Most recent edit on 2008-02-12 14:08:36 by MarD

Additions:
From the World Encyclopedia of Con Artists and Confidence Games

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Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2008-02-12 13:44:19 by MarD []
Tausand, Franz, prom. 1924-31, Ger., fraud. As a young man, Franz Tausand was obsessed with chemistry. In 1922, he published in Munich a tract of non-proven alchemical theories, hoping to attract investors for his method of reproducing gold. In 1924, he saw an ad offering financial backing for a chemical business. The financier, Rudolf Reinhardt, thought the production of gold would solidify the post-war economy and sought the cooperation of German president Hindenburg. His lobbying attempt was derided, but a war veteran, General Ehrich von Ludendorff, seeking to regain his former power, formed "Society 164," named after the number for gold in the Periodic System.

Tausand promised that his process would produce forty pounds of gold daily. Indeed, he was able to produce a nugget on demand, and eager investors happily financed the venture. However, the large quantities promised were not forthcoming, as Tausand had produced the occasional nugget through sleight-of-hand. In 1927, Ludendorff backed out, taking almost all of the investors money with him. Tausand, still promising a fortune in gold, organized a new scam; gold vouchers issued by the Tausand Chemical Research Company. In 1929, investors who had bought two factories for the anticipated production of gold, were understandably restless.

Tausand went on a driving trip around the German countryside. But he was arrested when he knocked down a pedestrian and drove away. As he was awaiting trial for the traffic violation, the financial deception caught up with him. He was accused of defrauding investors of more than £75,000, and spent twenty months in jail as the fraud case was prepared against him. In 1931, Tausand was found Guilty of fraud and sentenced to three years. After his release, he returned to fraud, and was jailed again in 1938. He died in prison in 1939.

Taylor, Courtney Townsend, 1908- , U.S., theft-forg.-fraud. Courtney Taylor turned an innocuous childhood lie into one of the most prolific careers in check-forging history, culminating in a novel method of obtaining any corporate bank check. Taylor was born in Connecticutt in 1908, and turned to crime early in life. After putting down five dollars on a clock for his mother's birthday, he stated on the credit application that he had been working at his present job for six months, when in fact he had been there less than two weeks. The credit manager discovered the lie and refused to give Taylor the clock or return his deposit. Taylor got even by cashing more than $600 in fraudulent checks with the same credit manager. At sixteen, he was convicted of breaking and entering and was committed to a reformatory. Released at age twenty, he forged his first check after steaming open a neighbor's letter and copying the enclosed check. In January 1929, Taylor was arrested for auto theft and sentenced to a reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio. For the next ten years, Taylor was in and out of prison on mail theft and forgery charges.

In January 1943, Courtney Taylor became a specialist. While in prison, he read every available book on printing. By obtaining a corporate logo, he was able to print a bogus check from virtually any corporation in the country. For the next eighteen months, Taylor cashed checks in twenty-eight states before he was apprehended in June 1944 in Seattle. He admitted passing more than $55,000 worth of checks during that time, and in fact had 172 checks worth $16,000 in his possession. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in October 1944. He was released after four months, but was shuttled through the legal systems of other states, and remained incarcerated until Apr. 14, 1950.Six days out of prison, Taylor embarked on a new career using a voucher system, and hired commercial printers. But the process was cumbersome and the payoff low, so he returned to check forging within two months. For the next eight months, Taylor circled the country and cashed hundreds of dollars in fake checks each day. The end came on Feb. 16, 1951, in Mobile, Ala. A jewelry clerk had seen an FBI bulletin warning merchants of Taylor's ploy and called police, who apprehended Taylor. He was returned to Providence, R.I., to face charges there, and then remanded to federal jurisdiction in New York. Between April 1950 and February 1951, Taylor reportedly had passed 734 fraudulent checks. He pleaded guilty to 225 separate counts of federal violations and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Seven states placed detainers against him after he completed the original sentence. He was last sentenced on Apr. 22, 1964, to eight years for the transportation of forged securities.

Taylor, Linda, 1927- , U.S., fraud. On Aug. 8, 1974, Linda Taylor reported that $14,000 in cash, jewelry and furs had been stolen from her home on Chicago's South Side. Suspicious of the report, detectives investigated the theft and instead uncovered one of the nation's largest cases of welfare fraud. Within four months, five state and federal agencies had opened investigations into Taylor's fraudulent practices. The FBI claimed she was receiving several Social Security checks, including one which had arrived every month for twenty-eight years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Taylor received food stamps, though she owned two luxury cars. Postal authorities questioned her use of the mails to receive Social Security and welfare checks under as many as eighty names. The FHA claimed that Taylor had purchased three federally insured homes on which she collected rent. The Illinois Legislative Advisory
Committee on Public Aid said that, within a year, she had accrued $154,000 in welfare payments by using fourteen aliases.

