ALTERNATE WIVES.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 April 1922, Page 12

ALTERNATE WIVES.

MAN WHO SPENT A MONTH WITH EACH. By strictly adhering to a system Carmine Scappeto was able to live with two wives for nearly three years without either learning the truth, although they were friends when he met them. The story told in the Centre Street Police Court, New York, was that in 1918 Scapetto and Marie Harmonde, a brunette, of Italian parentage, were employed in a Brooklyn shoe factory. On February 3 of that year Scapetto took Marie Harmonde to Bogota, New Jersey, and married her. Marie Harmonde is the daughter of a well-to-do dealer in malt and hops, and a« her parents wanted her to stay at home they invited Scapetto to live there also. On April 5, 1918, Scapetto took Marie Burbon to the Municipal building and married hej. Marie’s people are not so comfortably off, and Scapetto set up housekeeping with her at No. 125, Lexington Avenue. Shortly after the second marriage Scapetto was drafted and went into the army. He served about a year. During that time his first wife drew part of his pay. The second wife, not knowing she was entitled to an allowance, went back to work in the shoe factory and supported herself. On his discharge from the army Scapetto planned a cunning line of action. He told wife No. 1 that his parents had come from Italy, and that as they were old he would be compelled to spend some time with them. He suggested that he would be able to fulfil his filial obligations by keeping the old folks company at nights in alternate months. He told the same story to wife No. 2. Neither of the wives appear to have betrayed any desire to see the old folk. ’ This enabled Scapetto, on leaving his work at the Brooklyn shoe foctory, where he obtained a jcb after the war, to go, if it was the first Marie’s month, to her home in West 135th Street, reaching there about nix o'clock. He would have dinner there, -and sometimes take the wife to the cinema. Promptly at 11 o’clock he would depart, ostensibly to join his parents. At midnight he would appear at his home at No. 125. Lexington Avenue. He would remain there the rest of the night, have breakfast and go to work from there. The"next month he would reverse the operation. Wife No. I had no occasion to ask her husband for money, and seldom did so, it being understood that he bpd to support his parents. He gave wife No. 2 twenty dollars a week out of his fifty dollars wages. Everything went smoothly until wife No. I was inform-* ed, by a vindictive relative of ScapettoJ of the conduct of her husband. This) happened to be wife no. 2’s month. Aj detective found him andl arrested himl at No. 125, Lexington Avenue, at two! o’clock in the morning. | Magistrate Renaud remanded Seapl etto. and allowed him bail in 2,500 doll lars.