Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-05-20
Seven Present and Former P. o.
Workers Arrested-Inspect-
or Grows Beard and H0bnObs
With Band-Says Captain
Will Clear Up Big Haul of
Last July and Other Thefts

New York, May ia gigantic post
Office hold-up, surprising in spectac-
ularity and daring any Of the recent
registered mail thefts Of the million
dollar and up class, would have been
perpetuated at the city hall post
office tomorrow but for the keen work
of post Office inspector who grew
beard, consorted with the plotters
and uncovered their scheme.
This was the statement today of
Post Office Inspector Doran in max
ing public the details Of the arrest
of seven men-six of them present or
past post Office employees. He as
serted that their capture would clear
IS, when $1,477,00O in liberty bonds
bound for Washington were feeced
from the mails; would aid in solving
a heretofore undisclosed theft Of
| $4,000 in securities addressed to
Watertown, n. Y, and might go far
toward clearing up the 100000
mail truck hold-up in lower Broadway
last October.
| Plans had been laid, and were to
| have been carried out in broad day
| light, for the hold-up and robbery of
the entire registered mail section of
the city hall station, through which
millions in securities, flow daily from
the Wall street financial zone, In
spector Doran said. Orders had been
issued to shoot any employee who
resisted.
The plotters had made a careful
survey of the "lay out" and planned
their raid in great detail.
The bearded inspector it was said,
had succeeded in getting himself
counted in" on the proposed city hall
station hold-up, and had talked It
over in detail with them in his sup
posed den" which he had wired with
telephone devices. The seven CAPT
tives taken last night were confront
ed with transcripts of the telephone.
device record early today, in the
presence of the inspector, and some'
of them are alleged to have confessed,
So completely were the mail rob-
bers taken in by their new found pal
| that Inspector Doran said today he
could recount almost every step taken
in the July IS Liberty bond theft.
! The chief actor in this theft, he said.
was Morris Steinberg, 19-year-old
| clerk in the registry department.
! Steinberg, according to the inspector.
had some means-as yet undiscovered
of ascertaining when valuable pack
ages were to come to the post office
from the Federal Reserve Bank.
| He knew in advance of the big ship
ment of Liberty bonds which was to
be made on July is, and laid the pouch
aside when it was delivered.
A few minutes later, it is alleged.
| he took the pouch TO a small closet on
the third floor where Edward Fogel,
confederate, was hiding.
Tossing the pouch into the closet.
he strolled back to his post. leaving
| Fogel to rip it open. extract the pack
age of bonds and slip out of the build
ing.
! Steinberg was suspected at the
time, but care was taken to make him
think he was not and a short time
later occasion was found to drop him
| from the service for a minor infrac-
| ton of the rules.
Arraigned before United States
| Commissioner Hitchcock this after
! noon. Stenberg, Fogel, Abraham Gold
smith and Gustav Gales were held in
| $4,000 bail; Irving Weinstein in s15,-
600. and Gustav Feldman and Harry
Shapiro in $4,000.