CALLING JUDGE CRATER Chapter Five

 

It was a very odd search, because it seemed nobody wanted to actually find Joseph Force Crater. Most of the cops couldn't afford to admit they even knew where the rocks they were expected to turn over, were. And if they ever found Joe under one of those rocks, there would have to be explanations, like why they hadn't turned that rock over earlier. And nobody – not even Stella - really wanted that.  

Hounded by the press who smelled another Tammany Hall scandal, the cops finally issued a statement in mid-September. “We have no reason to believe he is alive, and no reason to believe he is dead. There is absolutely no new development in the case.” That spin went down just like the Titanic.

The cops searched the apartment at 40 Fifth Avenue again, and again found nothing. They interviewed William Klein and Sally Ritz again. This time the pair replaced the story of Joe disappearing in a taxi with the image of Joe walking west on 45^th Street. A lead to nowhere. Swimming? And in Westchester? Then Joe's best friend, Lawyer Simon Rifkin, mentioned that Joe had mentioned he might be going to Canada. At last a lead that did not require the invasion of a Times Square speakeasy. But they way they investigated that lead, spoke volumes.

After sending a Missing Persons report to the 'Mounties' in Montreal, the cops started as close to the Canadian border as they could – the little town of Plattsburgh, New York (above), with 13,000 residents. But the detectives did not call the local constabulary. Instead they called the The Plattsburgh Sentinel newspaper.

And it should have been no surprise that a local reporter found a local busybody, one Helen Murray, who saw Judge Crater at her brother's drug store on Friday, 8 August, 1930. The Missing Person's Bureau immediately dispatched Joe's cousin, W. Everett Crater, on the 300 mile train ride.

When Everett arrived in Plattsburg, he went to the drug store, but failed to find Ms. Murray. And evidently her brother, the owner, admitted the man she thought was Judge Crater was another man entirely. 

But before this failure had dampened the New Yorkers' hearts, there was another sighting of the judge a half a mile north in the village of Champlain, within spitting distance of the Canadian border. Governor Roosevelt now released the New York State Police to scour the border for the judge, along with their other their prohibition patrols. Southbound New York Route 11, which started at the Canadian line, was crowded every night with unobtrusive trucks and sedans - as were the five other border crossings in the county.

A mechanic who worked 48 hours a week for less than $15.00, could make $50 to $75 for the half mile drive between Champlain and Plattsburgh, carrying what might be bootleg booze. And as a driver, you were not even breaking the law unless you looked in one of the cases and confirmed it was booze.

If you owned a truck or a big sedan, and were willing to run a little more risk, you could buy a case of perfectly legal Canadian Whiskey for $15 in Montreal, which you could sell for $120 in Plattsburgh. 

The border region was strewn with small hotels, road houses, resorts and hunting lodges, all floating in a sea of Canadian whiskey and jammed with thirsty citizens. Surely Good Time Joe could be found in one of these dens of inequity. 

Since the New York City Council had posted a $5,000 reward, every red blooded capitalist in the Adirondacks had become an amateur detective. And they kept finding Joe Crater.

In fact there was a bumper crop of Judge Craters that fall. There were sightings at Fourth Lake, midway between Lake Placid and Syracuse, a “positive” I.D. at nearby Raquette Lake, and a possible sighting in the Keene Valley, on the road to Ticonderoga. 

Three workers at the Altamont Hotel on Tupper's Lake swore they had seen Joe. He was repeatedly reported in Saratoga, betting on the ponies. But none of these Judge Craters proved to be the real, original missing Judge Crater. The search was back to square one, Times Square in Manhattan.

The rising stench of this fell into the lap of New York County District Attorney, Thomas Crowell Taylor Crain. At 72 years of age, Crain was what they called a Tammany Hall stalwart, experienced at muddying waters. 

In 1905, as Commissioner of Tenement Housing, he found nobody was responsible for the Allen Street tenement fire that killed at least 20. 

