MORAN, GEORGE

born 1893, Minnesota, U.S. died Feb. 25, 1957, U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kan. byname Bugs Moran Chicago gangster and bootlegger of the Prohibition era. A childhood friend and, later, right-hand man of Dion O'Bannion, Moran and Earl Hymie Weiss inherited O'Bannion's gang in Chicago when the chief was killed in 1924. Moran became sole leader after Weiss was killed in late 1926. For the next three years Moran's gang and Al Capone's were locked in bloody warfare, climaxed in 1929 by the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (q.v.), in which several members of Moran's mob were slaughtered. His power reduced, he drifted into petty crimes, ending his days in prison for bank robberies (Ohio Penitentiary, 194656; Leavenworth federal penitentiary, 1957). He died of lung cancer.