Abe Reles was a Brooklyn criminal who, in 1940, turned from the group he belonged to into the main witness against it. He was arrested that year on a charge of murder, and he never stood trial for it: in return for his information and testimony, prosecutors in Kings County agreed to grant him immunity for the killings he described to the grand jury. He told investigators that he had taken part in at least thirty killings over about ten years, and he testified that he had a part in several of them. No court convicted him of any death. The men he testified against were convicted of first-degree murder, and most of them were executed. Reles died in custody in Brooklyn on November 12, 1941, and the circumstances of his death remain disputed.
The group Reles belonged to was a profit-driven criminal enterprise built on gambling, loansharking and racketeering. Its members called it the Combination; the press gave it a name of its own, which is how it came to be known across the country. Prosecutors later estimated that it was responsible for more than one hundred killings across the country. Louis Buchalter, whose rackets controlled the garment trade in Manhattan and influenced trucking unions, was among its leaders.
Reles was born in 1906. He was one of the group's own killers, and he moved in the circle around Buchalter and the Brooklyn men who carried out its orders. He later said that he had acted at the request of those leaders.
In February 1940 a new District Attorney took office in Kings County. His office was already looking into a killing that had gone unsolved, and several suspects were in custody. Prosecutors persuaded two low-level members of the group to talk. Reles was jailed on a charge of murder, in connection with the death of Alexander Alpert, a capital charge.
Reles began speaking to the District Attorney on March 23, 1940. He gave dates, names and places, and information about some seventy unsolved contract killings. The agreement that followed gave him immunity for the killings he described to the grand jury, while prosecutors reserved the right to charge him for others if they had evidence and eyewitnesses. He was kept in protective custody from then until his death. Investigators credited his information with helping to solve dozens of homicides in Brooklyn alone.
Other informants followed him. Several members of the group who had fled were later caught, and a chain of indictments came out of the cooperation.
Reles testified in three trials, and what he said there is the only account of his own part in the killings.
At the trial of Harry Maione and Frank Abbandando for the 1937 killing of George Rudnick, he acknowledged his own part in it. Both men were convicted of murder in the first degree. After a successful appeal and further proceedings, their death sentences stood. Maione and Abbandando were executed in Ossining, New York, in February 1942.
At the trial of Martin Goldstein and Harry Strauss for the 1939 killing of Irving Feinstein, he testified that he took part in it with them. The jury convicted both men of murder in the first degree, and the convictions were upheld on appeal. Goldstein and Strauss were executed in Ossining in June 1941.
In the third trial Reles testified against Irving Nitzberg, who was charged with the 1939 murder of Albert Shuman. Reles testified that the order for it had come from Buchalter. Nitzberg was found guilty of murder in the first degree.
Reles was the first to tell the District Attorney's staff about the 1936 killing of Joseph Rosen in Brooklyn. In August 1940 the office indicted Buchalter, Emanuel Weiss, Louis Capone and a fourth man. Buchalter was then serving a federal sentence for a narcotics conspiracy, to which he had been sentenced in 1939 to fourteen years.
The trial began in September 1941. The case that went before the jury rested chiefly on another former member of the group, who testified that he had overheard Buchalter give the order. Reles was expected to testify but was not called. Weiss, Capone and Buchalter were convicted and sentenced to death. Appeals, motions and a dispute between state and federal authorities held up the sentences for about three years, and the three men were executed in Ossining, New York, on March 4, 1944. Buchalter remains the only organized-crime leader in the United States known to have been executed.
In September 1941 Reles and another informant were taken to Los Angeles to testify in an inquiry there. Reles was expected to return to give evidence again.
He died on November 12, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, while in police custody.
Reles's account of his own part in the killings was given as testimony, and no court made findings against him. He was charged with one murder, but the case never reached trial. The circumstances of his death remain disputed.
1906: Abe Reles born in Brooklyn.
1939: Buchalter sentenced in federal court to fourteen years on a narcotics conspiracy.
February 1940: a new District Attorney takes office in Kings County.
1940: Reles arrested on a charge of murder; March 23, 1940, he begins speaking to the District Attorney.
August 1940: Buchalter, Weiss and Capone indicted in the Rosen case.
June 1941: Goldstein and Strauss executed in Ossining.
September 1941: Reles taken to Los Angeles; the Rosen trial begins.
November 12, 1941: Reles dies in custody in Brooklyn.
February 1942: Maione and Abbandando executed in Ossining.
March 4, 1944: Buchalter, Weiss and Capone executed in Ossining.