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Bugsy Siegel — Part 23
Page 71
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‘ : penttes outage
Los #uckiks LK M1 MEARS
7 ~ 20-7
ak etna at ey: - - ~— —_—_—————
| — — [Isgconp LeTTER—
{ 1e second letter to Siegel
tife same address was dated
ber 6, 1937, on the letterh
lof the Midway National Bank
St. Paul and bore the signature
jof the bank's president, A. L.
Ritt, It follows:
“Dear Mr, Siegel: At the re-
quest of Mr. Charles Ward we
are enclosing our draft No.
7128 in the amount of $80,000,
drawn on the Guarantee Trust
- Company of New York, pay-
Ie to yourself. Will you kind-
acknowledge receipt and for-
vard same in the enclosed en-
e| elope?”
Ward is quoted as explainigg'
i that the $100,000 was repaym@nt|
of a loan from Siegel.
When Siegel was tried at tos}
|Angeles in 1940 for the killing of
k “Murder, Inc.” gangster sus-
ipected of giving information to
the law, he was asked if he had]
visited Ward at St. Paul at about|
the time of the Bigelow death,
$100,000 Paid ‘Bugsy’
by Rich Friend Probed|
By Ray Richards
Les Angeles Examiner Washi ‘Bureau
WASHINGTON, July 19.—Payment in 1937 of $1
to Ben “Bugsy” Siegel, gangster, by*Charles Warp,
tulti-millionaire president of a St. Paul calendar-mnakifg’
firm, has been placed under in-¢ ———_—_———
vestigation as an aftermath ofjPérforations which some of
Siegel's recent gunshot death in/investigating officers insisted
iCalifornia. . Jcould have been made only by
Letters showing the paymentipunets, probably fired from a
made to Siegel in two in-line on the shor
iments have been scrutinized on the shore.
jw Federal officers and turned| Ward inherited $1,000,000 from];
jover to the Los Angeles Police/Bigelow and soon succeeded him|:
(Department, it was learned. as president of the firm, which
The investigation has revived] " ,
the remarkable story of the rela-|25t year did a $21,000,000 busi-
tions of Ward and- Herbert H.|PeSS:
Bigelow of the big Brown and
Bigelow advertising specialty, found by Federal officers in the }
firm of St. Paul. investigation of Brooklyn's “Mur-
The two met in the early 1920's|4er, Inc.,” of which Siegel was a
las fellow convicts in the Federal/™member.
penitentiary at Leavenworth,
Kan. Bigelow was doing time|Signature |
fraud, Ward forithe date of October 14, 1937, of|
Fentiee aw Brown and Bigelow letterhead, |
When Ward was released, Bige-|Was addressed to the gangster at
w sent him to a job with the/328 South McCarty drive, Bev-
reotics law violation.
The letters to Siege! were
The first letter, bearing th
“Charles Ward” anj
. When Bigelow regained hisjerly Hills, Calif, shortly after
freedom, he raised Ward rapidiy|Siegel had become West Coast
to a high position in the com-|representative of “Murder, Inc.”
pany.
BIGELOW KILLED——'
In 1933 Bigelow and a woman!
companion were killed on a lake
jnear Bigelow's North We
unting lodge.
The bodies were never
ed. Accidental drowning w:
e final official theory, But th
psized canoe was found wit)
Ss)
The letter follows:
“Dear Ben: Enclosed find two
Liberty bonds for $20,000,
Sorry I couldn't make It $25,-
000, but as you know TI am
‘ort of cash on account of
tock deals, Am lucky to hav
enough to eat on. Hope tl
will help.”
He denied it, and the line of ques-
tioning was not pursued.
Siegel’s killers last month, and
the reason for their act, remain’
known. =
‘Ward's career has been widely]
blicized as one of the strang-
t in American big business.
orn at Seattle 60 years ago,|
be crossed the Pacific many tim
§ a seaman, was a flunky in
fevolt saloon, and joined th
volutionary forces of Panch;
‘ila in Mexico.
In 1919 he was arrested for a
areotics law violation at Elf
Paso and met his benefactor at
\Leavenworth as the result of
that misadventure.
Owner of a big farm at Hudson,
;Wig., Ward was for several years|
!to by some publications as polit
c boss of St. Paul as well.
i
‘JUL 81 i5s
pee
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