Monday, April 15, 2013

Helen Condit, Military Bride Bigamy Racketeer – New Jersey, 1944


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]

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http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2011/09/war-marriage-vampires-alimony-annies.html

For more cases of this type see: “War-Marriage Vampires”& “Allotment Annies"

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