by Bruno, Joe
Outside the courtroom later that day, Manton told the press, “I’m gratified I made Webber admit he lied in the first trial.”
However, it was Charles B. Plitt, who had been Becker’s right-hand man in the Secret (Strong Arm) Squad for two years, whose surprise testimony was the most damaging to Becker in his second trial. For those people who were convinced of Becker’s guilt, Plitt’s testimony nailed it to the wall. There is no question - if Plitt was telling the truth on the stand – then Becker was certainly guilty. But if Plitt was telling a pack of lies, the question is why?
Was Plitt paid a handsome sum of money by someone to do so? Was he involved in the Rosenthal murder himself, and by pinning the murder on Becker, it would remove all suspicion from himself. Or was there some other crime that Plitt wanted to be absolved from?
That’s all speculation, but Plitt’s testimony had a ring of insincerity to it: the stink of rancid fish.
On the morning of May 18, 1914, Plitt took the witness stand, and he told Whitman that on July 15, 1912, the night before Rosenthal’s murder, Becker had told him, “Keep a memorandum of your movements tonight, so you can have an alibi. And above all things, keep away from Times Square tonight.”
Then the following morning, after Rosenthal was dead, Plitt said Becker said to him concerning the owner and driver of the murder car, “What in the hell was the matter with that bunch? Were they all cock-eyed drunk? From the way they acted in pulling off that trick, you would think they were setting the stage for a motion picture show.”
Plitt also said that, while Becker was imprisoned in the Tombs before his first trial, an emissary from the gunmen approached Becker, through Plitt, asking for $500. Plitt said Becker told him, “Tell them I’ll pay them the money as soon as I can get it.”
However, the most incriminating evidence against Becker supplied by Plitt was when Plitt testified that after Becker’s first trial, while Becker was en route to Sing Sing prison on a train, he told Plitt, “If anything happens to me, I want you to kill that squealing Rose.”
Even though almost everything Plitt said in court could be categorized as sensational, the man himself was decidedly not. According to newspaper reports, “Plitt looked insignificant in the witness chair, and he spoke so low the jury could hardly hear him. His eyes seemed gazing at something far away; his face was devoid of expression and his body almost inert.”
In addition to speaking with unusual slowness, Plitt also took a long time between answers. Often Plitt waited between five and 10 seconds before replying to one of Mr. Whitman’s questions. Mr. Manton timed him once or twice waiting for an answer, and complained to Judge Seabury of the long silences. Judge Seabury ignored Manton’s pleas and told Whitman to get on with his questioning of Plitt.
The press said Becker seemed confused during Plitt’s testimony. At times, Becker would smile sarcastically and whisper something into his lawyer’s ear. At other times, his face was a mask of apprehension. Once, Becker slid down the entire length of the defendant’s table, so he could look Plitt straight in the eye. However, Plitt just stared at the ceiling and refused to return Becker’s gaze.
Becker’s wife, Helen, sat through Plitt’s testimony with her hand on her chin. Her eyes seemed to bore a hole right through Plitt’s forehead. Helen Becker stared at Plitt, a man she knew quite well through her husband, with a mix of contempt and downright hatred.
After a 1½-hour lunch break, Becker’s attorney, Manton, attacked Plitt like a piranha would devour a school of angel fish. Manton spat seemingly innocuous questions at Plitt designed to make Plitt look like a moron.
Manton asked, “How old are you Mr. Plitt?”
Plitt hemmed and hawed, and after a few moments, interrupted by blocks of complete silence, he finally answered, “26 or 27.”
Manton ridiculed Plitt’s answer and forced him to make a decision.
Manton said, “Well sir, can’t you make up your mind? Are you 26, or 27. Surely you must know.”
Plitt was forced to admit he really didn’t know his exact age.
Smelling blood in the water, Manton said, “Well Mr. Plitt, where were you born?”
Plitt answered, “The U.S.”
Manton sneered, “What’s that?”
Plitt squirmed, “The United States.”
His voice dripping with sarcasm, Manton asked, “Can’t you give us any more definite place than that?”
