Introduction
LEWIS T. LEWIS JR. was born in Philadelphia on May 1, 1941 to Lewis T. Lewis Sr. and his wife, the former Melva Richards. The family came to Camden not long afterwards. His father worked for over 25 years for the Public Service Electric and Gas Company. In 1962 Lewis T. Lewis Jr. received a suspended sentence for a sexual offence. In December of that year he married Elizabeth L. “Betty Lou” Atkinson.
In 1969 Lewis T. Lewis Jr. founded the United Mission Rescue Corps, Inc. and began soliciting funds. His father committed suicide in 1970. The following year Lewis Jr. received another suspended sentence and was sentenced to five years probation for another sexual offense.
In December of 1978 Lewis Jr. was indicted, along with his wife Betty Lou and others, on charges including fraud, embezzlement, contributing to the delinquency of minors, welfare fraud, misuse of collected funds, and incorporation for fraudulent purposes, lewdness, and conspiracy. In March of 1979 Lewis Jr. pled guilty to 54 charges as part of a plea agreement that ensured seven to ten years imprisonment. The sentenced was reduced and he served a little more than 3 years time. He was living in Woolwich Township, Gloucester County when he was arrested again in February of 1986 on charges of illegal confinement and sexual assault of a young woman. The charges were dropped when the accuser recanted.
Photos
Lewis T. Lewis Jr.
United Mission Rescue Corps
Camden Courier-Post —
CAPTAIN Lewis T. Lewis Jr., founder of United Mission, displays relief check in front of burned-out house at 518 York St., Camden.
UNITED Mission Rescue Corps, Inc., founded by Camden resident Lewis T. Lewis in July 1969, has collected over $10,000 in door-to-door solicitations.
In April, 85 per cent of that amount had gone into the expenses till. Since then, Lewis says, expenses have dropped to slightly less than 30 per cent.
(In comparison, the United Fund of Camden County lists an administrative cost of nine per cent, according to San Angell, the executive director.)
The charity coffers also were swelled by a $10,000 inheritance, left, the founder said, by his father, Lewis T. Lewis Sr. Seven thousand dollars of the inheritance was used to purchase an office building at 2411 Federal St.
THERE is no doubt that United Rescue Mission has helped some people.
Although he had no formal financial records, Lewis, 30, produced for the Courier-Post a stack of canceled checks attesting to $3,258 spent in providing food, clothing and shelter to victims of fires and floods, from July 1969 to December 1970. He says he has spent more than $1,250 on charity cases since then.
Lewis himself lives in McGuire Gardens, a Camden public housing project.
Lewis’s methods of awarding assistance are sometimes on the showy side. Last Christmas, for example, Lewis took $400 to a Horn and Hardart Restaurant in Philadelphia and passed out $5 to any senior citizen who could prove he was living on Social Security.
HE IS now planning to hand out a total of $2,000 in $10 chunks to Camden and Philadelphia schoolchildren who otherwise would not be able to afford a day at the shore.
Lewis’ United Mission also gave a $250 check to the American Rescue Mission to replace the store-front window of their new headquarters which had been broken by children.
That act, and the restaurant money give-away, won Lewis coverage in newspapers, as have several of his other check presentations.
The amount spent by United Mission in charitable acts contrasts sharply with the amount spent on expenses, however.
LEWIS says that $8,739 has been spent for the purchase of a truck, a car, gasoline, stationary [sic], uniforms, burglar alarm equipment and rent on a Locust Street warehouse. The figure does not include $7,000 for the purchase of a new headquarters building on Federal Street.
Of the more than $20,000 that the charity has raised, only approximately 15 per cent has been used to aid disaster victims.
LEWIS refers to himself as “reverend,” “for the authority of the title,” he says.
According to its charter, United Mission provides “spiritual guidance” in addition to aid to fire and disaster victims.
Lewis, who has had no religious training, is providing the spiritual guidance. He describes United Mission as non-sectarian although a cross and a crown are pictured on mission stationary [sic].
Lewis says he takes no salary as director of United Mission. He had been considering drawing $100 a week from the charity since he has recently become unemployed, but abandoned the idea on advice from an Internal Revenue Service consultant.
Until March 16, Lewis was an engineer in the boiler room of the Camden County Courthouse. He was fired from the job, which he had held for less than a year, for failure to report to work, according to personnel records in the county administrator’s office.
