RARE DOCUMENT SIGNED BY MOBSTER, ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN, THE LINCHPIN OF THE 1919 WORLD SERIES FIX
Arnold Rothstein was a racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler (1882-1928) who became a kingpin of the Jewish mob in New York City. He is reputed to have been involved in fixing the 1919 World Series, and mentored future crime bosses like Luck Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Frank Costello. Offered here is a seven page document signed by Rothstein, 8.75 x 11, October 8, 1921. Employment agreement between A. L. Libman, Inc. and A. L. Libman, individually, signed at the conclusion by Rothstein as the company’s president and countersigned by Libman, who co-founded the property insurance firm with Rothstein. Housed in its original paper folder. In fine condition.
Born on New York’s East Side, of a middle-class Jewish family, Rothstein, in his teens was already involved in gambling and loansharking and, by the 1920s, had cultivated the friendship of politicians and businessmen as well as crime lords. He became the paramount fixer, one who acted as go-between in business contracts with the city, in the quashing of arrests, in extralegal permissions to operate speakeasies and other criminal enterprises, and in other bargainings that paid off politicians and police. He was also a banker for bootlegging and other illegal enterprises.
Rothstein was independent, without a continuing gang, working for all ethnic gangsters—Jewish, Italian, and Irish—and hiring them indiscriminately. His well-tailored, well-mannered, quiet look of respectability—contrasting with the garishness of such mobsters as Al Capone—would prove the model for later heads of organized crime.
On the evening of Nov. 4, 1928, Rothstein was shot in a high-stakes poker game at the Park Central Hotel in New York City and died two days later in a hospital, without naming his killer. The trial of a suspect, Hump McManus, led to an acquittal.
Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed “The Brain”, was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series.
Documents signed by Rothstein are extremely rare and seldom come to market.
