Selective Service Evasion and Automatic Induction
Quartermasters coordinated the continuous movement of passenger train cars, field uniforms, and medical supply crates to transport nearly three million civilian recruits into training cantonments after the passage of the Selective Service Act of 1917. Logistical officers and local draft boards fed, inoculated, equipped, and assigned every inductee on rigid timetables so that transatlantic troop transports could depart Atlantic harbors without delay. Municipal boards maintained dense paper ledgers listing call numbers, physical examination records, and travel vouchers for local men bound for the camps. Grover Cleveland Bergdoll registered for conscription under the Selective Service Act of 1917 but failed to report for his mandatory physical examination and call-up orders in August 1918. Bergdoll abandoned his Philadelphia draft district, gathered large sums of cash, and disappeared into hiding instead of reporting to his assigned military induction center. Draft officials flagged his unfulfilled quota slot, declared him delinquent, and forwarded his case files to military authorities for punitive processing.
Officers acted swiftly on the forwarded case files to assert direct command over the absent registrant. The War Department classified Bergdoll as an active-duty deserter, creating a controversial legal precedent that established military jurisdiction over civilian draft registrants who failed to report. Judge advocates determined that the formal mailing of an induction notice legally converted a civilian registrant into a soldier subject to the Articles of War, bypassing civilian courts and grand juries. General Staff officers in Washington favored this aggressive doctrine because it allowed military police to pursue draft evaders under wartime desertion statutes that carried severe prison sentences. Army leaders argued that wartime mobilization could not tolerate registrants ignoring lawful summons while compliant recruits endured trench warfare in Europe. Military police headquarters issued wanted circulars bearing the photograph of the fugitive, distributing thousands of printed descriptions to federal marshals, municipal police chiefs, and rail terminal agents.
Marshals coordinated with local sheriffs to intercept Bergdoll as the fugitive traveled across the continent in high-powered motorcars. Bergdoll relied on his extensive mechanical training and personal fortune to purchase high-speed automobiles, navigate remote backroads, and stay ahead of pursuit teams across Maryland, Ohio, and the Pacific Northwest. Automobiles driven by the fugitive carried false license plates and extra fuel cans, allowing him to bypass urban rail stations and avoid fixed police checkpoints. Law enforcement agents seized several abandoned cars and conducted stakeouts at regional post offices where Bergdoll received covert communications. Investigators questioned his associates and monitored family bank accounts, gradually constricting his access to cash and reliable hideouts. Informants eventually alerted federal authorities that Bergdoll had traveled back to Pennsylvania and slipped through the gates of his family estate under cover of darkness.
Detectives mobilized a cordon around the property and prepared to force entry into the residence. Federal agents and local police apprehended Bergdoll on January 7, 1920, discovering him concealed within a window seat at his family mansion in Philadelphia after a multi-year evasion. Officers secured the perimeter, forced open the front entryway, and methodically searched the upper floors until a patrolman lifted a padded bench lid and exposed Bergdoll crouched inside a narrow wood box. Policemen disarmed Bergdoll of an automatic handgun, dragged him into the hallway, and locked heavy iron handcuffs onto his wrists. Investigators confiscated travel bags packed with currency, fake identification papers, and road maps from the bedroom before clearing the building. Guards escorted the prisoner down the front steps into an idling police wagon, delivering him directly to military custody for transport to the prison stockade at Fort Jay on Governors Island.
Fort Jay General Court Martial
Sentries marched Bergdoll across the harbor ferry slip and locked him behind the masonry walls of the Fort Jay stockade to await formal arraignment. The United States Army convened a general court-martial at Fort Jay on Governors Island, New York, in March 1920 to prosecute Bergdoll under the 58th Article of War. Judge advocates drafted formal specifications accusing the wealthy prisoner of deserting the service during a national emergency when he ignored his induction notices and fled across state lines. Armed guards escorted Bergdoll from the damp casemates of the old fortification into the second-floor courtroom each morning under heavy security. Uniformed court officers took their seats at long oak tables alongside trial judge advocates, while curious reporters and spectators packed the wooden gallery benches to watch the high-profile desertion case.
