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Notorious '60s Fugitive Finally Faces Judgment

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 16, 2007

TAMPA - After skipping bail in a 1965 mail fraud case, former Florida haberdasher Joseph Adjmi rebuilt his life as Joe Klein, a women's clothier on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, Spain.

He married, fathered two daughters who adore him, and retired in the United Kingdom, according to his attorney, Greg Kehoe.

By outward appearances, life was good.

But Adjmi says he spent his life looking over his shoulder, always afraid he would be arrested. Kehoe said Adjmi suffered from anxiety-related mental illness and tried to commit suicide.

Kehoe has said Adjmi has struggled with depression for several years and has had several psychotic episodes.

If he had it to do over again, a federal judge asked Adjmi Thursday at his sentencing, would he do the same thing?

"No!" he declared emphatically. "Not at all! No way! Absolutely not! I had too much mental aggravation, always thinking, 'Am I going to get caught today?'" Whenever he went to a different city, he said, he feared the law would catch up with him.

"It was horrible," he said. "It was horrific. I drank and drank and drank."

Now stooped and suffering from cataracts, the 71-year-old defendant might have been paroled by the time he was 30 had he not walked away from a 10-year sentence for mail fraud, Kehoe said.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew sentenced Adjmi to a year and a day in prison for jumping bail. Although the judge went along with a plea agreement and made Adjmi's bail-jumping sentence concurrent to the mail fraud term, the parole board may take Adjmi's fugitive status into consideration and delay his release for six months to a year beyond the time he would have served just for mail fraud, Kehoe said.

Under the old laws that covered Adjmi's actions, prisoners typically became eligible for parole after serving about one-third of their sentence. Federal prisoners now must serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.

Kehoe said Adjmi sold his store in Majorca, Klein's Design, and went to the United Kingdom because his wife was a British citizen. Now divorced, Adjmi went to Cuba looking for a warm spot to vacation and was thinking of buying an apartment there when he was arrested and thrown into a Cuban prison.

Kehoe said that contrary to some reports, Adjmi was not involved in illicit activities in Cuba. He was captured because Cuban authorities noticed a problem with his passport, the attorney said.

Jailed in Cuba for two years, Adjmi was beaten repeatedly, Kehoe said.

Once part of a father-and-sons team known as the "crying Adjmis" because of their weepy sales pitches for their Miami retail store, Adjmi and his father, Leon, both fled after being convicted of using the mail to file fraudulent insurance claims.

According to news clippings detailing the Adjmis' legal troubles in the early 1960s, the men were Miami bric-a-brac merchants accused of bilking an insurance company by filing claims for cheap goods they claimed were expensive items destroyed in a fire.

After the Adjmis vanished, the insurance company that posted their bail tried to have them declared legally dead. Attorneys said relatives and friends didn't know where the Adjmis were and assumed they died.

The Adjmis had a previous conviction of fleecing a 72-year-old Miami widow out of more than $1 million.

The trial was such a headline maker that the case was transferred to Tampa from Miami.

As the news clippings faded, so did interest in the Adjmis. One reporter and no spectators were in court Thursday for Adjmi's sentencing.

Kehoe told the judge that Adjmi's father died and is buried in Majorca. If he were alive, he would be 101, Kehoe said. The attorney suggested officials might want to dismiss the charges against Leon Adjmi to clear the court calendar.

Bucklew said it was up to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hoffer to make a motion to dismiss the case.

Hoffer demurred. "I ain't doing that at this time," he said.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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