John J. Lippon (1928 in Jail)

LIPPON

Posted By: Volunteer
Date: 10/17/2012 at 11:34:07

Le Mars Globe Post, January 12, 1928
Le Mars, Iowa

COUNTY MUST SUPPORT DESTITUTES
FEDERAL AND STATE MEN MAKE RAID

John J. Lippon In Jail For 8 Months Or So--
Expect Family Addition

Plymouth county taxpayers were handed a nice bag to hold when federal and state agents raided the home of John J. Lippon, in the southwest part of the county, found some corn mash, and hauled Lippon into the Plymouth county district court, refusing to take him into federal court.

Lippon is now in the county jail, having waived to the grand jury, and his family is about to begin drawing on the county for support for the next eight months or so.

The Lippon family has been playing in hard luck lately. Some weeks ago, while they were down in Sioux City in a truck, they hit a bump and a small child was jarred out of Mrs. Lippon's arms and fell to the paving, receiving injuries from which it died.

The federal and state men did not raid the Lippon home on a federal warrant, because the federal courts are particular about issuing warrants and it is easier to raid under the state law. The only trouble is that the costs of handling the cases all go on the county taxpayers. Local officers discussed the possibility of turning Lippon over to the federal court but the federal men didn't want him in their court, and as he has had three previous convictions in federal court in Nebraska, he would have to be sentenced at last a year in the federal court at Sioux City, with Plymouth couonty supporting his family anyway.

The Lippon family, subtracting the child which was recently killed, still includes three children, and another one is expected in about a month or so. The expenses incident to that happy event will be borne by the county, as the father is in jail. The Lippon family has absolutely nothing. Everything in the house was recently sold at a constable's sale. The wife and children have absolutely nothing to live on.

Besides the mash barrel nothing was found at the Lippon home. The still and other apparatus had been removed. The officers said that in all probablility the still and other equipment is furnished by some Sioux City capitalist, who lends the equipment to various "assistants" in Plymouth county. The stills are moved frequently, first to one place and then another, so that by the time the neighbors get suspicious the plant has been moved elsewhere.

In the mean time the federal courts and the federal agents are free to conduct their raids on poor assistant bootleggers while the principle booze bosses are unmolested, and Plymouth county supports Papa Lippon in the county jail and his unfortunate family outside the jail.