New Britain herald., 1917-03-21
CONDUCTOR HELD IN
 R.R. TICKET FRAUD
Wholesale Counterfitine Alleged by aNeT HaYen'' Road Officials

With information, said to be In tee possession of the authorities, that more than 10000 counterfeit railroad i, tickets have been printed for use over lines of the sNew Haven" road, Adolph witkin and Harry Gordon of this city with "Frank Osborne of Springfield, Mass. passenger conduct or with a run between Springfield and Now Haven, are being held for the June term of superior court on be9ch warrants with bonds fixed. at $6.0OOt each. Forgery and conspiracy tp defraud the New Haven" road Is charged. The amount involved is large one although the authorities are reticent relative to the exact figure as they have. not completed their tn- vestigation. Frank McNamara. also of this city and one of the trio orig inally arrested, is being sought on . bench warrant. It is believed that he is in Bridgeport and the author ities of that city have been asked to locate him. <
 Bench warrants were issued yes- terday by Judge Donald T. Warner in superior court upon request of States Attorney Hugh M. Alcorn. Osborne was taken into custody early, the warrant was served on Gordon at the jail in Hartford, where he was con- fined in default of $1,000 bonds and Witl.in was arrested in this city by Detective Sergeant Samuel Bamforth. No trace was found of McNamafa with the exception that he was. re- ported to have left the city. tenn porarily and was believed to have gone to Bridgeport. The three were arraigned before Judge Warner and bonds placed at $5.000 each. When first arrested and arraigned in local police court, Witkin, Gordon and Me- Namara were charged with defrand- ing the railroad out of tickets valued at about $50. Arralgned in police court Monday, amended complaints charging forgery were entered and bail raised to $1.000 each. . .,.:
 Conductor for 29 Years.
 Osborne has been in the employ of the ''New Haven" road for twenty nine years and conductor in pas senger service for over seven years He Is we'll known to local travellers between Hartford and New Haven.
 According to the irltimation of States Attorney Alcorn, as . result of information given him by railroad detectives, the fraud, with which the accused are alleged to have been ini- plicated. Is the most gigantic that has ever been perpetrated on the New Haven" road and one of the largest in the annals of railroading.
 The complaint charges that tickets. good in either direction between Hartford and New York and New Ha- ven and New York were forged in wholesale numbers and sold at . greatly reduced price. Although the investigation Is far from completed, officials intimate that they have al- ready traced more than 10000 of these tickets, so cleverly made that 1t is almost impossible to detect the genuine from the false. Although the identity of the printer, responsi- ble for technical work on the paste boafds has not been definitely deter mined. a number of clues are in the possession of the authorities that, they believe, will result in, arrests soon. States Attorney Alcorn has the opinion that developments will show a tremendous conspiracy" Prose- outing Attorney George W. Klett of this city referred to the case Monday as connected with a gigantic con- spiracy.''
 With the issuance of the bench warrants yesterday, 1t became known that Osborne has been under suspi- cion for about three weeks and has been closely watched by railroad de- tectives.