The Big Mistake

P:Gambler Frank Erickson, who looks like an aggrieved pig and dresses like an advertising executive, could see his mistakes now. He never should have taken his office out of his hat and moved into a fancy Park Avenue office, complete with an accountant and neatly kept records. He never should have said anything to those Senators down in Washington.

P:His biggest mistake was made when Arizona's Senator McFarland yelled at him "You do violate the law?" and Erickson blurted "yes" in a startled squeak. Four days later, Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan seized all of Erickson's neat records, and the big gambler's financial front man began singing for the D.A. Hogan charged Frank with conspiracy and 59 counts of bookmaking.

P:In Manhattan's special sessions court this week Gambler Erickson meekly entered a plea of guilty on all counts (maximum penalty on each: $500 fine and one year in jail). But a trial might have been worse. Hogan's men had found that a big chunk of his $100,000-a-year income came from Florida's Colonial Inn, a gambling enterprise he shared with Detroit gamblers, New York Gangsters Meyer Lansky and "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo, Brooklyn's Joe Adonis. Erickson would not want to get those fellows into trouble.

P:In 30 years of bookmaking, Erickson had never been in jail, had been convicted only once, and that was for loitering. But this week Judge Nathan D. Perlman warned his lawyer to have Erickson in court for sentencing next week because of "what may be in store for him."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.