Taylor was arrested in November 1974, but remained free on bond until early 1977. On Mar. 17, 1977, she was found Guilty of theft and perjury for fraudulently collecting about $8,000 in public aid payments by using two phony names. She was sentenced to two to six years, and began serving her sentence in May 1977 at the Dwight, Ill., Correctional Center.

Tetzner, Kurt Erich (AKA: Stranelli), 1903-31, Ger., fraud, asslt.mur. Kurt Erich Tetzner, a young German businessman, was convicted of killing an unidentified man as part of an insurance fraud. In an earlier insurance fraud, Tetzner convinced his motherinlaw to postpone an operation for cancer so that he could insure her life. She subsequently underwent an operation and died.

Successful in his first effort, he and his wife decided to find another victim. After failing once to entrap a victim, on Nov. 25, 1929, he picked up a hitchhiker, murdered him, crashed his car into a tree, and then set it on fire with the victim at the wheel. Tetzner's wife claimed that the victim was her husband and attempted to claim the death benefit on Tetzner's accident policies. However, physical discrepancies between the victim and Tetzner caused suspicion. Using recently developed forensic medicine techniques, officials determined by the condition of the victim's lungs that he had been dead before the fire.

Tetzner, meanwhile, had hidden in Strasbourg, Fr., using the assumed name of Stranelli. Apprehended there by police, he readily confessed. He was tried in March 1931, found Guilty, and put to death at Regensburg on May 2, 1931.

Thomas, Alvin Clarence (AKA: Titanic Thompson), prom. 1910s-20s, U.S., fraud. Alvin Thompson, an expert con artist, was on board the Titanic to fleece passengers when the luxury liner made its ill-fated voyage in April 1912. When the ship struck the iceberg, Thompson, and his fellow hustlers, the Hashhouse Kid, Hoosier Harry, and Indiana Harry got into lifeboats. The con men survived and arrived in New York a day or two later. Thompson and his associates immediately filed exorbitant claims for reimbursement of lost luggage and valuables--not only for themselves, but for items belonging to the many hundreds of passengers who died.

In the 1920s "Titanic" Thompson, as he was popularly known, associated with New York gambler Arnold "Big Bankroll" Rothstein. He sat in on the last poker game Rothstein played before he was gunned down in 1928. Thompson also defrauded people on the golf course, where he swindled dozens of amateur players. He reportedly collected $250,000 annually in bets with wealthy golfers. His victims thought he was strictly second rate, but actually Thompson hit well left-and right-handed. After trouncing his opponent while playing right
-handed, he would offer his partner a chance to recoup his losses by playing left-handed. Thompson then doubled his earnings, for he was a natural lefty.

Tourbillon, Robert Arthur (AKA: Rat, Dapper Dan Collins), b.1885, U.S., fraud. Robert Tourbillon was as smooth a con man as ever lived. His talents were recognized by at least one member of the federal bench. In passing sentence on Tourbillon for the June 15, 1911, robbery of the Hotel Roy in midtown Manhattan, Judge Edward Swann noted, "He is as smooth a rascal as ever came before me...He is a real Raffles. I consider this man a very dangerous character, for he is a smooth talker and such a fine dresser." It was the highest compliment anyone could ever pay Bobby Tourbillon, the man the Broadway crowd liked to call the "Rat" from the initials of his name.

Born in Atlanta, Ga., Tourbillon began his career as a circus performer. His specialty was the "Circle of Death" in which he rode a bicycle down a chute and past a cage filled with hungry lions. Traveling with an itinerant Southern circus was not the glamorous life he first imagined. So by his twenty-third birthday Tourbillon found himself in New York associating with underworld characters at their favorite haunt, Curly Bennett's pool hall. Within a month of his arrival in 1908, Tourbillon was arrested for burglary but the charges were dropped. During this time his reputation as a "fancy dan," and silver-tongued con man began to spread. His pretentious behavior and stylish manner of dressing belied his true criminal nature. In 1915, having completed his first tour in a U.S. prison, Tourbillon hooked up with a gang of thieves who pilfered telephone coin boxes. The ring was broken by New York City detectives and Tourbillon was handed over to federal authorities on a charge of interstate white-slave blackmail. In 1916, he was sentenced to two years in the Atlanta federal penitentiary.

Following his release, Tourbillon attempted to swindle New York property owner Julius Scholtz, who allegedly kept $20,000 hidden in a trunk on his farm. Posing as an IRS agent, Tourbillon flashed a badge. "Mr. Scholtz, we are compelled to search your farm," he said. The farmer protested that he had nothing. Tourbillon proceeded with the investigation anyway but was dismayed to find that the only items in the trunk were German-language magazines. Tourbillon apologized and bade farewell. "Goodbye Julius," he said. The suspicious farmer thought it peculiar that the agent should know his first name. Tourbillon was arrested for impersonating a federal officer but won an acquittal through a brilliant defense conducted by his attorney William Fallon, known as the "Great Mouthpiece." However, Tourbillon was convicted of robbing an American Express guard of $5,000 in 1920. Fallon secured bail for his client but Tourbillon decided not to test the patience of the legal system. He jumped bail and remained out of sight until May 15, 1921, when he shot John H. Reid of New York, over the affections of Mrs. Hazel D. Warner.

