AMAZING ESCAPE

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1935, Page 7

AMAZING ESCAPE

AUDACITY OF SWINDLER WASHED GAOL WINDOWS CLIMB ALONG WALL LEDGE PRISONER HOAXES CROWD By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright New York, Sept. 1. Victor Lustwig, a notorious swindler known to the police in many countries as "The Count,” to-day effected a sensational escape from the Federal detention prison at lower Greenwich Village. In some manner he managed to get through a barrier over a third-floor cell window and before the gaze of a dozen persons in the street he proceeded to work his way along a ledge, industriously washing windows as he went. Continuing to pose as a window washer he lowered himself to the street with a rope made from bed sheets and disappeared before anyone realised that he was escaping. . . Lustwig, in 30 years of criminal career, has been associated with many famous gangsters, has swindled many prominent persons, and several times, as to-day, has made good the threat that no gaol could hold him. He was arrested a few months ago for counterfeiting 50,000 dollars, which he brazenly cached in a locker ip an underground railway station. He was scheduled to go to trial on two charges that would probably send him to the penitentiary for the remainder of his life.