Friday, July 1, 2011

Lonely Hearts Racketeer Evelyn “Kathy” Stanton - 1946


DETROIT. VP}—Pretty Evelyn “Kathy” Stanton. Awaited sentence yesterday after she admitted using the mails to defraud at least six lonesome males who were attracted by an advertisement describing her physical charms.

~ Bows Head, Weeps ~

The 25-year-old mother of three small children, trim in the spotless white uniform of a barbecue carhop, bowed her head and wept as she pleaded guilty to all six counts of a federal indictment.

Maximum penalty is five years imprisonment and a $1,000 fine on each count.

Judge Arthur A. Koscinsk released her under a personal bond of $500 to await sentence. He did not set the date.

Kathy, who talked freely to reporters and posed willingly for pictures before her indictment, turned her head away and slipped in and out of the crowded courtroom without comment.

Following a divorce from the father of her children, Kathy is accused by the government of advertising herself in a Minnesota matrimonial journal as in love with “fantasy and romance,” and fond of “all fun.” She described herself as “not handsome but nice” and owned to possessing “a beautiful form.”

Her “ad” evoked numerous answers including proposals of marriage and money from six men named as complaintants in the indictment. They are James D. Geyer, Dos Rios, Calif.; Fred Laurita, Gilroy, Calif.; Edward McNeish, Springfield, Mass.; Ivan J. Smith, Belvidere, Ill.; Carl Wittstock, Star Prairie, Wis., and Walter Westphal, Bethel, Minn.

The government charges she not only accepted the proposals and money but actually married Wittstock and Westphal.

The indictment charges that Kathy, in her scheme to defraud the suitors and obtain additional funds, falsely represented herself at various times as a U. S. government employe, a magazine writer, childless, seriously ill, pregnant, single and unattached, and desirous of visiting and marrying her mail-order wooers.

They sent her money for traveling expenses, the government alleges, as well as for surgical operations that were never performed.

Postal inspector Raymond C. Miller said Westphal, after his marriage to Miss Stanton, gave her funds to go to Florida to bury her deceased mother.

Two days later, according to Miller, Westphal received a telegram informing him that Kathy had also died and was being buried in Florida.

His suspicions aroused, Westphal contacted police in Kathy’s home town of Clawson, Mich., who assured him both mother and daughter were much alive.

Miller said postal inspectors entered the case at that point.

[“Mother of 3 Pleads Guilty To Cheating Lonely Men,” The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.), Jun. 28, 1946, p. 7]

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[566-11/5/21]
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