Crime: Moriarty’s Millions

The myth about the slum brat who makes it big in the underworld is curlicued with familiar movie romance. Clearly, Joseph Vincent Moriarty, who grew up in a rundown section of Jersey City, N.J., never had romance in his soul—or never saw the right movies. Known as “Newsboy” because in his youth he sold tabloids in the bars and restaurants of his neighborhood, Moriarty got into the policy numbers racket* when he was only 13, went on and upward to become Jersey City’s No. 1 numbers boss. He was arrested no fewer than 25 times on gambling charges, but he never learned to play the part that this record entitled him to.

Bloody Denial. Newsboy, now 52, was a loner who never took on a partner, never played with the big-time syndicate hoods, their molls or their tailors. He never married, lived with his two sisters in a decrepit three-story house in his old neighborhood. He neither drank nor smoked, and attended church regularly.

He avoided nightclubs and expensive living, usually shuffled around Jersey City’s streets unshaven and dressed in shabby clothes. Says a cop who knew him: “If you saw him on the street, you’d give him a quarter out of charity.” Despite this, police estimated that Newsboy operated a $10 million-a-year policy racket.

Newsboy was so penurious that he would dun a debtor for a few pennies, but his attachment to cash frequently led to his losing it. The cops sometimes found money in the secondhand cars that Newsboy kept stashed around the city—and invariably Newsboy had to disclaim ownership of the money to avoid explaining where it came from. Once he turned up at a hospital bleeding from stab wounds, and the police discovered $3,000 in his car. Said Newsboy: “I never saw it before.” Again, he was picked up on the street near an auto that yielded $11,000. Newsboy said it wasn’t his. Federal tax agents found $49,000 in his home—and still he declined to claim ownership.

In the Trunk. Newsboy’s current address is the State Prison at Trenton, where he is serving a two-to-three-year sentence on a gambling conviction (his third). Last week, despite the prison bars, Newsboy’s money losing continued. This time a fortune was at stake. Walking into Newsboy’s cell, the county prosecutor announced: “You’ve just lost $2½ million.” Back in Jersey City, two carpenters working on an ancient garage had pried open the trunk of an abandoned 1947 Plymouth sedan. Inside they found a cache of several guns and a small mountain of large-denomination bills. The trail led straight to Newsboy: with the money were bonds made out to him and his deceased brother, as well as a dossier on one of Newsboy’s arrests, which had been lifted from the county prosecutor’s office some time ago. Naturally, Newsboy declined to admit that the money was his. So did a redheaded girlfriend who once owned the car in which the money was found.

While trying to weave their way through this puzzle, the police, still intrigued with Moriarty’s peculiar banking habits, began searching for more loot. Sure enough, in a garage not far from the original site, they found two paper sacks containing $168,675, also presumed to belong to Newsboy. This brought the total haul to $2,590,255. The discovery in turn sent swarms of children, old ladies and other assorted adventurers on a wild treasure hunt in Jersey City garages. Those citizens have to wait their turn, however. The state was interested in taking a cut of the loot; so were Jersey City, the garage owner and the two carpenters. And first on the list was the Federal Government, which has been holding a tax lien against Newsboy. By week’s end, the total lien was $3,395,665. There was a happy possibility that if the Feds searched enough ramshackle garages, they might come up with the $805,410 difference, leaving Newsboy Moriarty clean as a whistle.

* In the policy racket (or numbers game) a player picks any three-digit number and bets pennies, nickels or more on it, or any combination of it, at a neighborhood confectionery store or newsstand. The winning number, determined daily, could be the last three of the dollar figures of U.S. Treasury receipts (as reported in the next day’s newspapers), or the last three dollar numbers of the pari-mutuel receipts at a race track, or any other easily verified number. In any case, a player’s chance of winning on one number is only one in 999; his winnings may pay off at 800-1.