Arnold Schuster
Encyclopedia
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, clothing sales
Sales
A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....
man and amateur detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
, known for his involvement in the capture of bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton
Willie Sutton
William "Willie" Sutton was a prolific U.S. bank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison...
and for subsequently being the victim of a gangland murder by the Gambino crime family
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
. He was a distant paternal cousin of literary agent and book publisher M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster of Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
.
A longtime Brooklyn resident, 24-year-old Schuster recognized wanted bank robber Willie Sutton while riding on a New York subway in February 1952. Following Sutton to a garage, Schuster quickly notified police of Sutton's whereabouts, resulting in the robber's later arrest as Sutton was changing a dead battery from his car, which had stalled in the street.
After receiving a modest amount of publicity from New York City press, as well as appearing on the hit TV show I've Got a Secret
I've Got a Secret
I've Got a Secret is a panel game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. Created by comedy writers Allan Sherman and Howard Merrill, it was a derivative of Goodson-Todman's own panel show What's My Line?...
, Schuster himself was murdered outside his home on March 8, 1952, shot twice in the groin and once in each eye. Although a manhunt was quickly organized by police, their search failed to apprehend any suspects. Eventually, Frederick J. Tenuto was arrested for the crime. Tenuto, an associate of Sutton's, was also a member of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted
FBI's Ten Most Wanted
FBI's Ten Most Wanted is a book by Dary Matera. It was released in 2003, just as the FBI's top ten list turned fifty years old. The book was produced by Harper Touch ....
list and positively identified by witnesses as having left the scene of the crime.
Several years later, government informant Joe Valachi
Joe Valachi
Joseph "Joe Cargo" Valachi , Italian American, also known as "Charles Chanbano" and "Anthony Sorge" was the first Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia. He is also the person who made Cosa Nostra a household name.-Career:Joseph Valachi was born in East Harlem, New York...
claimed Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia was boss of what is now called the Gambino crime family, one of New York City's Five Families, from 1951-1957. He also ran a gang of contract killers called Murder Inc. which enforced the decisions of the Commission, the ruling council of the American Mafia...
had ordered Schuster's death after witnessing one of his television interviews. Although Sutton had no connection with the Gambino crime family, Anastasia was reportedly angered by Schuster, stating, "I can't stand squealers! Hit that guy!" and had Tenuto killed to eliminate any links to the criminal organization. It has been speculated that the negative publicity from Schuster's death may have been one of the factors contributing to Anastasia's murder in 1957, by mobsters who believed the New York mob
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
ster to be out of control.
Schuster's estate sued New York City for failure to protect him. In accordance with the law at that time, their complaint was dismissed and the dismissal was affirmed by the intermediate appellate court (1955). In general, governments were held not to owe duties of protection to citizens for fear of straining public treasuries (among other reasons). But in a landmark case, New York's highest court reversed the decisions below and ruled that in a case where a member of the public has furnished the sort of cooperation that the police have asked the public for, a duty of protection of a person who comes forward to help the police is created. Schuster v. City of New York, 5 N.Y.2d 75 (1958). This important precedent meant for the Schuster family that the case could now go to trial. The City of New York eventually settled for $41,000, a reasonably large sum at the time, especially considering that even the presumably exaggerated sum the complaint sought was only $1,000,000. New York Daily News, Sept. 11, 1998.
External links
- New York Sun - Arnold Schuster's Mysterious Death by Gary Shapiro
- Arnold Schuster.com Historical web site about the unsolved murder
- Arnold Schuster at Find-A-Grave