FBI Vault, Abner Zwillman, Part 03: Newark report, December 1957 to early 1958

The Vault viewer shows 142 pages; the stored image is page 1, a cover sheet reading “Abner Zwillman, Part 2 of 3, Bufile: 92-3105.” The main document is a Newark report in the anti-racketeering series (file 92-389 as the OCR reads it). Its synopsis on page 6, the most legible page, says he admitted in a 1938 interview and in 1951 testimony his acquaintance with well-known members of “the racket element,” gives his background and arrest record, and says that his income-tax evasion trial resulted in a hung jury (the OCR reads “hung Jury 3/1/56”) and that a decision on a retrial “awaits Justice Dept. action.” Page 43 says the trial began January 19, 1956 on charges that he evaded $46,100 in taxes for 1947 and 1948, and that after 30 hours of deliberation the jury could not reach a verdict.

Page 7 records an agent’s examination of Newark’s vital-statistics records in December 1957; the OCR is jumbled, but as far as it can be read it reports that the birth record had been changed and that the date officially considered is July 27, 1905. The June 1950 summary in Part 01 gives July 27, 1904. Page 30, on associates, lists “GERARD, Jerry CATENA” (as the OCR reads it) and says, in a partly jumbled OCR, that Zwillman admits acquaintanceship with Catena, that Catena is well known in Newark rackets circles, and that he “attended the recent meeting of hoodlums at Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957.” Another page says a tobacco-vending company was incorporated by “JERRY CATENA, DOC ROSEN and ABNER ZWILLMAN.” Several pages are withheld under FOIA exemptions.

These are FBI agents’ summaries and opinions. The Apalachin statement is the memo’s; the Third Circuit’s account of who was stopped at Apalachin is in United States v. Bufalino. Home addresses in the report are not reproduced.