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Original glossy 5 x 3 Philadelphia Police Department diptych mug shot photograph of Meyer Lansky, documenting his March 7, 1928 arrest for homicide. The reverse is printed with a Philadelphia Bureau of Police identification form completed in manuscript, identifying "Meyer Lansky," age 26, height 5 ft. 4½ in., born in Russia, occupation "Auto Mechanic," with the arrest date of "3-7-28," charge of "Homicide," and his Brooklyn address recorded in the remarks section as "125 S. 3rd St., Bklyn." In fine condition, with light surface impressions and a few small creases.
The charge stemmed from a gangland shooting some five weeks earlier. On January 29, 1928, John Barrett, a low-level associate embroiled in a dispute over the division of profits from a stolen-goods racket, attended a meeting at the Sunnyside, Queens, residence of Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter, where associates of Buchalter, Meyer Lansky, and Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel gathered to settle the matter. Shortly afterward, Barrett was forced into an automobile with Meyer Lansky, Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel at the wheel, and associates Joseph Benzola and Samuel ‘Red’ Levine. A few blocks later, Barrett was shot in the head, but survived by kicking the accelerator from beneath Siegel's foot and leaping from the moving vehicle. From his hospital bed, Barrett identified Lansky as the gunman.
On March 7, 1928, Lansky surrendered to authorities alongside Benzola and Levine on the advice of counsel, and the case came before Magistrate Benjamin Marvin in a Long Island courtroom. There, Barrett abruptly recanted his identification, insisting that none of the men before him were his attackers despite having previously identified them by name. The magistrate, openly skeptical of the coordinated defense, remarked that it was ‘the best drilled thing I ever saw.’ With Barrett refusing to sign a complaint, the prosecution collapsed, and the charges were dismissed. The arrest represents one of the earliest surviving documented police records linking Lansky and Siegel to the same violent criminal investigation, years before their partnership helped shape the emerging National Crime Syndicate.
Although the reverse bears a Philadelphia Bureau of Police identification form, the consignor notes that the photograph itself originated from Lansky's March 7, 1928 arrest in New York, and that it was common practice for police departments to exchange mug shots, with receiving agencies recording the information on their own identification forms. The reverse records Lansky's Brooklyn address at 125 South 3rd Street, an address corroborated by contemporary newspaper accounts and FBI records. This same mug shot was later reproduced as the frontispiece of Robert Lacey's Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life (1991), with the frontal image also appearing on the book's dust jacket. To the best of our knowledge, no earlier Meyer Lansky mug shot has appeared at public auction, making this perhaps the earliest obtainable police photograph of one of organized crime's most influential figures.
