The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-22
FORGED PINKERTON'S NAME.
DETECTIVE ASPIRATIONS GET
TROUTMAN IN TROUBLE.

Posed ~ o sleuth and Had o Badge to Prove
It-Cashed Bogus Checks and Now
L. in jail Here-Cigarettes Said TO
Have Been Cause OF His Downfall.
When Theodore Troutman embarked In
the check forging industry 1t was not 80
much an inspiration OF criminal humor
as force OF circumstances which made
him select the Pinkerton Detective Agency
as the victim OF some Of his most dashing
operations.
Theodore, who is now looked up at Police
Headquarters pending hearing this morn
ing in the Tombs police court, has fond
ness for q sporting life and Q weakness
for cigarettes and detective literature His
cigarette dreams were not placid they
were filled with dark plots Of crime nipped
In the bud by acute and mysterious ones
who detected.
In one OF these frances, some months
ago, he walked into the Pinkerton agency
here in New York and offered to give that
concern the benefit Of his inspired talents.
They let him go at the agency without
putting him under arrest on general prin-
ciples, and this lenity Theodore must have
regarded as equivalent to an engagement.
At all events, he went straightway and got
himself badge with detective on II,
pinned 1t on his waistcoat well back by
the armhole, put q six-shooter in his hip
pocket, loaded up with an extra allow ance
OF cigarettes and set out to seek whom
he might detect.
Mercer street. Jersey City, and favoring
the residents OF the vicinity with his society
Among the places he frequented was q
bowling alley, and there he got acquainted
with clerk In q Jersey City bank. On
July is he presented at the First National
Bank in Jersey City check drawn in his
favor on the Chatham National Bank OF
New York for $34.50 and signed with the
name OF Joseph Lajeune. produce merchant
In Washington street. New York. Through
the Identification OF his bank clerk acquaint-
ance this check was cashed.
A few days later he presented to B. Meyers,
q Montgomery street saloon keeper, q check
drawn in his favor on the Chatham National
Bank and signed Robert Pinkerton."
r had APR 81 Meyers
genuine Pinkerton detective, and he showed
a badge in proof.
Meyers gave I'D 500 in real money for the
check. and his till is now short just that
amount Robert A. Pinkerton has no ac-
Various other Robert Pinkerton" checks
made their appearance from time to time,
and about week ago one came from Provi-
dence, r. L. where 1t developed that Theo-
dore had gone rather hastily to detect
things. Providence man got OF with a
loss Of $42 on this transaction.
Then the Pinkerton people began to DO
a little detecting on their own account
and in home waters. but 1t was Chief OF
Police Murphy and Detective Sergeant Doyle
OF Jersey City who got on the trail Of Theo-
dore, and on Tuesday night Doyle and a
New York detective arrested him in Man
haitian and locked him up.
1routman lived with his mother for
time at 2s2 Pearl street, Brooklyn, and
while there forged her name to a check
for $40, which he gave to the landlord
OF the house they lived in for rent, receiving
something like 80 In change. His mother
paid this check to save him. One OF the
Pinkerton detectives described him yester-
day as typical cigarette fend
He is held on the First National Bank
OF Jersey City charge, and an effort will
be made to extradite him to New Jersey
for trial. He Is "a years old.