Two others named by former Magistrate Joseph Goldstein in his criminal libel suit against the Deutsche Zeitung, Nazi organ published here, pleaded not guilty before Magistrate Gasper Liota in the Downtown Court, Brooklyn, yesterday.
Walter Kappe, editor of the German section of the pro-Nazi #rgan, was held in $500 bail and Carl Voelcker, president of the D. Z. Publishing Corporation, which publishes the paper, was placed in the custody of his attorney for further hearing August 20. Two codefendants, William L. McLaughlin, vice president of the corporation and editor of the English section of the sheet, and the D. Z. Publishing Corporation, who had pleaded not guilty to similar charges last week, were continued in the custody of their attorney, Walter G. Bathon.
The suit is based upon an editorial published in the Deutsche Zeitung July 7th last, entitled “Joseph Goldstein Should Be Disbarred,” accusing Goldstein of perjury in his defense of three high school students who were convicted of assault.
SEEKS ASSOCIATE COUNSEL
The request for an adjournment of about a month was made by Bathon, who explained to the court that a delay was necessary to allow him to engage an associate and to interview County Judge John J. Fitzgerald of Kings County, District Attorney Geoghan and Assistant District Attorney John Kean, whose statements, according to the attorney, prompted the article in the Zeitung.
In the case referred to Judge Fitzgerald sentenced one of the youths to the New York County penitentiary for an indeterminate term and sentenced the other two to a year in city prison.
After sentence was passed Goldstein moved to set it aside, declaring that Geoghan and Kean, who prosecuted the case, had led him to believe that the boys would not be sent to jail.
CHARGED DELIBERATE PERSECUTION
He charged there had been a deliberate persecution of the boys because they, Jews, had attacked a girl who was not Jewish. He said that a detective “named En-right” had offered “to fix the case for $800.”
“That story is a manufactured story,” Judge Fitzgerald retorted at the time. “I don’t believe it. You came to my chambers, but never made that disclosure to me. You have the effrontery to stand up here and say that this case was not given full consideration by me. No other case has given me so much concern as this. No promise as to sentence was ever given to you, and you know it.”
Kean denied that he or Geoghan had ever given assurance that there would be suspended sentences imposed.
Kappe’s bail was set upon the suggestion of Assistant District Attorney William F. McGuiness. McGuiness said he understood the editor was an alien, and in order to assure his appearance at the next session he asked that bail be fixed at $1,000. Bathon said his client could not raise that sum and the Magistrate fixed the lower figure.
THE LIBELOUS ARTICLE
The article upon which the suit is based follows:
“Joseph Goldstein, an ex-magistrate under Walker, a benefactor of those who commit rape should be disbarred! It was not enough that this scurvy and unscrupulous prostitute before the bar defended three young Jews who committed rape, but he tried to seduce and intimidate an American court through perjury. The fearless Judge Fitzgerald and the equally conscientious District. Attorney Geoghan with his assistant Kean, condemned in no uncertain terms the despicable Goldstein when he said that the court had agreed to let the boys go on a suspended sentence if they would plead guilty.
“No stronger case to illustrate corruption by unscrupulous lawyers in America has ever been shown. Here is a lying criminal Jew lawyer who has the rank indecency to come before a court and say in plain English that the court made an agreement to free three young men who committed rape when no such promise had ever been made by either the court or by the District Attorney. He went further and said that the policeman in the case had offered to ‘hush the matter up’ for $800. When the District Attorney offered to prosecute the latter charge the filthy Goldstein refused to make a complaint. That is evidence enough that Goldstein is a professional liar of the lowest possible sort.
“Every decent resident of the City of New York should write to the Association of the Bar at 42 West 44th street, New York City, and insist that charges of malpractice and premeditated perjury be brought against former Magistrate Joseph Goldstein so that he can be completely disbarred by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
“New York City must be ridded of such dirty contemptible wolves as Joseph Goldstein.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
