ROBERT S BALLARD

Alias: BULLARD, MALTBY, RIGGS

Specialties: FORGER

No: 35 Last Displayed: 8/1/2022

Description:

Forty-nine years old in 1886. Born in Ireland. Married. Physician. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 1/4 inches. Weight, 137 pounds. Dark hair mixed with gray, blue eyes, dark complexion. Has a wart on left side of his nose.

Record:

BALLARD, alias HARVEY C. BULLARD, alias W. C. RUSSELL, alias HENRY C. MALTBY, was arrested in. New York City on March 31, 1883, for swindling Ferdinand P. Earle. of Earle's Hotel, out of $150 by means of a worthless check. He was also charged with bigamy and swindling. He was at one time a practicing physician, and connected with one of the New York hospitals. He was also wanted at the time of his arrest for swindling by the use of bogus checks and other devices, in New York City, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., Providence, R. I., Baltimore, Md., Atlantic City, N. J., Brooklyn, N. Y., and Philadelphia, Pa. In 1881 he married a Miss Amelia Black, at Poughkeepsie, and deserted her a few days afterward. In November, 1882, he married Miss Annie Van Houten in Baltimore, and brought her to New York, where he deserted her at Earle's Hotel, after swindling the proprietor. At the time of his arrest, in his valise was found hundreds of bogus checks and drafts, signed R. S. Ballard, Riggs & Co., R. S. Riggs, W. C. Riggs & Co., for sums ranging from $500 to $6,000, all bearing recent dates; and also a large number of check and bank books. One of the latter showed an alleged deposit of $15,900 in the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York. Another exhibited a credit of $ 10,600 on a Tarrytown, N. Y., bank, and the third represented a deposit of $14,594 in the Western International Bank of Baltimore, Md. He had checks of banks in nearly every prominent city in America. The Bankers' and Brokers' Association offered a reward of $1,000 for his arrest under the name of W. C. Russell. Ballard pleaded guilty on May 2,1883, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City, and was sentenced to five years in State prissn by Recorder Smyth. His sentence expires, allowing him full commutation, on December 1, 1886. His picture is an excellent one, taken in 1883.