Markets Supervisor John R. Shea was suspended on Tuesday by Commissioner of Markets Thomas F. Dwyer after charges of extorting money from kosher butchers in Brooklyn and Queens had been brought against him. Mr. Shea was arrested on July 13 and fifty dollars in bills, which police had marked when Julius Reiter, a Far Rockaway kosher butcher, complained that Shea was blackmailing him, were found in Shea’s pocket. After being held in $3,500 bail for trial, Shea was discharged on July 25 when Reiter withdrew his charge.
Similar charges of graft have been made during the week by other kosher butchers and grocers against officials of both the Department of Markets and the Bureau of Weights and Measures. These charges will be investigated by Commissioner of Accounts Higgins, who on Tuesday was directed to do so by Mayor Walker.
Department of Markets officials are accused of extorting thousands of dollars daily from kosher butchers, while officers in the Bureau of Weights and Measures are accused of organizing a racket for extortion from grocers and others who use weights. It is said that for a price the latter would permit retailers to use false weights to victimize consumers.
Oscar Glassberg, a Brooklyn kosher butcher who found no one at the City Hall when he called there on Monday to complain against four officials of the Department of Markets, charged that when he stopped paying tribute to the latter he was threatened, and that thereafter he was arrested on four occasions and discharged thrice in the magistrate’s court, and on the fourth occasion, after conviction and sentence, was freed by the Appellate Court.
Commenting on the treatment accorded Mr. Glassberg at the City Hall, the New York “Evening Telegram” of Wednesday declared editorially:
“Mr. Glassberg deserved better treatment than was accorded him by city officials. He deserved it as a citizen. He deserved a hearing of his charges either before the Mayor or some one whom the Mayor might designate.”
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