The organized crime robbery of a New York City judge and leader of the Tepecano Democratic Club, Albert H. Vitale, during a dinner party on December 7, 1929, and the subsequent recovering of the stolen goods from gangsters following a few calls from Magistrate Vitale, prompted questions from the public and press regarding ties between organized crime, law enforcement, and the judicial system within the city.
Vitale was accused of owing $19,600 to Arnold Rothstein, and was investigated by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court for failing to explain how he accrued $165,000 over four years while receiving a total judicial salary of $48,000 during that same period.
[2] Additionally, a Tammany Hall associate and state Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Force Crater, disappeared in August 1930, in what would become an unsolved case.
The commission heard testimony from a thousand citizens, policemen, judges, lawyers and defendants about unjust treatment before the law prompted by allegations of corruption in police and court systems.
The Seabury investigation into the Magistrate's Courts exposed the conspiracy of judges, attorneys, police and bail bondsmen to extort money from defendants facing trial.
Throughout the autumn of 1930, the Seabury Commission heard more than 1,000 witnesses — judges, lawyers, police officers and former defendants — describe a pattern of false arrests, fraudulent bail bonds, and imprisonment.
Victims were made to understand that conviction and a prison sentence were a foregone conclusion unless money was paid through certain attorneys to court personnel, police and others.
"[4] The conspiracy had been highly effective; innocent people either parted with their life's savings or faced prison sentences, the women often on spurious convictions for prostitution.
[4] The pressure for reform, once unleashed, later ensnared State Senator Hofstadter when the executive committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York held that State Senator Hofstadter had violated the public trust by having accepted a judicial appointment from Tammany Hall when he was investigating that political organization's "domination of the city government.