From Mentalfloss.com:
The undisputed poster child for graft and greed in American politics was Boss William Tweed. He was a politician who raised corruption to an art form; a perfect model for all dirty lawyers to emulate. As a member of New York’s Tammany Hall in the Civil War era, Tweed and his cronies, including Mayor Fernando Wood, ran New York as their own private stocking-stuffer. Example: Tweed once bought 300 benches for $5 each, then sold them to the city for $600 a pop, conveniently pocketing the profits. But wait, that’s just the tip of the iceberg! The building of City Hall was a clinic in graft: the city was charged $7,500 for every thermometer, $43,190 for each broom, and $5.7 million for furniture and carpets! One carpenter was listed as receiving almost $361,000 – not bad for a single month’s work.
On Tweed’s behalf, however, despite being crooked as a dog’s hind leg, he still gets a bit of credit from some historians for undertaking many important projects that improved life in New York (albeit always with enormous financial gain for himself). So, what’s the estimate of Tweed’s illicit profits? Somewhere in the range of $200 million! (And that’s in the 1860s no less, when you could buy a Ferrari for a nickel.) Of course, the law always wins in the end, and Tweed was sentenced to some hard time. The Boss died in prison in 1878, his Glory Days long behind him.
