# New Jersey and Atlantic City

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/regions/new-jersey/

New Jersey in federal records: the Atlantic City numbers-protection tax case of 1941 to 1943, Abner Zwillman in court opinions, Senate testimony and his FBI file, the Waterfront Commission, Teamsters Local 560 and the Provenzano cases, the DeCavalcante opinions, and Atlantic City after the casinos.

This section gathers federal records about organized crime in New Jersey, from Atlantic City in the 1920s to the Second Circuit's DeCavalcante opinions of 2006 and 2008. Each statement below comes from the record linked beside it, and the text says what kind of statement it is: a court's holding or finding, a court's summary of the evidence, a charge, sworn testimony, an FBI memorandum, or a newspaper's report. A name in a record is not a finding, and these pages fill no family chart.

## Atlantic City in the 1920s

A 1924 election column in the [Ventnor News](/clippings/clip-ventnor-news-1924-04-23-p31/) writes of the "Johnson Slate," the "Johnsonites" and "'Nucky' Johnson," and of unrest in the Republican Party "about the leadership of Enoch L. Johnson." It is an opinion column. In May 1929 Al Capone and Frank Cline "arrived ... from Atlantic City" before their arrest in Philadelphia, according to the [New Britain Herald](/clippings/clip-new-britain-herald-1929-05-17-p1/), which also prints Capone's remark that he had "just fixed up a 'peace pact'" between Chicago gangs; that page names no meeting or participants. A United Press story of 21 May 1929 claimed a peace pact was signed at Atlantic City ([Milwaukee Leader](/clippings/clip-milwaukee-leader-1929-05-21-p1/)). In January 1930 the [Washington Times](/clippings/clip-washington-times-1930-01-09-p1/) summarized a New York newspaper's exposé calling Capone the "feted guest of Enoch L. Johnson, Republican boss of New Jersey." These are newspaper reports, and no court record filed here tests them.

## The Atlantic City numbers case, 1935 to 1943

The Third Circuit's 1942 opinion in [United States v. Johnson](/items/courtlistener-us-v-johnson-129-f2d-954/) affirmed the tax-evasion conviction of "a political leader in Atlantic County, New Jersey, residing in Atlantic City," who had been county treasurer. The court recounts evidence that Atlantic City numbers banks paid him $825 a week in early 1935 and that a syndicate formed about July 1935 "paid Johnson $1,200 a week" through at least October 1937; he testified the money kept up "his personal political machine." The Supreme Court affirmed in 1943 ([318 U.S. 189](/items/courtlistener-johnson-v-us-318-us-189/)).

Both opinions print only the surname. The identification with Enoch L. Johnson rests on other records, and this archive says so on each page: Kefauver testimony in 1951 that Enoch L. Johnson, "otherwise known as 'Nockey' Johnson," headed the county Republican organization in the early 1930s ([Orman](/items/kefauver-part-18-orman-testimony-1951/)) and was county treasurer ([Boyd](/items/kefauver-part-18-boyd-testimony-1951/)), and the Treasury Secretary's 1941 transcripts. Those transcripts record a special panel of circuit judges "on the Nucky Johnson cases" ([April 1941](/items/nara-28276674-morgenthau-diaries-vol-393-1941-04-30/)), the Johnson case as "the last one" of a group ([May 1941](/items/nara-28276692-morgenthau-diaries-vol-400-1941-05-20/)), Francis Biddle's "We're going to try Nucky Johnson on Monday" and his report of "new evidence of tampering" ([July 1941](/items/nara-28276740-morgenthau-diaries-vol-420-1941-07-11/)), and the Treasury's interest in publicity about the conviction ([November 1941](/items/nara-28276832-morgenthau-diaries-vol-457-1941-11/); [December 1941](/items/nara-28276860-morgenthau-diaries-vol-469-1941-12/)). No opened record gives the verdict date, the sentence or his release. See [Enoch L. Johnson](/people/enoch-l-johnson/).

## Newark and Abner Zwillman, 1935 to 1959

The FBI's file on [Abner Zwillman](/people/abner-zwillman/) begins with November 1935 memoranda on a Newark federal judge's complaint about racketeering and the Bureau's reply that tax cases belonged to the Treasury ([Part 01](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p01-newark-new-york-files-1935-1956/)). In 1939 Zwillman refused to tell a New York grand jury who his business associates were from 1928 to 1932; the Second Circuit reversed his contempt sentence in 1940 ([108 F.2d 802](/items/courtlistener-us-v-zwillman-108-f2d-802/)). The Supreme Court's 1952 Rutkin opinion recites that in May 1943 Joseph Reinfeld paid $358,000 "to Zwillman and Stacher representing their conceded interest in the proceeds of Browne Vintners stock" ([343 U.S. 130](/items/courtlistener-rutkin-v-us-343-us-130/)).

