The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-02-25
FRAUD
 AGAINST
 GOVERN MENT
Is Charge Against Lekas and VOrias
 We'll Known Greeks.
Alleged That They Conspired to Procur
 False Naturalization Papers.
Parlon, For Whose Benefit Job Was Done is Wanted Suspects Admitted to Bail By U. 5. Commissioner Peck.

l If the charges against John Lekas
 son of the proprietor of the Greek res l taurant in Water street, and Costa' vorias, an employe of the Union Me taIlic Cartridge O., are proven in tht | courts, they will find that it is a se rious matter to barter in naturslliza l tion papers. They were arrested yes terday by U. S. Deputy Marshal W L. Parmelee of New Haven, who came here armed with warrants for three men, the third being Nicholas James Parlou, a new arrivel from Greece who wanted naturalization papers be- fore it was time for him to have then and who was unable to answer the questions he would be obliged to an swer if he appeared before the Super for court.
 Parlou got out of town before the deputy marshal arrived, but it is be- Heved that he will not be able to gel
 out of the country without being ap- prehended. All three of the men are
 charged with conspiring to defraud the government under Section 54l8 Of the
 Federal statutes, while Leaas has the additional charge against him of sell
 ing naturalization papers.
 Upon being taken into custody
 Vorias and Legas were taken before
 U. s. Commissioner E. B. Peck and a
 ds te for a. hearing was set for Satur-
 day morning, at Il o'clock
 Bonds in the case of Leka+s were fix
 ed at $500 and he was locked up in the
 county jail. Vorias was able to fur
 nish 8 bond of $500 by signing his
 handbook over to his foreman, J. W.
 Blakeman, assistant mechanical eng1n-
 ger at the U. M. c. Co.
 The alleged fraud was discovered
 To, TN<x ,oD NTof 1iza- tion Examiner of the Eastern New
 England district. He found that the
 entries upon the books of the Immi-
 grafton Bureau in New York concern ing the history and description of
 Nicholas James Parlou did not jibe with the questions readily answered by the man who appeared in the Superior court on Dec. 23 last and represented himself to be Pallou.
 Secret service men took up the case and evidence was secured which gave good ground to believe that Lekas had been the brains of the scheme and had contemplated conducting business Of supplying citizenship papers to all those who desired to get them The papers secured for Parlou were what are known as "first'' papers. In order to get them the man who appeared in court under Parlou's name took an oath to renounce his allegiance to King George of Greece and declare his fn- tention to become a citizen.
 The first papers are valuable in many cases in securing work for the men holding them. Once in posses sion of second papers the holder can return to Greece and receive the pro- tection of the U. s. government in case he originally left there charged with some offense of a political nature.
 At the office of the Immigration Blu reau in New York those coming into this country are obliged to answer many questions such as the names of his grandparents, the names of his brothers and sisters, how many chill dren he has, if any, and many other questions which might be considered of a minor nature A few years later when the immigrant feels that he wants to be a citizen of this country he is liable to be asked a number of the same questions he was asked when he landed, if not all of them, and it is next to impossible for an imposter to get hold of all of the questions which were asked of the new conner upon his arrival in this country. Many ques- tions are not duplicated in the exam nations but all are noted separately, so that each alien has a history of his own stored away in the archives of the Naturalization department of the government, and each attempt to get papers illegally is easily detected as each case is investigated after the pa- perS are granted.