Scandals of New York (Cont'd)

New York City stood to lose another member of its investigation-harried judiciary last week. She was Magistrate Jean Hortense Norris, 54, the city's first female judge, a strongminded lady who was accused of combining too much of the Wife of Bath's recklessness with Portia's astuteness. A report recommending her removal from office was filed by Referee Samuel Seabury, inquisitor of the lower courts of Manhattan and The Bronx for the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court. Referee Seabury's four specific charges against Magistrate Norris, brought out in her hearing before him four months ago (TiME, Feb. 28, March 9), were that: i) she had changed the records in a vagrancy case tried before her in Women's Court; 2) she had altered the records in another vagrancy case so as to prejudice the defendant on appeal; 3) she held stock in a bonding company which operated in her court; 4) she had exploited her judicial position by accepting $1,000 to endorse a yeast product. Policemen. From testimony dug up during the magistracy hearings, Andrew G. McLaughlin, ousted vice squad member, was indicted last week for perjury. It was against him that notorious Benita Franklin Bischoff was about to bring framing charges when she was murdered.* A week before the McLaughlin indictment, two of his onetime colleagues on the vice squad were found guilty of assault. Last September they entered the home of a Mrs. Genevieve Potocki, ordered a round of drinks, beat and bit Mrs. Potocki and a companion, then charged the two women with running a disorderly establishment. The trial of another vice squad member ended last week with his acquittal. He was Walter V. Ambraz, who testified that Mrs. Rosa H. Ricchebuono, a plump French-Canadian woman who said she was the niece of a Canadian Bishop, had beckoned to him from her window. Mrs. Ricchebuono's story was that she was waving good-bye to her husband.

* A formal gathering of city officials, including Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker, trouped down to police headquarters fortnight ago to IK; on hand when Commissioner Mulrooney an nounced that one Harry Schlitten had confessed lo driving the car in which one Harry Stein had strangled Benita Franklin Bischoff. Arrested two months ago (TIME, April 20), Stein's ap parent motive was robbery. With happy satis faction, said Mayor Walker: "Commissioner, have you any newspapers here for the first few days after the murder? ... I think in justice to the Commissioner and the department that these statements . . . that the police had done away with this woman, should be pointed out to have been proven false."

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