13 SEP 1916 – VICE SQUAD IN RAID NEAR CARNEGIE HALL

Acting on information given by a witness in Narragansett Pier and a well-to-do New York businessman, who said that he had been victimized, Assistant District Attorney James E. Smith, in charge of District Attorney Swann’s vice investigation, early yesterday morning, accompanied by Detectives McGlynn and Duffy, raided a house on Seventh avenue, near Carnegie Hall.  While only two persons were arrested, Mr. Smith said he was more than satisfied with the results of the raid. The prisoners were Mrs. Georgia Thym, a gray-haired woman, and Rudolfo Guglielmi, a cabaret dancer, who said that he was a recent dance partner of a woman well known on Broadway.  Both were arraigned before Judge Rosalsky in the Court of General Sessions and held in $10,000 bail each as material witnesses.  They were locked up in the House of Detention. When taken to the District Attorney’s office, Guglielmi sought permission to telephone a “friend.”  The prisoner used the telephone and called up a person whom he said was Frank Lord, Second Deputy Police Commissioner. According to the District Attorney he said over the phone: “I’m in trouble, Frank.  I wish you would come down here and help me.” Mr. Smith said that in a preliminary examination Guglielmi furnished evidence which would be used against a member of the Police Department now under indictment.  For many years Mrs.Thym’s place has been the scene of many vicious parties, Mr. Smith asserted, and not once have the police interfered.  He added that he had received information from a reliable source that many persons of means, principally “social climbers,” had been blackmailed after indiscreet visits to this house.   Detectives from the District Attorney’s office are investigating the disappearance of three young women who are known to be friends of a Turk employed by an uptown hotel as steward. This man, who is polished in manner, is said to be affiliated with members of the underworld in white slave traffic.  Mr. Smith intimated that he would be arrested today.  Detectives McClune, Van Lear, and Hughes, who were sent to Philadelphia on a search for fugitive witnesses, returned and reported that several men and women promised to come to New York and aid in the investigation, if they could be assured protection.  All of them admitted, according to the detectives, that they feared physical violence from the underworld and certain members of the police force.  Nathan Patinsky, or London, who was indicted with David Parish, known as Dave Siberia, on a charge of white slavery, sent word to the District Attorney yesterday that he was willing to confess the part he played in the trade on the east side.  Patinsky, who had only been in this country four months when arrested, had already admitted that he was the “business agent” of Siberia, spending his time in the cafes and coffee houses of the east side, where men were apt to congregate in large numbers.  Assistant District Attorney Smith will hear the man’s story today.