Thomas E. Dewey

Thomas Edmund Dewey March 24 1902 March 16 1971 was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th Governor of New York from 1943 to 1954 He was the Republican Partys nominee for president of the United States in 1944 and 1948 losing the former election to Franklin D Roosevelt and the latter election to Harry S Truman in a major upset As a New York City prosecutor and District Attorney in the 1930s and early 1940s Dewey was relentless in his effort to curb the power of the American Mafia and of organized crime in general Most famously he successfully prosecuted Mafia boss Charles Lucky Luciano on charges of forced prostitution in 1936 Luciano was given a 30 to 50year prison sentence He also prosecuted and convicted Waxey Gordon another prominent New York City gangster and bootlegger on charges of tax evasion Dewey almost succeeded in apprehending mobster Dutch Schultz as well but Schultz was murdered in 1935 in a hit ordered by the Commission