The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-03-11
4 POLISH CONSPIRACY.
Threatening Letters Sent to
Officials Of the Erie
Elevator.

John Vassil, of No. 34S Henderson
street, was held for examination by .Po-
lice Justice Nevin, in the First Criminal
Court, this morning, FOR sending threat
ening letters through the mail to several
of the officials at the Erie grain elevator.
Detective Clark and Captain Kelly of the
Seventh street station arrested him last
night after having carefully worked up
a case against him. When they arrest
ed yassil and confronted him with EVIL
dence of his guilt he confessed to having
written the letters and made a state
ment in writing. which he signed. After
wards he secured the services of Lawyer
James Manning and this morning ne
| pleaded not guilty.
The men whose lives he threatened are
| Lyman Hopkins, the foreman of the Erie
elevator, and Frank King, an assistant.
He also sent a letter to D. d. Allerton,
manager of the elevator, at his office at
the Produce. Exchange, setting forth al
legged wrongs which have been worked
upon the men by Hopkins and an as
sistant named futile,
vassil alleges that futile forces the
men employed in the elevator to pay him
exorbitant sums, in consideration of
which he promises to Eeep them in steady
employment. He alleges that futile is
| really a tool n that the man who is
really bleeding the men is Hopkins. His
letter to Hopkins is as folloWs:-
1 do hereby notify you that your
time and also your frlend.S Is up:
Remember Superintendent White or
the West Shore wnen he was shot.
You will be shot same way and you
and your friends will measure now
deep is North River. You think you
are head, but there are those higher
than you. | guess you Will comp
futile in Park Row ~restaurant ana
were at dinner. You think nobody
knows that when you and Tuttle took
money from good men last summer,
giving steady job for few months. You
escaped your death twice, but now is
YOUR last time. Take this few lines as
words Of warning. Thu rest | leave to
YOU
z When the matter was reported to Cap
tain Kelly he suggested that each man
| employed at the elevator he asked to en-
ter his name and address in his W
| handwriting in a book, n thEs the
writer of the letters be discovered through
his writing. When Anton Salvini came
to sign his name, he said:"What is this
-
| for? Do you want to know about those
| letters which were sent to the boss?'
He was questioned and admitted that
Vassil had written the letters and had
| shown them to him before sending them.
On his testimony the arrest was made.
Salvini's statement to the police last
| night was as follows
81 work at the Erie Grain Elevator. On
| March /. John Vassil came to my house
| and showed me three letters that were
| of a threatening character, to whom they
were addressed as folows:-Frank King
| Frank Moore and D. D. Allerton. The
letters were to be sent to the above per-
sons because they had refused to give
| employment to the sender"
vassil swore to the following state
ment:-
Sometime last summer two Polish men
who have gone to the old country and
whose names are unknown, John Butaek'
a brother of the night Waterman. and
myself agreed to write some letters to see
if we could not stop Tuttle, the boss IN
| the Elevator, from taking money from the
| men employed there, who on the strength
| of giving him money guarantee them
| steady employment and the letters here
| attached were written by Edmund Sin
| carriage and was sealed and mailed by
| me, as knew their contents
Sincarriage is a Polish interpreter who
makes a business of writing in English
| letters for his countrymen.