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San Francisco Youths to Face Trial Next Month for Anti-semitic Acts

November 9, 1961
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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Trial of 10 San Francisco youths, indicted for conspiracy in the 15-month long anti-Semitic harassment of Mr. and Mrs. William Bowman, was set today for December 4 before Judge Harry Neubarth. Nine of the youths pleaded not guilty at a hearing. The tenth defendant, Gerald Kilroy, did not plead because his case was before the California Supreme Court on a technical move to quash the indictment.

Judge Neubarth told the defendants at the hearing that he had read that “the Bowmans are being harassed again. I cannot imagine that anyone standing before me could be so stupid as to be involved in the current incidents. If it develops, however, that anyone here has been involved, directly or indirectly, I consider it my duty to be very severe with you.”

The reference of the jurist was to renewal of the anti-Semitic telephone calls and attacks on the Bowman car and home, from which the couple operate a furniture business; The return of the harassment led police to post a 24-hour guard at the couple’s residence. The 15-month terrorism ended briefly when police sprung a trap and arrested 12 youths, two of them Juveniles, The two Juveniles were placed on indefinite probation and sentenced to pay a share of the damage they had caused to the property of the couple.

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