Boss Tweed

It's the little people that matter.  Boss Tweed had high ranking officials in his back pocket and he pulled all the strings.  Even though Thomas Nast, the poplar political cartoonist kept portraying him as a corrupt politician no one was going after him.  It was two low-level employees with a grudge that broke the case against Tweed.  These two men brought a substantial amount of documentation to the New York Times proving Tweed's corruption.  This was the beginning of his downfall. In today’s terminology, they would be known as "whistleblowers".

 

 

In 1871 Tweed was arrested for the crime of graft. This crime is directly related to the performance of a public office. It indicates that someone is guilty of bribery, theft, fraud and a lack of integrity. Tweed faced a total of 55 charges with hundreds of counts against him. He was tried and found guilty of at least 102 crimes. His original sentence was for 12 years but the NYC Court Appeals overturned that and reduced it to just 1 year. That, however, was not the end. He was rearrested with the intentions of recovering the millions he had stolen from the city. Boss Tweed was given latitude while in prison and on one of his home visits he left the country and sailed to Spain. He was taken back into custody in Spain and returned to the United States. He promised to confess to all his crimes if he could only have his freedom. He was put back in prison and died there in 1878.