FRANK LOWENTHAL

Alias: AUGUST W ERWIN, SHEENY IRVING

Specialties: RECEIVER, SHOPLIFTER

No: 182 Last Displayed: 7/4/2022

Description:

Forty-two years old in 1886. Jew, born in United States. Married. Telegraph operator and jewelry dealer. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 3 inches. Weight, 121 pounds. Brown hair, hazel eyes, dark complexion. Jewish appearance. FRANK LOWENTHAL, alias "SHEENY IRVING," is a noted shoplifter and receiver of stolen goods. He shot his wife, Delia, and then himself, in the Allman House, in East Tenth Street, New York City, on July 15, 1885. He was arrested in New York City on September 28,1882, for the larceny of some opera glasses from a jewelry store in Maiden Lane, New York. Julius Klein, alias "Sheeny" Julius (191), another notorious young thief, was arrested with him for the same offense, but was not held. Erwin, however, was committed in $500 bail for trial which he furnished. His case had not come to trial up to the time of his arrest for assaulting his wife. Erwin is a man of good education, and speaks German fluently. He says that he was born in Cincinnati of wealthy parents, who sent him to Germany to be educated.

Record:

After spending two years at the high school at Magdeburg, he entered the University of Heidelberg as a student of the natural sciences, and graduated with the degree of B. A. After his return to the United States he was connected with a St. Louis newspaper; he afterwards came to New York, and commenced his criminal career. Erwin was prompted to shoot his wife by rum and unhappy domestic experience. She was going to Europe with her father, who was anxious to separate them when he found out that Erwin was a thief. Mrs. Erwin recovered from her wounds, and Erwin pleaded guilty to assault in the second degree, and was sentenced to five years in State prison and fined $1,000, by Recorder Smyth, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City, on September 21, 1885. His picture is a good one, taken in September, 1882.