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Mickey Cohen showing off some of his headlines.

Dee David, one of the victims in the Mickey Cohen ambush, primps in hospital while recovering slowly from gunshot wounds, July 22, 1949.

In the early hours of July 20, 1949 actress Dee David went to Sherry's, a café on Sunset Strip, where she met up with Frank Nicolli whom she reportedly had a romantic relationship with. Nicolli was a member of the Cohen crime family. Others at the café included Mickey Cohen, Neddie Herbert, a top lieutenant of Cohen's, and Harry Cooper, a Special Agent that had been assigned by the state attorney to guard Cohen. Four other members of various police agency's were also located around the café, assigned to guard Cohen after several failed assassination attempts had been made on him and Herbert.

At 4 am the party left the café with the police guards having left shortly earlier. As David, Cooper, Cohen, and Herbert stood on the sidewalk exchanging goodbyes gunfire opened up from the Bing Crosby building across the street. Cohen was hit in the shoulder, Cooper was hit twice in the abdomen, David was hit multiple times in the back (some reports say twice, others say three times, and still others say four times). Herbert was hit the worse leading investigators to theorize he was the target of the hit. He would succumb to his injuries about a week later while the other three recovered.

Less than 2 months later David would be mentioned in newspapers again when Frank Nicolli went missing while out on a $75,000 bail. David was reportedly the last person to see him and was able to tell police he had left her apartment to pick someone up at the airport. When her tip was not followed up on David went to the airport herself where she found Nicolli's abandoned car. Although Cohen believed Nicolli had been murdered the police did not and believed Cohen was hiding Nicolli and possibly planning to smuggle him into Mexico to avoid trial. However he was never found.

In February of the next year Cohen's house was bombed in another assassination attempt and Jack Dragna, who was questioned last July, was the prime suspect. Dragna had been the head of organized crime in LA until the late 1930s when Bugsy Siegel was sent to California by the East Coast mafia to set up operations. Once there Siegel teamed up with Cohen to gain majority control of LA's criminal syndications. After Siegel was assassinated in 1947, Cohen took over. Dragna wanted Cohen out of the way so he could regain full control.

At the time L.A. was trying to crack down on organized crime and clean out it's influence in the government. The knowledge that Special Agent Harry Cooper had been assigned as bodyguard to Cohen at tax payers expense enraged city councilmen. Dragna and Cohen were both ordered to appear before the Kefauver Committee. This resulting in Cohen being imprisoned for tax evasion in 1951 and Dragna receiving a deportation order to Sicily in 1953 (although he appealed this and passed away of natural causes in 1956 before the case was settled).

Cohen would survive another attempt on his life when serving a second prison term for tax evasion. After his release he became a businessman and celebrity and spent the later years of his life touring the country giving speeches and making television appearances before passing away of natural causes in 1976.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Jimmy Fratianno, a member of the Dragna crime family, became an FBI informant in exchange for leniency. He confessed to the murder of Frank Nicolli in 1949 when Nicolli refused to betray Cohen and join the Dragna gang.

In May of 1950 David and Cooper, who first met on the night of the shooting, got married. However David would leave him a year later and file for divorce on the grounds of "extreme cruelty", which would be finalized in 1954.

David's acting career was not successful and she never surpassed bit parts (as a newspaper article cruelly focuses on immediately after the shooting). She still worked in the industry as a film technician and a script girl.

In 1956 David would make newspaper headlines again after being beaten by the Sica brothers, two gangsters and friends of Cohen. David claimed that they broke into her house while she was in a business meeting with Alfred Shomo and beat her and her guest while the brothers, who were also business partners with David, claimed they were invited to the house and turned violent after David pulled a gun on them. At the time David was working on Spring Byington's show December Bride. Byington appeared in court and testified on David's behalf while Cohen testified for the brothers. The brothers were found not guilty.

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