Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 303, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1912 — FORMER REMINGTON MERCHANT ARRESTED [ARTICLE]

FORMER REMINGTON MERCHANT ARRESTED

B. kohn Charged With ArsonHad Small Stock, Big Insurance and Lots of Fires. Remington Press. Ben Kohn, who a couple of years ago was associated in business in Remington with his father-in-law, Simon Cohen, and then burned out, was arrested in Chicago Saturday together with Ben Franklin, and is in jail under $20,000 bonds awaifc ing trial on the charge of arson, with the best of prospects for a good long penitentiary sentence. The specific occasion of which he is charged is the firing of the Farmers’ and Working Men’s Clothing Company at South Bend on April 12th, last, though there are any number of other charges besides the Remington one that might be brought. Kohn, who is a jew, burned out here in February, 1910, on a stock worth perhaps $5,000, on which he held SIB,OOO insurance, distributed in different companies. He collected a bunch of this insurance and left town. While it was not morally certain that he burned the stock, yet the fact could not be proven and he went free. From here he went to Seattle, Wash., where he repeated the operation and again returned to the Hoosier state, locating a plant at South Bend. This he burned last April, while carrying SIB,OOO insurance on a $5,000 stock. He offered to settle his claim for 50 cents on the dollar and the adjuster recommended such procedure. This is where the adjuster got his foot in the game and will doubtless go to the pen also. The bail under which these men are held is said to be the heaviest ever known for the offense. On' the day of the South Bend fire, Fire Chief Wilford Grant stated the explosion and blaze was by no means an accident and on his statement the police of South Bend immediately took up the trail, which eventually resulted in the arrest of the two men now in custody. From that time to the day the South Bend store burned, the detectives have shadowed Kohn and Franklin, and for practically every hour of the time since last April 12, the two men have been under surveillance. Benjamin Kohn is a son-in-law of Simon Cohen, a wealthy South Bend merchant, but the latter is exonerated from all blame by officials. Kohn and Cohen were in partnership in business in Remington when a fire occurred in their store in February, 1910.