The Kefauver Committee heard about him from several directions. A New York police lieutenant showed photographs of his houses in East Orange and Deal ([Casey, 1950](/items/kefauver-part-7-casey-testimony-1950/)). In 1951 [Joseph Stacher](/people/joseph-stacher/) called him a boyhood friend ([Stacher](/items/kefauver-part-18-stacher-testimony-1951/)); a Newark commissioner said he had known him "as a bootlegger" ([Ellenstein](/items/kefauver-part-18-ellenstein-testimony-1951/)); a retired Treasury agent described the "Reinfeld syndicate" investigation and Zwillman's remark about filing late returns after he "saw what happened to Al Capone" ([Baldwin](/items/kefauver-part-18-baldwin-testimony-1951/)); and committee counsel questioned a steel company chairman about Zwillman's stock ([Sisto](/items/kefauver-part-18-sisto-testimony-1951/)). The contents of [Part 12](/items/kefauver-part-12-treasury-justice-officials-1950/) list Zwillman himself as a witness; that testimony has not been read.

The later FBI file, read from a poor OCR, covers "Top Hoodlum Coverage" memoranda ([Part 02](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p02-top-hoodlum-coverage-1955-1956/)), a Newark report noting that his 1956 income-tax trial ended with a hung jury ([Part 03](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p03-newark-report-1957-1958/)), surveillance requests ([Part 04](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p04-surveillance-requests-1958/)), January 1959 memoranda reporting allegations that jurors had been approached ([Part 05](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p05-microphone-memoranda-1959/)), a February 1959 bribery press-release memorandum and other papers that are mostly unreadable ([Part 06](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p06-bribery-memoranda-1959/)), and one undated page of notes on a jury vote ([Part 07](/items/fbi-vault-zwillman-p07-jury-notes/)). These are the FBI's summaries and informants' allegations, not findings.

## Gerardo Catena

A witness printed as "Gerald Catena, South Orange, N.J." told the Kefauver Committee in 1951 that he was in trucking and awnings, agreed he had been ducking the subpoena, and refused to say whether he had other businesses ([testimony](/items/kefauver-part-7-catena-testimony-1951/)). Gerardo Catena was later held in contempt for refusing to testify to the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation in "an investigation into organized crime"; the en banc Third Circuit ordered him freed in 1971 ([449 F.2d 40](/items/courtlistener-catena-v-elias-449-f2d-40/)), and after the Supreme Court's Zicarelli decision the court affirmed the denial of habeas in 1972 ([465 F.2d 765](/items/courtlistener-catena-v-elias-465-f2d-765/)). The family and role on his [person page](/people/gerardo-catena/) come from the 1963 Valachi testimony, not from these records.

## The waterfront, 1953 to 1996

In 1953 Congress consented to the New York-New Jersey Waterfront Commission Compact, whose findings say waterfront hiring was run by persons "frequently criminals" and that "public loaders" exacted tolls by extortion ([67 Stat. 541](/items/statutes-at-large-67-stat-541-waterfront-commission-compact/)). The Supreme Court summarily upheld the compact in 1954 ([Linehan](/items/courtlistener-linehan-v-waterfront-commission-347-us-439/)) and upheld its bar on convicted persons holding waterfront union office in 1960 ([De Veau v. Braisted](/items/courtlistener-de-veau-v-braisted-363-us-144/)). A Commission hearing on a work stoppage at the Hoboken piers produced the Court's 1964 rule that a state witness is protected against incrimination under federal law ([Murphy](/items/courtlistener-murphy-v-waterfront-commission-378-us-52/)). The Third Circuit applied De Veau to a convicted longshoremen's officer in 1995 ([Carson](/items/courtlistener-carson-v-waterfront-commission-73-f3d-24/)), and the District of New Jersey enforced the Commission's licensing rules in 1996 ([928 F. Supp. 1388](/items/courtlistener-waterfront-commission-v-cme-928-f-supp-1388/)).

