Given Tommy’s penchant having decorating his gangster bona fides, his form of occurrences could be exaggerated
By june out of 1926 
, the newest brothers was in fact residing New york in an equipped place into the second-floor regarding a red-colored-stone rowhouse on the West 11th Path. Seven days later, they robbed the new Beck-Hazzard footwear shop, and for the 8th Avenue, and you will grabbed $twenty five. These were seemingly brief requires, but the brothers would after claim to provides the amount of time several more high-reputation armed robberies, plus a minumum of one bank theft.
Tommy was in the fresh thicker of the difficulties and you can spent half a dozen days in the unmarried confinement
Indeed, the circumstances brought these to the attention away from the police. Ny Police Commissioner Joseph An effective. Warren listed the fresh Duffy Brothers on the a lengthy wished directory of holdup gangs, together with the wants of Chuckling Group, the latest Harlem Terrors (also known as the fresh Sucker Group), in addition to Headache and you can Aspirin Gangmissioner Warren guaranteed so you’re able to rid new city of so it scourge.
You to definitely night from inside the March 1927, the fresh brothers were oiling their revolvers to prepare to own a beneficial holdup when among the weapons ran regarding and you may sample Joe during the the latest kept shoulder. Tommy rushed his brother to help you Saint Vincent’s Healthcare, but a few stops out. Truth be told there, doctors handled new wounds – and you will known as Ny Cops Institution. Detectives detained new Duffys and you will appeared their space, where they discovered the newest revolvers. A report in the Ny Each day Development regarded this new Duffys as the “immigrant brothers provided astray by revolver advertising.” Interviewed because of the papers, Tommy and you may Joe reported to possess looked to offense on account of poverty and you will accepted only to the fresh Nathan Wolf’s and you may Beck-Hazzard stickups. The new detectives sensed these people were responsible for many others. One another brothers were found guilty out of robbery in the first knowledge and you may sentenced so you’re able to 20 to help you 25 years in the jail. Joe is actually 24 and you will Tommy was twenty-two. They’d not be entitled to parole up to March 1947, twenty years later on.
New Duffys were initial delivered within the Hudson Lake so you can Sing Play but were in the near future split up. Joe went to Auburn State Jail, where difficult “Auburn program” out-of solitary confinement and you may enforced silence was actually developed. Tommy decided to go to Clinton Condition Jail within the Dannemora, called Nothing Siberia because of its freeze-cold winters. During their remains, each other brothers experienced fatal riots in which multiple guards and you will prisoners was basically killed. However, Tommy mentioned that if you are into the they were well looked shortly after because of the its gangster members of the family, who ultimately put the “political pull” to acquire them of prison.
In the April 1930, after helping a little over three-years, the Duffys’ sentences were commuted to help you deportation of the Ny Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. “It looks is the newest sensible course of action, so you’re able to deport him or her,” told you Roosevelt, who was simply 24 months out-of are opted You.S. president. Tommy asserted that “this new Diamond mob during the Nyc had using the palm oils for me personally,” definition that they had greased someone’s hand with a beneficial bribe. Probably be, Roosevelt merely wished the new Duffy brothers out of the nation. But no matter what basic facts, the brothers was placed into steerage to your SS Duchess from Richmond, and you may turned up into Scotland towards the You.S. Independence Big date, erican gangster ways to The uk.
T the guy headline regarding the Scottish Per week Information realize: “My life given that an american Gangster.” The writer, named next to a tool-toting pic, was Tommy Duffy. Blogged 18 months pursuing the brothers’ return to Scotland, the content try a good lurid tale regarding unlawful holdups and you can bank burglaries straight out out of a celebrity gangster image. It actually was a hugely overstated and often ludicrous membership away from round-blazing shootouts and you can large-rates activities presenting a the-to-Z shed regarding notorious gangsters.