Lawyer D. Clarence Gibboney mounted aggressive jurisdictional challenges to halt the military proceedings before prosecutors could introduce witnesses. Defense attorneys argued that the military had no legal right to discipline Bergdoll because he was a private citizen who had never taken an oath of enlistment, worn an issue uniform, or completed standard physical processing at an Army post. Civilian attorneys insisted that draft evasion remained a statutory violation for federal grand juries and civil district courts rather than a panel of Army officers enforcing military penal codes. Judge advocates countered by presenting certified Selective Service ledgers proving that the Philadelphia draft board had properly addressed and mailed the formal induction order to the family estate. The court-martial reaffirmed that non-compliant registrants could be tried by military authorities despite never having taken an oath of enlistment or completed standard physical processing. Colonel presiding officers agreed with the prosecution, ruling that federal conscription statutes automatically transferred delinquent registrants into active service the moment their reporting deadline expired.
Officers presiding over the court closed the record and cleared the chamber to determine the final verdict and penalty. The military tribunal rejected jurisdictional challenges mounted by defense counsel and sentenced Bergdoll to five years of hard labor at the Atlantic Branch Disciplinary Barracks. Commanders had the authority under wartime statutes to impose capital punishment for desertion, but the panel chose prison confinement due to the cessation of active hostilities in Europe. Judge advocates recorded the formal decree in the court ledger, stripping the convicted prisoner of all civil rights and directing that his sentence begin immediately. Spectators in the gallery stood in silence as armed escorts snapped handcuffs onto the wrists of the prisoner and led him out through the heavy double doors of the headquarters building.
Guards marched Bergdoll across the parade ground and delivered him to the prison receiving block inside the disciplinary compound of the fort. Turnkeys stripped the prisoner of his tailored civilian clothing, issued coarse gray disciplinary barracks uniforms, and recorded his physical measurements in the registry ledger. Prison administrators assigned Bergdoll to an individual stone cell equipped with an iron cot, a thin wool blanket, and a barred window overlooking the harbor. Work details required the wealthy former fugitive to perform manual labor alongside common military convicts under the supervision of armed sentries. War Department officials closed the court-martial docket and dispatched telegrams to Washington confirming that Bergdoll was locked inside the island penitentiary to serve his five-year sentence. Staff officers at Fort Jay filed the finalized trial transcripts into the permanent post archives and posted sentry detachments to maintain twenty-four-hour surveillance over the new inmate.
Administrative Approval of the Gold Cache Expedition
Sentries maintaining around-the-clock surveillance outside the stone cell block heard Bergdoll insist that he had access to a vast fortune buried far beyond the walls of Governors Island. Bergdoll convinced War Department officials that he had hidden 150,000 dollars in twenty-dollar gold coins in rural Maryland near Hagerstown while evading the draft. Bullion packed into heavy iron pots and canvas bags sat beneath the woodland floor along a secluded hillside, according to the elaborate statements the prisoner gave during his custodial interviews. Bergdoll insisted to post officers that only his personal physical presence on the ground could identify the landmarks, unearth the metal containers, and transfer the currency to federal custody. Staff officers summarized these interviews into formal reports and dispatched the documents directly to senior army administrators in Washington. Headquarters staff verified that the prisoner had operated extensively throughout western Maryland during his flight from draft detectives, lending apparent credibility to the bizarre treasure story.
Officers analyzed these verification reports to weigh the operational risks of an excursion against the potential financial return of recovering the buried cash. Military authorities justified the excursion under the pretext that the recovered funds would cover the substantial federal penalties and legal expenses of the prisoner. Federal agencies had expended tens of thousands of dollars on nationwide search teams, railroad transport, and complex court-martial proceedings to bring the wealthy fugitive to justice. Judge advocates pointed out that Bergdoll still faced massive financial liabilities, including unpaid fines and court fees that civilian relatives refused to satisfy from family bank accounts. Financial planners assured army commanders that seizing one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold specie would easily offset every public expense incurred during the prosecution. Staff planners drafted formal liability agreements specifying that the recovered gold would transfer straight into army possession before any portion could be credited toward the penalties of the prisoner.
Major General Peter C. Harris, the Adjutant General of the Army, and post authorities reviewed these draft agreements and sanctioned an extraordinary armed mission allowing the prisoner to leave military confinement to unearth the cache. Harris signed the executive authorization documents under the assumption that an armed military escort would maintain continuous physical control over Bergdoll during the entire overland journey. Fort Jay officers received the signed approval and immediately converted the unusual policy concession into a field movement order. Post regulations normally barred convicted felons serving hard labor sentences from leaving the island, but the high-level endorsement effectively suspended normal custodial rules. Staff officers drafted special civilian travel permits for the inmate so that the recovery party could navigate public rail depots without drawing suspicious crowds of reporters or hostile veterans.
