testified that when Hines informed him he was going to put recommend Dodge as the next district attorney, Davis thought it was a bad idea. “I told Hines, ‘Dodge is stupid, he doesn’t know what it’s all about, and he would be harmful to us because of his stupidity,’” said Davis, to which Hines replied: “I wouldn’t worry about it. I can handle him”. It was Schultz’s money that paid largely for Dodge’s campaign. According to Weinberg, he was once asked to deliver $3,000 for the campaign at the office of Hines’s lawyer. Hines turned to Dodge, sitting with him in the office, and said: “Do you know George? This is one of Dutch Schultz’s boys. This is where I am getting the money for your campaign.” Dodge grinned and shook Weinberg’s hand with obvious gratitude. Dodge’s campaign manager later confirmed in court that he had received up to $30,000 from Schultz’s organisation.
Another staggering revelation was Dixie Davis’s admission that Hines insisted D.A Dodge quash the 1935 grand jury investigation into Schultz’s rackets. This ultimately led the grand jury to demand the appointment of Thomas Dewey as Special Prosecutor. Dixie Davis admitted telling Hines that Dewey’s appointment was to be avoided at all costs. “I knew Dewey was a bad guy from our standpoint. I went to see Hines at his country home and said to him: ‘Dewey will destroy us all.’ I urged him to go and see Dodge and see if he could stop the appointment.” Hines agreed immediately, promising “I will see what I can do.” It was the first time Hines failed to deliver.
The Hines trial was a major political sensation. Thousands of New Yorkers thronged the streets in front of Lower Manhattan’s Supreme Court Building, and the proceedings made daily headlines. The drama was long and tense. After many weeks of astonishing evidence, in September the judge declared a mistrial on a technicality and the trial ended. Another trial was scheduled for January 1939, but on the first day, George Weinberg, Thomas Dewey’s star witness, stole a gun from one of the officers who was guarding him and other defendants at a house in White Plains, and blew his brains out. For several days it seemed as if without Weinberg’s crucial evidence Dewey might lose his case, until it was agreed that Weinberg’s testimony given in the first trial could be read out in court. As the second trial progressed, in a surprise move Dewey called Dutch Schultz’s widow, 24 year-old Frances Flegenheimer to the stand. She confirmed she had often met Hines in the company of her husband, sometimes in public restaurants, and that the two men had a close relationship. At times, her husband told her to “forget about seeing Jimmy Hines in here tonight.” Finally, in March 1939 after only seven hours deliberation, the jury found Hines guilty on all thirteen charges. On March 23rd, he was sentenced to four to eight years imprisonment, and after losing his appeal, served just over four years of his term in Sing Sing. He was released on parole in 1944 and lived in relative obscurity with his wife at their home in Long Island, where he died of natural causes in 1957, aged eighty. The Hines conviction dealt the Tammany tiger a crippling blow. Symbolically, good had won over evil and incorrupt government was seen to triumph over bad. New Yorkers again began to feel they could hold their heads up, as the city turned over a new page.
*
The removal of Jimmy Hines, New York’s most powerful “Mr Fixit” and of Lucky Luciano, with whom Welfare Island monarch Joe Rao had also built up a lucrative partnership, left the underworld in disarray. Hines’s imprisonment deprived gangland of its most influential and enthusiastic mediator, and Thomas Dewey’s triumphant crackdown on organised crime proved a significant setback for most of the big-time 1920s and 1930s racketeers. Gangsters, including the celebrated gang, Murder Inc., who had succeeded in preventing Dutch
Another staggering revelation was Dixie Davis’s admission that Hines insisted D.A Dodge quash the 1935 grand jury investigation into Schultz’s rackets. This ultimately led the grand jury to demand the appointment of Thomas Dewey as Special Prosecutor. Dixie Davis admitted telling Hines that Dewey’s appointment was to be avoided at all costs. “I knew Dewey was a bad guy from our standpoint. I went to see Hines at his country home and said to him: ‘Dewey will destroy us all.’ I urged him to go and see Dodge and see if he could stop the appointment.” Hines agreed immediately, promising “I will see what I can do.” It was the first time Hines failed to deliver.
The Hines trial was a major political sensation. Thousands of New Yorkers thronged the streets in front of Lower Manhattan’s Supreme Court Building, and the proceedings made daily headlines. The drama was long and tense. After many weeks of astonishing evidence, in September the judge declared a mistrial on a technicality and the trial ended. Another trial was scheduled for January 1939, but on the first day, George Weinberg, Thomas Dewey’s star witness, stole a gun from one of the officers who was guarding him and other defendants at a house in White Plains, and blew his brains out. For several days it seemed as if without Weinberg’s crucial evidence Dewey might lose his case, until it was agreed that Weinberg’s testimony given in the first trial could be read out in court. As the second trial progressed, in a surprise move Dewey called Dutch Schultz’s widow, 24 year-old Frances Flegenheimer to the stand. She confirmed she had often met Hines in the company of her husband, sometimes in public restaurants, and that the two men had a close relationship. At times, her husband told her to “forget about seeing Jimmy Hines in here tonight.” Finally, in March 1939 after only seven hours deliberation, the jury found Hines guilty on all thirteen charges. On March 23rd, he was sentenced to four to eight years imprisonment, and after losing his appeal, served just over four years of his term in Sing Sing. He was released on parole in 1944 and lived in relative obscurity with his wife at their home in Long Island, where he died of natural causes in 1957, aged eighty. The Hines conviction dealt the Tammany tiger a crippling blow. Symbolically, good had won over evil and incorrupt government was seen to triumph over bad. New Yorkers again began to feel they could hold their heads up, as the city turned over a new page.
*
The removal of Jimmy Hines, New York’s most powerful “Mr Fixit” and of Lucky Luciano, with whom Welfare Island monarch Joe Rao had also built up a lucrative partnership, left the underworld in disarray. Hines’s imprisonment deprived gangland of its most influential and enthusiastic mediator, and Thomas Dewey’s triumphant crackdown on organised crime proved a significant setback for most of the big-time 1920s and 1930s racketeers. Gangsters, including the celebrated gang, Murder Inc., who had succeeded in preventing Dutch
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