Irving Waxey Gordon Wexler

By Robert Grey Reynolds, Jr

Waxey Gordon's beer empire extended throughout upstate New York, into Pennsylvania and to several New Jersey counties. It even reached as far as St. Louis and Chicago in the midwest. Gordon was raised in a tenement on Manhattan's East Side. He grew up thudding and became a pickpocket. He was an active member of one of several rival gangs there. Waxey's beer distribution was centered in Elmira, where the racketeer had once been imprisoned in a reformatory. Later he returned to the town and took over an old brewery to run his beer operations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Grey Reynolds, Jr
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311558602

Robert Grey Reynolds, Jr

I am a soon to be retired Duke Medical Center library researcher, who enjoys writing. I have been writing on Wikipedia for years and have begun to write ebooks. My pastimes include selling books on EBay, genealogical research, baseball (Pittsburgh Pirates), collecting antique furniture and coins, and spending time with Kingsley, my cocker spaniel.

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Irving Waxey Gordon Wexler

Jewish Gangster

Published by Robert Grey Reynolds Jr at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Robert Grey Reynolds Jr.

On July 18, 1933 Federal Judge Francis Gordon Caffey (October 28, 1868-September 20, 1951) denied a motion by Irving Wexler’s defense team that requested a bill of particulars. Wexler, more commonly known as Waxey Gordon (January 19, 1888-June 24, 1952), was being prosecuted for income tax violations.

The United States attorney in charge of the gang leader’s prosecution believed that granting the motion would lead to more killings. As of July 18, three witnesses in the Gordon case had been murdered.

In early June 1933 the name of Waxey Gordon surfaced during a blackjacking scheme that was designed to coerce Brooklyn businessmen into buying tickets to a fake testimonial dinner. Authorities discovered the ruse on June 3rd.

Construction business operators, plumbers, roofers, electricians, and others were the primary persons who had been approached by Gordon’s henchmen. A news report in the Brooklyn Eagle explained that Waxey was in a jam with the law. The fake dinner tickets were being peddled as a means of securing Public Enemy #1 with adequate legal counsel.

The deception told potential ticket buyers that Waxey Gordon was being given a testimonial dinner at a noted Coney Island restaurant on June 26th. The price of a ticket to attend was $10. Investigators had found that no dinner was scheduled for that date at that restaurant.

Figure 1 Coney Island Beach 1930s