Guards selected for the detail gathered at the post armory to draw issue sidearms, service ammunition, and heavy travel packs for the impending mission. Noncommissioned officers loaded two Colt service pistols and checked out field equipment, including shovels and picks intended to excavate the Maryland hillside. Prison turnkeys escorted Bergdoll from his stone casemate into the administration building, replacing his coarse disciplinary uniform with a tailored civilian business suit and a matching hat. Post administrators handed the armed sergeants their written travel orders, expense funds, and strict instructions to bring both the prisoner and the Maryland gold directly back to Fort Jay. Sentry details at the Governors Island dock stood watch as the small party boarded the harbor ferry to begin the overland journey toward the mainland.
Security Failures on the Philadelphia Escort Route
Ferry gangways rattled against the Manhattan slip as Sergeant John O'Hare and Sergeant Calvin York escorted their prisoner onto the pier to begin the cross-country movement by rail. Fort Jay leadership assigned two armed sergeants to escort Bergdoll without utilizing handcuffs, irons, or standard prisoner restraints. Commandant Colonel John E. Hunt had specifically ordered the noncommissioned officers to keep all mechanical security devices locked in post storage lockers so that the traveling group would not attract attention from news reporters or angry military veterans on public trains. Guards allowed Bergdoll to wear civilian clothing to avoid public notice, effectively masking his identity as an incarcerated military convict. Dressed in an expensive three-piece tailored suit and a matching felt hat, Bergdoll boarded the passenger cars looking like any prosperous traveler rather than a convicted deserter serving five years of hard labor. Conductors and civilian commuters packed into the rail coach took no notice of the two armed soldiers sitting beside the wealthy prisoner, completely unaware that a convicted military felon was riding unrestrained along the crowded corridor.
Train wheels ground against the platform rails at Broad Street Station in Philadelphia, where the guards discarded their formal travel itinerary in favor of an unexpected change of direction. The escort party deviated from the direct Maryland transit route to permit Bergdoll an unauthorized overnight layover at his family estate on North 32nd Street in Philadelphia. Defense counsel D. Clarence Gibboney met the soldiers at the terminal and insisted that the party needed to secure a private automobile from the Bergdoll garage before heading into the rugged Maryland hills. Gibboney persuaded York and O'Hare that a powerful roadster would negotiate rural mountain tracks far better than regional train connections, offering a convenient excuse to pause the journey just blocks from the family brewery. Sergeants York and O'Hare lacked clear written route instructions from headquarters, and they accepted the logistical advice of the attorney without telegraphing Fort Jay for command confirmation. Automobile tires kicked up dust along the cobblestone streets of the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood as Gibboney drove the two armed guards and their unchained prisoner directly through the stone gateposts of the Bergdoll residence.
Emma Bergdoll welcomed the two sergeants into the front hall of the mansion, immediately offering them hot food, domestic wine, and comfortable quarters. Servants set out an elaborate dinner in the formal dining room while the soldiers relaxed their vigilance, resting their service sidearms on side tables and treating their ward like an ordinary host rather than a dangerous military convict. Custodial protocols broke down completely as the evening progressed, with neither sergeant conducting a physical search of the premises or securing the multiple exterior doors that led to the surrounding gardens. Guards permitted Bergdoll to retire to his second-floor bedroom alone behind closed doors, failing to establish an overnight watch outside the room or inspect the ground-floor window latches. York and O'Hare slept in adjoining guest rooms on the upper floor, leaving Bergdoll in complete physical control of his familiar surroundings.
Automobile engines rumbled in the carriage house behind the estate as a family driver readied a high-powered touring car for the scheduled departure into Maryland. Sergeants York and O'Hare walked down to the breakfast table and allowed Bergdoll to return upstairs unaccompanied under the belief that he needed to change into heavy field clothing and gather travel expenses from his wardrobe. Bergdoll bypassed his bedroom, slipped through a side hallway, and descended an unmonitored rear service stair into the courtyard. Chauffeur James Romig held the vehicle door open as Bergdoll sprinted across the paved yard and climbed into the passenger seat without attracting the attention of the two soldiers inside the house. Gears engaged with a loud metallic snap as the touring car surged down the driveway, carrying the wealthy fugitive onto the open city avenues and leaving the two armed escorts stranded inside the empty mansion.
