EDWARD A CONDIT

Alias:

Specialties: SWINDLER BY BOGUS CHECKS

No: 42 Last Displayed: 2/29/2024

Description:

Forty-one years old in 1886. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 11 inches. Weight; 167 pounds. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, long pointed nose, sallow complexion. Has a scar on right side of neck. Small dark mole on left cheek. Prominent eyebrows.

Record:

EDWARD A. CONDIT, a swindler who had a peculiar method of dealing in worthless checks, was arrested in New York City on March 2, 1883. Condit's manner of doing business was to inquire by letter the terms upon which a broker would deal in a stock, and then ordering him to buy or sell, giving as margin a check on the Orange (N. J.) Savings Bank. Condit had only a small amount on deposit in that bank, but owing to the time required for the passage of the check through the Clearing-house, and other delaying causes, several days elapsed before its worthless character was exposed, and he was enabled to reap the benefit of the fluctuations in the price of the stock within the time required to collect the check. If the stock moved to his advantage, he contrived to meet or intercept the check, and take the benefit. If the transaction went against him, he allowed the check to go to protest, so that the broker was the loser. Condit has a pleasing address, and is apparently a man of some education. He gave a short history of his life after confessing his operations. He said that he inherited a small fortune in 1869, which in the course of the next two years he increased to $100,000. He began to speculate in Wall Street in 1872. At first he was successful, but after the "panic" he began to lose, and by 1876 he was a beggar. Then it was that he attempted to retrieve his losses by the mode described above. When arrested on March 2, 1883, he was committed for trial by Judge Cowing, but was turned over to the Jersey City police authorities in October, 1884. On December 1, 1884, he made a nearly successful attempt to escape from the Hudson County Jail, on Jersey City Heights, where he was confined awaiting trial for swindling several storekeepers in Jersey City by worthless checks. He was convicted on December 24, 1884. and sentenced, January 23, 1885, to four years in State prison at Trenton, N. J., where he was taken on June 28, 1885. Condit's picture is an excellent one, taken in 1884.