In 1911 Crain was the presiding judge at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 148 women and girls. Under his instructions, the jury found the owners not guilty.   Judgement like that got him elected  D.A. in 1929.  

Crain convened a grand jury on the Arnold Rothstein murder (above), but it came to no conclusion. And now, he decided to investigate the case of the missing jurist.

Crain wrote a letter to Stella. He requested her appearance before a grand jury, and asked her to bring a copy of Joe's will. But Stella was busy. Still grieving for her lost marriage and lost life, she had been reduced to taking a job with the Maine Telephone and Telegraph Company in their Belgrade Lakes exchange as an operator. 

Stella (above) was now earning $12 a week, and had no interest in putting herself under Mr. Crain's jurisdiction. She would not testify. She did tell the police – by telephone – that Joe “...never liked and seldom went swimming.” But that just muddied the waters even more.

When the Crane grand jury convened in October, there was still no sign of the judge, but there was a brakeman on a passenger train running between Tucson and Bisbee Junction, Arizona. He had spotted the judge on the train, and heard him say he was heading to El Paso, Texas (above).  Detectives were dispatched, and the new lead, lead nowhere.

Still, the ever vigilant D.A. Crane pressed on. He called Bill Klein, who repeated his latest version of events at the chophouse. Next, Crane might have been expected to call Klein and Crater's dinner companion, but Sally Lou Ritz, aka Sally Lou Ritzi (above, right), had disappeared. Lest anyone suspect foul play, they quickly located the dancer in Youngstown, Ohio, staying with her parents. She left so abruptly, she said, because her father had been taken ill. And no, she was not coming back to appear before Crain's grand jury.

Still D.A. Crane persevered. He next called dark haired ex-model Constance Braemer “Connie” Marcus. She had met Joe Crater in 1922, while she was working at the Cayuga Democratic Club. They became friends, so of course Connie hired him when she decided to divorce her husband, just as Stella had done. Shortly thereafter, the pair began a 12 year affair. Joe paid the rent on Connie's apartment at the Mayflower Hotel (above) overlooking Columbus Circle on Central Park West, where he visited her several times a week. He also loaned her money to invest in a dress shop on 57^th Street, where she also worked as sales girl. But no, she had no idea where Joe was. She hadn't seen him since June.

Next on Crane's list of witnesses was June Brice, yet another show girl. She had been seen talking to Joe on Tuesday evening. But she had also disappeared. And they didn't find her for a decade. So they called Elaine Dawn, yet a another show girl, but she failed to add anything to the record except that Joe was a good dancer, who knew how to show a show girl a good time. So Crane decided to open a line of investigation into the fate of the Libby Hotel.

The 12 story luxury hotel and baths at the corner of Chrystie and Delancey Streets in the yidishe mittenmark – Jewish Heart – of Manhattan was the dream of emigrant Max Berstein and funded mostly by stocks sold in synagogues. It was one of the few 5 star hotels welcoming Jews at the time. Named after Max's deceased mother, it had opened in 1926 to good business. But within 2 years business - and the neighborhood -  fell off so badly the American Bond and Mortgage Company, or AMBAM, bought a controlling interest in the hotel for just $75,000. They then used the hotel as collateral for several loans and ran up debts with suppliers until the hotel was $1.5 million under water. And in February of 1929 AMBAM's accountant Charles Moore testified under oath that the hotel was worth only $1.3 million, which put it $200,000 in the hole, and officially bankrupt.

The Tammany Hall government of new Mayor Jimmy Walker, then granted AMBAM foreclosure protection, which prevented just anyone from buying the property. The city also appointed lawyer Joseph Force Crater as receiver. Joe had to put up a $1.3 million guarantee, but that was just a paper promise, and it guaranteed him as profit anything over that, which he might get for selling the hotel. Within a month, the city itself seized everything between Chrystie and Forsyth Streets, and Houston and Canal Streets, which included the Libby hotel, under eminent domain so they could clear slums and widen the streets. In January, the same Charles Moore now re-valued the empty Libby Hotel as being worth $3.2 million.  The city then negotiated to buy the property at the bargain basement price of $2.85 million, which allowed Joseph Force Crater to pocket almost 2 million dollars, a $700,000 profit . AMBAM got $1.3 million for the hotel, and negated the $1.5 in debt, all for their $75,000 investment.  Only the tax payers lost money on this deal.