Lewis said that the county wanted him to shift from night work to day work, and that such a schedule would have interfered with his work for the mission.
OTHER incorporators of the United Mission, which was originally incorporated under the name Christian Salvation Mission Army, Rescue Workers (not to be confused with the Salvation Mission Army Rescue Workers of Peter Candelori) are Lewis’s wife Betty Lou; William J. Weyman, a parking meter officer in Camden; Lewis Sr., Lewis’s deceased father, and James L. Piliro of Camden.
United Mission solicitors, according to Lewis, were usually poor, elderly men who received as payment 15 per cent of their collections in Philadelphia and 15 to 25 per cent of their collections in New Jersey. Lewis employed four men in Philadelphia and one in New Jersey.
Lewis recently abandoned the practice of using paid solicitors and now uses only volunteers instead. “I think people kind of resent paid solicitors,” he explained.
LAST August 8, Lewis was convicted in Camden County court on a charge of carnal abuse. He was sentenced to New Jersey state prison for not less than one or more than two years. The sentence was suspended. He was placed on five years’ probation and is paying off a $1,000 fine at $7 a week.
Eight years earlier, Lewis was convicted for the same offense in the same court and was sentenced to an indefinite term in the Allendale state prison. That sentence was suspended.
IN Runnemede on Feb. 18, one of Lewis’s solicitors, Robert Lalli, was found guilty in municipal court of soliciting without a permit. He was fined $50 and $10 court costs.
Lewis said he fired Lalli, but believes that Lalli was confused as to where he was allowed to solicit. Lalli, a resident of Runnemede, was given a United Mission certificate to solicit in Philadelphia, not in New Jersey, Lewis claimed.
United Mission Army solicitors are banned in Bellmawr. Police there say one of Lewis’s solicitors misrepresented himself while collecting door-to-door in October, 1970.
According to police chief Edward Garrity, “The solicitor was saying ‘rescue workers’ and didn’t give the organization’s full name. I don’t think the people understood him.”
LEWIS’ method of fund distribution is haphazard at best. Sometimes, Lewis said, he will read about fire victims in a newspaper and volunteer his services.
Other claims are referred to him by the Camden police and fire departments and governmental agencies such as the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Governor’s Branch Office in Philadelphia.
Lewis says, in the case of disaster, his standard donation is $10 for each child involved, but the figure varies according to need. Such arbitrary dispersion of funds is common to all three charities.
Lewis, who says he has always been interested in helping people, has been known to Camden citizens previously as director of REACT, the now-defunct citizens band radio road emergency club.
Grand Jury to Probe Rescue Corps
Camden Courier-Post —
By RENEE WINKLER / Courier-Post Staff
A CAMDEN COUNTY grand jury investigation is scheduled to begin Oct. 18 into the alleged fraudulent operation of a rescue organization by a Camden couple.
A spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor’s office said today the investigation is expected to take some three to four weeks.
Meanwhile, the spokesman, Edward Bandoch, said, investigators are attempting to locate solicitors for the organization—The Rescue Corps—formerly the United Missions Rescue Corps to obtain further information.
ANNOUNCEMENT of the investigation today follows Monday’s arrest of Rescue Corps controllers Lewis T. Lewis, 39, of the 2000 block of Berwick Street, Camden, and his wife, Betty Lou, also 39, who were charged with fraudulently obtaining $135,000 over nine years under the guise of collecting for a religious organization to help disaster victims and needy children.
Lewis was charged with conspiracy to defraud the public, misappropriation of funds, embezzlement, false swearing and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was being held today in the Camden County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.
MRS. LEWIS, charged with conspiracy to defraud and misuse of corporate funds, was released Monday on a $10,000 recognizance bond after the two were arraigned in Camden before Superior Court Judge Leon A. Wingate Jr.
Assistant Camden County prosecutor Harold Kasselman said only a small percentage of the funds collected was given to disaster victims. He said organization records include some canceled checks indicating contributions to the victims of the 1977 Johnstown flood, but most of the funds collected either were kept by the solicitors or by Lewis.
Figures were not available on how much money was collected, but Kasselman alleged Lewis put $15,000 a year for nine years into an escrow account.
He said Lewis encouraged the solicitors, mainly teen-agers, to keep a good share of the money as their payment for working for him. Lewis allegedly provided his workers with certificates and documents, which stated they were bona fide collectors for the church.
