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MEYER LANSKY

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:600.00 USD Estimated At:1,200.00 - 1,500.00 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. Good content Very rare A.L.S. "Meyer", 3pp. 4to., [Miami], July 10, 1975 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. Revealing content concerning his stepson who would be gunned down in a revenge killing three months later while awaiting trial. The stepson, Richard Schwartz, was charged with the shooting of his drinking buddy after a dispute over a ten dollar bill left on a bar. In part: "...Teddy's son Richard closed his restaurant feeling good with a few drinks under his belt...His wife knowing he can't handle liquor scolded him...He picked up his jacket and ran out of the house...he had his pistol to protect his receipts...went to the Old Forge Bar got into a drunken argument and killed the man...Teddy has taken it very bad...You would think I killed a man...they show my picture most of the time...I have been thinking seriously to write to Begin and Weizman...about visiting Israel. Begin says he wasn't a murderer he killed to save Jews...I don't confess committing murder but I fought many christians to protect myself and Jews and the Jews that are still living from the old east side always showed me respect for that reason...I fought to help Jews physically and financially...". File holes in one margin affect two letters of text, else near fine.