[3] See A Report on a Special Examination of the Accounts and Methods of the President of the Borough of the Bronx, etc., Commissioners of Accounts of New York City, June 16, 1908. The complete testimony in the Haffen Investigation is set forth in Vols. I to IV, Testimony, Borough of the Bronx Investigation, 1908, Commissioners of Accounts. See also Memorandum submitted to Governor Hughes, by the Commissioners of Accounts, 1909.
[4] The attorney here referred to was Joseph A. Flannery. Upon charges preferred by the Bar Association, and after a three years’ investigation, he was disbarred, May 17, 1912, by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He was found guilty on five of the six charges brought against him, one of which charges dealt with the notorious Hunt’s Point land “job.” It was on record that Flannery personally profited to the sum of $300,000 from various transactions of land sold to the city at fictitious valuations. On June 11, 1914, W. D. Guthrie, representing the New York Bar Association, reiterated the charges when he argued before the Court of Appeals at Albany for the confirmation of Mr. Flannery’s disbarment. Flannery’s attorney declared that nobody was misled or labored under a misapprehension as a result of his client’s actions; that the company for which Flannery was attorney knew as much about the transaction as did Flannery. On October 24, 1914, the Court of Appeals sanctioned Flannery’s disbarment.
[5] Summary of Findings, A Report on a Special Examination of the Office of the President of the Borough of the Bronx, etc. Commissioners of Accounts, June 16, 1908, p. 1.
[6] Ibid., p. 3.
[7] Ibid., p. 3.
[8] He had been elected Borough President of Queens in 1905, after a fight upon “Joe” Cassidy, long Democratic “boss” of Queens, in which campaign Bermel ran as an “Independent Democrat” and had violently denounced “Cassidyism and public graft.”
[9] In the Matter of Charges Preferred against Lawrence Gresser, President of the Borough of Queens, City of New York, Report of Commissioner Samuel H. Ordway, 1911, p. 91.
[10] In a signed statement in the New York Evening Call, February 27, 1909, Col. Amory declared that when this matter was originally exposed in the hearing before the Public Service Commission, the full facts were not brought out; that one of the ten original owners had recently informed him (Amory) that the price paid by Ryan and Brady was in reality only $25,000.
[11] See Investigation of the Interborough Metropolitan Company, etc., 1907, Public Service Commission, First District, Vol. IV, pp. 1613-1618, etc.
[12] Ibid.