Organized Crime Figure. Born Irving Wexler in New York City, New York’s Lower East Side, he became one of the most powerful Prohibition-era alcohol smugglers on the Eastern coast of the United States. His power ended when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. In 1951, Gordon was sentenced to twenty-five years in Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco, California after being convicted of being a narcotics peddler and fourth-time offender, where he died natural causes in 1952.