Joseph Vincent Moriarty also known as Newsboy Moriarty, was a Irish American

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...

 mobster in Hudson County, New Jersey

Hudson County, New Jersey

Hudson County is the smallest county in New Jersey and one of the most densely populated in United States. It takes its name from the Hudson River, which creates part of its eastern border. Part of the New York metropolitan area, its county seat and largest city is Jersey City.- Municipalities...

 who controlled the numbers game

Numbers game

Numbers game, also known as a numbers racket, policy racket or Italian lottery, is an illegal lottery played mostly in poor neighborhoods in the United States, wherein a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those that will be randomly drawn the following day...

.

Biography

He got started in the number racket when he was 13 years old, around 1923. In 1930 he was living with his widowed mother Ellen (1887-?) and his three siblings: Margaret Moriarty (1907–1982); a second sister; and Albert Moriarty (1918-c1960). Both his parents were from Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. He always wore the same set of inexpensive clothes. By the 1950s he lived with his two sisters in a small brownstone in the Horseshoe section

Horseshoe, Jersey City

The Horseshoe section of Jersey City, New Jersey was the second ward, and was the home of the immigrants, tenements, and taverns. The Republican-controlled Legislature gerrymandered the district in 1871 to concentrate and isolate Democratic, and mostly Catholic, votes, thus preserving Republican...

 of Jersey City that housed the poor Irish immigrants.

In the numbers game

Numbers game

Numbers game, also known as a numbers racket, policy racket or Italian lottery, is an illegal lottery played mostly in poor neighborhoods in the United States, wherein a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those that will be randomly drawn the following day...

 a player picks any three-digit number and bets anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars. The bet is placed at a neighborhood candy store, newsstand, or tavern. Each day, the winning number is determined, and there may be none, one, or multiple winners. The number was usually the last three digits of the dollar figures of U.S. Treasury receipts, published in the next day's newspapers, or another tamper-proof number. A player's chance of winning with any given bet is one in 1,000 for a three digit number, 10 x 10 x 10.

On September 15, 1958 a Jersey Central commuter train carrying 200 passengers derailed and an Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 photo made the front pages of the newspapers with the numbers 9-3-2 appearing on the side of the train. That number received a large number of bets and was the winning number the following day. Moriarty was able to pay in full and that brought him to the attention of Mike Coppola, which may have led to Moriarty's arrest in Jersey City.

Joseph was arrested for possession of betting slips and was placed in New Jersey State Prison

New Jersey State Prison

The New Jersey State Prison , formerly known as Trenton State Prison, is a state prison in Trenton, New Jersey operated by the New Jersey Department of Corrections. It accommodated over 1,900 prisoners as of January, 2005....

. While he was in prison on July 2, 1962, two day laborers, who were fixing a garage came across his 1947 Plymouth at 47 Oxford Avenue in Jersey City. In the trunk was $2.6 million in cash, and $13,000 in stocks and bonds. On July 3, 1962, FBI agents seized the assets. He originally denied ownership but then filed a tax form listing them as income.

Death

He was released from prison in 1965. He was rearrested and sent to prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in federal income taxes in 1972. By the end of his career in crime, he had been arrested 47 times. Around 1975, while serving another prison term on betting charges, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer

Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly...

. In 1976, in his mid-60s, his sentence was commuted by New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne

Brendan Byrne

Brendan Thomas Byrne is an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served as the 47th Governor of New Jersey, from 1974 to 1982.-Early life and education:...

. Moriarty died three years later, on February 26, 1979 in Christ Hospital, Jersey City.