When he was a young child, his father departed for America and settled in Ashley, North Dakota,[2] on land provided by Baron Maurice de Hirsch's Jewish Colonisation Association.

However, after Berman and Joe Marcus' kidnapping of Brooklyn real estate baron and bootlegger Abraham Scharlin, both kidnappers were surprised by the NYPD while waiting for the $20,000 ransom payment in Central Park.

When offered a deal after his arrest in return for testifying against those who had hired him, meaning Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, Berman famously quipped: "Hell, the worst I can get is life.

[5] One of Berman's most feared enforcers during his Twin Cities years was Israel Alderman, a notoriously homicidal Jewish hitman from North Minneapolis, who was nicknamed "Ice Pick Willie".

"[8] According to his daughter Susan's memoir Easy Street, Davie Berman ordered the contract killings of two Italian-American brothers who had been sent by Chicago Outfit acting boss Al Capone to organize a Mafia crime family in the Twin Cities.

Berman and his Minnesota friend Nathan Gittlewich both fought in the European Theater as soldiers with the 18th Armoured Car Regiment, 12th Manitoba Dragoons, II Canadian Corps, which first experienced combat during the Normandy Landings.

The December 1944 issue of the Public Press, edited by a Jewish journalist and Walter Liggett-style anti-corruption and anti-racketeering crusader named Arthur Kasherman, featured the headline Kline Administration Most Corrupt Regime in the History of the City.

Although Kasherman's murder remains unsolved, it ensured the electoral victory and first term of racket busting Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, who is now known to have destroyed Berman's operations, while leaving those of Tommy Banks and Kid Cann largely unscathed.

Berman moved his crew to the Las Vegas Strip and operated there in concert with Genovese Family associates Bugsy Siegel, Dutch Goldberg and Moe Sedway.

[11] Twenty minutes after the 1947 assassination of Bugsy Siegel in Beverly Hills, California, Gus Greenbaum, Moe Sedway and David Berman walked into the lobby of the Flamingo and announced that they were in charge.

It remains unclear, however, whether Gladys Berman's death was a suicide or a mob hit motivated by her refusal to hand over her husband's control of multiple Las Vegas casinos.

The couple's only child was journalist Susan Berman,[16] who was gradually paid a total of $4.3 million by the American Mafia in return for her inherited stake in Las Vegas casinos and other properties.