Finally, Plitt narrowed down his birthplace to New York City; then he narrowed it down even further to Allen Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Plitt then reiterated he was not sure exactly what year he had been born.
Manton inquired if Plitt had ever been in an institution “for the feeble minded,” or had ever been “examined as to his sanity.”
Plitt rolled his eyes upward and waited for what seemed like an eternity before he finally replied, “Not that I can remember.”
Manton asked Plitt about his arrest for the murder of a Negro while accompanying Becker on the raid of a gambling house. District Attorney Whitman jumped to his feet and objected. Judge Seabury sustained that objection. Not realizing he didn’t have to answer the question, Plitt admitted he had been a joint defendant with Becker concerning the shooting Manton had alluded to.
Judge Seabury angrily told the jury to ignore Plitt’s remarks. But the damage had already been done.
Manton then asked Plitt, “Did you ever write to Becker in Sing Sing about that?”
“I don’t remember,” Plitt said.
Manton would not let go of his line of questioning. “Don’t you remember writing to Becker that he must get a lawyer to defend you?”
“I don’t remember what I wrote,” Plitt said.
“Did you ever put your alleged conversations with Becker in writing?” Manton asked.
Plitt replied that he had certainly not done so.
Manton pounced. “Yet, you recalled those conversations for Mr. Whitman this morning. The things you never wrote are clearer in your mind than things you wrote.”
Plitt did what he did best. He played dumb and said not another word about the subject.
Suddenly, Manton surprised Plitt, Whitman, and the court by producing a piece of paper and having Plitt write down the words “opportunity,” “sticky,” “expense,” “minute,” “consult,” and “involuntary.” Plitt did as he was told, and when Plitt was finished, Manton asked that the court summit Plitt’s handwriting into evidence. Manton didn’t explain why, but soon it became evident.
Manton then produced letters that were allegedly sent by Plitt to Becker after Becker’s first trial, while Becker was incarcerated in Sing Sing Prison. The letters were addressed to “My Dear Friend Charles,” and signed by “Hiram Charles.” These letters contained numerous declarations that Becker was innocent of the murder of Herman Rosenthal.
Manton asked Plitt if he was the author of those letters. After dawdling and staring at the ceiling, and after Manton reminded Plitt that Plitt had just given his handwriting samples to the court, which had been introduced into evidence, Plitt finally admitted that he was indeed the author of those letters.
At this point, Manton read to the jury a copy of the testimony to the grand jury that indicted Becker. In this testimony, Plitt had sworn that Becker was innocent and that Becker had been framed by Whitman.
Even though Manton had punched holes in Plitt’s credibility, he could not get Plitt to retract his statement that he had given that morning under questioning by Whitman. Plitt insisted that after Becker’s first trial, while Becker was being taken on the train from the Tombs to Sing Sing Prison, Becker had asked Plitt to kill Bald Jack Rose.
After Plitt’s testimony was complete, Whitman produced a surprise witness: a Negro named James Marshall. Whitman claimed Marshall was the missing link to the “Harlem Conference” alluded to in Becker’s first trial. One of the reason’s Becker had won his appeal for a second trial was because the appeals court had ruled that there had been no independent corrobor
ation, aside from Bald Jack Rose, Bridgey Webber, and Harry Vallon, that this meeting had ever taken place.
Mr. Marshall was an actor and a tap dancer who had appeared around the country in theatrical reviews. Whitman claimed the reason Marshall did not testify during Becker’s first trial was because Marshall was out of town and could not be located. As soon as Marshall sat in the witness stand, Whitman cemented the link between Becker and Marshall.
Whitman said, “Do you know the defendant Becker.”
“Yes sir, I do,” Marshall replied.
Marshall went on to testify that he first met Becker when Becker’s Strong Arm Squad raided a café on Twenty-Eight Street. When Marshall, along with several other Negros who were arrested, was brought to Police Headquarters, Marshall met Becker. Becker proposed to Marshall, that he would be released if Marshall began working for Becker as a “stool pigeon”; getting evidence for Becker on Negro gambling houses.
