Joseph Toblinsky

Last updated

Joseph "Yosky" Toblinsky (1883-January 2, 1944), better known as Joseph "Yesky Nigger" Toplinsky, [1] was a New York City racketeer who, as head of an independent gang on East Side Manhattan, was involved in extortion and poisoning horses with the Yiddish Black Hand during the early 1900s. He was eventually sent to Sing Sing Prison for cruelty to animals in 1902.

Contents

Toblinsky was arrested by police when he was identified by a witness as having participated in the hijacking of a truck while driving through Sullivan County on May 23, 1935. Although escaping with $8,000 worth of pharmaceutical drugs as well as kidnapping the driver and his assistant, he would be captured within a month after being taken into custody on July 17. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlo Gambino</span> American mobster

Carlo Gambino was a Sicilian-born American crime boss who was the leader and namesake of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Following the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of the American Mafia and played a powerful role in organized crime until his death from a heart attack in 1976. During a criminal career that spanned over fifty years, Gambino served only twenty-two months in prison for a tax evasion charge in 1937.

Murder, Inc. was an organized crime group active from 1929 to 1941 that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate – a closely connected criminal organization that included the Italian-American Mafia, the Jewish Mob, and other criminal organizations in New York City and elsewhere. Murder, Inc. was composed of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lepke Buchalter</span> American mob boss

Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, was an American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor racketeers in New York City during that era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frankie Yale</span> Italian American mob boss (1893–1928)

Francesco Ioele, known as Frankie Yale or Frankie Uale, was an American gangster based in Brooklyn and the second employer of Al Capone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owney Madden</span> American mobster (1891–1965)

Owen Vincent "Owney" Madden was a British-born gangster of Irish ancestry who became a leading underworld figure in New York during Prohibition. Nicknamed "The Killer", he garnered a brutal reputation within street gangs and organized crime. He ran the Cotton Club in Manhattan and was a leading boxing promoter. After increased attention from law enforcement in New York, Madden moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1935, where he remained until his death from natural causes in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Magliocco</span> Italian-American mob boss

Joseph Magliocco, also known as "Joe Malayak" and "Joe Evil Eye", was an Italian-born New York mobster and the boss of the Profaci crime family from 1962 to 1963. In 1963, Magliocco participated in an audacious attempt with Joseph Bonnano to kill other family bosses and take over the Mafia Commission. The attempt failed, and, while his life was spared, he was forced into retirement. Soon after, he died of a heart attack on December 28, 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnny Dio</span> American mobster (1914–1979)

Giovanni Ignazio Dioguardi, known as John "Johnny Dio" Dioguardi, was an Italian-American organized crime figure and a labor racketeer. He is known for being involved in the acid attack which led to the blinding of newspaper columnist Victor Riesel, and for his role in creating fake labor union locals to help Jimmy Hoffa become General President of the Teamsters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humpty Jackson</span> New York City gang boss

Thomas "Humpty" Jackson was a New York criminal and last of the independent gang leaders in New York's underworld during the early twentieth century. Reportedly well read, Jackson was said to be an admirer of such writers such as Voltaire, Charles Darwin, Leonard Huxley and Herbert Spencer as well as various Greek and Latin texts. He was, however, known to be a violent man who regularly carried three revolvers, including one in his derby hat and another secreted in a strange-looking small sweaty holster under his hunchback.

<i>Boss Nigger</i> 1975 Western film

Boss Nigger is a 1975 blaxploitation Western film directed by Jack Arnold, and stars former football player Fred Williamson, who both wrote and co-produced. Boss Nigger is the first film for which Williamson was credited as screenwriter or producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Cohen</span> American mobster and murderer

Louis Cohen was a New York mobster who murdered labor racketeer "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan and was an associate of labor racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. He was killed along with Isadore Friedman, another Buchalter associate, who was believed to be an informant. It is not known whether Cohen was murdered for being a potential informant or whether he was accidentally killed during the shooting that was supposed to target Friedman.

The Yiddish Black Hand or the Jewish Black Hand Association was a criminal organization and extortion ring that operated on New York's Lower East Side during the early 20th century, led by Jacob "Johnny" Levinsky. Around 1906, Levinsky, with Charles "Charley the Cripple" Vitoffsky, and Joseph Toblinsky, began an extortion ring from their hangout at a Suffolk Street saloon, delivering anonymous letters signed as the "Yiddish Black Hand" threatening to steal or poison the horses of local pushcart vendors and other businessmen, usually fellow Jewish immigrants.

Joseph "Jo Jo" Corozzo, Sr. is a New York mobster who was the reputed consigliere of the Gambino crime family.

The Cretzer-Kyle Gang was a Depression-era criminal group led by Joseph "Dutch" Cretzer and Arnold Thomas Kyle during the mid-to late 1930s. Largely active in the West Coast, they were one of the few groups to gain national attention outside the Midwest and also one of the last groups to be captured by the FBI at the end of the decade. Cretzer was killed in a failed attempt to escape Alcatraz resulting in the 1946 prison riot.

Morris L. Kessler was an American mobster and member of Joseph Amberg's gang in Brooklyn during the early 1930s. As Amberg's personal chauffeur and bodyguard, Kessler was a close associate in his organization until he was killed alongside his boss at a Brownsville auto garage by members of Murder, Inc. in 1935. The gangland slayings of Kessler and Amberg were among the first major contract killings committed by Murder, Inc. and was one of the most publicized of the era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Purple Gang</span> Criminal mob group of the 1920s

The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers composed predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang. Excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Anastasia</span> Italian-American mob boss

Umberto "Albert" Anastasia was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, he eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, mainly through the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became boss of the family.

References

  1. "Calls Milkmen Poisoners: New Angle Furnished to Horse Killing in Toblinsky's Confession" (PDF). The New York Times . August 21, 1913. p. 5. Retrieved April 12, 2010.
  2. "Veteran Racketeer Seized As Hijacker; "Yosky Nigger", Chief of Horse Poisoners in 1902, Is Accused Now of $8,000 Truck Raid". The New York Times . July 18, 1935. p. 2.(subscription required)

Further reading