National Affairs: The Bookie’s Books

The New York cops knew by the head lines that Gambler Frank Erickson was coming — and they baked him a cake. Four days after the pudgy-faced bookmaker told a Senate committee that he was earn ing $100,000 a year from the rackets, Manhattan’s District Attorney Frank S. Hogan raided Erickson’s oak-paneled Park Avenue office suite. Armed with a warrant, the D.A.’s men spent a leisurely day riffling through the files, trucked away five drawers and three cartons full of canceled checks, stubs, diaries and receipts dating back 14 years.

The whole procedure was “cutting the Constitution right through the middle,” sputtered Erickson’s attorney. To which Judge John A. Mullen replied: “Anyone who publicly proclaims himself to be in the bookmaking business must expect to have his records examined.” District Attorney Hogan confidently made a date with the grand jury.