Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-03-01
'STECLER'S WIFE IN
EARLY MORNING ROW
Husband Held Today on Conspir-
acy Charge, in Fraudulent
Passport Case
MAGISTRATE FREES WOMAN
German Newspaperman Reported
Accused of Attempting to Dis
robe Mrs. Stegler
Bv Associated Press

New York, March Mrs. Richard
p. Stegler, arrested to-day at the Gren-
oble Hotel on a charge of felonious as
sault made by Arthur Mateiket. re-
porter for a German newspaper, was
discharged later in police court. Had
certain evidence been more definite,
the magistrate said, he would have
been inclined to send her accuser to
the workhouse.
Almost at the moment of Mrs. Steg-
ler's discharge in police court, the fed
eral grand jury returned an indict-
ment charging her husband with con-
spiracy against the United States in
obtaining an American passport false
lN. Stegler is a German naval reserv-
list. Two others We're indicted with
him, Richard Madden, in whose name
the passport was issued and GustaVe
Cook. of Hoboken, who it is charged,
participated in obtaining the passport.
The three men were to be arralgned
later in the afternoon.
Mrs. Stegler spent the night in a
cell in the police station. Mateiket,
who appeared against her, told the
court that she had attacked him in a
bedroom with a seltzer bottle and had
hit him over the head with d cane. He
showed no marks of an encounter,
however. The testimony brought out
the fact that Mateiket and another
man had accompanied two women to
the hotel one of them Mrs. Stegler,
that the party had remained in the no.
tel parlor for some time and after
wards had obtained adjoining rooms
where they remained until 1.30 o'clock.
Party Remained Together
Mrs. Stegler testified that the party
remained together during the entire
period they were at the hotel and that
the two men had tried to disrobe her.
At no time, she testified, were she
and Mateiket alone. She characterized
the charge against her as a frame
up"
In dismissing the complaint the
magistrate announced that he would
DC inclined to send Mateiket and his
gnale companion to the workhouse if
The testimony concerning their alleged
attempts to disrobe Mrs. Stegler were
more definite and clear.
Mrs. Stegler has appeared promi-
nently in the passport fraud charges
in the defense of her husband 1t
was through her influence, she said
that Stegler gave up the idea of being
a German spy and caused him to make
n confession in which he alleged that
Captain Boy-Ed. the German naval at
tache, was behind his activity for the
German cause.
Registered Last Night
At the Grenoble hotel it was learned
that the woman and Mateiket came to
the hotel about . o'clock Sunday
might. They arrived in an automobile
and were accompanied by another
young man and woman. Both men
carried suitcases, which, according to
the hotel people, they guarded care
fully, even refusing to allow bellboys
to carry them TO adjoining rooms
which were assigned to the two cou-
pies after they had registered at the
hotel desk.
About l o'clock this morning a call
for the police came from the room to
which Mateiket had been assigned
and when Detective Burgess arrived
he was asked by the man to arrest his
companion. He charged that the
woman had thrown a seltzer bottle at
him but that he had lodged it and
that the woman had then beaten him
over the head with a cane. According
TO the police, Mateiket showed no
signs of the encounter. Detective
Burgess says the woman was fully
clothed when he entered the room to
make the arrest.
The young woman told the matron
at the Jail that she considered she had
ben trapped. She said that a woman
friend of hers, Anna Hoffman, had
called her up by telephone and made
an appointment to meet her in the
evening as she had something impor-
tant to communicate. When they met
her woman friend was accompanied bv
two well-dressed young men who in
Vited her into their automobile and
later, she said. they went to the ho-
tel for dinner. 1t was later, when
Mateiket, 1t is said, began questioning
her regarding the passport fraud case
that the row occurred
The police, when they heard the
story of the carefully guarded suit
cases, were inclined to believe that
they sheltered telephone devices for
recording conversations. The men car
ried the grips with them when they
left the police station. The police
learned that during the night Mateiket
several times called German newspa-
per on the telephone and held con-
with some person in Ger
man.