Organized Crime Figure. A member of Detroit's Purple Gang, he was born and raised in Brooklyn along with several other Purples including Abe Axler, Eddie Fletcher, Sam Abramson, and Isadore Cantor. First coming to Detroit in late 1923 to fight in the Oakland Sugar House War, he soon became one of the Purple Gang's top men. In March 1928 he was acquitted of killing two black men in a bar fight in Detroit's Paradise Valley in August 1927. Later that year he was tried and acquitted along with many other Purples in the big extortion trial that resulted from the Cleaners and Dyers War. After serving a two-year sentence in Leavenworth, Irving Milberg returned to Detroit in 1931. He was identified and convicted in the "Collingwood Manor Massacre" of September 1931. He, Ray Bernstein, and Harry Keywell were sentenced to life inprisonment for these killings. In September 1938, he had an emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction. The surgical complication of peritonitis caused his to die on September 29th, which was seven years into his life sentence. His grave is two spaces away from that of Charles "The Professor" Auerbach, an advisor and armorer of the Purple Gang.
Organized Crime Figure. A member of Detroit's Purple Gang, he was born and raised in Brooklyn along with several other Purples including Abe Axler, Eddie Fletcher, Sam Abramson, and Isadore Cantor. First coming to Detroit in late 1923 to fight in the Oakland Sugar House War, he soon became one of the Purple Gang's top men. In March 1928 he was acquitted of killing two black men in a bar fight in Detroit's Paradise Valley in August 1927. Later that year he was tried and acquitted along with many other Purples in the big extortion trial that resulted from the Cleaners and Dyers War. After serving a two-year sentence in Leavenworth, Irving Milberg returned to Detroit in 1931. He was identified and convicted in the "Collingwood Manor Massacre" of September 1931. He, Ray Bernstein, and Harry Keywell were sentenced to life inprisonment for these killings. In September 1938, he had an emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction. The surgical complication of peritonitis caused his to die on September 29th, which was seven years into his life sentence. His grave is two spaces away from that of Charles "The Professor" Auerbach, an advisor and armorer of the Purple Gang.
Bio by: Dennis Rice
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