The Roaring Twenties were particularly good years for Tourbillon. Like many other crooks of the era who saw the intrinsic value of Prohibition, the Rat quickly diversified. In 1921, he purchased a deluxe yacht called the Nomad, which he used to smuggle Canadian liquor into U.S. coastal waters. The Nomad was allegedly financed in part by Tourbillon's good friend Arnold Rothstein. In the first four years of Prohibition, Bobby Tourbillon was one of the most important rumrunners along the eastern seaboard. But when things began to get hot for him and the government went through with an indictment on a charge of grand larceny, Tourbillon fled to France. Operating under the alias of "Harry Hussey," the dapper swindler posed as Victor "The Count" Lustig's "ministerial secretary" when he was attempting to peddle the Eiffel Tower to a scrap-metal merchant. It was a neat trick, but doomed to failure. Tourbillon's real specialty was rich, lonely American women. Mrs. Helen Petterson in particular fell victim to his charm. She supplied him with a generous amount of money and even some pieces from her jewelry collection in an effort to win his affections. Tourbillon rewarded her generosity by pushing her off the third-floor balcony of the Hotel Majestic one New Year's Eve. When he was thrown into prison for debt, Mrs. Petterson visited him each day. "We are going to be married," she gushed to reporters.

In 1924, two detectives from the New York City Police Department arrived in Paris to extradite a burglar named Mourey back to the U.S. While touring the Sante Prison the men were startled to run across their old adversary. After exchanging formalities the detectives arranged extradition for Tourbillon aboard the liner S.S. France. On his arrival in New York the swindler was confronted with reporters eager to hear about his latest adventures. "I suppose every milk bottle and door mat stolen since I went away will be attributed to me," he said sarcastically. Actually, the robbery charges that resulted in his extradition failed to stick and he walked away a free man--temporarily.

Tourbillon's last hurrah was at the expense of a New Jersey apple farmer named Thomas Weber from whom he swindled $30,000. For this he was sentenced to sixteen months at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. "This was an excellent prison," he told reporters when his hitch was up in August 1930. "I recommend it as a wonderful vacation spot." When asked about his future plans, Tourbillon said he was going back to Paris--without the lovesick Mrs. Petterson at his side. He was never heard from again.

Tracy, Christopher, See: Crane, William

Trippet, Robert S., c.1919- , U.S., fraud. By 1974, the Home-Stake Production Company of Tulsa, Okla., an oil-drilling tax-shelter concern, had raised $100 million by promising its investors a 400 percent return on their money. When the returns failed to appear and after the Internal Revenue Service determined that the investment money had not been used for drilling and was therefore taxable, disgruntled investors, including Walter Matthau, Alan Alda, and singer David Cassidy, initiated a class-action suit.

Having gone public in 1964, Home-Stake attracted increasing investment money every year until 1971, when investments declined. The company was founded by Robert Trippet, a Tulsa lawyer, who was discovered to be running a "Ponzi scheme" in which small amounts of money collected from investors are returned to them as interest, while the bulk of the money, ostensibly being used to produce a product, is pocketed by the schemer. In the case of Home-Stake, $14 million of the $18 million collected could not be accounted for. In Autumn 1973, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading in Home-Stake stock, filed suit for fraud, and declared the company insolvent. Trippet, who had recently resigned as chairman, and the new managers sued each other for mismanagement. Trippet agreed to an injunction against violations of federal security laws without admitting or denying he had committed any violations.

In Los Angeles in December 1975, Trippet and twelve others were indicted and charged with forty-five counts of conspiracy, tax fraud, securities fraud, and mail fraud. One man pleaded guilty and the case against three others was dropped in early 1976, but on Dec. 21, 1976, in the Tulsa courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Allen Barrow, Trippet and former vice president Frank Sims pleaded no contest to one count of conspiracy and nine counts of mail fraud. Another former vice president, Harry Fitzgerald, pleaded no contest to two counts of selling unregistered securities. Trippet was sentenced to three years' probation, fined $19,000, and ordered to remit $100,000 to the widows and orphans of Home-Stake investors. Sims received a year of probation and was ordered to place $5,000 in the widows and orphans fund. Fitzgerald was given a year of unsupervised probation. The case was closed in 1977 when charges against Kent M. Klineman, a New York tax lawyer and the final defendant, were dropped.