The Rothman Scandal (72 page)

The Rothman lawyers recommended settlement, but an outraged Ho refused, shouting, “Now I'm rich, every pipple wants my money! Nothing to the pervert!” And so the case dragged expensively on.

An even more bizarre lawsuit had descended on the company. In Iowa, a woman named Reba Slobenska claimed that Ho's paper, the
Fort Dodge Clarion
, had libeled her by claiming that she had given birth to a three-headed baby and then had sold it to a circus for a dollar. The story, which several of Ho's tabloids ran every three or four years, in this instance somehow failed to include the fact that the alleged event had occurred in Rumania in 1801. And by a most unfortunate coincidence, the Iowa woman's name was the same as the Rumanian woman's—Reba Slobenska. Reba was asking for $100,000,000.

At the same time, union-organizing activity was in the air at Ho's newspapers, exacerbating his worries and problems. His employees were requesting, then demanding, all sorts of outrageous benefit plans, including coverage for dental care, membership in health clubs and spas, and—to Ho, the most outrageous demand of all—coverage of psychiatrists' fees. Ho had responded by announcing that he would fire all his employees and, if need be, shut down his entire operations, rather than accede to such demands.

And so, in light of all these pressures, it was perhaps not surprising that Ho Rothman's response to Skipper Purdy's demand was swift and brutal.

The small room, just to the left of “Rothmere” 's entrance hall—up a short flight of marble steps, past where the Augustus Saint-Gaudens bronze Daphne used to stand—was called the Gun Room. This was where Ho Rothman kept his collection of small firearms. He had started the collection in the early 1920s.

His first purchase had been a German carbine with a double wheel-lock, a handsome specimen, from circa 1585, and over the years the collection grew. It included a rare Indian matchlock from the fifteenth century; an early eighteenth-century musketoon that had belonged to one of Washington's officers in the Revolution; a breech-loader reputed to have belonged to Henry VIII, who was known to have owned at least three; an early Garand .30-caliber semiautomatic that was used to defend the Alamo; many vintage single-shot rifles by such English and American makers as Sharpe, Ballard, Remington, Winchester, Savage, and Colt; plus examples that showed the evolution of small arms—from antique Spanish hand-cannons through matchlock, snaphance, flintlock, percussion, and breech-loader automatic pistols.

The guns were kept in mint, working condition, though they were never loaded. At Aunt Lily's insistence, all the guns in the Gun Room were kept in locked glass cases where they could be displayed but not touched, and only Ho Rothman was supposed to know where the key was hidden. With two young boys growing up in the house, Lily Rothman was terrified that one of her sons might even touch the guns, much less play with them. But was it ever possible to hide anything from a pair of active, preteenage boys? Herbert and Arthur found the key's hiding place soon enough and, whenever they could, they would steal into the Gun Room, unlock the gun cases, and play the usual games, ambushing each other behind chairs and sofas and tables. (“Bang, bang! You're dead!” “Am not! You missed me!”) Aunt Lily would have been horrified if she had known about this.

By the 1950s, Ho Rothman's gun collection had become quite valuable. An insurance appraiser had placed the collection's worth at $900,000. When the entire collection went under the hammer at Sotheby's in 1975, it brought $1,750,000 from a West German dealer.

That afternoon, the threesome moved from “Rothmere” 's library to the Gun Room, where it was decided that one of the small breech-loading pistols would be easiest for a woman to handle.

That night, Alex Rothman wrote the letter, on pale blue “Rothmere” letterhead, that would be mailed to the Manhattan post office box. In her distinctive, sharply pointed longhand, she wrote:
To think that I ever believed in you … that I ever believed I loved you.…

In the Newspaper Room of the New York Public Library, Joel Rothman carried the spool of microfilm to an idle machine, and threaded the film on its appropriate sprockets and spindles. He adjusted the focus, and then fast-forwarded the film, and the events of the year 1973, as reported by the
New York Times
, flickered by on the viewer in front of him. When he got to September, he slowed the reel, and when he got to the date of October 14, he stopped the machine altogether, and began turning the machine with its handcrank. On page B17, he found it.

