Word: hassel
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Irving ("Waxey Gordon") Wexler used to be a Bowery pickpocket. From thieving, petty assaults and a stretch in Sing Sing he stepped up into the real estate business. For partners he had a pair of plug-uglies named Max Hassel and Max Greenberg. His real estate business served as a cloak for bigtime bootlegging in New Jersey. By 1931 the Wexler breweries at Paterson and Union City were returning profits at the rate of $2,277,000 per year. 'Legger Wexler bought $10 shirts, rode in limousines, kept an elaborate apartment with three master bedrooms, a library, a living...
...stand in his own defense Wexler pictured himself as a poor man. He was, he said, only a small cog in a big wheel. His real bosses had been Hassel and Greenberg who gave him a modest allowance, supplied limousines to "keep up the front." He owned no breweries, knew little about the beer racket, and nothing at all about New York gang murders. When Prosecutor Dewey called his testimony a lie, Wexler wept...