The front page of the February 13, 1924 Red Bank Register. (Click to enlarge)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Who winds up in the clink: the guy who may have marked the cards in a poker game, or the one who came back the next day waving a gun to collect the money he lost?
An ad for the Strand Theatre in the same edition. Steinberger and Scutellaro maybe should have just skipped the poker and gone to see the latest Keaton flick. (Click to enlarge)
One hundred years ago this week, readers of the Red Bank Register were regaled with a colorful (okay, black-and-white) front-page account of a tussle on Monmouth Street between clothing store owner Abe Steinburger and a man holding a gun.
Red Bank Police Officer William Mustoe (also known as “the cop with a hundred hats“) responded and found Steinburger and Sylvester Scuttellaro, a well-known local contractor, at loggerheads.
Scutellaro told Mustoe (also known as “the man who could make a horse talk”) he had lost $325 to Steinburger in a poker game the night before. Scutellaro believed Steinburger had cheated, using marked cards. (Adjusted for inflation, that $345 is equivalent to about $6,000 today.)
A search of Steinburger’s store turned up a suitcase containing liquor and wine – both illegal at the time – and marked cards, according to the article. Steinburger said the cards were not marked.
The article makes no further mention of the gun eyewitnesses originally saw Steinburger’s rival wielding. But it seemed clear who had committed the greater offense.
Steinburger was arrested for possession of liquor and obtaining money under false pretenses. He was taken to jail.
Scuttalero was a well-known contractor in town, with the newspaper listing him as the builder for many new projects, including a synagogue on Riverside Avenue, a clothing factory on River Street, bowling alleys, homes and apartment buildings.
Steinburger, the article says, had opened his Monmouth Street store just four months before the incident.
It is unclear how the case played out. A search of the Register archive (available through the Red Bank Public Library website) turned up no more mentions of Steinburger in any other Register stories.
Scuttalero, however, appears to have continued his streak of lousy luck. Almost exactly a year later, the Register reported on February 18, 1925 that a house he owned on White Road was destroyed by fire, which he believed had been set by thieves who also stole the electrical work.
And the previous summer, (presumably months after the poker game) the paper said, a lumber yard he owned had also been destroyed by fire.
Officer Mustoe, meanwhile, went on to greater heights, serving for years with the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office, where he was known for his collection of hats and as “the man who could make a horse talk” for his ability to extract confessions from murder suspects, according to a 1949 New York Times article.
“Throwbacks” will serve up occasional reflections on Red Bank’s rich past, aided by reporting in the Red Bank Register. The now-defunct newspaper’s entire archive is available through the Red Bank Public Library website.
