The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-01
HUSBAND FACING. GRAND JURY, MRS STECLER IN ROW
Wife of Man Indicted for Passport Frauds, Arrest
 ed In Braw1 at Hotel
REPORTER COMPLAINS SHE ASSAULTED HIM
Court Frees Her and De- nouDces Her Accuser- She
 Charges Plot to Discredit

New York. March Mrs. Richard P. Steg1er, arrested today at the Che noble Hotel on a charge of felonious assault 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 workho ouse.
 Almost at the moment of her dis charge in police court the Federal grand jury returned an indictment charging her husband with consptr- acy against the United States in ob- taining an American passport false ly. Stegler is a German naval re- servist. Two others were indicted with him, Richard Madden, in whose name the passport was issued, and Gustav Cook, of Hoboken, who it is charged. participated in obtaining the passport The three men were to be arraigned later in the after noon.
 Mrs. Stegler spent the night in cell. Mateiket, who appeared against her, told the court that she had at tackled him in a bedroom with seltzer bottle and then had beaten over the head with a cane. He showed no marks of an encounter, however. The testimony brought out the fact that Mateiket and anoth- CT man had accompanied the two women to the hotel. one of them be- ing Mrs. StegIer;i that the party had remained in the hotel par1or for some time and afterwards had obtained adjoining rooms where they remained until 1:30 o'clock.
 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. sssSae characterized the charge against her as a conspir- acy.
 In dismissing the complaint the magistrate announced that he wuold be inclined to send Mateiket and his male companion to the workhouse if ed attempts to disrObe Mrs. Steg1er were more definite and clear.
 At the Grenoble hotel it was learned that Mrs. Steg1er and Mateiket came to the hotel about 2 o'clock Sunday night. They arrived. in an automobile and were accompanied by another young man and woman. Both men carried suit eases 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- p4oS d1C0T C1l6y k116O T0S1SLeE0Q at the hotel desk. About 1 o'clock this morn ing call for the police came from the room to which Mateiket had been as- signed and when Detective Burgess rived he was asked by the man to ar rest his companion.
 Mrs Stegler said, according to the matron. that woman friend, Anna Hoffman, had called her up by tele- phone and made an appointment to meet her in the evening as she had something important to communicate When they met there were two young men companions who invited them to the hotel for dinner Ut was later when Mateiket, 1t is stated, began questioning her regarding the pass port fraud, that the row occurred
 Mrs. Annette Stegler has appeared prominently in the passport fraud charges in the defense of her husband, Richard P. Stegler. It was through her influence, she said, that StegIer gave up the idea of being a German spy and caused him to make a confess sion in which he alleged that Captain Boy-Ed, the German naval attache. was behind his activity for the Ger man cause.