Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1912 — BOMB IS THROWN IN ENEMY’S CAMP [ARTICLE]

BOMB IS THROWN IN ENEMY’S CAMP

Stenogragher Says Dictograph Records Were Faked. BOTTOM FALLS FROM CHARGE Against Mayor Knotts and Other Gary Officials Charged- With Soliciting Bribes—Prosecution Is at Sea. A bomb was exploded Friday afternoon in the camp of the enemies of Mayor Thomas E. Knotts of Gary and several of the Gary city officials, when Meyer Himelbrau, the stenographer employed’ by Thomas B. Deaft 1 to take the alleged dictograph conversations on which the graft indictments were based, made a voluntary confession that the records were faked; that he could hear but very little of the alleged conversation between Dean and the officials, whom Dean invited to his rooms where the alleged soliciting and taking of bribes for Dean’s would-be heating franchise took pCiace. Himelblau says that Dean had told him to keep on taking down his short-hand notes just as if he heard every word that was said in order to make the “witnesses” who were in the rooni with the stengorpher believe that he was hearing it all; that after the witnesses left each time Dean produced new note books and dictated conversations as he wanted them to read, and destroyed all the original notes; that he had heard nothing incriminating at all, and in fact was , able to only hear a Word once in a while. Himelblau’s deposition was Htken in_ Chicago Saturday, Judge Parker, the special prosecutor employed by Goy. Mainshall in these cases, and all the other attorneys on both sides of the case were present, including Attorney W. F. Hodges, who at one time was located for awhile in Rensselaer, and who has been quite prominent in the prose-cution-—or persecution, if Himelblau’s sworn statement is true. Dean, the seeker who worked up the cases and is now charged with having manufactured the alleged evidence, was also present and heard Himelblau testify to the truth of the affidavit he had made, and which ift rue ought to land Dean in prison for the rest of his life and then some. And the stenographer wlho became a party to any such dastardly scheme should occupy the dungeon next to him. iHimelblau also says that the salary paid him during the time he was employed by Dean was paid, by the Burns detective agency. He says that no dictograph record of any kind was ever taken on Mayor Knotts, and that Dean himself told him thiat the job he had put up on Knotts failed to work out the way they thought it was going to. The whole thing, according to Himelblau, was a “frame-up,” and that as one conviction had resulted from these lake notes and several other innocent men were likely to be convicted, his conscience would nW allow him to remain silent any longer. ‘ ’ And what must we think of a detective agency that will take money to trump up charges to con-: vict innocent men.