Coda: Doubly Scandalous Hicksville
Out of compassion, or at least pity, Charles Beck was not charged with any crime. He still was desperately in need. Why, after fighting to survive and finally initiating the lawsuit, did he give up on it so easily? Perhaps his decision had something to do with a different ex-Patrolman Beck, who was then mired in a different local scandal.
The year before, Hicksville had been stunned by news of a Queens-Nassau “Housewife Prostitution Ring,” which had many connections with organized crime, some of them running through Long Island motels and night clubs. The madam-in-charge conducted business from her family home on Genesee Street, a few blocks west of Hicksville High. The newspapers enjoyed reporting that the husbands of some women in her “stable” baby-sat their little ones whenever their wives “got called into work” on short notice. The ring’s success – it grossed about a quarter million annually – depended on inside information about the NCPD, supplied from files at Police headquarters by Patrolman John Beck, George’s brother (who had resigned, giving as cause his displeasure at having undergone a “disrespectful” interrogation). Recently, news items about each scandal had started mentioning the other one, just to play up the fact the Department had picked two bad apples from the same family tree. George Beck may have dropped the lawsuit in hopes of limiting further damage to the Beck family.
Besides, now that his brother John was known to have links to organized crime, the odds of George’s winning the suit were nil – any judge who found in his favor would be viewed by the public as being in bed with organized crime.
That’s it!