IN ADDITION to the charges linked to the charitable organization, the Lewises are charged with fraudulently accepting welfare assistance from Camden County between 1974 and 1978. The amount of the welfare assistance was not available Monday either from the prosecutor’s office or the welfare board.
Judge Denies High Bail for Rescue Corps Leader
Camden Courier-Post —
By RENEE WINKLER / Courier-Post Staff
A Superior Court judge in Camden has turned down a prosecutor’s request for bail of a quarter-million dollars for the leader of the Rescue Corps, who was indicted Wednesday for fraud and embezzlement.
Superior Court Judge Leon A. Wingate Jr. set bail Thursday at $50,000 for Lewis T. Lewis Jr., 39, of the 2000 block Berwick Street, Camden. He continued a $10,000 personal recognizance bond for Lewis’ wife, Betty Lou, also 39. The amount of the bond had been set in October by Wingate when the couple was charged with fraudulently obtaining 175,000 over five years by using the name of the religious group.
On Wednesday, Lewis, his wife and a lieutenant in the organization were named in a 109-count indictment. In addition to fraud and embezzlement, they are charged with misuse of collected funds, contributing to the delinquency of minors, welfare fraud, perjury and incorporation for fraudulent purposes.
No date has been set for the third suspect named in the indictment, Harold McDaniels, 23, of the 200 block Bank Street, Deptford, to enter a plea to the 19 criminal charges against him.
The Rescue Corps claims to assist needy persons and to send financial help to victims of floods, fires and other disasters. It is supported solely by contributions, most of them given to solicitors who canvass neighborhoods. Many of the solicitors are teen-agers.
In asking Wingate to set bail for Lewis at $250,000, Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Harold Kasselman said a six-week grand jury investigation showed that Lewis organized a criminal enterprise that operated in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and reached to Texas and Florida.
He said evidence was presented during the investigation that Lewis planned to flee to another state after obtaining false identification papers.
Kasselman added that Lewis has a criminal record, including two convictions for carnal abuse and one for welfare fraud. He is unemployed, the prosecutor said, and lives in a house rented from the Camden Housing Authority.
The attorney for Lewis and his wife, William Rosenblatt, argued against the high bail, referring to Lewis’ prior history of appearing in court when needed.
Fraud Deal: Guilty…54 Times
Camden Courier-Post —
By RENEE WINKLER / Courier-Post Staff
The leader of the Rescue Corps, an incorporated group that claimed to distribute funds to needy children and disaster victims, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Camden to 54 charges ranging from lewdness and welfare fraud to embezzlement and conspiracy.
Lewis T. Lewis Jr., 39, of the 2000 block Berwick Street, Camden, entered the plea as part of an agreement in which Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Harold Kasselman guaranteed him a prison term of seven to 10 years.
The maximum term on the charges to which Lewis pleaded is 134 years. He had been indicted on another 42 charges, all of which will be dismissed when he is sentenced by Superior Court Judge I.V. DiMartino.
No date was set for sentencing.
Another part of the plea bargain calls for the assessment of a $5,000 fine against Lewis and an order that he pay $1,000 to the United Way for distribution among children’s charities in Camden County.
HIS WIFE, Betty Lou Lewis, 42, also pleaded guilty to two of nine charges against her. She will receive a one-to-three year suspended sentence and will be fined $250.
She also will be required to dissolve the Rescue Corps before she is released from probation, according to a separate plea bargain with Kasselman.
Both Lewis and his wife were represented by Camden attorney William M. Rosenblatt.
During the hearing, Lewis recalled events leading to the 54 charges he admitted.
Specific sentences include a term of three to four years for the carnal abuse of a teen-age girl with whom Lewis lived for three years. The woman, now 18 and living in Philadelphia, had a child by Lewis and lived with him in a house he fraudulently obtained from the Camden Housing Authority. To obtain that house, Lewis told authority officials he had been deserted by his wife and needed a home for himself and his 12-year-old son.
HE ALSO admitted encouraging the teen-ager to engage in lewd acts with another man. He participated in and filmed those acts, according to one of the criminal charges that will be dismissed.
The Rescue Corps was established in 1969 and was financed through contributions given to door-to-door solicitors. Most of those solicitors kept a varying percentage of the contributions, turning over the rest to Lewis or one of his associates.
