FANTASTIC SETUP

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 65, 20 December 1946, Page 6

FANTASTIC SETUP

EMBEZZLEMENT CASE IN AMERICA SWINDLER LED DOUBLE LIFE New Yoi’k police investigating the Mergenthaler Embezzlement case describe it as one of the most fantastic in American crime hsitory. The skeins of its complicated plot extend from New York as far as Hollywood, with lesser Broadway characters appearing in the background. William Arthur Nickel, the 60-dollar-a-week cashier who confessed to his part in the embezzlement of 832,000 dollars (£260,000) from the Mergenthaler Linotype Co. within the past 12 months, led a fantastic double life. Trusted by his employers and respected by- his neighbours as a model family man, he was a furtive Broadway spender by night, holding hotel room parties while his wife and daughter spent their quiet suburban evenings at home. He used to give the hotel porter 20-dollar tips when entertaining women guests in his suite. The porter said Nickel had claimed to be the president of the Mergenthaler company. Nickel’s wife confirmed that her husband stayed in town late twice a week.

Glenda Farrell, the screen star and her 22-year-old son Tommy, gave the police valuable information. Tommy was a frequent visitor to the Buckingham Hotel, where John Collins, one of Nickel’s many Broadway hangers-on, for whom the police are still hunting, shared an apartment with an old friend of Tommy’s. “Collins was so shy and quiet and barely opened his mouth,” said Glenda. Other characters in this fantastic story are Joseph Kupsnecker, a convicted killer who now calls himself Joseph West, and who cashed 450,000 dollars’ worth of Nickel’s cheques, and Joseph Milstein, Broadway playboy and alleged blackmarketer in nylons, liquor and other scarce merchandise.

Isadore Rappaport, third member of the gang arrested by the police, has a record of nine arrests dating from 1916.

These characters appear to have been involved in a complicated game of double-crossing each other.

Nicke’l began his career of embezzlement in association with Rappaport, who brought in his old friend, Milstein. Milstein brought in Collins and the pair then froze out Rappaport. Nickel himself found his share of the loot dwindling until he, too, was finally left out in the cold.