Boss Tweed Convicted After Second Trial

William “Boss” Tweed is convicted on 204 counts of corruption in his second trial, held ironically in the still-incomplete courthouse built with funds he helped steal. His first trial in January 1873 ended with a hung jury despite overwhelming evidence. The November conviction results in a sentence of 12 years in prison and $12,750 in fines for systematically plundering New York City of an estimated $50-200 million (equivalent to $1.5-3.7 billion today).

Tweed’s legal team includes prominent attorneys David Dudley Field II and Elihu Root, demonstrating how elite legal talent shields wealthy defendants. Despite the conviction, Tweed successfully appeals and gets his sentence reduced to just one year with only $250 in fines—a minuscule penalty given the massive scale of theft. He serves his reduced sentence and is released in 1875, only to be immediately rearrested on civil charges.

The case exemplifies the persistent accountability gap for elite corruption. After escaping to Cuba and then Spain following his second imprisonment, Tweed is extradited back to the United States and dies in Ludlow Street Jail in 1878, never having repaid more than a fraction of the stolen funds. The Tweed Ring corruption case demonstrates that even when overwhelming evidence leads to conviction, systemic institutional capture allows dramatic sentence reductions and delayed justice. The pattern of initial prosecution followed by appeals, sentence reduction, and minimal actual punishment becomes standard for white-collar crime prosecutions.