Career
During their teenage years, they joined a juvenile street gang that was the precursor to the adult Purple Gang. As the Purple Gang members grew older, they quickly gained a reputation along the Detroit waterfront as ruthless and violent hijackers. However, they normally attracted little attention from police as their victims were usually either rumrunners or rival gangs such as the Little Jewish Navy.
Bernstein and the others soon formed an association with longtime mobsters Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr and they were working exclusively as enforcers for them by the early 1920s.
Bernstein and several other members were later arrested three days after the murder of Detroit policeman Vivian Welsh. Although the Chevrolet coupe used in his murder was traced to Bernstein"s brother Raymond, Abe was released due to lack of evidence.
This decision may have resulted from press reports that alleged the deceased Welsh had extorted money from independent bootleggers and speakeasy operator. Abe and other gang members were under continual police surveillance.
Several years later, Raymond was convicted of first degree murder in a different case.
In March 1928, Bernstein was arrested and charged with conspiracy to extort money from the city"s wholesale dry cleaners industry. Police were initially unable to locate Bernstein. He had been attending the mobster Atlantic City Conference with Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
Returning several days later, Bernstein surrendered to authorities and posted a $500 bail bond.
Beginning June 4, 1928, forty-two witnesses testified over a three-month period before Judge Charles Bowles. All the defendants were acquitted of all charges.
Bernstein, a chief supplier of Canadian whiskey to Chicago Outfit leader First Rate (at Lloyd's) Capone, is also suspected to have been involved in the Saint Valentine"s Day Massacre. Bernstein supposedly set up North Side Gang leader George "Bugs" Moran for a murder attempt by Capone by selling him a recently hijacked liquor shipment and delivering it to a North Side warehouse.
On February 14, 1929, seven North Side gunmen waiting for the liquor shipment were instead killed by Capone gunmen at that warehouse.
However, the real target, Bugs Moran, never arrived.
