Name Thomas McGinty | ||
Thomas Joseph McGinty (aka T.J. McGinty) was an early Cleveland mobster, one of the city's largest bootleggers during the Prohibition, as well as a longtime boxing promoter.
A former professional boxer, McGinty was hired as muscle for The Plain Dealer's circulation department and, by 1913, headed a gang of labor sluggers competing against rival Cleveland News sluggers the Mayfield Road Mob under Arthur McBride during Cleveland's "Circulation Wars".
Although a longtime boxing promoter, during Prohibition he became one of the largest bootleggers in the city during the early 1920s. Operating from McGinty's Saloon on West 25th Street with two relatives, McGinty was indicted by a federal grand jury in 1924 on charges of operating a "gigantic wholesale and retail conspiracy". Although initially in hiding, McGinty turned himself in after several days and, pleading not guilty, he was convicted and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. After his release from Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, he soon resumed his bootlegging activities without further interference from authorities (who may have been paid off by McGinty).
During the 1930s, McGinty was involved in syndicate gambling operations as owner of Cleveland's Mounds Club and, whose gambling operations included Youngstown, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky and as far away as Florida, as well as a stockholder of the Las Vegas casino Desert Inn with Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, Lou Rothkopf and others during the 1950s [1]. He was also involved in Meyer Lansky's Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba [2].