Joseph Filkowski was a Polish-American gangster active in Cleveland, Ohio. A longtime figure in Cleveland's underworld, Joseph Filkowski led the Polish bootlegging gang, the Flats Mob. He was responsible for a rash of bank robberies and jewelry heists in Cleveland and New York City between 1930 and 1932; he was also associated with numerous prominent criminal figures in the Midwest, such as Joseph Stazek and Morris Cohen. Early life Filkowski was born in a slum of Cleveland, Ohio, to Polish immigrants on either October 3, 1900, or October 3, 1905. He grew up with thirteen brothers, sisters, stepbrothers, and stepsisters and spent his childhood involved in street fighting. His first arrest was at the age of 9, when he was taken into custody for breaking into a candy store and stealing a BB gun. When he went to court, he claimed that he was only following his brother's lead; he received no serious punishment and was let off with a verbal lecture. When Filkowski was 16 years old, he stole bikes out of a box car; he was never charged for this. At the age of 17, he stole copper wire from a box car. He was sentenced to spend time in the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield. He was paroled after a few months and returned to the part of Cleveland where he grew up. On February 22, 1919, he was charged with stealing a car, driving it into a freight yard in Cleveland, breaking into a boxcar, moving stolen goods from the boxcar to the stolen car, and then driving off and selling the stolen merchandise; for this offense, he was sent back to the reformatory in Mansfield for nine months. In August 1921, Filkowski was caught stealing out of a boxcar again, and he was sent to the Mansfield reformatory for a third time, this time for an unknown duration. He was released on parole sometime before August 1923. In August, he was arrested for armed robbery; he was still on parole from the 1921 stealing charge, so his sentence was enhanced by the fact that he was a parole violator. He was sent to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus to serve a 6-20 year sentence, where he learned how to make license plates in the prison workshop. He was released in April 1930 with considerably hardened sensibilities. Murder of Tony Veryk On June 6, 1930,