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MEYER LANSKY

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:750.00 USD Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,000.00 USD
MEYER LANSKY
(1902 - 1983) Mafia "founding father" and accounting genius, close friend and associate of "Lucky" Luciano, Joe Adonis, "Bugsy" Siegel and Albert Anatasia, involved in nationwide rackets whose profits he laundered through legitimate businesses. He fled to Israel to avoid prosecution in 1970, but was denied citizenship after a long court battle and returned to the U.S. on Nov. 7, 1972 where he was arrested aboard the airplane to face trial. He would be acquitted of all charges in 1974, but spent the interim, and the rest of his life fighting for Israeli citizenship. Rare fine content A.L.S. "Meyer", 1p. 8vo., [Miami], Nov. 21, 1972 to his friend Joseph (Yoskeh) Sheiner, a member of the Israeli Security Agency and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s director of security in the 1960s. Sheiner accompanied Lansky on his famous 36 hour flight seeking asylum and secretly tried to obtain him asylum in Paraguay. Lansky inquires about Sheiner's activities two weeks after his arrest in Miami: "...I'm interested to know how you were treated back home after your eventful trip. My arrival brought out the band. I wonder if any police were left to guard the President? What man will resort to, to better his means. Please inform me if you know what happened? I never had full confidence of where I was going. The lesse-passe was just an instrument to encourage me to leave a little sooner than I had to...How will you be treated for taking on this assignment from my lawyer to travel with me?..." Lansky had been issued a passport to expedite his departure from Israel and then embarked on a 36 hour "flight to nowhere" as he sought asylum. No country would accept him - and face the wrath of the U.S. Justice Department.. Lansky includes a clipping form the New York Times citing a rise in anti-semitism. File holes in left margin cost two letters of text, else fine.