Abraham Reles
Prosecution witness in the Brooklyn Murder, Inc. cases, called "concededly an accomplice" by the New York Court of Appeals in 1941. A police official testified to the Kefauver Committee about holding him at the Half Moon Hotel and about his fall from a window there.
- Aliases
- Abe Reles
- Rights
- Biography on this page is limited to what the cited federal records state. Sworn testimony is labelled as his own testimony; court statements as the court's; agency statements as the agency's.
On the record
- About 1940 — Frank C. Bals to the Kefauver Committee, 14 February 1951 (Part 7, printed page 587): Reles was brought from the Tombs to District Attorney O'Dwyer's office and began to talk; "I think it was 1940." Bals said "it was really on Reles' talk that we got the other witnesses."
- Trial, Kings County — People v. Goldstein (N.Y. 1941): "An important factor in the People's case was the testimony of Abraham Reles, concededly an accomplice." The court reviewed the charge on corroboration and affirmed. The opinion does not give the trial date; the killing it describes followed a meeting on September 4, 1939.
- Custody — Bals (printed page 587): the witnesses were held in the Bossert Hotel and then the Half Moon Hotel. On 15 March 1951 (printed page 1113) he said the guard detail "came directly under me" and that he was not present when Reles fell.
- Before October 1942 — People v. Buchalter (N.Y. 1942) refers to "one Abe Reles (now dead)." Bals's 1951 testimony gives his own account of the fall from the Half Moon Hotel; no inquest or police record on the death has been opened for this archive, so no death date is set.
No family or role is set. The Court of Appeals describes him as an accomplice and a witness; no record filed here states a rank or a family for him.
Bals’s account of how Reles died is testimony about what he saw and inferred. Counsel at the 1951 hearing called the death “unexplained”; that is a question, not a finding. This archive does not say how he died beyond what Bals testified.
Records
itemPeople v. Goldstein, 285 N.Y. 376 (1941)The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the murder convictions of Martin Goldstein and Harry Strauss. It called the testimony of Abraham Reles, "concededly an accomplice," an important factor in the People's case and reviewed the charge on corroboration of accomplice testimony.itemPeople v. Buchalter, 289 N.Y. 181 (1942)The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the murder convictions of Louis Buchalter, Emanuel Weiss and Louis Capone. In passing, the opinion refers to "one Abe Reles (now dead)."itemKefauver Part 7: testimony of Frank C. Bals on the custody and death of Abe Reles (14 February 1951)A retired New York police official who supervised the Murder, Inc. witnesses testified that Abe Reles began to talk in about 1940, that his information led to other witnesses, and gave his account of Reles's fall from a window of the Half Moon Hotel. Pp. 584-590; the Reles passage is on p. 587.itemKefauver Part 7: further testimony of Frank C. Bals on the police detail guarding Abe Reles (15 March 1951)Recalled in New York, Bals said the detail guarding Reles came directly under him, that he was not present when Reles fell, that Reles was "one of the chief witnesses" in the Murder, Inc. case, and that he refused a request for records about the death and retired. Pp. 1112-1113.