The sun., 1903-12-07
ROUND UP ARSON GRAFTERS.
THREE LAWYERS TO BE IN
DICTED THIS WEEK.

Company AdJusters. Public AdJllsters and
Insurance PatrOlmen Implicated in
the Swindle-ConfessiOns From Men
Who Have Already Been Indicted
Max Karnfeld the public insurance
adjuster who has been convicted Of filing
a false claim for fire losses and who is to
be sentenced to-day, has made confess
sion involving lot of other persons. As
the result Of this and other confessions
and the investigation which Assistant
District Attorney Garvan has been making
for the last six months, there will be big
batch Of indictments in the near future
Three lawyers accused OF having assisted
in defrauding insurance companies are
to be indicted this week. Other persons
implicated and whose cases are now before
the Grand Jury, are Members Of the Fire
Patrol and one public official. company
adjuster, public adjuster and insured
persons who have filed false claims.
Several members of the Fire Patrol,
which is in the service of all the insurance
companies, are accused of maliciously in
creasing the damage at fires by dest roying
property which they were supposed to pro-
tect after the fires we're out.
kornfeld has been an adjuster for six
years, and in that time has fixed he losses
at 1000 fires. The crime of which he has
been convicted was fling false claim
after an alleged fire in his own apartments
on Fast Hath st rect.
The amount of money OF which he insur-
ance companies have been robbed by these
claims is up in the hundreds of thousands.
Fire Marshal Freel said last night that there
was only one way to stop it and hat was
for the insurance companies TO make more
rigid invest igat ions of losses and t o be sure
that their own adjusters are honest men
and not working in collusion with the
public adjusters hired by the insured,
Many OF the public adiusters,' the Fire
Marshal continued. ARE dishonest and
make living on crooked claims. 1t is not
my business to investigate losses, but l do
all ! can to help the insurance companies,
because if we can break up the crooked
claim business we'll eliminate the motive
for arson
Assistant District Attorney Garvan put
the same thing in different way.
Mine incendiary fires out of ten" he
said, "are set to furnish excuses for ex-
orbitant claims of damages. Arson Ia
very difficult matter TO prove, because the
fire destroys the evidence. II is an easier
matter to prove fraud in claim. so the
main object OF the insurance depart ment
Of the District Attorneys Office in this in
vestigation is to discourage arson by max
ing the robbing OF insurance companies a
dangerous thing to do. The companies
could help lot themselves by stopping
their indiscriminate payment of claims
to get rid of the expense of proper inves'i-
CATION"
The work of the District Attorneys
office in these cases has resulted so far in
the convictio OF Joseph Schnepmann. who
has pleaded guilty to six indictments for
filing false claims; the indictment of Darius
w. Ettinger public adjuster, In con-
net ion with Schnepmann's case: tho con-
vict tion of Kornfeld and the conviction Of
Samuel Silverstein who has made a con-
fesson and who is to be sentenced on
Wednesday. Silverste Elm filed false claim
and in his confession he has named the pub
lie ad inst er who induced him to commit
the crime.
The batch of cases now under investiga-
tion recalls the efforts OF Judge Vernon NJ.
Davis, who az Assistant District Attorney
broke up the Hirschkopf gang OF insurance
swindlers in 1897 and sent twenty or more
Of them to Sing Sing .Adolph Hirschkopf.
the leader of the gang, is serving a life sem
tehce because one Of the fires which he was
responsible for caused the death OF child.
He was convicted Of murder in the second
degree. Schoenholz. an accomplice, got
sentences aggregatng forty-eight years,
and man named Zuker. who hired Schoen-
holz TO burn his house, got thirty-six years.
That gang, said Judge Davis yesterday.
Operated in this city, in Boston and in
Lynn, Mass It took me four years to run
them all down. We are now evidently
having recrndescence Of that particular
form of crime