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. Protects Daughter | —— Official of Firm | Stabbed in Back, Then He: Pays cutor got much more out of th witness, Singer. f the Pte leedle ager of ‘the Le’ Neer Trades Workers Union, provided |’ an illuminating sketc! Gurrah methods, This is the union, {t will be remembered, whose top Official, Morris Langer, was as- sassinated by a bomb. : The Association’ Je Subsequently, Potash recounted; he was summoned to a Seventh ave. hotel in September, 1932, to treat with Sam Mittelman, presi- dent of the F. D. P. Cc. Here_ is his recital of the meeting: , “I was surprised to see another man with Sam Mittelman. It was Mr. Gurrah. I said to Mit- telman: ‘I came to see you and I won't have any dealings with anybody else.’ : : “Then Mr. Gurrah spoke up. He said to me: ‘ Potash you will have to-deal with me whether you like it or not!’. . “Mittelman said: ‘Yes, Mr, Gurrah IS the association’ “After we talked a while, Mit~ Recalcitrant Gives In After Losing an Eye By GEORGE CARROLL. Lye in the eye got results for Lepke and Gurrsh, pals of Sing Sing days, when they sank their hooks into the $85,000,000 fancy fur dressing industry. . In at least one instance, they achieved a slight paraphrase of the old law: “An Eye for an Eye” and switched it to read: “An Eye for $200,000.” Theix\.acid-throwers did it for them. “be Not uni right eyeball was burned dut with acid, emptied over him as he stepped into his| 1,000,000 skins a month. aut¢mobile, did old Julius Bernfield “We could have had this work acgept “protection” from Louis| done just as well or better else- (Yepke the Leopard) Buchalter,| where at 5 cents » skin.. Now e nation’s No, 1 Fugitive, and} we had to pay 7 cents and up. Jacob (Gurrah Jake) Shapiro,} For just one month alone, this now in the government’s Atlanta] cost us $20,000 extra.” Penitentiary. . The “protection”—he fought it/Acid Treatment For Union Officials off courageously until he lost half his sight—cost Bernfeld's firm around $200,000 annually. Recalcitrant union officials like- Records of United States Court] wise suffered the acid treatment. recount the losing struggle which!m _ memorandum from the the fur house of Brickner & Bern- bench, Judge Knox highlighted the feld, 337 Seventh ave. wagedlease of one euch official, Harry against the Leopard and Gurrah/Goodman, whose hospital bills to- Jake, taled $8,500. telman, trying to be clever, re- But Brickner & Bernfeld didn’t} Im refusing to reduce to‘pro-| ferred. to the murder of Mr, give graciously, didn’t join the’ : LOUIS LEPKE A Partner in “Crime, Inc.” — as ers Protective Corporation over’ bation 1¢-month jail terms against} Langer. He said to me: gangsters’ organization until the/three unionist co-defendants of| ‘Wasn’t it unfortunate, that acid baths started coming a trifleltepke and Gurrah—Pietro Lucchi,| Killing of Langer?’ Of course I too regularly, with a slugging|Morris Reiss and Isaac Hertzberg) said it was unfortunate and then _ thrown in for good measure. —the court observed: Mittelman, he says to me: | . “You can’t scare us,” old Julius “To be sure, there is no evi- “Don’t you think we ought insisted at each visit from Sam | dence that Lucchi, Relss or | fo avoid any repetition of this ' Mittelman,. president of the Hertzberg personally‘ assaulted | sort of difficulty?’ 1 racket-fronting Protective Fur anyone, “I was very clear in the man- | Dressers Corp. and catspaw for “But Iet it be remembered, | ner that he insinuated just what | the Leopard and Gurrah. / that, subsequent to the date | he meant!” : Words failing to impress old! when sulphuric acid was sprayed Julius, it was decided by the rulers} on Goodman and he had been af the P. F. D. C, to prod him up.| hospitalized for weeks at an ex- . pense of $8,500, when his spirit was broken and he was upable longer to endure the constant -thought of further physical harm, these defendants sat in a union court at the Plymouth Hotel and before that court stood Goodms: & Co., fur dressers, was asked what happened when he declined to play ball with Crime, Inc, ‘Stabbed in Back,’ Recalcitrant Says “I was stabbed in the back; n. aoa my hand was almost cut off, J “Bandaged, distigured, trem- | spent 20 days in the hospital,” . acid into the machine. The old; bling and afraid, he made com- Yeager tastified. furrier flung his arm about his! pliance with the decree then and Belore ‘the ‘odes ‘daughter. Their bodies and cloth-} there Pronounced ag; him © joo 7s ‘ ‘ing. were epla with the stuft,| - ese defendants ghould now .}* yet not seriously, * eke Hh yteld “execs & e feared Hon. o “each def : A few weeks later as Bernteld was walkng in West End ave. an attacker crowned him with a From Acid Bath os As Bernfeld, driving with his daughter on Fifth ave., halted for a red light, a gangster stepped from the curb afid hurled « bottle of sentences.” length of lead pipe. The old fur- Se: Her wourd uy in Roosevelt Hospi-|Newark Furrier -: "Now that I've seen the man ¥ tal, where they sewed his wound/ Paid $15,000 a Year : | see that I made a mistake. It: with nine atitches, vote : i ecu Lik ( ant the same fellow,” mumbled The clincher came about 8) when the fear of the Leopard Kudler. nt ! wa month after the last half of the firm left the hospital with his patched scalp. : 8 Pull into his’ face, an acid- thrower flung a couple of quarts of fiery, tortusis.. stuff. Choking, hewliny vith ageay, old man Bern- feld thought his end had come. It very nearly had. . . ‘ Bernfeld Loses Eye, Scarred for Life Back to the hospital they took him. He didn’t die. But the sight of his right eye was gone and his face was scarred permanently. Brickner & Bernfeld signed up with the F. D, P. C., Lepke & Gurrah’s Crime, Inc. Joseph Storff, credit manager and Gutrsh Jake really was -in- stilled in & man, it was no hang- over. It wouldn’t fade. Take the case of Philip Singer, president of a big Newark fur house, who tes- tified he paid an initiation fee of $500 and $15,000 a year to the “What for?” demanded John Harlan Amen, Spectal Prosecu- re : . -_ “For stabilization in the in- “The witness ts evidently _ lying; I'll tet the case go to the Jary,” the court said. ca The defense proffered -no e dence whatsoever. The Jury! found both Lepke and Gurrah dustry,” rejoined Singer. guilty. The U, 8. Circuit Court,. - Amen tried to get the witness presided over by Judge: to be a Uttle more definite about puartin T. Manton, reversed/ “stabilization” but Singer hemmed |*PKe's conviction. Gurrah 1s and hawed, ducked and evaded|%tVing out his sentence. Lepke until Judge Knox cried out in|W8s released on bail, skipped, is a exasperation: fugitive now. : “Quit your dodging and fool- (Tomorrow's instalment of ing around and answer these | “Lepke, Leopard of the Rackets,” questions!” takes up the drug smuggling for Brickner & Bernfeld, enlight-| Yet the authority of United} charges which led to his indict- ened Judge KndX-and the jurors/states Court proved less impelling} ment by the Federal Govern- further: Se mee : ¢ , /than fear of modified murder and ment, another” account the | | “After Mr. Bernfeld was |mayhem. Leopard must settle when. and Dlinded we cent the Pre Nrece. want a aoa : ield : | Oscar Yeager, of Yeager, Siegel |~