Biography

He was an assistant district attorney

District attorney

In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. Among the cases in which he appeared for the prosecution was the trial of John M. Dunn

John M. Dunn

John M. "Cockeye" Dunn was a New York mobster involved in the numbers racket and labor racketeering as a top enforcer for his brother-in-law Eddie McGrath...

 for the murder of Andy Hintz. He was appointed the 16th Fire Commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Vincent Richard Impellitteri on December 6, 1950 and served in that position until July 18, 1951 when he resigned to accept an appointment as New York City Police Commissioner

New York City Police Commissioner

The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department, appointed by the Mayor of New York City. Governor Theodore Roosevelt, in one of his final acts before becoming Vice President of the United States in March 1901, signed legislation replacing the Police Board...

 to replace Thomas Francis Murphy

Thomas Francis Murphy

Thomas Francis Murphy was a federal prosecutor and judge in New York City.-Biography:Murphy was born in New York. He attended Georgetown University and Fordham Law School, from which he graduated in 1930...

. In 1953 he was appointed sole Harness-Racing Commissioner when Governor Dewey

Thomas Dewey

Thomas Edmund Dewey was the 47th Governor of New York . In 1944 and 1948, he was the Republican candidate for President, but lost both times. He led the liberal faction of the Republican Party, in which he fought conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft...

abolished the earlier three-man Harness-Racing Commission.