Mickey Cohen
Early life
Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in New York. His name at birth was Meyer Harris Cohen. As a toddler, he relocated to California with his single mother. Cohen grew up in poverty in Boyle Heights. His industrious mother operated a small grocery, whereas his brothers were operating a drugstore. Cohen rarely attended school, which made him grow illiterate and with little supervision. For the reason that he lacked suitable guidance, his morally was questionable and was always looking how he could make money (Fletcher, 2012). By the age of 10, he boxed in amateur bouts and sold newspapers in the city center financial region. Cohen escaped from his abode at the age of 15, and lived in Cleveland.
Early Mob Roles
Following the eruption of problems in Cleveland, the group he was in took him to Chicago, where he operated his fortified robbery gang and took part in diminutive tasks on the illicit gaming circuit for the setup of Chicago. There occurred a fierce public attack that involved Cohen and an adversary, impelling him to go back home in 1937. As he returned to Los Angeles, he was unsentimental, still pugnacious, and illiterate. His Mentors organized a union with murderous and charismatic New York mob legend, Bugsy Siegel. Siegel and Cohen took control of the rich and wild terrain. By the early 1940s, their money-spinning activities comprised a combination of narcotics, prostitution, gambling, and control of labor unions (Fletcher, 2012). A sniper assassinated Siegel in 1947, and following this development, Cohen became the racket boss of West Coast. Cohen had backing from mob royals.
Conviction and sentencing
After the murder of Siegel, Jack Dragna, a Los Angeles Mafia boss considered Cohen his main rival. Several people made attempts on the life of Cohen. Local law enforcement went after Cohen with a vengeance and the headlines that followed attracted attention from Washington. When he returned to Hollywood in 1955, Cohen professed to have undergone reform and religious leaders attempted to convert him to Christianity (Fletcher, 2012). Cohen was tried and convicted for the second time for evading tax in 1961. He outdid the previous record for white-collar crime, which Al Capone held. While in Atlanta facility, Cohen suffered a ferocious attack, which left him partly paralyzed.
Final Years
In 1972, Cohen was set free from prison. He made headlines again in 1974, when he took part in the kidnapping of newspaper heiress, Patty Hearst. Mickey Cohen died while asleep from cancer stomach complications on July 29, 1976, in Los Angeles.
Published on 27.12.2016