LURID EXPOSURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1942, Page 2

LURID EXPOSURE

OF OFFICIAL GANGSTERDOM IN NEW YORK BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN. BRIBERY IN MURDER AND OTHER CASES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, December 28. A four-year inquiry into charges of official corruption in the New York city borough of Brooklyn, the longest and most sweeping study of municipal misconduct in American, history has resulted in fines and restitutions totalling over 2,000,000 dollars, against which the costs of the inquiry are only 1',000,000 dollars. A “New Yofk Times” special correspondent says the report, based on the testimony of 3390 witnesses, revealed lurid accounts of gangland bribery of policemen and city officials in murder and kidnapping cases and blackmail rackets, and also the rigging of contractors’ bids, defrauding the taxpayers of over 1,000.000 dollars. The inquiry started in an atmosphere that required night patrols to guard the prosecutors’ headquarters and the alarm-wired file-rooms containing incriminating evidence affecting gangsters and racketeers. The report disclosed that many public officials earning large salaries did not keep bank accounts and lived far beyond their incomes without there being direct proof of the source of their money. The report makes 19 recommendations designed to close existing loopholes in the laws whereby city employees are immune from various types of prosecution.