Tip Tapper

Sad-faced, balding Henry Lustig climbed from vegetable hawker to wealthy owner of Longchamps, high-priced, highly colored chain of Manhattan restaurants. Last week Mr. Lustig fell. In Manhattan a federal grand jury indicted Lustig and four aides of Longchamps on a charge of evading payment of $2,872,766 in income taxes.

Lustig pleaded not guilty, said: “The investigation was started as a result of our own request to the Government.” Snapped U.S. Attorney John F. X. McGohey in Celtic wrath: “He acted only after learning . . . that his books were being examined.”

The U.S. charged Lustig and aides with keeping two sets of books to defraud the U.S., other devious ways of hiding profits. One was to siphon $2,000,000 from restaurant tills to a safe-deposit box of Lustig’s. Another way: taking the tips of hat-check girls.