Nucky Johnson's Organization
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USA
 Enoch "Nucky" Johnson (second from right) and Alphonse "Scarface" Capone (third from right) this picture has also been proven to be photoshop on the boardwalk during the Atlantic City Conference | |
| Founded | 1870s |
|---|---|
| Founded by | Louis Kuehnle |
| Founding location | Atlantic City, Atlantic County, NJ USA |
| Years active | c. 1870s–1970s |
| Territory | South Jersey |
| Criminal activities | Racketeering, illegal gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, number writing, bribery, bookmaking, police corruption, political corruption, extortion, money laundering, smuggling, and drug trafficking |
| Allies | Charlie Luciano, Johnny Torrio, Benny Siegel, Frank Hague, Walter Evans Edge, and Arnold Rothstein |
Nucky Johnson's Organization was a corrupt political machine based in Atlantic City, New Jersey that held power during the Prohibition era. Its boss, Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, coordinated the Organizations' bootlegging, gambling, racketeering, and prostitution activities.[1]
Early history
Before the rise of German American political boss Louis "Commodore" Kuehnle and Scots-Irish American treasurer Nucky Johnson, Atlantic City's government was run by a three-man group, including: Atlantic County Clerk Lewis P. Scott (1854–1907) and Congressman John J. Gardner (1845–1921), and Mays Landing sheriff and Atlantic City undersheriff Smith E. Johnson.[2][3]
The Kuehnle regime
New regime
After the conviction of Kuehnle in 1911, Smith Johnson's son became boss of the organization. Under his son's new regime, the organization would enjoy the most successful 30 years in its history.[citation needed]
Nucky's paradise and prohibition
Smith Johnson's son Enoch Lewis "Nucky" Johnson was born in 1883. Nucky became undersheriff in 1905 while his father was sheriff of Atlantic City. The younger Johnson was eventually elected sheriff in 1908. In 1909, he became secretary of the Atlantic County Republican Executive Committee.[4] After the conviction of Kuehnle on corruption charges in 1911, the younger Johnson became boss of the organization.
Johnson also held several other jobs, including: Atlantic County Treasurer (1914–1941), County Tax Collector, publisher of a weekly newspaper, bank director, president of a building and loan company, and director of a Philadelphia brewery.[2][3]
Johnson was known to be a very well dressed and nice man who would rarely say no. He wore tailored suits, owned the entire ninth floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and he owned a chauffeur-driven $14,000 1920 powder blue Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost; which was his trademark car.[4] It was known that when Nucky prospered, everyone prospered in his organization and the city. Johnson once explained, "When I lived well, everybody lived well."[2] Johnson has been described as running his criminal-political empire with a "velvet hammer".[5]
When Prohibition went in effect in Atlantic City in January 1920, Johnson and his organization went straight into the bootlegging business. He allied himself with several other well-known bootleggers, including: Arnold Rothstein (New York's Jewish mob boss), Charlie Luciano (Masseria family lieutenant), Johnny Torrio (Chicago South Side Gang boss), and Benny Siegel (Bugs and Meyer Mob boss).[citation needed]
Nucky had also helped Republican building constructor Edward Bader get elected as mayor in 1920. And through Bader's construction business, he built the Atlantic City Convention Hall in 1929.[3]
Johnson and Luciano began forming the Big Seven during the mid-to-late 1920s. The group was supposed to help solve bootlegging disputes and serve as a predecessor to the National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s. It was around this time that Johnson met a bellhop at the Ritz, named Jimmy Boyd; the two took an instant liking to each other. Johnson began grooming Boyd to become the next boss of his organization, and soon, Boyd was Nucky's top enforcer/right-hand man and controlled all of the brothels, casinos, speakeasies, and numbers rackets in Atlantic City.[6][7]
Atlantic City Conference
From 13 to 16 May 1929, Johnson hosted the Atlantic City Conference at the Ritz-Carlton and Ambassador Hotels on the boardwalk.[8][9] Johnson made arrangements for the attendees accommodations and guaranteed there would be no interference from law enforcement since his brother, Alfred Johnson was the sheriff of Atlantic County.
The leaders that thought of the conference were: La Cosa Nostra Masseria crime family lieutenant Charlie Luciano and the former boss of Chicago's South Side Gang Johnny Torrio. Meyer Lansky and Benny Siegel (bosses of the Bugs and Meyer Mob) served as security at the conference. Delegates included several notable Jewish and Italian mobsters, including: Alphonse "Scarface" Capone (boss of the Chicago Outfit)—who was fighting a war with the Genna brothers against Dean O'Banion's North Side Gang—, Frank Costello and Joe Adonis (lieutenants in the Masseria family), Max Hoff (Philadelphia Jewish mob boss), Abe Bernstein (Purple Gang boss), Carlo Gambino (D'Aquila family lieutenant), and Gaetano Lucchese (Reina family lieutenant).
Johnson's enforcer Jimmy Boyd is never mentioned by anyone as being at the convention, but since Boyd was Nucky's right-hand man and an important figure in the organization, it is most likely that he was there to help make decisions for the organization.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, FBI special agent William Frank and his team investigated the activities of Johnson and his organization but were unable to find evidence of wrongdoing.[10]
Frank Farley
In 1941, Johnson was convicted of tax evasion charges and was sentenced to 10 years in a federal prison and fined $20,000.[4] Following his conviction, New Jersey Senator Frank "Hap" Farley took over the organization.[11]