Perth Amboy evening news., 1907-01-19
'TOTTENVILLE
MEN INVOLVED
JOrgen JOhannsen, Of Raritan Bay
Park, Suspended from His
Position In Registers S Office

TOTTENVILLE, Jan. 19:-Jur-
gan Johannsen, who lives in Raritan
Bay Park, and who is chief folio clerk
of the Registers Office in Manhattan,
was suspended yesterday by Regis
ter Frank Gass. Johannsen has been
accused of loaning money at usuri-
Gus rates to the clerks in the copying
bureau, of which he had charge. The
suspension was ordered at the re-
quest of Joahannsen himself, who
asked the Register to investigate the
charges. Milton c. Quimby, of Broad
way, Tottenville, is involved in the
case.
Mr.. Gass said last night that so
far he had discovered no evidence to
support the charges. He said he had
received affidavits from about thirty
of the clerks under Johannsen and
that while some admitted that they
had borrowed small sums from their
chief they denied that they had evr
paid interest on the loans. A few of
the men making the affidavits said
that they had heard reports of m
terest being charged on loans made
by Johannsen but that they had no
personal knowledge of the truth of
those rumors.
Has Much Influence.
AS chief of the folio room and task
master over fifty copyists, Johannsen
good pay or cause the unfavored to
fare poorly. He loans money to his
subordinates at 10 per cent. a month,
it is charged, taking their notes with
the bonus tackled on.
He gets the pay checks of his
clerks and is charged with forcing
his debtors to endorse their checks
over to him each month, accepting
the face of the check in cash less in
terest for loans or principal and in
terest, as the case may be.
1t is said that recently one of his
clerks was forced to give over his en-
tire months pay to satisfy Jo-
hansen.
Johannsen has been chief record
clerk since 1898. He is accounted
clever and has the routine of his job
down to fine point. Yesterday he
was called before w. H. Sinnott, dep
uty register, in the absence of Regis
ter Gass, and questioned about his
alleged usurious practices. At first
he pretended that he only loaned to
his men out of pure philanthrophy--
out of 'fatherly interest in them.
Finally he admitted that he loaned
money to them upon their notes, but
only introduced them to a friend
when they paid interest.
L admit that have loaned money
to maybe half of the men, at times.
A small per centage are in my debt
most of the time. But l usually in
troduced them to Milton G. Quimby,
who has an Office in the Colonial
Trust building on Broadway and who
loans them money upon their notes
for thirty days, at 10 per cent.
THE men sign notes, adding the
interest. For instance, if a man wants
$50 he signs a note for S55 and gets
the fifty Just to accommodate the
boys l intercede with Quimby for
tHSIn, anu SOulGIlulcS L 6uuOISG IhSil
notes"
While he would not acknowledge
that he exacted from the impecunious
clerks that they hand over to him
their pay checks and allow him to
take out the amounts due him and
his friend, Quimby, he admitted that
he did, each month, cash the checks
of a number of his men, getting them
to endorse them over to him. He
then deposited them in his own bank.
At the conclusion of the examina-
tion, Mr. Sinnott declared to Johann
sen that loaning money for interest
must cease in the Office. He also said
that today he would question the
clerks and ascertain just how far ex-
tortion has affected the earnings of
the copyists
Milton c. Quimby, is real estate
dealer and money lender He would
not sustain his friend, Johannsen's
statement that the latter stood secur-
ity for money loaned the clerks in
the registers Office.
when l loan money to Jo-
hannsen's Clerks he said, Johann
sen does not secure the loan. / lend
money to Johannsen and he loans
some of it to his clerks, Whatever
he does with them he does upon his
own responsibility"