Kings County Penitentiary, 1906

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6 and Part 7 of this story.

On a chilly day in late November, 1905, thirty-six year old Benjamin F. Chadsey was taken to the Raymond Street Jail in Brooklyn. He had been brought back to New York from Indiana after being on the run for two years. In 1903, he faked his suicide, and disappeared on the evening before he was to go to trial on a charge of grand larceny. Chadsey had been one of Brooklyn’s up and coming legal talents, an aggressive and arrogant pitbull of a lawyer who loved his fancy clothes and his diamond jewelry. That was all showmanship, because he was also highly efficient and had a large private practice with a lot of clients. He was also a rising star in the jungle of Brooklyn politics, and was called upon often to stir up the Republican faithful with his gifts of oratory and persuasion. Benjamin Chadsey was the last person anyone would expect to be dishonest, or to run from his troubles. But here he was.

The man who had once sported bespoke suits with diamond stickpins and fingers glittering with diamond rings was now standing in handcuffs before a judge, surrounded by the police and District Attorneys who had to go out to the suburbs of South Bend Indiana to get him. The private detective, J. Edward Orr, who had tracked Chadsey down once before in San Francisco had found him again. But this was not the old Chadsey they knew. The man standing before them was sickly looking, emaciated and gaunt. He had shaved his signature moustache and would have looked years younger, had he not been looking over his shoulder for the last two years.

The judge stared down on him without a lot of pity. The charges against Chadsey were serious, but had he not skipped bail and disappeared, he probably would have been let off easy. Wealthy and well-connected men convicted of much larger thefts usually did not suffer the same consequences as those of lesser breeding. But faking your death, and thumbing your nose at the same authorities you once ate dinner with and invited to your home makes for bad feelings, and Brooklyn’s legal world was more than happy to throw the book at Chadsey. For the time being, though, they tossed him back in jail.

The story of Benjamin Chadsey’s fall can be found in the previous chapters of our story. It’s part of the tale of three well-to-do men in the fields of law and finance who all lived at 88 Decatur Street, in Stuyvesant Heights, during the years between 1890 and 1910. J. Edgar Anthony was the first, Benjamin F. Chadsey, the second, and the third man’s story is next. Links to the previous chapters can be found below.

In the two weeks before Chadsey’s trial, the papers and the Brooklyn legal community speculated on the rise and fall of his career. A colleague named Walter C. Rooney had been appointed to take charge of Chadsey’s office and close up accounts when Chadsey went on the run. He told the papers it was a thankless and difficult task. Much of the practice had been in wills and estates. It was in the administering of a trust that the trouble had begun in the first place. Local court gossip held that “Chad,” as he was called, might not be able to talk his way out of this one.

Apparently Chad thought so too. He plead guilty, and threw himself on the mercies of the court. On December 17th, 1905, Chadsey was brought into the courtroom along with all of the other “riff-raff from Raymond Street awaiting sentencing” as the Brooklyn Eagle put it. The reporter noted that Chad looked like the man he had once been, alert, confidant and self-assured while waiting in the pen. But as soon as his name was called, he underwent a remarkable change. His shoulders were stooped, his face crestfallen and sorrowful. He approached the judge like a man burdened with guilt, watery-eyed, penitent and pitiful, as fearful as a man expecting the hangman’s noose.

His attorney, J. Gratton McMahon, eloquently pleaded for mercy. Chadsey was not an evil man, he said, he was a sloppy businessman who in his busy practice had taken on more than he could handle, and a couple of accounts had slipped through the cracks. The money he was accused of taking had been paid back years ago, and that should be the end of it. McMahon asked for a suspended sentence, because to sentence Chadsey to prison would mean disbarment and the end of a fine career. Chadsey, as the judge could see, was penitent and very sorry for all the trouble he had caused.

Judge Crane looked down on Chadsey and told him the following: You were accused of stealing $900 from a client. You skipped bail the night before trial, faked your own death, and disappeared for three years. We had to send out private detectives, police officers and assistant District Attorneys to track you down, which cost the city time and money and resources. I have to look at all of that when sentencing you.

You didn’t pay your client back, others did it for you, but it was paid back. I have to consider that. You were supposed to be a member of the Bar, and an officer of the Court, which carries with it honor and responsibility. You should have stood your ground and had your day in court, and faced whatever happened with honor. You did not do that. By pleading guilty, you are automatically disbarred, and forbidden to practice law ever again.

Lastly, if I sentenced you to state prison for and indeterminate time, as is the statute, you’d get out in a year anyway, so I sentence you to a year in prison, not state prison, but Kings County Penitentiary. You should be grateful it’s not for much longer.

The court buzzed with talk. The sentence was much lighter than anyone expected. As Chadsey was led away, he shuffled off his former demeanor, and was once again the Chad of old, walking cockily out of a courtroom. One could almost see the fine suit and the diamonds glittering from his person, not the chains and the cheap suit, soon to be replaced by Kings County’s signature horizontal black and white striped togs. His wife and mother were in the courtroom, and they promised to stand by him, no matter what.

Frederick Chadsey served his time at Kings County Penitentiary, located just over the hill from Eastern Parkway, near Rogers Avenue, in Crown Heights South. Today, Medgar Evers College stands where the Pen once loomed, dark and suitably depressing. It was a particularly horrible prison, and was torn down soon after Chadsey got out. The Mrs. Chadsey’s, mother and wife, had indeed worked tirelessly to get a pardon for him.

At the end of September, 1906, they were able to convince Governor Higgins to pardon Chadsey. Contrary to popular gossip in the papers, no other lawyers came forth on his behalf, and none of his old political pals stood up for him, either. It was his wife and mother. Chadsey got his pardon, and walked out of Kings County Penitentiary after serving eleven months of his sentence.

In 1909, Chadsey went before the Bar and wanted back in. The papers recalled the Chad of old, the cocky lawyer who was known as “Young Silver Tongue,” who wore fine suits, diamond jewelry, and a medallion from his Order of the Mystic Shrine with a real tiger claw worked into the design. In his petition to be reinstated, he told the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court that he had made mistakes, but he had paid in full for them, was a changed man, and should be reinstated to the bar.

Young Silver Tongue had lost it. He did not get reinstated. The Appellate Division dismissed the case. The bright young man with the future in his hands, a man who had been written up as one of the most important men in Brooklyn, disappeared from the papers forever. His mother died in 1910, and is buried in Ballston Spa, north of Albany, where the family had a long history. I wonder what happened to Benjamin F. Chadsey?

Next time: Charles Bliven, junior financier, the last of our trio of miscreants who lived in the swanky apartments of 88 Decatur Street.

(1906 Postcard.)


Brokers, Lawyers and Larceny – Part One

Brokers, Lawyers and Larceny – Part Two
Brokers, Lawyers and Larceny – Part Three
Brokers, Lawyers and Larceny – Part Four

Benjamin Chadsey, NY herald, 1902


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