Highland Park man missing since 1979 surfaces in Nevada
Ex-Board of Trade member, declared legally dead in 1986, charged with identity theft, fraud
Police feared foul play when Arthur Jones disappeared in 1979, leaving behind a wife and three children. At the time, his wife told investigators he had a history of large gambling debts that had forced him to sell his seat on the Chicago Board of Trade.Detectives found his abandoned Buick near O'Hare International Airport. They learned that one of his business associates, Carl Gaimari, a wealthy commodities trader, had been gunned down days earlier in his Inverness home by masked intruders.
Working as a bookie at the time, Jones, 72, was discovered after he tried to renew a driver's license using another man's Social Security number, according to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. He is facing felony charges of burglary, identity theft and fraud.
"I am truly astounded," said Donald Verbeke, retired chief of detectives for the Highland Park police, upon learning the news.
"That was a mystery for a long period of time — whatever happened to Artie Jones? A lot of guys thought maybe he was part of Edens (Expressway)."
Jones' attorney, Stephen Stein, said he's met only briefly with his new client, who authorities said had been living under the name of Joseph Richard Sandelli since about the time of his disappearance. He was released on $20,000 bond Thursday, despite a Nevada prosecutor's assertion that he is a flight risk, according to court records.
"I was hired by some extended members of his family here," Stein said, adding that Jones lives with a woman and that he will accompany her to a medical procedure scheduled in California this week.
Authorities described Jones' disappearance as suspicious from the start.
About six months before his wife reported him missing, Jones lost his job at the Board of Trade as a commodities trader and had to sell his seat to pay for gambling debts, according to an affidavit filed Monday by the Nevada attorney general's office. His wife told Highland Park investigators that, at one point, he lost $30,000 betting on a basketball game, the affidavit states.
Jones had also forged her name on a second mortgage application as he tried to get more cash to pay off his debts, according to the document.
"He was a heavy gambler, and we thought he might have gotten in trouble with the big guys," Verbeke recalled.
Bruno Grandi, 73, another retired Highland Park detective, recalled that some of Jones' associates had been tied to jewelry theft and home invasions. Jones was well-known in Highwood, a small city next to Highland Park, where before taking the Board of Trade job he worked at Mr. Joseph's Liquor Cabinet and married the boss's daughter, Grandi said.
"They found his car with his sunglasses," Grandi said. "That was the last we heard of Artie Jones."
In 1986, a Lake County court declared Jones legally dead, listing his date of death as May 11, 1979, the day he disappeared. His wife and children collected about $47,000 in Social Security benefits as a result, according to Nevada officials.
His former wife on Friday declined to be interviewed, as communicated by Waukegan attorney Robert Ritacca. He said family members feared they could be in danger as a result of publicity.
"I was the attorney who pronounced him dead," Ritacca said. "We went through a hearing with the FBI, with police and with lay witnesses."
Jones has since admitted his real identity, telling Nevada investigators that he "left in 1979 without telling anyone and has to date made no contact with anyone from his past," according to court documents.
He claimed that he obtained a false Illinois driver's license, birth certificate and Social Security card for $800 in Chicago, then spent a year in Florida before moving to California. He settled in Las Vegas in 1988, according to investigators.
There, he allegedly used the false documents to obtain a Nevada driver's license and began working for Rampart Casino's Race & Sports Book "to get a fresh start," court records state.
Over the past three decades, Jones was arrested numerous times using different names in Florida, California and Nevada, according to investigators who used his fingerprints to track his criminal history.
Jones was tracked down in Las Vegas only after the Social Security Administration — acting on complaints from a man who said his Social Security number was being used by another — approached the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles for help in locating him, said Kevin Malone, spokesman for the Nevada DMV.
Jones had been using a Social Security number that belonged to Clifton Goodenough, a former Waukegan resident, said his wife, Carol Goodenough.
The couple, who live in Arizona, have known Jones' address for years. They started noticing more than a decade ago that their federal tax refunds were being delayed by the Internal Revenue Service due to discrepancies in income reported on the same Social Security number. Jones appeared to have been filing his tax returns with her husband's number, Carol Goodenough said.
"They even had to give my husband a different Social Security number for a while until it died down, but after a while (the problems) started again," Carol Goodenough said.
They called Jones on the phone last year and confronted him, she said.
A woman who answered the phone said, "'No, your husband's using my husband's Social Security number,'" Carol Goodenough said. When Jones took over the call, he was very "low key" and told Clifton Goodenough it was his Social Security number, but he would be glad to talk to them about it. The conversation didn't resolve anything, Carol Goodenough said.
They also noticed that on statements from the Social Security Administration, their income was listed as coming from several Las Vegas casinos neither of them had ever worked for.
Clifton Goodenough, a veteran, is concerned that the fraudulent use of his Social Security number could affect his military benefits when he retires. They had visited the local Social Security office several times to make complaints and turned over the name and address, but, Carol Goodenough said, "Nobody could tell us anything."
"It's very stressful," she said. "It has caused my husband to age a lot."
Rumors flew around Highland Park and Highwood after Jones disappeared, recalled a resident who lived two doors away.
"He'd wave hi and bye, but he'd never stop to talk to you," said Doris Ohlwein, 69, who described the family as "very private."
"When his friend died in (Inverness), some people said they were involved with something and he was killed too," she said.
Tribune reporter Sue Ter Maat contributed.
No comments:
Post a Comment