| |
| Benjamin Hymen Siegelbaum | |
| Biographical Information | |
| Aliases | Bugsy |
| Gender | Male |
| Born | February 28, 1906 New York City, New York, U.S.A. |
| Died | June 20, 2001 Staten Island, New York City |
| Affiliation | Rothstein Family Siegel Family |
| Title(s) | Don |
Benjamin Hymen "Bugsy" Siegelbaum (1906-2001), was a Jewish-American mobster who founded the Siegel crime family in 1935 and headed it until 1963.
Early life[]
Siegel was born on Februrary 28, 1906 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to a poor Jewish family from Letychiv, Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire, in modern Ukraine. His parents Max and Jennie, constantly worked for meager wages. Siegel the second of the five children, vowed that he would rise above that life. As a boy, Siegel dropped out of school and joined a gang on Lafayette Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He committed mainly thefts, until he met Moe Sedway. With Sedway, Siegel developed a protection racket where pushcart merchants were forced to pay him a dollar or he would incinerate their merchandise. Siegel had a criminal record that included armed robbery, rape and murder dating back to his teenage years.