It all smelled to high heaven, but Joe Crater appeared to have done nothing illegal. However the story muddied his reputation, and when matched with the suggestion he had bought his judgeship for $23,000, left the members of the grand jury not feeling too disappointed when, in January of 1931, District Attorney Crane disbanded them, declaring that “The evidence is insufficient to warrant any expression of opinion as to whether Crater is alive or dead, or as to whether he has absented himself voluntarily, or is the sufferer from disease in the nature of amnesia, or is the victim of crime.” In other words it was a typical Crane decision – muddied. Very muddied.

With the grand jury disbanded, Stella Crater was no longer under any legal threat, and she returned to New York City to pick up her clothes and mementos before they were seized by the landlord for non-payment of rent. And wonder of wonders, Stella found in a bedroom dresser drawer a couple of envelopes, filled with cash, stocks, bonds and un-cashed checks to the total of $6,690.00 – about $1.3 million today. There was also a list of people who owed Joe Crater even more money, and a note to Stella, which ended, “I am weary. Love Joe.” But it was undated.

Stella (above)  told the NYPD detectives, and the District Attorney's Office about her discovery. She had to. The federal tax collector would be asking where she got the money. As joint property with her husband, who was still officially alive, there would be no inheritance tax. The cops insisted they had searched that drawer several times, and it had always been empty. But Stella stuck to her story, and the cops stuck to theirs. But they also noticed that one of the checks made out to Joe and endorsed by him, was dated 30 August, 1930 – over three weeks after he vanished off west 45^th street. It had clearly been post dated, said Stella. And there was no way of proving that was not what had happened.

But that brought everything back to that night, a quarter after 9:00pm, Wednesday, 6 August 1930, outside Billy Haas's Chophouse on West 45^th Street. After he stepped away from that spot, what the hell had happened to Judge Crater?

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CALLING JUDGE CRATER Chapter Four

 

Stella Crater had been married to Joe since 1917,  after he handled her divorce from her first husband. And over that 12 years she had tolerated Joe's womanizing, gambling and his drinking. And she did not ask too many questions. She learned of Joe's appointment as judge from the newspapers. She had no income of her own, but Joe's approximately $75,000 a year income as a divorce attorney. and stock benefits,  allowed her to live a  life of comfort. 

 But with the Stock Market Crash 9 months earlier,  lawyers like Joe had seen their incomes cut by 40%.  It explained why Joe had been eager to move to the judiciary since it meant at least a regular salary, which could be easily supplemented by bribes and kickbacks.  But on Monday, 11 August, Stella decided she could wait no longer.  She walked into Belgrade where she would have access to a telephone, and called Maria, the  maid for their 40 Fifth Avenue apartment. Maria was surprised to learn that the Judge had not returned to Maine the previous Thursday. 

Next Stella called Frederick Johnson, the Judge's law secretary at the Manhattan Court  House (above).  Fred assured Stella that the Judge was fine, although he could offer no evidence to support that claim.  In fact the last time Frederick had spoken to his boss was that previous Wednesday.

Crater had arrived at the Court House about 11:00am.  After sending his attendant Joseph L. Mara  to a brokerage house to collect $5,100 cash from 2 investments,  the Judge went into his office and locked the door.  Half an hour later, he stepped out to borrow Fred's brief case, and returned behind the locked door again.  A little after noon Judge Crater asked Joseph Mara to help him carry two briefcases and six fully stuffed cardboard folders out to a taxi. On his way out the door, Crater had said, "Don't forget to turn off the lights, Johnson." 

