in 2014.

Based on Bernstein’s testimony, the FBI learned that the mob’s extortion of Sbarro began as far back as the 1960s. By 2004 the Genovese family was being passed $20,000 annually under the table. Bernstein personally collected the twice-annual $10,000 payments.

At the age of 82, Bernstein was caught up in an FBI probe of Sbarro and arrested in July 2005. Facing a lengthy prison term, Spike spilled the family secrets. Pleading guilty on multiple extortion counts, Bernstein began cooperating with the government in 2006.

Yet even after flipping...