The Profile Press (2 results)
Published by THE PROFILE PRESS, 1945
- Softcover
Seller: Princeton Antiques Bookshop / Ruffolo Enterprises, Atlantic City, NJ, U.S.A.Princeton Antiques Bookshop / Ruffolo Enterprises
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: Used - Fair
US$ 10.00
US$ 6.00 shippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketPAPER BACK YELLOW. Condition: FAIR. Circa 1945 Bookplate on front inside cover. Wear to exterior. Some black and white illustrations and some colored illustrations on some pages. DATE PUBLISHED: 1945 EDITION: 90++.
More imagesLanguage: English
Published by Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles, California / Topeka, Kansas, 1940
- Manuscript / Paper Collectible
Seller: Meir Turner, New York, NY, U.S.A.Meir Turner
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
US$ 300.00
US$ 8.00 shippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketNo Binding. Condition: Very Good. Wanted Poster 20 x 20 cm. In acid free Mylar sleeve. Will be shipped flat between heavy cardboard layers, never rolled. A 1940 police "Wanted" notice issued by the Los Angeles Police Department for the suspect William G. Cooper on May 9, 1940. Crime: Grand Theft. Identification Numbers: 18417 (t…op center) and LA C-129221 (bottom center). Fingerprint Classification: 14 O 5 U OOO 20 and I 17 U OOO 15. Felony Warrant No. 50368 (issued in Div. 4). Bail $10,000. San Francisco Police Number 60747. "Arrest. Hold. We will extradite." Description: "Jew, 33 years, 5 feet 10 inches, 160 lbs., Dark complexion, black hair (slightly wavy, parted on left side). Dark brown eyes, heavy eyebrows, heavy black beard (smooth shaven at time of notice), full features. Some gold in upper front teeth. Wears a 3rd Degree Masonic emblem in his left coat lapel. Wears a 1½ to 2 karat diamond ring with a yellow gold mounting on the ring finger of his right hand. Wears mixed grey or brown suits. Goes bareheaded (does not wear a hat). Prints of the right thumb, left thumb, and right index finger. Two mugshot photos (profile and front-facing) labeled "SAN FRANCISCO 60747". On top: "PLEASE PASTE THIS ON YOUR FINGERPRINT CARD" At bottom: "Kindly Notify the Chief of Police, Los Angeles, California" Cooper was captured, extradited to California, served a two-year prison sentence in a Los Angeles jail for the grand theft and following his release, relocated to New York, where he established hardware and electrical supply business fronts at 50 East 42nd Street in Manhattan. In May 1948, federal Treasury Department agents arrested Cooper in New York for tax evasion: defrauding the U.S. government out of $692,269 between 1943 and 1945 by setting up fictitious addresses and renting vacant stores across the East Side to mask his merchant invoices. At his 1948 arraignment, federal prosecutors successfully argued for immediate detention, citing his prior "criminal record in Los Angeles" and high flight risk due to his history of operating under aliases across multiple states. Following his May 1948 federal arraignment for the tax evasion scheme, he was convicted and sentenced to federal prison. Released by 1952, he orchestrated a new fraud: Working under a commercial operation called the Delco Company, he claimed to be shipping massive freight orders of high-value ballpoint pens to midwestern merchandising firms. The entire operation unraveled by accident when an American Railway Express handler dropped one of Cooper's heavy cargo cartons. The box broke open, revealing candy kisses and old newspapers instead of ballpoint pens. He had been using fake invoices and forged express agency receipts to back up his shipments. He used these fraudulent receipts to borrow nearly $250,000 from a commercial lending house to "finance" his fictional inventory. In October 1952, New York District Attorney Frank S. Hogan indicted Cooper for grand larceny and forgery, citing a localized loss of $36,190 directly stolen from the commercial firm. He pleaded not guilty before Judge Harold A. Stevens in the Court of General Sessions, claiming he desperately "needed the money to save his business." He was convicted and sentenced to a multi-year term in a New York state penitentiary. Following this prison sentence, Cooper faded away, leaving a bizarre legacy in American fraud history - evolving from a 1940 small-time auto or property thief in L.A. to a high-rolling Manhattan swindler who tricked a major commercial finance firm using nothing but forged freight slips and boxes of cheap candy and old newspapers. Verso of the poster is an unused, blank historical police identification card template issued by the Topeka, Kansas Police Department. This Two-Sided Poster is a Production "Quirk" (Material Re-use): It reveals the inner mechanical workings of mid-century bureaucracy [Descripiton continues in the AUTHOR section here].
