JACOB FACTOR RELEASED

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1933, Page 7

JACOB FACTOR RELEASED

KIDNAPPING AT CHICAGO RUMOUR OF HEAVY RANSOM HAS NERVOUS BREAKDOWN BRITISH CHARGE RECALLED By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright New York, July 12. A message from La Grange (Illinois) states that Jacob Factor, the market speculator who was kidnapped on July 1 by an armed gang, was freed tq-night in that suburb of Chicago. Factor appeared at the police station at La Grange at midnight to-night and said that he had been released by his abductors a few minutes earlier. Reports immediately circulated that the £40,000 dollar ransom had been paid by the family. Factor was driven to a street car-line in a machine escorted by two automobiles loaded with hoodlums. ’ He was released and directed to the police station. Later he was returned to his hotel, where he was placed under the care of a physician, who said that he was suffering from a nervous breakdown. Factor was kidnapped when he was leaving a cabaret with his family. Seven men armed with machine-guns and pistols were reported to have abducted him. The authorities at that time said that no demands had been received for ransom, but a member of the family was supposed to have received a demand for £30,000.

Factor’s son Jerome, aged 19, a NorthWestern University student, who was held captive by kidnappers for £lO,OOO ransom was set free early on April 21, and returned to the apartment of his mother, Mrs. Leonard Marcus. Some of the police were inclined to believe that at least part of the was paid, but the youth’s father denied tins. The abduction occurred several days before the elder Factor’s appeal to the' United States Supreme Court from an order for his extradition to England to face charges of defrauding investors. On July 8 the British Consul-General (Mr. L. E. Bemays) served a complaint upon the Federal authorities charging that the kidnapping of Jacob Factor, stock promoter wanted in England on swindling charges, was a hoax and that he had fled to Mexico to avoid extradition.