1930 жылы жоғалып кеткен Нью-Йорк судьясының құпиясы

New York judge who disappeared in 1930

Joseph Force Crater (January 5, 1889 – disappeared August 6, 1930; declared legally dead June 6, 1939) was an American lawyer who served as a New York State Supreme Court Justice and mysteriously vanished shortly after the state began an investigation into corruption in New York City. Despite massive publicity, the missing persons case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater was declared dead.

Joseph Crater was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, the eldest of four children of the former Leila Virginia Montague and Frank Ellsworth Crater, a produce market operator and orchard owner. Both parents had immigrated from Ireland. During his time at Columbia, he met Stella Mance Wheeler, who was at the time married, and helped her get a divorce. They married seven days after her divorce was finalized, in spring 1917. Four months before his disappearance, on April 8, 1930, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then New York governor, appointed Crater as Justice of the New York Supreme Court for New York County, involving fraudulent conveyances and mortgage foreclosure fraud; and Henderson v. Park Central Motors Service, July 11, 1930 dealing with a garage company's liability for an expensive car stolen and wrecked by an ex convict. Attention was later drawn to Crater's liquidating investments worth $16,000 and withdrawing $7,000 from his bank account that spring (together equivalent to about US $23000.0 in 1930 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in ), a possible pay off for his judgeship. He had also given the congratulatory speech at the dinner celebrating George Ewald's judgeship in 1927; accusations of Tammany Hall corruption in that appointment were an initial impetus in the opening of what would become the Seabury Commission in mid 1930. Crater returned to Maine on August 1, then traveled back to New York City on August 3, promising his wife that he would return by her birthday on August 9. She stated that he was in good spirits and behaving normally when he left. On the morning of August 6, Crater spent two hours going through his files in his chambers, reportedly destroying several documents. He then had law clerk Joseph Mara cash two checks for him that amounted to US $5,150 (equivalent to about $5150.0 in 1930 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in ). At noon, Crater and Mara carried two locked briefcases to Crater's apartment, where Crater told Mara to take the rest of the day off. That evening, Crater went to a Broadway ticket agency run by friend Joseph Gransky and reserved one seat for a comedy called Dancing Partner at the Belasco Theatre; Gransky was surprised because he and Crater had already seen a preview of the show. Crater then ate dinner at Billy Haas's Chophouse at 332 West 45th Street with Ritz and William Klein, a lawyer friend. Crater's dinner companions gave differing accounts of his departure from the restaurant. Klein initially testified that "the judge got into a taxicab outside the restaurant about 9:30 p. m. and drove west on Forty fifth Street." This account was initially confirmed by Ritz: "At the sidewalk Judge Crater took a taxicab." Klein and Ritz later changed their story and said that they had entered a taxi outside the restaurant, but Crater had walked down the street. Crater's disappearance did not elicit any immediate reaction. When he did not return to Maine after ten days, his wife began making calls to their friends in New York, asking whether anyone had seen him. His fellow justices became alarmed when Crater failed to appear for the opening of the courts on August 25; they started a private investigation but failed to find any trace of him. The police were notified on September 3, and after that the missing judge was front page news.

Detectives discovered that the judge's safe deposit box had been emptied and the two briefcases that Crater and Mara had taken to his apartment were missing. These promising leads were quickly lost amid thousands of false reports from people claiming to have seen the missing judge. A grand jury convened in October 1930 called 95 witnesses and amassed 975 pages of testimony. Mrs. Crater refused to appear. The jury concluded that "the evidence is insufficient to warrant any expression of opinion as to whether Crater is alive or dead, or as to whether he has absented himself voluntarily, or is the sufferer from disease in the nature of amnesia, or is the victim of crime." Crater enjoyed the city's nightlife; he socialized with many showgirls in addition to his long term mistress Connie Marcus. She was found in late September 1930 living in Youngstown, Ohio with her parents; she said that she had left New York because she had received word that her father was ill. She was still being subjected to interviews by police investigating the Crater case in 1937, by which time she was living in Beverly Hills, California. June Brice, another showgirl, had been seen talking to Crater the day before he disappeared. A lawyer acting for Crater's wife argued that Brice had been at the center of a scheme to blackmail Crater (the reason for the bank withdrawals on the day of his disappearance) and that a gangster boyfriend of Brice had killed the judge. Brice disappeared the day that a grand jury was to convene on the case. In 1948, she was discovered in a mental hospital. She was involved in high end prostitution and linked to madam Polly Adler. Gordon had liaisons with a large number of influential businessmen and was the owner, on paper at least, of a number of properties believed to be fronts for illegal activity. She was also seen around town with gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, with whom Crater was rumored to socialize. Crater had known Diamond's former boss, organized crime figure Arnold Rothstein, and had been extremely upset at Rothstein's murder.

Mrs. Crater remained at their vacation home in Maine during the search for her husband, until her discovery of the hidden envelopes. She married Carl Kunz, a New York City electrical contractor, in Elkton, on April 23, 1938. Kunz's first wife had hanged herself eight days before the wedding. his widow received $20,561 in life insurance (20561.0 in 1939 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years). She separated from Kunz in 1950 and died in 1969 at age 70. On August 19, 2005, authorities revealed that after Queens resident Stella Ferrucci Good's death at age 91, they had received notes she wrote in which she claimed that her husband, NYPD detective Robert Good, had learned that Crater was killed by Charles Burns, an NYPD officer who also worked as a bodyguard of Murder, Inc. enforcer Abe Reles, and by Burns' brother, Frank. According to the letter, Crater was buried near West Eighth Street in Coney Island, Brooklyn, at the current site of the New York Aquarium. Police reported that no records had been found to indicate that skeletal remains had been discovered at that site when it was excavated in the 1950s. Richard J. Tofel, the author of a 2004 book on the Crater case, Vanishing Point, expressed skepticism of Ferrucci Good's account. It is no longer widely used. For many years following Crater's disappearance, "Judge Crater, call your office" was a standard gag of nightclub comedians. As a publicity stunt for their 1933 film Bureau of Missing Persons, First National Pictures promised in advertisements to pay Crater $10,000 (10000.0 in 1933 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years) if he claimed it in person at the box office. Crater's last letter, possibly written on the day of his disappearance, was sold at auction on June 22, 1981, for $700. The letter was marked "confidential" and began: "The following money is due me from the persons named. Get in touch with them for they will surely pay their debts." It was incorrectly reported that this letter was Crater's will.