A chorus of frenzied cries wailed up from Capitol Hill as a House subcommittee continued to poke at the Internal Revenue Bureau scandals. Almost all the voices were raised in answer to the shrill tones of a sharp-eyed Chicago lawyer named Abraham Teitelbaum. Attorney Teitelbaum, who described his late client Al Capone as "one of the most honorable men I ever knew," is in tax trouble with the Government—a matter of at least $130,000 in unpaid income taxes. It looked as if this trouble would be settled without much difficulty, he testified last week, until two men named Frank Nathan and Burt K. Naster set out to help him. Nathan, of Miami Beach, is a gambler, chiseler and influence peddler; Naster, of Hollywood, Fla., is a former Chicago industrialist who once served a prison term as a tax dodger.
Demand: $500,000. Teitelbaum testified that the pair came to see him last April while he was visiting in Miami Beach. "Mr. Naster told me that—the substance of it was that I was going to have income-tax trouble unless I employed them . . . for $500,000. And I told him they were both crazy . . . They said there was a clique in Washington; that Mr. Charles Oliphant, Mr. Jess Larson, and there was a former collector of Internal Revenue by the name of Joe Nunan, and another who had just resigned, of the Internal Revenue department, Mr. Schoeneman, were all together with Mr. Larson. [They] comprised the whole—I wouldn't say a triumvirate, but a combine —for the purposes of looking around the country to see who are the soft touches, or words to that effect . . .
"Mr. Naster mentioned Mr. Theron Lamar Caudle's name, too; and Mr. Nathan exhibited to me an oil contract in which Mr. Jess Larson's name, Mr. Theron Lamar Caudle's name, and Mr. Frank Nathan's name appeared . . . and they further told me that if I don't go ahead and let them take care of my matter, I was going to be prosecuted and sent to the penitentiary ... I told them to go to hell."
That, said witness Teitelbaum, seems to have been the wrong answer. Not long afterward, he said, he learned that his case was scheduled for criminal prosecution.
The Teitelbaum testimony was backed by a glossy brunette divorcee named Mrs. Shyrl B. Menkin, described by Teitelbaum as a "family friend." She heard much of the talk about the Washington clique, she said, and often heard Mr. Nathan mention the name of Theron Caudle (who was fired last month as head of the Justice Department's tax division—TIME, Nov. 26). Mr. Nathan did this, she said, "to impress me with the fact that the Nathans were such good friends of such an affluent person in the Government."