Kasselman said Tuesday he could not estimate how much was collected, since the organization kept no records and Lewis was not even advised by his solicitors of their take.
Corps Head Admits to 54 Charges
Continued from Page 3
Lewis, who left school in the seventh grade and worked as a boiler engineer for the City of Camden before setting up the fraudulent charity, admitted pocketing $4,000 of the contributions a year for six years.
He originally was charged with taking $15,000 a year, but Kasselman agreed to the lower amount because of evidence deficiencies.
LEWIS admitted giving identification documents to 26 different people to enable them to obtain permits to solicit. Among those were Douglas Gordon and his wife, Leona, both formerly of Gloucester Township.
Gordon, 42, was arrested last summer and pleaded guilty to several fraud charges last fall. He was sentenced to three to five years in state prison but the sentence was suspended in February because he cooperated with the prosecutor’s office in the investigation of Lewis.
On Tuesday, Lewis also admitted accepting $11,843 in welfare assistance between January 1974 and November 1978 while he was receiving income from the Rescue Corps. He admitted an accompanying charge of accepting $5,165 in Medicaid payments over the same period.
Lewis told DiMartino he “didn’t want to give the impression that the corps did not help people. We helped hundreds of people and thousands of dollars went out.”
After the hearing, Kasselman said an audit showed the Rescue Corps sent a $2,100 check in 1977 to benefit the victims of the Johnstown, Pa., flood and paid another $500 to fire victims over the last several years. Kasselman added that many of the alleged fire victims were Lewis’ street workers.
N.J. Man Accused of Holding Woman Hostage 6 Weeks
Philadelphia Inquirer —
By Sandra McIntosh / Special to The Inquirer
A Woolwich Township man, accused of holding an 18-year-old Philadelphia woman hostage in his home since Feb. 12, was arraigned in Superior Court in Gloucester County yesterday.
Lewis T. Lewis, 44, of Paulsboro-Swedesboro Road, is charged with unlawful confinement, sexual assault and making terroristic threats. The victim, whose name is being withheld by The Inquirer because of the nature of the charges, was found wandering in neighboring Swedesboro on Saturday with three sets of handcuffs, linked to form a chain, still hanging from her wrist.
Kathy Lipscomb, an investigator for the major crimes unit of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office, told Superior Court Judge Elliott G. Heard Jr. that she interviewed the woman Saturday at the Woolwich Township police station.
“She said she had been held as a hostage in the home of Lewis T. Lewis since Feb. 12, 1986,” Lipscomb said. “She had been bound with handcuffs, clothesline and electrical cord and was forced to perform sexual acts and was threatened with violence if she refused to go along.”
Lipscomb said the victim, who she said has a history as a “chronic runaway,” met Lewis in November when he picked her up hitchhiking.
Lipscomb said the victim escaped by using the lid of a relish jar to saw through the handcuff chain and then by leaping from a second-story bedroom window.
“She’s really in remarkable shape for what she’s been through,” Lipscomb said. She said the victim was treated at a local hospital for a minor infection and a slight bruise to one knee before being taken to a women’s shelter.
At yesterday’s proceedings, Lewis, 44, a slight, balding man with an unkempt beard, seemed confused. At one point, he asked Heard to lower his bail.
“I want a bail reduction so I can keep my job so I can fight the case,” Lewis told Heard before the judge could silence him. Heard then warned Lewis not to make any further comments without an attorney.
At the conclusion of Lipscomb’s testimony, Lewis asked Heard if he could question the investigator, but Heard refused.
According to Lipscomb, Lewis worked as a rescue mission captain at a Philadelphia shelter for the homeless and as a boilermaker at Glassboro State College. He also maintained a residence in Philadelphia.
A search of Lewis’ Woolwich home turned up a clothesline tied to a closet door and electrical cord tied to the foot of the bed in a room similar to the one described by the victim, Lipscomb told Heard. Additionally, videocassette tapes were confiscated from Lewis’ car and home, although their contents were not disclosed.
At the conclusion of testimony, Heard told Lewis that it “is probable that unlawful and terroristic acts were committed, and that you committed these acts,” and he ordered that the charges be forwarded to the Gloucester County grand jury. Heard continued Lewis’ bail at $100,000 cash, which was set at the time of Lewis’ arrest Saturday.
