Masked gunman kills ex-judge

Press, 18 February 1978, Page 6

Masked gunman kills ex-judge

NZPA Atlantic City A former judge on trial in a corruption case has been shot dead as he sat with his wife at their favourite table in a cocktail lounge in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Edwin Helfant, aged 50, was shot four times at close range at the Flamingo Motel by a gunman who disguised his intentions by wearing a black ski mask and carrying a snow shovel. Authorities were trying to determine whether the slaying was linked to the trial. The local police said the shooting looked like “a professional job.”

Helfant had just returned from Trenton, the state capital, where he was standing trial on charges of seeking $l5OO and taking $7OO as a

pay-off for quashing an indictment for a man who was involved in a fight. » The police said that Helfant, a part owner of the Flamingo Motel lounge and a former municipal court judge, was seated at the same table he occupied every night that he stopped in the bar. With him were his wife, Marcie, and Leon Stricks, the other owner.

The police said the gunman walked over to the table,' placed his hand on Stricks’s shoulder to balance himself and leaned over in front of Helfant. He fired a bullet from a handgun into Helfant’s head and three bullets into his chest.

One of six other bar patrons tried to grab the gunman, the police said, but he broke free and escaped.