Joseph Mara had ridden uptown in the taxi with the Judge, and lugged the six cardboard briefcases up to the Crater's five room condominium at 40 Fifth Avenue (above left, awning) . The Judge had said to Mara, "You may go now, Joe.  I'm going up to Westchester way for a swim. I'll see you tomorrow." 

While Fredrick had not gone into the details of the Judge's Court House activities,  he did take the time to warn Stella against pressing the issue of the Judge's whereabouts, by saying it might make things professionally unpleasant for her husband.  The unstated hint was that there might be women or gangsters involved. And this hint proved enough to convince Stella to return to the cabin. For the time being, Judge Crater had a great deal in common with  Doctor Schrodinger's  cat. He might be missing, but only if somebody couldn't find him. So it was better if nobody went looking. 

Joe Crater had been a surprising appointment to the New York Supreme Court because he was not openly affiliated with New York Mayor Jimmy Walker (above), or his friends at Tammany Hall (below) -  the center of graft and corruption in New York government since the 1840’s.

But Crater was connected to the hall (above).  The proof was that in April of 1930, just after Governor Franklin Roosevelt had announced Crater’s surprise appointment, Joe had withdrawn $23,000 (about $250,000 today) from his bank. 

The standard and unspoken rule in New York state was that any appointment required the payment of one year’s salary to the lions of Tammy Hall. Lowly trial court - Supreme Court - judges were paid $23,000 a year. No record was ever found of where Joe's $23,000 went.

But Governor Roosevelt (above) was already positioning himself for a possible run for the White House and he could not afford to be connected to anyone connected to Tammany Hall, because of the murder two years earlier of Arnold Rothstein.

It was 13 minutes before midnight, Sunday, 4 November 1928, when elevator operator Vince Kelly (above, re-enacting for the newspapers), just coming to work, discovered a well dressed man lying on the concrete floor of a service corridor of the Park Central Hotel on West 56^th Street. Vince bent down and asked, “Are you sick?” The man held out a dollar bill. “Get me a taxi”, he said. “I've been shot.”

Before the ambulance had even pulled up to the service entrance on 7^th Avenue, word of the shooting was being whispered into the mayor's ear. Recently elected dapper Irish pixie, 40 year old James John “Jimmy” Walker was drinking and dancing at the hotel's Park Lounge. Clearly the management thought it would be better for the hotel and the mayor if he was not discovered without his wife in the vicinity of a shooting. While Walker waited for his girlfriend, Ziegfeld Follies girl Betty Compton (above), to get her coat, Big Band Leader Vincent Lopez asked the ashen faced mayor if he was alright. “Not Exactly”, Jimmy replied. “Rothstein's been shot, Vince. And that means trouble from here on in.”

At 46 years of age Arnold Rothstein was a living legend.  The son of a banker, A.R. applied his natural talent for math to making a lot of money, quickly.  In his twenties he opened an underground gambling club in Manhattan's Tenderloin district, then a horse track in Maryland, and made a million dollars by the age of thirty.  He was, rumor said, the man who rigged the 1919 World Series. It was Rothstein who used prohibition profits to organize crime, and train the next generation of mobsters -  people like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Arnold's own body guard and partner, Jack “Legs” Diamond.  

Rumor had it that Jack had either pulled the trigger on Arnold, or helped lure him into the hotel without other body guards.  But the murder of Arnold Rothstein was to shake New York City's hidden financial infrastructure until it almost fell apart, in part because Tammany Hall District Attorney Joab Banton was thin skinned.   During the 1928 campaign for mayor, 40 year old Republican Fiorello LaGuardia had charged that Arnold Rothstien was still running the city from beyond the grave.  In response Banton dared the Republican to name a single city official who had any ties to the late A.R., and back came the booming response – Bronx Superior Court Judge  Albert Vitale. According to LaGuardia, Rothstein had loaned Vitale $20,000. 