On the night of June 27, 1912, Marshall said that Becker ordered him to infiltrate a Negro gambling house on 124th Street and Seventh Avenue, which Becker planned to raid later that night. After the raid was completed, Marshall said he saw Becker standing on the street corner conversing with three men. One of the men Marshall positively identified as Bald Jack Rose.
“How did you know it was Mr. Rose?” Whitman asked Marshall.
“I’ve seen his pictures,” Marshall said.
Manton jumped to his feet and said, “I object.”
Judge Seabury overruled Manton’s objection.
Whitman asked Marshall, “Have you seen the man you refer to as Mr. Rose after that meeting on the Harlem street corner?”
“Yes sir,” Marshall said. “I saw him a few weeks ago in a theatrical agency owned by Mr. Robinson. The man I saw there was the man I saw that night with Mr. Becker. I have since learned that it was Mr. Rose.”
After his questioning of Marshall, Whitman turned to Manton with a satisfied smile on his face, knowing he had now proven the existence of the “Harlem Conference” which the appeals court said Whitman had not done in Becker’s first trial.
When it was Manton’s turn to cross-examine Marshall, his tactic was to try to trip up Marshall into contradicting parts of his testimony. But Marshall was a rock on the stand, and in fact, Marshall turned out to be one of Whitman’s most believable witnesses.
Becker’s second trial lasted 17 days. On the final day, Judge Seabury made his charge to the jury, and it was just as one-sided as Judge Goff’s had been in the first trial. It was said later, that Judge Seabury was aware that the New York press, especially the World, had been hostile to Becker. Judge Seabury was also aware that he needed that same press to further his political ambitions. As a result, Judge Seabury gave a detailed charge to the jury that almost exactly parroted the one District Attorney Whitman had given in his summation to the jury.
As soon as Judge Seabury finished his charge, one of Manton’s co-counsels, John B. Johnson, jumped to his feet and said, “I object to the whole charge on the grounds that is it an animated argument for the prosecution.”
On the day before the verdict was rendered and both the prosecution and the defense had finished their summations, Mrs. Helen Becker spoke to the press.
She said, “I cannot believe that any 12 sensible men can give credence to such cooked-up stories as those told by Rose, Webber, and Plitt. I don’t expect a conviction. The worst that can happen is a disagreement. Charles is innocent and he will be exonerated.”
On Friday, May 22, 1914, the jury took only one ballot and less than two hours to find Charles Becker guilty for the second time of the first-degree murder of Herman Rosenthal.
As Becker was led from the courtroom, his wife Helen threw her arms around his neck. She cried, “Oh, Charlie I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect it.”
As soon as he left his wife’s embrace, Becker was led out of the courtroom, around the corridor, and to the other side of the courthouse.
There he issued a brief statement, “I am very sorry for myself,” Becker said. “That is all I have to say.”
Then, after chains were attached around both ankles, Becker crossed the Bridge of Sighs for the final time, and he plodded back to his Tomb’s prison cell.
Helen Becker stood in the sheriff’s office for some time after her husband was led back to his cell. Relatives said she was too overcome with grief to leave immediately; and when she did, she had to be assisted out of the building and into a waiting car.
After the verdict, several people connected with the trial made statements to the press.
District Attorney Whitman puffed out his chest and said, “The verdict speaks for itself. Becker is guilty. It was proven. Now he must pay for his crimes.”
Becker’s attorney Manton had a totally different take.
Manton said, “The verdict was a complete surprise to me and my co-counsels in the case. We are all astounded. So is Becker. We were all confident of an acquittal. And of course we will file an appeal.”
Manton’s co-counsel Johnson simply said, “I am surprised.”
In front of his adoring press, Judge Seabury stuck his chin out and opined on the courtroom proceedings.
“I am not to be interviewed on the verdict,” Judge Seabury said. “But I may say that the conduct of those having business at the trial was exemplary and an aid to the dignified administration of justice.”
Even chubby and flush-faced Lillian Rosenthal offered a statement.