STEVEN J. ROTHMAN, 29;

PUBLISHING HEIR
A SUICIDE

TARRYTOWN
,
N
.
Y
.
OCT
. 13. Steven Joseph Rothman, 29, an heir to the Rothman Publishing fortune, was found by his wife today, hanged in the boathouse of “Rothmere,” the Rothman family estate in this affluent Westchester suburb. Mr. Rothman had apparently secured a noose to an overhead rafter of the boat dock, and then, standing in a canoe, had kicked the canoe out from under him. The canoe was found floating in the water a few yards away. A suicide note, addressed to his wife, directed her to the scene. The contents of the note were not revealed, but Mr. Rothman was said to be despondent over the downturn in revenues at
Mode
, the fashion magazine, of which he was editor-in-chief.
Mode
is one of many publications controlled by the Rothman family publishing group.

Mr. Rothman was born in New York City February 3, 1944. An honors student at Princeton, he joined
Mode
shortly after his graduation in 1965. In a bizarre coincidence, Mr. Rothman's death is the second to have occurred in “Rothmere” 's boathouse within the last month. On September 20, Mr. Rothman's wife, the former Alexandra Lane, was attacked by an assailant in the boathouse while reading manuscripts for her husband's magazine. After a violent struggle, Mrs. Rothman, who was not seriously injured, was able to shoot and kill her assailant, who demanded jewels and cash. The assailant was later identified as a 39-year-old ex-convict and drifter, wanted for parole violation in Kansas.

And in another bizarre touch to today's death, Mr. Rothman, when found, was wearing women's clothing. A spokesman close to the Rothman family and company, who spoke only on the condition that he not be identified, explained the odd circumstances thusly: “Steven Rothman hated editing
Mode
. He had no interest in women's fashions, and hated the idea of working for a fashion magazine. But his father and grandfather insisted that he ‘get his feet wet' and prove himself with one of the smaller magazines, such as
Mode
, before he could be promoted to a publication more suited to his disposition and liking. Dressing in women's clothes before taking his own life was Steven's final act of defiance to his father and grandfather. It was his way of telling them what he thought of how they had mismanaged his career. It was also an example of his black sense of humor. Steven was a wonderful man, and his loss is a great tragedy to all of us who knew and loved him.”

In addition to his widow, Mr. Rothman is survived by a son, Joel Steven Rothman, age 16 months; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Rothman; and his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Rothman, all of Tarrytown. There will be no funeral. A memorial service will be scheduled later this month.

Joel read the story through once more. Then he jumped to his feet, dashed to the men's room, and threw up in the toilet.

When he returned to the machine, his reel of film was still in it and, even though he had heard the story before, he turned the tape backward to September twenty-first. There he found it on page one.

EDITOR'S WIFE
SLAYS INTRUDER

TARRYTOWN
,
N
.
Y
.
SEPT
. 20. Mrs. Steven Rothman, wife of the editor-in-chief of
Mode
, shot and killed an intruder and would-be assailant at the Rothman family's suburban estate today. The shooting, which occurred at approximately 3:20
P.M.
(EDT) today, followed an attempt by the shooting victim to at first rob and then sexually assault the young Mrs. Rothman.

The victim's face was completely blown away by a series of six gunshots, but he was later identified, through fingerprints, as Nils Johanssen, 39, an ex-convict and drifter, who had somehow managed to penetrate the normally heavily secured grounds of “Rothmere,” the Rothman country residence. Police speculated that the burglar had first tried to enter the main house on the estate. Finding that locked and impenetrable, he made his way to the estate's boathouse, on the edge of the Hudson River, which was not locked, where he encountered Mrs. Rothman, 29, who was alone reading manuscripts for her husband's fashion magazine. Though the boathouse is rarely used by the family, Mrs. Rothman told police, “I often go there to read and be away from ringing phones.”

“It was the maids' day off,” Mrs. Rothman told police. “I was reading in the Deck Room of the boathouse. Suddenly this strange man appeared. He had a carving knife in one hand. He demanded cash and jewels. I told him I had no cash whatsoever, and the only jewelry I had was what I was wearing—a triple strand of pearls and my wedding ring. I offered him these. This made him very angry, and he said he was going to rape me. I ran to a table, and was able to get my hands on one of Ho Rothman's pistols. The man brandished the knife at me. I pulled the trigger.”