LaGuardia's charge had no impact on the Tuesday, 6 November 1928 election. Walker won in a landslide. But shortly thereafter United States Attorney Charles Tuttle revealed the source of the accusation – a little black notebook, seized from a known Rothstien heroin dealer, containing the phone number of Albert Vitale. That revelation opened up an investigation by the N.Y. City Bar Association. Their January 1930 report noted that on his $48,000 a year salary, Vitale had $165,000 in the bank. From the witness stand the bombastic Albert Vitale (above) declared "I have absolutely nothing to fear or conceal." But on 14 March, 1930,  the New York Bar Association ordered Vitale removed from office,

Immediately Tuttle opened an investigation into a case Vitale had passed judgment on, the unexpected collapse of the $400,000 Columbia Finance Corporation.  The cause of the fund's failure was their financing the purchase of a series of lots used for piers along the Brooklyn waterfront, leased by United American Lines, a steamship company. The owner of record of one of the lots was Chorus girl Miss Anne McVicker. But the check she used to buy the lot was drawn from the account of Joseph F. Boyle, a political buddy of....guess who? Yes, Albert Vitale. This lease, along with others, had been used by United American Lines to transfer a $250,000 payoff  to Tammany Hall, through Vitale. But once the payoff had been made, the lots returned to the original owners and the leases had to be renegotiated, and Columbia went bankrupt. 

Joseph Crater (above) had decided only two cases during his brief tenure on the Manhattan bench, a liability case against the Park Central Motors Service garage over a wrecked stolen car, and a civil case demanding restitution over the fraudulent transfer of money in a mortgage foreclosure fraud.  Good Time Joe began his written decision of that case this way,  "The evidence presented upon the hearing of this cause points so conclusively to judgment in favor of defendants that we may, without prejudice....overlook some of the technical issues raised...".   But there were other cases on the Judge's docket he had not yet decided.  And with State and Federal investigators already sniffing around, looking for an opening, it suddenly looked like Joe had picked a bad time to transfer to the other side of the bench.

Finally, on Friday, 16 August 1930 -  10, ten days after her husband was last seen -  Stella Crater sent her chauffeur to the city to look for him. He reported that the Judge had left their apartment in perfect order - Maria the maid had already cleaned up of course -  but  none of his clothes were missing and his luggage was still in the closet, hinting he had not left town again.  The driver checked Joe's usual hangouts, places he had driven the judge to and from in the city, places he may not have mentioned to Stella. But no one recalled seeing the Judge all summer. Stella then called Simon Rifkind, another lawyer friend of Joe's. He assured her again that everything was fine, and that Joe would soon turn up.  

The Supreme Court's fall session opened on 25 August, and Justice Louis Valente telephoned from New York to ask Stella if Joe was still in Maine. Stella became hysterical, and Judge Valente assured her that he would find her wayward husband.  He then set New York Police Detective Leo Lowenthal unofficially on to the case.

Back at the Court House, Lowenthal learned of the two brief cases stuffed with money and the six cardboard file folders Crater had removed from the office.  From the Court House, the detective went to the 40 Fifth Avenue apartment.  Not only were the brief cases not there, neither were the cardboard folders. But hanging in the bedroom closet, Detective Lowenthal found the vest Judge Crater had been wearing when he left the courthouse, validating Joseph Mara's story.  But what had happened to all those files, and those two briefcases? There were no ashes in the fire place, and Maria insisted there had been none. So the files had not been burned in the apartment, but when the Judge left the apartment, the files, the briefcases and the money had all gone with him.   But neither Bill Klein nor Sally Ritz reported seeing them at the Chop House.  It seemed somebody was lying, And that is what he told the judges of the Supreme Court. 

So finally,  on 3 September, 1930, the dam broke. Judge Louis Valenti called the Commissioner of Police,  At last, four weeks after Judge Joseph Force Crater had been seen alive and well on West 45th Street, the public alarm was raised.  Mayor Walker and the city council immediately posted a $5,000 reward. It was never claimed.

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