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Post by feathers on Nov 25, 2016 20:45:34 GMT -5
I have been giving a lot of thought to the evidence of Benjamin Heier in the case. He was the one witness who was charged with perjury following the trial, although the charge was later dismissed in 1937.
Essentially, Heier's story was this. One night in 1932, he was sitting in his car with a woman for several hours near St. Raymonds Cemetery. Every once in while he would flick on his headlights out of habit and on one occasion he caught someone jumping out of the cemetery. In 1935, while the Hauptmann trial was on, he came across a letter from the woman, who had since married and died. The letter written May 3, 1932, somehow indicated or reminded Heier that the date he was at the cemetery was April 2 and combining his memory with the news, he realized that the man he saw "greatly resembled" Isidor Fisch (because of the big ears).
First of all, Heier was a terrible witness. He was easily confused by Wilentz and his story that he remembered three years later seeing someone in the headlights who he now believed to be Isidor Fisch is implausible.
That said, I think Mr Heier has been done an injustice.
Almost every book on the Lindbergh case dismisses Heier as a proven perjurer. That is untrue and unfair.
If one pays attention to Heier's story, it is apparent that he is very vague. He thinks he saw Fisch and he thinks it was on April 2.
The main reason his story gets rejected is because Wilentz produced a rebuttal witness, Farber, who testified that he was in a car accident that night with "one Benjamin Heier". He testified that the site of the accident was 8 1/2 miles away from the cemetery where Heier said he was at that time.
Even if it were true, it would prove at most that Heier was mistaken about his vague testimony - hardly the basis of a perjury indictment or Wilentz's characterization of Heier as a "perjurer that stunk to the heavens".
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Post by feathers on Nov 25, 2016 20:55:10 GMT -5
So then Farber's story.
Farber did not identify Heier. Heier was not recalled and confronted with Farber's story. No traffic report of the accident was ever presented. No police officer ever testified about the accident. Farber did not describe Heier or Heier's car. Heier never described the car he was driving.
In short, you have two witnesses contradicting each other - one story against the other.
One may believe Farber in preference to Heier. Wilentz made a point of establishing that Farber had no criminal record (in fact was a candidate for public office) whereas Heier did - a suspended sentence in relation to his brother's "dine and dance" establishement (Heier was often described as a "cabaret host", but those were Wilentz' words, not Heier. He was also described as a "self-styled writer" - Heier did in fact do some writing at least in his student newspaper - he was only 23 at the time of the trial).
But whoever one believed, there was no proof that Farber was right and Heier was wrong.
Also, I find Farber's story somewhat implausible. It is very convenient that Wilentz is able to produce a witness who claims to have seen Heier elsewhere on the exact same date three years later. The fact that Farber was prepared to tell the exact distance from the location of the car accident to the location of where Heier said he was (which Farber would have no reason to know) - being 170 blocks - shows that he was coached to some extent.
Perhaps there is something in the archives that tips the balance, but from the trial record, there is no reason at all to believe Farber more than Heier.
Also - there were at least three different Benjamin Heiers living in New York City at that time. Two of them were the same age - 23. The third was 30 years older, but later when Hauck claimed that he believed that Heier had gone to Florida, he was mistakenly referring to the third older Heier who travelled there often (according to the local newspapers).
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Post by feathers on Nov 25, 2016 20:57:42 GMT -5
Now when Hauck dismissed the charges (and by the way I think it was pretty abusive keeping the guy on bail on charges for two years when they never could prove the case), he said that he needed two witnesses to perjury and he only had one (presumably Farber). Did he ever have more than one? Allegedly three witnesses testified before the grand jury with respect to Heier, but it was never reported who they were.
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Post by feathers on Nov 25, 2016 21:43:23 GMT -5
I have seen Heier's story dismissed because no one could prove that the woman he was with, whom he reluctantly identified as Judy Schwartz, ever existed. That is not exactly true. There is the letter which was presented in court - shown to Wilentz, but never entered into evidence (legally speaking it would have been surprising if it had been deemed admissible). Someone wrote the letter, but it is not clear if it was signed by Miss Schwartz. However, the New York Daily News spoke to Heier's mother - Annie Heier - who told them that she was the one who found the letter from Miss Schwartz and that she showed it to her son who exclaimed that it was Isidor Fisch he had seen that night. So she essentially confirms that (1) Judy Schwartz existed, and (2) that her son told her about it well before the discovery of the letter.
Now no one has been able to find a Judy Schwarz who died in August 1932, as claimed by Heier. Of course not - she was married by then and had a different surname.
