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Typed transcript page numbered 25 of a Treasury conference: Thompson says he has a letter in the Friedman case and that the Nucky Johnson case will be the last one.
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Morgenthau Diaries, Volume 400: Treasury conference of May 1941 ("The Nucky Johnson case will be the last one")

In a May 1941 Treasury conference, an aide reports Commissioner Helvering's view that letters in the Friedman case should wait, adding "The Nucky Johnson case will be the last one"; Foley agrees it is "the last one of the cases."

Date
1941-05-20/1941-05-21
Kind
case-file
Source
National Archives Catalog, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Papers, Diaries of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (National Archives)
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
28276692
Rights
A record of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, a federal work in the public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105, held by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (National Archives). The stored image is one page rendered from the NARA PDF. Third-party material bound into other diary volumes is not covered by this basis.

Volume 400 covers May 20 and 21, 1941. The stored image is page 25 of a conference transcript (page 37 of the NARA PDF). Thompson says: “I have a letter in the Friedman case. Mr. Helvering feels that we oughtn’t to send those letters out until all of the case has been completed. The Nucky Johnson case will be the last one.” Morgenthau answers, “But that is way, way off.”

On the next page Foley says the cases “are being handled currently” and that “Nucky Johnson is the last one of the cases. I think maybe it would be wise to wait,” adding, “If you do it now, it is an anti-climax. The fellow really was after Johnson.” The transcript does not explain the Friedman case or the letters.

This is a short exchange in a long meeting on other business. It shows that the Treasury treated the Johnson prosecution as the last of a group of related cases; it does not state a charge or a result. The NARA catalog dates the volume; the conference date on these pages was not read separately.

itemMorgenthau Diaries, Volume 393: Treasury conference of April 30, 1941 on "the Nucky Johnson cases"In a Treasury staff conference, general counsel Edward Foley reports that two circuit judges have been sent into New Jersey to hold "a special criminal panel on the Nucky Johnson cases," and Herbert Gaston says Nucky "really thought that they just couldn't get him."itemMorgenthau Diaries, Volume 420: telephone calls of July 11, 1941 ("We're going to try Nucky Johnson on Monday")Francis Biddle tells Secretary Morgenthau by telephone that "We're going to try Nucky Johnson on Monday," reports "new evidence of tampering," and asks for Internal Revenue intelligence agents to examine the jury panel.itemUnited States v. Johnson, 129 F.2d 954 (3d Cir. 1942)The Third Circuit affirms the income-tax conviction of an Atlantic County political leader named only as Johnson, reciting evidence that Atlantic City numbers banks paid him $825 a week in early 1935 and a pooled syndicate $1,200 a week from July 1935.