FULL TEXT: The far-reaching arm of the FBI, after a long
and diligent trail that extended from the Midwest, reached yesterday into this
city, unearthing a plot that mulcted the government of $1,500, and resulted in
the arrest of a woman charged with drawing dependency allotments from two
husbands now in the armed forces.
Announcement of the arrest of Mrs. Helen M. Condit at the
Victory Hotel, 326 Central Ave., was made by Samuel K. McKee, New Jersey chief
of the FBI.
~ Accused of Bigamy
Baring of the well-planned scheme has also involved the
26-year-old woman in a bigamous ceremony that took place, according to federal
investigators, in Indiana Oct. 10, 1942.
The specific charge against her is that she received allotment
checks amounting to $300 as the wife of Corp. Wesley M. Tomson, while at the
same time she was receiving regular adjournments from her husband, Woodrow
Wilson Condit, a fireman first class in the U. S. Navy.
The government charges the woman married Condit in
Indianapolis on June 16, 1937, and that on Oct. 10, 1942, she went through a
bigamous ceremony with Tomson in Indiana.
It was shortly after the bigamous ceremony that she came to
Plainfield, and obtained a position as room clerk at the Victory Hotel.
The first check from Condit forwarded to her in this city at
the hotel, and when Tomson’s allotment check arrived, she cashed it in a bank,
using her Indiana marriage certificate for means of identification.
~ Had Access to Mail
As clerk at the hotel, she had access to the mail and
according to FBI investigators, this permitted her to carry out the scheme for
some time without being suspected.
At the Victory Hotel today, no information was obtainable
from the management.
“We were told to give out no information,” was the reply to
queries made by a Courier-News reporter.
McKee said that the woman has thus far received $1,500 in
dependency allotments. She admitted having married Condit in Indianapolis, and
has been receiving allotments from him since he joined the Navy in 1942.
She also admitted having admitted having married Tomson in
Vincennes, Ind., whom the federal men claim was unaware at the time that she
was already married to Condit. Up to the time she was taken into custody, McKee
said, she had received about $300 installments from the Army.
Mrs. Condit was arraigned yesterday before U. S.
Commissioner William J. Batholomew on charges of defrauding the government.
Bail was fixed at $1,000, And being unable to provide the bond, the woman was
sent to jail. Up to this morning, the bail was not provided.
[“FBI Nabs Woman Here Taking Pay of Two Service Men,”
Plainfield Courier-News (Plainfield, N. J.), May 12, 1944, p. 1]
For more cases of this type see: “War-Marriage Vampires”& “Allotment Annies"
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