So no one has been able to find Judy Schwartz who got married in NYC in July 1932. Well, Heier never claimed she was married in NYC. At one point in his testimony he remarked - "I know they lived in New York for a time", which implies that for a time they did not.
Besides, who knows whether Judy was her legal name or a middle name, or a nickname. It doesn't prove that she did not exist.
I have seen claims that there were no Schwartz's living on Webster avenue as claimed by Heier. That is untrue - there were many Schwartz families living on Webster Avenue in the Bronx in the 1930 census, as well as Schwartzler and Schwartzman.
So while finding Judy Schwartz would confirm parts of Heier's story, being unable to identify her does not disprove his story.
And just to be clear - I am not saying Heier really saw Isidor Fisch there. I am just saying that he saw someone there - maybe on April 2 - maybe not. I am just saying it is debatable he was an intentional perjurer.
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Post by Michael on Nov 26, 2016 10:15:44 GMT -5
This is a good thread that you've started. Too often the ball and chain of history causes people to simply accept things as they are - and never look into the situation themselves. Nothing considered "fact" in this case is to be trusted and must be reviewed and studied if the truth of the matter is to ever be accepted. Now when Hauck dismissed the charges (and by the way I think it was pretty abusive keeping the guy on bail on charges for two years when they never could prove the case), he said that he needed two witnesses to perjury and he only had one (presumably Farber). Did he ever have more than one? Allegedly three witnesses testified before the grand jury with respect to Heier, but it was never reported who they were. J. J. Farber and Shirley Freidman were both served subpoenas on April 22, 1935. I believe the 3rd person was Fred Biehl, Chief of Detectives for the Bloomingdales Dept. Store at 59th and Lexington. He was to testify that while there had been 60 Schwartz's in employment there for the past 5 years but that none had the first name "Judy." Before Lloyd Fisher ordered his client to keep his mouth shut, Heier told Reporters (March 1 or 2, 1935) that he " had never been in a car accident in his life." According to the article he produced his Driver's License and his description on it " differed widely from the description given by Farber." He further claimed that he testified to what he believed was the truth and that he and other members of his family lost their jobs because of it. There is evidence that Farber wrote to Heier on April 7th asking for $13 for damages to his car, but I am not 100% positive about this whole situation. That certainly doesn't mean I believe he saw Fisch, but the perjury charge was (no doubt in my mind), more of a retaliatory stunt. Here's a couple of interesting items to look over:
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Post by feathers on Nov 26, 2016 12:33:56 GMT -5
Thanks for the information, Michael, that is really helpful!
The Bloomingdales witness would be relevant because Heier had indicated that Judy Schwartz had worked at Bloomingdales. But actually, Heier was specifically vague in his testimony - he never said she did work there, he said she told him she worked there. So again, not much of a basis for a perjury charge. The whole Bloomingdale evidence portion of Heier's testimony was very peculiar - he was very reluctant to give Miss Schwartz' name, but once he did he was even more resistant to giving the name of the story she allegedly worked at. He claimed his reluctance was because some of her family still worked there.
The demand letter from Farber is pretty good evidence - it supports that there was an accident on April 2, quite independently of the trial. The address 110 Forsythe that Farber wrote to is the same address that Heier gave at trial for his father's restaurant, so that would seem to suggest that Farber had the right Heier (or Heyer as he spells it), unless Farber got the address out of the phone book. It was often asserted that Heier collided into Farber, as supported by the letter, but the trial record simply says that there was an accident, not who was to blame.
The letter from the police is interesting too. They have the address that Heier gave at trial - 29 Cook Street, so it seems they may be looking at the right person. But the business of this alias of "Bernard Heir" is a bit odd. I also find it interesting that there was an outstanding judgement. Likely this was Farber's claim, unless there was another accident. I wonder if I can locate the court records for that.
Of course, Fisher's letter fell on deaf ears with Wilentz!
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Post by xjd on Nov 26, 2016 22:08:22 GMT -5
J. J. Farber and Shirley Freidman were both served subpoenas on April 22, 1935.
wait, did you just say J. J. Farber? what are the odds a case has both a J.J. Farber and a J. J. Faulkner?
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Post by Michael on Nov 27, 2016 19:17:39 GMT -5
wait, did you just say J. J. Farber? what are the odds a case has both a J.J. Farber and a J. J. Faulkner? Something I've noticed from the reports is there were many people who went by "J.J." I'm not kidding. And it didn't exclude police either so it seems that it was a popular thing. It's everywhere.
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