## Teamsters Local 560 and the Provenzano cases, 1952 to 1992

In July 1959 two trucking executives told the McClellan Committee that [Anthony Provenzano](/people/anthony-provenzano/), then a Local 560 business agent, demanded money for labor peace ([Pitman](/items/mcclellan-part-55-pitman-testimony-1959/); [Dorn](/items/mcclellan-part-55-dorn-testimony-1959/)), and Provenzano declined to answer every question ([testimony](/items/mcclellan-part-55-provenzano-testimony-1959/); [Part 55](/items/mcclellan-part-55-teamsters-1959/)). He was convicted of extorting $17,100 from the Dorn company ([334 F.2d 678](/items/courtlistener-us-v-provenzano-334-f2d-678/), 1964) and later of RICO offenses in a labor-peace scheme run through the local in Union City ([620 F.2d 985](/items/courtlistener-us-v-provenzano-620-f2d-985/), 1980).

The government's civil RICO suit against the local followed ([550 F. Supp. 511](/items/courtlistener-us-v-local-560-550-f-supp-511/), 1982). After trial the district court found that Local 560 had been since 1961 "a captive labor organization" dominated by the "Provenzano Group," recounted the 1961 and 1963 murders of two members, and wrote that three men "have long been publicly reputed to be members of the 'Genovese Crime Family'" ([581 F. Supp. 279](/items/courtlistener-us-v-local-560-581-f-supp-279/), 1984). The Third Circuit affirmed and reported a cooperating witness's testimony that Provenzano was a "made member" ([780 F.2d 267](/items/courtlistener-us-v-local-560-780-f2d-267/), 1985). The district court restated that finding when it barred two later officers ([694 F. Supp. 1158](/items/courtlistener-us-v-local-560-694-f-supp-1158/), 1988), and the Third Circuit affirmed an injunction against one of them ([974 F.2d 315](/items/courtlistener-us-v-local-560-974-f2d-315/), 1992).

## The DeCavalcante opinions, 1971 to 2008

In 1971 the Third Circuit reversed Travel Act convictions of [Samuel Rizzo De Cavalcante](/people/samuel-rizzo-de-cavalcante/) arising from a 1966 meeting at his Kenilworth office, finding no conspiracy proved ([440 F.2d 1264](/items/courtlistener-us-v-de-cavalcante-440-f2d-1264/)); the opinion makes no organized-crime finding. In 1991 it reversed the Hobbs Act and Taft-Hartley convictions of [John M. Riggi, Sr.](/people/john-m-riggi/), who had been acquitted of RICO charges that he was the "acting boss" of the DeCavalcante crime family ([951 F.2d 1368](/items/courtlistener-us-v-riggi-951-f2d-1368/)). The Second Circuit's later opinions describe the "Decavalcante" family through trial evidence: a Genovese captain passing grand jury information in 1999 to targets including "Vincent Palermo, then the Acting Boss of the Decavalcante Family" ([Giovanelli](/items/courtlistener-us-v-giovanelli-464-f3d-346/), 2006), and cooperating witnesses' accounts of the family's control of two construction locals, in a 2008 opinion that vacated three convictions ([541 F.3d 94](/items/courtlistener-us-v-riggi-541-f3d-94/)). Several people in these cases may be living, and they are named only as the courts name them.

## Atlantic City after the casinos

The Casino Control Commission's 1982 disqualification of Local 54's officers for association with members of organized crime reached the federal courts several times: the district court abstained in 1984 ([597 F. Supp. 1431](/items/courtlistener-local-54-v-read-597-f-supp-1431/)), and the Third Circuit's opinions are [709 F.2d 815](/items/courtlistener-local-54-v-danziger-709-f2d-815/) and [832 F.2d 263](/items/courtlistener-local-54-v-read-832-f2d-263/). The President's Commission reported on Local 54 in 1986 ([The Edge](/items/pcoc-1986-the-edge-local-54/)). The FBI's ABSCAM essay says its sting "led to southern New Jersey," where Camden politicians offered bribes for an Atlantic City gambling license; it ties the case to no organized-crime figure ([ABSCAM](/items/fbi-history-abscam/)). The Scarfo prosecutions are filed with [Philadelphia](/regions/philadelphia/): [850 F.2d 1015](/items/courtlistener-us-v-scarfo-850-f2d-1015/) and [Pungitore](/items/courtlistener-us-v-pungitore-910-f2d-1084/).

## Not filed yet

No district-court record of the Johnson trial, verdict or sentence was found. A 1942 magazine article bound into a Morgenthau diary volume and a 1970 commercial edition of FBI transcripts from the De Cavalcante case are held back until their rights are checked. Not yet read: Zwillman's own testimony in Kefauver Part 12; the rest of McClellan Part 55; Kefauver Part 18's other Atlantic City and Jersey City witnesses; the Second Circuit's separate 2008 Palermo opinion; Justice Department releases on the 2000 DeCavalcante arrests. No New Jersey photograph with a federal or no-known-restrictions record has been found, so the pages show scans of the documents themselves.