Jack Zuta

Zuta (also spelled as "Zoota") was born on February 18, 1888, in the Russian Empire to a peasant family who practiced Orthodox Judaism. He immigrated to the United States around 1913. Living in Chicago, Zuta worked as a junk dealer on the West Side before becoming involved in prostitution. He eventually operated several brothels on west Madison Street. However he was ordered to hand over his operation to his competitors Mike "The Pike" Heitler and the Guzik Brothers, Harry and Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik.{{cite web |title=Jack Zuta |url=http://stonekiller.info/documents/JackZuta.pdf |website=stonekiller.info |access-date=13 August 2018 |date=14 November 2017 |archive-date=August 13, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180813210316/http://stonekiller.info/documents/JackZuta.pdf |url-status=dead }}

Zuta began working for Al Capone in the mid-1920s. He helped contribute $50,000 of Capone's money to Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson's reelection campaign in 1927. However, Zuta defected to Bugs Moran's North Side Gang during the gang war between Capone and Moran.{{cite book |last1=Cimino |first1=Al |title=The Mafia |date=2017 |publisher=Arcturus Publishing |isbn=9781788286473 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FwAvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT53 |language=en}}

In June 1930, Moran and Zuta allegedly ordered the assassination of mobbed-up Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle{{cite book |last1=Frasca |first1=M. A. |title=Mafia Hits: 100 Murders that changed the Mob |date=2015 |publisher=Arcturus Publishing |isbn=9781784281496 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPAYCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT35 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=Jack Zuta |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20785073/jack_zuta/ |website=Newspapers.com |access-date=13 August 2018 |language=en |date=3 August 1930}} after Lingle demanded a cut of their illegal gambling operations on the Chicago Outfit's behalf.{{cite web |title=Jack Zuta |url=http://www.allanrmay.com/Jack_Zuta.html |website=allanrmay |access-date=13 August 2018 |date=1999 |archive-date=July 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723185002/http://www.allanrmay.com/Jack_Zuta.html |url-status=dead }}{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Douglas |title=Mafialand (formerly published as Shadowland): How the Mob Invaded Britain |date=2012 |publisher=Random House |isbn=9781780574813 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FBdB5CILI68C&pg=PT22 |language=en}} After the murder (for which former Egan's Rats gangster Leo Vincent Brothers was convicted), Zuta was arrested and questioned by police. He was released the next day. While being given a police escort the police cruiser was fired on by several unidentified gunmen. The attackers killed two bystanders before being driven off by police. Zuta fled Chicago, and hid out in Upper Nemahbin Lake, west of Milwaukee, living under the alias "J. H. Goodman". Zuta was shot to death, most likely by the Chicago Outfit in revenge for the murder of Lingle, on August 1, 1930, at a roadhouse in Delafield, Wisconsin. He lies buried in the Jewish cemetery located in Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Zuta's death exposed a large amount of political corruption in Illinois. Zuta, a meticulous record keeper, had much information later found in various safe deposit boxes. This information lead to the confiscation of a large whiskey shipment intended for Moran and to information about police raids on several breweries, as well as detailing kickbacks by the North Side Gang to both state and city officials.

Some of the officials implicated were:

• Chicago Alderman Dorsey Crowe
• Board of Education executive Nate DeLue
• Judge Joseph W. Schulman
• ex-Judge Emanuel Eller
• Chicago Police Department Sergeant Martin C. Mulvihill
• Evanston Police Chief William O. Freeman
• Illinois Senator Harry W. Starr

All denied involvement, however, particularly Crowe and Starr, who insisted that the money was campaign contributions rather than bribes. In reference to Lingle's murder, the name, "Zuta", later became slang for a revenge killing. In 1931, after a $50,000 bounty was placed on his head, Capone joked, "Nobody's gonna' 'Zuta' me."

• List of homicides in Wisconsin

{{reflist}}

• Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. {{ISBN|0-313-30653-2}}
• Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-8160-5694-3}}

• [http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id36.htm My Al Capone Museum - Jack Zuta]
• [http://crimemagazine.com/zuta.htm Jack Zuta – Angina from the Grave] by Allan May
• {{Cite web |url=http://www.ci.waukesha.wi.us/History/jack_zuta.html |title=City of Waukesha - Jack Zuta is killed |access-date=May 10, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928072318/http://www.ci.waukesha.wi.us/History/jack_zuta.html |archive-date=September 28, 2007 |url-status=dead}}
• {{cite web|url=http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/zuta_jack.htm |title=Federal Bureau of Investigation: Freedom of Information Privacy Act - Jack Zuta |access-date=December 9, 2006 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014060533/http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/zuta_jack.htm |archive-date=October 14, 2007 }}

{{Chicago Outfit}}

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Category:1888 births

Category:1930 deaths

Category:Al Capone associates

Category:Murdered American gangsters

Category:Murdered Chicago Outfit members

Category:Chicago Outfit mobsters

Category:North Side Gang

Category:Murdered North Side Gang members

Category:American gangsters of the interwar period

Category:American accountants

Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent

Category:Murdered Jewish American gangsters

Category:Jewish American gangsters

Category:People murdered in Wisconsin

Category:Deaths by firearm in Wisconsin

Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States