Harold "Hooky" Rothman (1910 – August 18, 1948), also known as Harry Rothman, was a Jewish mobster and mob enforcer who was the right-hand man of Los Angeles kingpin Mickey Cohen during "The Battle of Sunset Strip" for the control of illegal activities in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
[citation needed] Rothman had a lengthy criminal career and served a term of imprisonment in 1938 in New York State.
In 1946, on orders of former New York mob boss and fellow hitman Benjamin Siegel and Mickey Cohen, Rothman murdered rival bookies Benny "the Meatball" Gamson and George Levinson in their apartment.
After the hit, Los Angeles crime family boss Jack Dragna (Cohen's rival) attempted a hostile takeover of Siegel's gambling rackets.
On August 18, 1948, Jimmy Fratianno used his wife and daughter to set up Cohen at his Sunset Boulevard men's haberdashery store.