Lower Bail Denied in Hostage Case
Philadelphia Inquirer —
By Sandra McIntosh / Special to The Inquirer
A Gloucester County Superior Court judge refused to reduce bail yesterday for a Woolwich Township man charged with holding an 18-year-old Philadelphia woman hostage for six weeks.
Judge Elliott G. Heard Jr. denied the request to lower the $100,000 cash bail that was set for Lewis T. Lewis, after Assistant County Prosecutor Steven Sand told the judge that Lewis had been convicted of a sexual offense in Camden County.
Lewis, who was arrested Saturday, was charged with unlawful confinement, sexual assault and making terroristic threats. The victim, whose name is being withheld by The Inquirer because of the nature of the charges, was found wandering in neighboring Swedesboro earlier in the day with three sets of handcuffs, linked to form a chain, still hanging from her wrist.
The woman told investigators from the prosecutor’s office that Lewis had used handcuffs, clothesline and electrical cord to keep her in his Paulsboro-Swedesboro Road home since Feb. 12, and that she had been forced to perform sexual acts after he threatened her with violence.
Jeffrey Dragon, Lewis’ attorney, confirmed that his client had a former sexual-offense conviction, as well as a conviction for fraud, in Camden County, but Dragon said he could not elaborate on the details of the cases.
An assistant prosecutor for Camden County confirmed that Lewis was convicted of sexual offenses in May 1979 and was sentenced to seven to 10 years in prison, but the prosecutor declined to disclose the charges. The prosecutor said that the sentence was ultimately reduced to five to seven years and that Lewis was released after serving slightly more than three years.
Three other spokesmen within the county prosecutor’s office also said they were unable or unwilling to release any details of the case.
Dragon argued in the bail-reduction motion that his client has maintained he is innocent of the charges, that the woman voluntarily lived with him, and that he would be unable to raise the money for his defense if kept in prison.
Dragon said Lewis had maintained a full-time job as a maintenance worker at Glassboro State College for the two to three years, and hoped, if released soon, that he could return to the position. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office also said Lewis worked as a rescue-mission captain at a Philadelphia shelter for the homeless.
Sand, the assistant county prosecutor, opposed the bail reduction, citing Lewis’ criminal history and the serious nature of the charges, and Heard agreed.
“The criminal history of the accused, coupled with the serious charges, may cause the defendant to flee the area,” Heard said.
Teen Retracts Hostage Tale; Man Released
Philadelphia Inquirer —
By Sandra McIntosh / Special to The Inquirer
A man accused of holding an 18-year-old Philadelphia woman hostage in his home for five weeks was released on bail yesterday after the woman was arrested and charged with giving police false information.
Lewis T. Lewis, 44, of Woolwich Township, was released from Gloucester County Jail yesterday after posting $2,000 bail. Earlier in the day, Superior Court Judge Elliot G. Heard Jr. reduced Lewis’ bail from $100,000 cash to 10 percent of $20,000 after Assistant Prosecutor Steven Sand said the woman, Gerry L. Schaeffer, submitted an affidavit retracting her earlier statements.
Sand said Schaeffer delivered the affidavit to the public defender’s office Tuesday, asking that all charges against Lewis be dropped because “he is not guilty of the charges.” She also said in the statement that she would not testify against Lewis, Sand said.
Prosecutor Richard E. Hickey 3d said his office agreed to the bail reduction, but added, “This consent to reduction in no way indicates we are abandoning this case.”
Lewis was charged with unlawful confinement, sexual assault and making terroristic threats after Schaeffer was found wandering the streets of Swedesboro March 22 with three sets of handcuffs, linked to form a chain, dangling from her wrist.
At that time, Schaeffer told investigators that Lewis had held her against her will in his Paulsboro-Swedesboro Road home since Feb. 12, using handcuffs, clothesline and electrical cord to keep her confined and forcing her to perform sexual acts. She said she escaped by sawing through her handcuffs with a relish-jar lid and jumping from a second-story window.
When contacted Wednesday by an investigator from the prosecutor’s office, Sand said, Schaeffer refused to explain why she was changing her story and said she was planning on leaving the state. She was arrested Wednesday to prevent her from leaving the area, Hickey said.
At the hearing yesterday, Heard set bail at $5,000 on Schaeffer’s charge. She must post 10 percent of that amount to secure her release.