PRISON FOR HOAXER

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3395, 19 July 1932, Page 8

PRISON FOR HOAXER

THE STRANGE CASE OF GASTON MEANS. Mrs. Edward B. McLean, estranged wife of the publisher of the “Washington Post,” took the witness stand to tell a jury a strange story of being swindled by Gaston B. Means of 104,000 dollars she paid him to recover the kidnapped and murdered Lindbergh baby, says the San Francisco Chronicle. The society woman testified in Means’s trial on charges of lax*ceny and embezzlement of the money after the prosecution asserted that, before Mrs. McLean hired Means to contact the kidnappers, Means had approached a connection of the Lindbbergh family with proposals for negotiations. Means, the big detective, who once investigated for the Justice Department, who served time in Federal prison for Prohibition violation, and who created a sensation with his book, “The Strange Death of President Harding,” which set forth his belief that the President was poisoned by his wife, faced his accusers unperturbed in the District of Columbia Supreme Court. He stretched his legs, twirled his hat. and eyed Mrs. McLean as she gave her reason for employing him last March, weeks before the flier’s son was found dead. “I told Means that I had great sympathy for the Lindbergh family,” Mrs. McLean said. “I told him that for five or six years my first son (now dead) was the subject of kidnapper threats and I had to keep guards around him, and it made me a nervous wreck.” The amazing chronology of Means’s alleged negotiations was given to the Court by United States Attorney Leo A. Rover before a jury of eleven men and one woman. The jury was accepted after the defence challenged eight tailsmen and the prosecution four.

Justice Proctor admitted the prosecution’s statements regarding Means’s original negotiations after the defence strenuously objected. The prosecutor said that about an hour before Mrs McLean telephoned Means on 4th March, Means had asked Robert F. Fleming, a Maryland real estate man, to put him in touch with Colonel M. Robert Guggenheim, a friend of Colonel Lindbergh. Fleming arranged a meeting for the same day, Rover said, but Means failed to keep it, because Mrs. McLean entered the picture. Several days later, however, Means did meet Guggenheim and several others at Fleming’s home, Rover

continued, and there it was arranged that Means should deliver the baby to Guggenheim. Following Means’s directions, Guggenheim later arranged for use of the private automobile and liveried chauffeur of the Austrian Minister — Rover said —for the delivery of the baby. But, added Rover, Guggenheim never afterwards heard from Means.

The prosecutor told of Means’s alleged negotiations, carried on with colourful details of underworld verbiage, machine guns to insure the “kidnappers” against false moves by Mrs. McLean, and with representations by Means that he was in contact, not only with the real kidnappers, but with those with whom Charles H. Curtis, of Norfolk, supposedly was negotiating, and with those to whom the “Jafsie” of the want advertisements actually paid 50,000 dollars in a futile attempt to recover the baby.

Rover said that Means cautioned Mrs. McLean against telling her lawyers anything about their negotiations, and provided a secret code by which he, Menas, and Mrs. McLean should communicate with each other. Under this code, Means was to be known as “Hogan,” because Mrs. McLean had a lawyer, Frank J. Hogan. The name also provided that “The Fox,” the name of Albert W. Fox, another of Mrs. McLean’s lawyers, should signify any of the kidnappers or their gang. The Lindbergh baby was to be referred to l, y any of the three words, “Package,” “Manuscript,” or “Book.” Mrs. McLean would be known under the code by the number “eleven,” or figures adding to this sum. Means also assigned numbers to himself and the kidnappers.

Telling how Mrs. McLean borrowed 1.00,000 dollars in cash from the National Metropolitan Bank and handed it over to Means for ransom, in the presence of the Rev. Francis Harvey, a Catholic priest, Rover also described how the society woman went to South Carolina and the Mexican border in the hope of receiving the baby.

On 17th March, after Mrs. McLean and Father Murphy had waited all night in a Maryland cottage of the McLeans, to which Means had promised to bring the baby, Means told Mrs. McLean that the baby had been on the way to her cottage, but that a decoy automobile, travelling ahead of the one carrying the baby, had run into trouble, and so the baby had been taken back. Later at Aitken, South Carolina, Means brought to Mrs. McLean a man whom he called “The Fox.” “The Fox” showed Mrs. McLean a little street, in which he said the baby would be returned, the prosecutor continued. “I will deliver the baby right over here,” “The Fox” told Mrs. McLean. “At each end of the street there will be a car with machine guns. If there is a false move they will use the machine guns.” But the kidnappers did not appear, and later Means went to El Paso, telephoned Mrs. McLean that “everything was fine,” and she joined him, expecting him to produce the baby. There, however, Mrs. McLean learned of difficulties between Means and “The Fox.”

The prosecutor said Means told Mrs. McLean that he would get the baby even if he had to have “The Fox” “bumped off.” Mrs. McLean cautioned Means against this, but told him she had some sleeping powder, which, if necessary, Means could give to the kidnappers to incapacitate them temporarily while the baby was being returned. Then Rover told of continued promises to return the baby and later excuses by Means, until finally Mrs. McLean demanded the money back, later bringing* in her lawyers. Means’s explanation was that he gave the 104,000 dollars to a strange man in or near Alexandra, Virginia, when the man identified himself by using the number “eleven.”

Rover declared Mrs. McLean had instructed Means to deliver the money “to Father Hurney, and to nobody else.” Means was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years.