The New York Times/1901/08/01/Capt. Diamond Stood By His Detective
CAPT. DIAMOND STOOD BY HIS DETECTIVE
Fierce Examination During Bissert Trial Failed to Shake Him.
Kept His Temper and Dodged All Leading Questions—Said He Never Heard of a Ward Man.
Police Captain Thomas J. Diamond of the East Fifth Street Station, taking the witness stand in behalf of his precinct detective, George Bissert, charged with bribery, last night in Recorder Goff's court, in General Sessions, engaged in one of the most interesting verbal fencing matches ever heard in the Court of General Sessions.
The Captain, in an earnest, emphatic manner, told the jury under Bissert's lawyer's skillful questioning, how well his detective, Bissert, watched the disorderly house at 27 Stuyvesant Street, and how they were unable to close the place up until six or eight months after complaints had been made against the house. He was also on the stand in the afternoon, and his story told there evidently impressed the jury.
When court reconvened at 8 o'clock in the evening, the Captain, in full uniform, tightly buttoned, and clutching a fan in his right hand, again took the stand to undergo the cross-examination of Assistant District Attorney Osborne. Capt. Diamond wore a confident smile and began his answers in a self-possessed voice. Shortly thereafter things began to get warm and the Captain began to mop his forehead. When his two hours cross-examination was concluded his collar and cuffs were wilted and his naturally florid face was some degrees redder.
The Recorder at one time was constrained to say that he would not permit the cross-examination to descend into a personal wrangle between the District Attorney and the witness.
Bissert went upon the stand, as did three of his brother officers, and denied all of the charges of Lena Schmitt, the Stuyvesant Street disorderly house keeper, and stood well the terrific cross-examination of District .Attorney Osborne.
LAWYER AND RECORDER WRANGLE.
The day's session was marked by frequent wrangles between Lawyer Levy for the defense, and Assistant District Attorney Osborne, and by several wordy encounters between Messrs. Levy, Unger, or Vorhaus for the defense and the Court. Recorder Goff on several occasions directed Mr. Levy to take his seat.
Lawyer Vorhaus, after the State closed, made several motions to dismiss the indictment and to acquit the prisoner. All were denied. Mr. Vorhaus then opened the defense and said that it had been considered seriously by the defense not to put in any testimony, but simply to let the caste go to the jury upon the State's evidence.
Bissert on the stand denied that he had ever received any money from the Schmitt woman. He declared that he had chased the girls out of the place nearly every week and had finally raided the place in May, when two citizens got the evidence for him. He denied that he was in the house on the morning of Christmas Day last year. On cross-examination he admitted that he had never arrested any one of the women in the house or Lena Schmitt, or made a charge against the latter. He couldn't remember, he said, when it became a "parlor" house.
"How long did you think it would take you to break up this house by driving the girls away, when they came back in half an hour?" asked Mr. Osborne.
"That wasn't my fault. I had other things to do. I couldn't stay there all night."
Mr. Osborne asked if Bissert did not know of the character of the house in November of last year. Mr, Unger said at that time Bissert was in a murder case before Mr. Osborne. Mr. Osborne then declared that the State, in important murder cases, had to depend upon the testimony of policemen who were allied with the houses of prostitution.
CAPT. DIAMOND ON THE STAND.
Capt. Diamond went on the stand in the late afternoon. Court had opened at 9:40 o'clock. It adjourned at 10 o'clock in the evening. He testified on direct examination that that he had about seventy-five policemen to police a precinct with a population of about 150,000. He said that he had established a special post in the vicinity of Lena Schmitt's house upon Bissert's suggestion. One day he saw an arm beckon from the window and went in himself and told the woman he would send her to State prison if she did not stop it. He told of arresting the Schmitt woman three times in May and June of this year.
Mr. Osborne began his cross-examination immediately after the jury returned from dinner at the Astor House.
"Did you say you never heard of a 'wardman,' Captain?" he asked graciously.
"Only in the newspapers," returned the Captain, smiling.
"You say Lena Schmitt was the most persistent disorderly house keeper you ever knew?"
"Ah, no," replied the Captain shrewdly," I said she was the most persistent violator of the law I ever knew."
"In what respect was she a violator of the law if not as a disorderly house keeper?" inquired Mr. Osborne.
"Why," explained the Captain, "she let her rooms to disorderly persons."
From this moment the battle was on Mr. Osborne pugnacious and persistent, fired question after question at the big Captain. The latter parried and fenced and sparred for time, quibbled, protested, explained, argued, and talked most volubly. Mr. Osborne would shout out some question, and the Captain would shout back an answer which told little; or at least, as little as possible. Mr. Osborne frequently asked that the Captain be directed to cease arguing and expostulating and to answer the questions.
