Charles Pichel - petition for restoration of civil rights 1932.

ADDRESS REPLY TO
“THE ATTORNEY GENERAL”
AND REFER TO
INITIALS AND NUMBER

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

During the course of the investigation in your case, information was received that various person had made complaints to the Better Business Bureau, New York City, that the American Heraldry Society was defrauding its members and receiving money on represent tation (sic) that a book entitled “Who’s Who in Heraldry” would be published; that you were secretary of the Society and responsible for the publication of the book; that neither you nor the Society was in a position to publish it and you were using the money for your own personal benefit.

The Department is informed that this matter was taken up with the District Attorney’s office, New York County, and hearings were held in the District Attorney's office. No complaint, however, had been filed, and inasmuch as you promised to refrain from further activity in connection with the American Heraldry Society, the matter was dropped.

It was further represented that you conducted what was known the “American College of Chiropractics” and the “Chiropractors’ Protective Association”; that money was received by you from many chiropractors which you pocketed and never did anything in return for the same. One of the persons said to have been defrauded in the “Who’s Who in Heraldry” project was Rear Admiral George Barton who is said to have paid you $250 for a copy of the book, but failed to receive it.

It was also reported that you are using the Heraldry Society’s rooms in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as a sort of rendezvous for yourself and other men where you met women of prominence, and wild drinking parties were held there, in support of which it is alleged that your conduct, as above indicated, was such that you were requested to move out of the hotel.

It was also alleged that some time ago you kept company with a young woman, with whom you maintained abnormal: sexual relations, with the result that she was thereafter confined in a sanitarium (sic). A relative of this girl was interviewed, and while he was indisposed to admit certain features of the charge, his intense animosity toward you seemed to be based on some strongly persuasive reason.

Information concerning your past deportment and activities during the past two or three years are favourable to your plea for pardon, but in view of matters above referred to and your background of your record prior to and in connection with your conviction for dealing in narcotics, it is not believed that the situation would justify the granting of a fall pardon to restore civil rights.