He was one of several star witnesses in the Becker-Rosenthal trial, among these being fellow gamblers Bridgie Webber, Harry Vallon, and Sam Schepps.

Before World War I he moved to New York City, where he operated a successful Second Avenue gambling resort in East Side Manhattan known as The Rosebud.

On July 16, 1912, after meeting with District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, the four members of the Lenox Avenue Gang gunned down Rosenthal in the doorway of the Hotel Metropole.

With this information, a number of gamblers and underworld figures including Bridgie Webber, Harry Vallon, Sam Schepps, and Jack Sullivan were rounded up as suspects.

"[5] At the end of the trial, Broadway gamblers began laying odds that "the squealer" would be murdered within a matter of days or weeks for becoming an informant.

He also agreed to appear in several motion picture shorts for that purpose and, in 1917, he lectured at US Army training camps to warn troops about gambling.

In relative obscurity at the time of his death, his funeral at Riverside Chapel, on Amsterdam Avenue and Seventy-Sixth Street, attracted no public attention except for Chief of Detectives George Mitchell, who declared his police file to be officially closed.