"Did you put an officer in front of Lena Schmitt's rooms because she was a persistent violator of the law?"
"Because she let her rooms to disorderly women. I put the officer there to stop it. My idea was to harass her and make her business unprofitable and make her move from the precinct."
"Was that your idea of all you should do?"
"We could not bring the responsibility home to her."
"When you came to the conclusion you aught to stop it, didn't you do what you could have done months before—get citizens to get your evidence?"
"You cannot always get citizens. I didn't get them till my men reported their inability to get evidence, because they were so well known there."
"Tell me some one you arrested from that house from October, 1900, to May, 1901."
"My records will show."
"Your men have sworn they made no arrests there?"
"There are more plain clothes men in the precinct than the three that testified here. The records will show the women arrested in that vicinity."
"Can you show one arrested from that house?"
"I can if I can look at my records."
"Did you report this as a disorderly house to headquarters?"
"Not till I got evidence."
PRESSES THE CAPTAIN HARD.
"Are you familiar with Rule 45, b, which requires all Captains to report monthly the names and locations of all disorderly houses?"
"Yes. I first reported it after I got proper evidence."
Mr. Osborne showed by reports that this was on June 10, 1901.
Mr. Levy objected to this line of questioning on the ground that Capt. Diamond was not on trial. He was overruled.
"You had this woman, Lena Schmitt, you say, under surveillance." continued Mr. Osborne, returning to the attack, "from some time in 1899, yet you moved the policenian you put in front of her house when she asked you to?
"Yes. Upon net promise to let her rooms to respectable persons."
"Did you believe her?"
"No. That was a little trap I set for her," answered the Captain with a wink.
"What!" shouted Mr. Osborne, "did you not just now tell the jury you moved him because she begged so piteously?"
"Yes. I knew my men would arrest the women if they continued violating the law. I have closed up fifty disorderly houses that way," said the Captain, mopping his brow.
Have you got any record in your station house against this woman up to June 10?"
"Made no record until I got the evidence?"
" Receive many complaints?"
"Some."
Mr. Osborne showed that there was entered in the complaint book of the Captains precinct one complaint, in October, 1900, and one in May, 1901.
"Did you believe the laws were being violated in the place in November, 1900?"
"Yes, but couldn't prove it."
"You didn't report it?"
"Not till I got evidence."
"But you reported others?"
They must have been continued from my predecessor."
"Your suspicion was so strong that it was disorderly that you put a man in front of it, yet you didn't report it?"
" I hadn't made the proper arrests in the house."
"Any other persons in your precinct so persistent as Lena Schmitt."
"I don't recall."
Mr. Osborne showed from the Captain's reports that the place 22 First Street had been reported as suspicious ever since September, 1900, and as late as June 24, 1901.
"You never thought it necessary to put an officer in front of that door?" asked Mr. Osborne.
" No complaints against that."
"You had more complaints against 27 Stuyvesant Street than any other place in the precinct, and yet you didn't report it and did report the others?"
"I didn't have any evidence against it," said the Captain in his deep voice. "I'd keep on reporting them forever till I run them out."
The Captain was keeping his temper well. In fact, he kept it all during the ordeal of cross-examination. Mr. Osborne reminded him that on each of his disorderly-house reports, from which 27 Stuyvesant Street was missing, there was this entry: "There are no other suspicious places in the precinct other than those mentioned."
" Don't you consider a furnished-room house full of dissolute women a disorderly house?" inquired the Prosecutor.
"Not under the law unless you can show responsibility," replied the Captain readily.
"A good jury lawyer was lost when he became a police captain," observed a high official of the District Attorney's office to Mr. Gans at this answer.
"Didn't you believe the Schmitt woman kept a disorderly house?"
"Yes. But I couldn't get evidence that would hold in court"
"Did you receive any communication from the Police Department, from the Committee of Five, about this place?"
"I don't recall."
"Did you receive a letter from the District Attorney about the house?"
"I receive so many letters from the District Attorney recently that it takes nearly all my time thinking up answers."
Mr. Osborne closed at this point, and the defense rested after asking Capt Diamond if he did not have to have the testimony pf one policeman in such cases corroborated before the Magistrate would hold the prisoner. Mr. Levy was willing to submit the case to the jury without argument of counsel. Mr. Osborne wouldn't consider such a proposition.
The jurors, all of whom complained of the uncomfortable night they had spent night before last when kept together, were again locked up last night. The Recorder wished them a pleasanter evening than the former one.