Among the others involved in the smuggling ring, Lvovsky received seven years in prison and was fined $15,000. Sam Gross was sentenced to six years and fined $15,000, while Katzenberg was given ten years and a $10,000 fine. Both the Customs employees, McAdams and Hoffman, also received prison sentences.
But the final ordeal for Lepke was yet to come. In October, 1941, Lepke was taken from prison and returned to New York to stand trial for his role as mastermind in the operations of Murder, Inc. Specifically, he was charged with ordering the murder of a former garment industry truck driver, Joseph Rosen, who had ignored his warnings to get out of town and out of reach of questioning by District Attorney Dewey at the time Dewey was investigating the rackets in New York.
Manuel “Mendy” Weiss was named by the state as the actual triggerman in the slaying, and a small-time hood named Louis Capone (no kin to Al Capone) was accused of being the man who assisted Weiss in his getaway. Rosen had been found shot to death on the morning of September 13, 1936, lying on the floor of his small candy shop in Brooklyn.
One of the witnesses against Lepke was Max Ruben, whose death Lepke had ordered when Ruben refused to stay out of New York. One of Lepke’s henchmen had shot Ruben through the neck and left him lying near death. But he had recovered to tell his story to Prosecutor Burton Turkus.
Ruben testified that Lepke—two days before Rosen was killed—told him: “That bastard Rosen is going around Brownsville shooting his mouth off that he’s going downtown. He and nobody else are going down anyplace or do any more talking ... or any talking at all.”
Allie Tannenbaum, another of Lepke’s triggermen, supported Ruben’s testimony. He said he had heard Lepke say of Rosen: “There’s one son-of-a-bitch who’ll never go downtown.” By downtown, Lepke meant the office of the district attorney.
Tannenbaum also told of hearing Mendy Weiss describe how he had shot Rosen—after which his pal, “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, had pumped bullets into the body just for kicks.
When Lepke was advised that Rosen was dead, Tannenbaum said his boss replied, “What’s the difference as long as everyone is clean and got away all right.”
A battery of nine attorneys defended Lepke. But this time the king of the underworld couldn’t squeeze out of the trap. Too many of his old gang had decided to talk. They had lived too long in fear that Lepke would order their own deaths in his effort to remove anyone who might be dangerous to him. Now they wanted Lepke out of the way.
Lepke, Weiss and Capone were convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. They went to their deaths on December 2, 1941.