Boss Tweed Arrested--But Is He Really Guilty?

Christine Gibson in American Heritage,

By the time his trial began in January 1873, he had been indicted on seven felony charges of larceny and forgery, although in the end he was never tried on any of them. The prosecution decided its most provable case was a 220-count misdemeanor indictment issued in October 1872 for failing to audit claims against the city. The trial ended in a hung jury, but Tweed was convicted of 204 counts at a retrial in November 1873. Although a misdemeanor carried a maximum penalty of one year in prison, Judge Noah Davis sentenced him to consecutive terms for groups of the charges, adding up to 13 years in prison, plus $12,500 in fines.

The Court of Appeals, ruling this punishment excessive, unanimously ordered Tweed's release after a year in prison. He was immediately rearrested on a $6 million civil suit brought by the state and placed in jail on $3 million bail. Before he could be tried, he escaped, disappearing for ten months until a U.S. State Department official recognized him in Cuba. He then fled to Spain but was captured as soon as he arrived (lacking a photo, U.S. officials sent a Nast cartoon to identify him) and extradited. Convicted on the civil charge in his absence, he died of heart disease in 1878 in debtors' prison.