H. O. “Ho” Rothman is Mrs. Rothman's husband's grandfather, president and chief executive officer of Rothman Communications, Inc., the publishing and broadcasting conglomerate which publishes
Mode
. The senior Mr. Rothman has a well-known collection of small firearms.

The carving knife was found near the victim's body, and was identified as having come from the kitchen of the Rothman boathouse, through which the intruder apparently gained entry.

Mrs. Rothman could not be reached for comment today, and was described by a family spokesman as “in a state of near-shock, and under sedation.” …

There were only one or two faintly suspicious notes in the
Times
report.

Police officers, who gathered in the blood-spattered Deck Room—a large glassed-in room overlooking the river—of the Rothman boathouse, had come in response to an anonymous telephone call, presumably from someone within the Rothman organization. Police questioned why Mrs. Rothman did not immediately call the police following the shooting. Instead, she apparently telephoned Mr. H. O. Rothman at his Manhattan office, and had a 20-minute telephone conversation with him before police were notified. “I was hysterical,” she replied. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I didn't know what to do. I don't even remember what I did.”

Police also questioned why Mrs. Rothman had found it necessary to empty all six chambers of the automatic weapon in order to ward off her assailant, when one shot would have sufficed to at least temporarily disarm him. “I was hysterical,” she repeated. “I was terrified. I fired one shot, then another. I don't really remember how many shots I fired.”

Another unanswered question is how Mrs. Rothman's assailant who, the
Times
learned, was also wanted for parole violation in the state of Kansas, planned to make his getaway, if burglary of the otherwise unoccupied Rothman estate was his intent. Johanssen apparently got off a northbound train, the 1:59 out of Grand Central, at the Tarrytown station, and took a taxi to the Rothman estate. Tarrytown taxi driver Carlos Flores recalls picking up a man of Johanssen's description at the station platform, and driving him to the entrance gates of “Rothmere,” and dropping him there. “It seems a funny way to plan a big heist,” said Tarrytown Police Chief Maurice Litwin, “to come in a taxi, and then walk away, in broad daylight, with the loot. It's a 3½-mile walk back from the Rothman place to the station.” A Rothman family spokesman, however, suggested that Johanssen may have had an accomplice waiting in a car outside the boathouse who, when the burglary plans went awry, drove away from the scene in haste.

This further suggested that, though no other persons were supposed to be on the premises at the time, other than Mrs. Rothman, the presumed accomplice may have been an “insider.” This would explain how Johanssen passed so easily through “Rothmere” 's normally heavily guarded gates. Chief Litwin announced that the 27 members of “Rothmere” 's household and gardening staff would be questioned.

Joel turned off the machine, and the viewing screen went blank. He had never thought of it before, but it did seem strange that two men should have died in the boathouse within a month of each other. Could there possibly have been a connection? But what connection could there possibly have been? Then he thought: Where was I? My mother was supposed to have been all alone at “Rothmere” at the time. But I was only fifteen months old. So where was I?

The Rothman newspapers reported the event in even more lurid detail. They spoke of “the tiny, fragile, defenseless Alexandra Rothman, a new mother of an infant son,” and of her “burly, hulking 6'3” sex-crazed assailant,” who was “a hardened criminal with a long record of heinous offenses ranging from forgery to manslaughter, attempted rape, criminal trespass, burglary, petty larceny, and grand theft,” who had “slipped through the holes of the American justice system,” and who had come at Alexandra Rothman “wielding a nine-inch lethal blade with lust burning in his tiny, red-rimmed, piglike eyes, and a snarl on his moistened lips, intent on rape, robbery, and possibly even murder and mutilation.” Alexandra Rothman, the Rothman newspapers claimed, had “with her quick thinking and doughty courage slain the monster who threatened to defile her innocence and sweet young motherhood,” and had “performed an act of heroism hardly surpassed in history since Joan of Arc went off to fight for Christ” in ridding the world “of an unredeemable, unrepentant piece of human scum.”