INSURANCE: Killer’s Widow

The lately electrocuted Murder, Inc. killer, Martin (“Buggsy”) Goldstein, left a $12,000 life-insurance policy to his widow. Prudential Insurance Co. contended it would be “against public policy” to pay it, since a man who knows that his kin are cared for may be more likely to commit a crime. Judge Grover M. Moscowitz, in U.S. District Court last week, finding no precedent for the case, thought otherwise. Said he, “It may be well to ask what sort of determent the voiding of a man’s insurance may be when the death penalty does not halt his criminal act.”