Crime and punishment

ROBERT GARDNER

It seems like every time there’s a story about someone bilking others

out of millions of dollars, if you read far enough, it says the

accused lives in Newport Beach. Not only do we have expensive real

estate, we have expensive crime.

It wasn’t always that way. During my career as a deputy district

attorney (1937-41) and as this town’s city judge (1938-41 and

1945-47), I can remember only two theft cases arising in Newport

Beach, and they certainly weren’t in the million-dollar class. Not

that we were squeaky clean. It’s just that in those days, Newport

Beach and in particular Balboa specialized in different kinds of

antisocial activities, such as rum-running, bootlegging, illegal

gambling, plus considerable over-consumption of alcohol and fighting.

We filled the jail every Saturday night with drunks and fighters, but

as for thieves, we only had the two.

The first theft occurred when I was a deputy district attorney.

The man was accused not of cheating investors but of stealing a fish

net. The biggest problem I had in the case was proving that the net

was worth $200, the amount necessary for a grand theft conviction. It

sounds like small potatoes today, but the thief’s reaction was

big-time. After being sentenced to prison, he was dragged out of

court screaming that when he got out he was going to kill Police

Chief Rowland Hodgkinson. Twenty-five years later, Hodge died of

emphysema, so if the thief was responsible he was about as good at

murder as he was at stealing.

The other theft occurred during my stint as city judge and

involved a manhole cover. One night someone took a manhole cover off

the street. Working on a tip, Officer Jack Kennedy of the Newport

Beach Police Department found the manhole cover in the room of one of

the local characters, Shorty Charle, right beside his bed. When

awakened, Shorty denied any knowledge of it, but the evidence was

there, and he was charged. The trial was like old home week for

Rendezvous Ballroom alumni, since all three of us, Shorty, Jack

Kennedy and I, had worked together at the Rendezvous during its

nickel-a-dance era.

The prosecution was simple and straightforward. Someone had taken

the manhole cover, the property of the city of Newport Beach, and

transported it six blocks to the place where Shorty had a room. There

the manhole cover had been transported up a flight of stairs, where

it was found in Shorty’s room with Shorty sleeping beside it. The

prosecution’s conclusion -- it had to be Shorty.

The defense was equally straightforward. Shorty went to bed one

night with no manhole cover in his room. When he awoke, there was the

manhole cover on the floor beside his bed plus his old friend Officer

Jack Kennedy. That was all he knew.

I found Shorty not guilty. I had several reasons for my decisions.

First, although Shorty was often guilty of the usual Balboa crimes of

boozing and fighting, he was no thief. Second, it was very doubtful

that Shorty, drunk or sober, could have carried the manhole cover

from its normal resting place six blocks down Central Avenue, then up

a flight of stairs to his room, all by himself. Also, there wasn’t

much activity in the used manhole market, particularly one marked

“City of Newport Beach.” It smelled of a prank, and I let him go.

So there we have it -- a fish net and a manhole cover. Pretty

small potatoes compared with the current multi-million-dollar jobs,

but in those days we were just a small town and didn’t know any

better.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.