“The verdict was a just one and I expected it,” she told the New York Times. “I wish to thank the people of the State of New York for what they have done in repairing my heart in a small way. I wish to thank the jurors and the friends of the jurors who have stood behind them in this trying ordeal. I’m thankful it is all over.”
Then, Lillian Rosenthal issued a sincere shout-out to Helen Becker.
She said, “My heart goes out to Mrs. Becker for her trust and loyalty to her husband during the hours of the trial. My heart goes out to her, for she feels like I felt at the time of the trouble which caused the death of my dear husband.”
Then she added, “I live for only one thing: to see the day that Becker pays the penalty.”
As several New York City daily newspapers called attention to in the following day’s dailies, it was almost unprecedented for a second trial to render the same verdict of “guilty in the first degree” as had the first trial. Only once before, in the entire history of the state of New York, had this anomaly taken place.
As was pointed out in the New York Sun, “The jury could have saved Becker’s life even in finding him guilty if they had wanted to show mercy. Justice Seabury had told them they could choose among three degrees of murder, and two of those degrees could have meant imprisonment. But like the 24 men who had come before, the first Becker jury and the gunmen’s jury, they believed Jack Rose told the truth. Becker and his counsel never thought there was a chance in the world that 12 men, after the Court of Appeals’ decision to grant Becker a new trial, would send Becker to the chair.”
Despite the great disappointment of being found guilty a second time of the murder of Herman Rosenthal, Becker, who had not yet been sent back to Sing Sing Prison, had no trouble sleeping in his cell at the Tombs. According to a Tombs’ keeper, after the second guilty verdict, “Becker jumped into his bed and slept like a baby until 7 a.m. the following morning.”
“That man is no longer like other men,” the keeper told the New York Times. “He is calloused by his experience. He saw 13 men go to the electric chair and what happened on Friday hasn’t wrecked his nerve. He is pinning his hope on the Court of Appeals and is not worrying about himself. But he grieves for his wife, and he can’t conceal that fact when she is near him.”
Some jurors spoke quite freely to the press after the verdict. There had been erroneous reports circulating in the courtroom that there had been five separate ballots, and the jurors were quite divided as to the verdict. To quell this notion, the jurors released
an account of what transpired in the jury room, which spelled out their deliberations, which witnesses’ testimony they regarded well and which testimony they totally disregarded.
The jurors’ statement said that after Judge Seabury’s charge to the jury, the jurors went into the jury room, and a ballot immediately was taken. Seven jurors voted for murder in the first degree, three for murder in lessor degrees, one was blank, and one voted not guilty. Then the jury went to lunch and not a word was spoken about the case.
When they returned, the real deliberations began. While one juror smoked, another juror detailed the entire story put forth by the prosecution. The discussions were informal and never heated.
The jurors first discussed the testimony of Charles Plitt, who had once worked under Becker and had said, after Becker’s first conviction, Becker had told him to murder Jack Rose. The jury totally disregarded Plitt’s testimony as an unbelievable tale told by a man with limited intelligence.
The “Harlem Conference” and the testimony of James Marshall was discussed next. To a man, every juror said Marshall’s testimony was quite believable, and it had confirmed the testimony of Jack Rose that he, Bridgey Webber, Harry Vallon, and Becker had met in Harlem to discuss Rosenthal’s murder.
Then the jurors discussed the testimony of Bald Jack Rose. One juror said that after Rose’s testimony, “I was convinced that Becker’s relationship with Rose was more than the relationship of a police lieutenant with a stool pigeon. Rose was not a mere acquaintance of the underworld. He was a big factor in Becker’s relations with Rosenthal.”
The jury bought Rose’s main contentions that not only did Becker order Rosenthal killed, but Becker was also in constant contact with Rose soon after the murder, trying to aid and abet a cover-up.
At the end of about 40 minutes, jury foreman F. Meredith Blagden walked over to each juror one by one and looked them in the eye. Each juror nodded in the affirmative that Becker was indeed guilty of first degree murder.