Bergdoll Escape and Transatlantic Flight
Sergeants York and O'Hare bolted from the breakfast room toward the street only after the roar of the twelve-cylinder engine faded into the city traffic. Bergdoll gave his guards the slip inside his Philadelphia residence on May 21, 1920, and fled in a high-powered Packard touring car operated by his personal chauffeur. Local telephone lines hummed as the frantic soldiers alerted the Philadelphia police department and dispatched urgent telegraph dispatches to Fort Jay commanders. Patrol officers scattered across municipal intersections and established roadblocks along primary turnpikes, but the speeding automobile had already cleared city boundaries and reached rural backroads. Chauffeur James Romig navigated the Packard along preselected rural routes through Pennsylvania and upstate New York, switching license plates and stopping at discreet, privately owned garages to refuel without drawing the attention of state constabularies. Federal investigators mobilized hundreds of agents to monitor train terminals, maritime docks, and major highway bridges, yet the fugitive stayed ahead of every roadblock by abandoning the car and continuing northward on foot and local branch-line trains.
Bergdoll successfully slipped past nationwide police cordons, crossed the border into Canada, and boarded a vessel bound for Weimar Germany. Canadian immigration authorities at the unmonitored border crossing stamped his forged travel papers without suspecting that the quiet passenger in civilian attire was the target of an American military dragnet. Montreal harbor docks allowed Bergdoll to pay his passage in cash and secure a private cabin aboard a transatlantic freighter setting out across the North Atlantic. Telegraph wires from the Department of Justice alerted European port authorities and consular offices, but ocean liners lacked continuous radio communication with land stations during mid-voyage transit. Steamship engines propelled the vessel past British and Scandinavian maritime checkpoints while the fugitive remained confined below deck under an assumed alias. Harbor pilots guided the ship into the port of Hamburg, where Bergdoll walked down the gangway onto European soil before port police received official extradition descriptions from Washington.
Passenger trains transported Bergdoll across central Germany toward his ancestral homeland along the forested hills of the Neckar River valley. The fugitive established permanent residence in Eberbach, Baden, taking shelter in a hotel owned by his uncle, beyond the reach of existing United States extradition treaties. German authorities refused to surrender Bergdoll because the Weimar constitution prohibited the extradition of individuals with German ancestry, and diplomatic relations between Berlin and Washington remained suspended without an active bilateral treaty following the First World War. Local police officials in Baden recognized the former American draft evader as a legitimate guest of his uncle Karl and granted him residential permits over the furious objections of American diplomats. State Department representatives filed formal diplomatic protests in Berlin demanding the immediate arrest and return of Bergdoll to military custody, but Weimar chancellors had no legal mechanism or political motivation to apprehend a foreign military deserter.
War Department officials in Washington faced an unprecedented international standoff as the fugitive settled openly into daily life at the Gasthof zur Krone in Eberbach. American army intelligence officers and private bounty hunters converged on Baden to conduct clandestine surveillance against the hotel compound. Bergdoll fortified his living quarters with private bodyguards and kept loaded handguns within reach to fend off rogue kidnapping attempts orchestrated by disgruntled American veterans. Military commanders at Fort Jay absorbed blistering public and congressional condemnation as news of the comfortable exile of the fugitive filled front pages across the United States. Judge advocates at the Eastern Department convened formal court-martial boards to try Colonel Hunt, Sergeant York, and Sergeant O'Hare for dereliction of duty and permitting a prisoner to escape through neglect.
Congressional Investigation of War Department Negligence
Courtroom spectators and outraged service veterans denounced these junior-officer trials as an army maneuver to shield senior commanders from public accountability. The American Legion orchestrated nationwide protests and lobbied Congress, demanding public accountability for the preferential treatment afforded to a wealthy draft evader. Legion posts marched through downtown streets, packed municipal halls, and delivered petitions to Washington lawmakers. Discharged soldiers pointed out the bitter contrast between working-class infantrymen dying in French trenches and a millionaire draft dodger escorted in civilian clothes to his private mansion. Veteran delegations crowded into Capitol reception rooms, demanding that federal lawmakers strip the military of exclusive control over the case and launch an open congressional inquiry.
House members answered these veterans by organizing a special select committee under Representative John I. Nolan to investigate the administrative failures surrounding the release of Bergdoll. Nolan and his committee colleagues arranged hearing tables inside Capitol office rooms and issued subpoenas for internal War Department files. Staff investigators gathered passenger manifests, telegraph logs, and written orders exchanged between Fort Jay and headquarters in Washington. Subpoenaed military witnesses sat under oath before the panel, admitting that post leadership had permitted Bergdoll to travel without iron handcuffs, leg irons, or prison garments. Committee members pressed army witnesses to explain why armed guards had allowed the convicted deserter to halt his journey for an unauthorized overnight stay at his Philadelphia residence instead of traveling straight to the Maryland mountains.
Investigators from the congressional committee probed allegations of bribery, administrative incompetence, and high-level complicity within the War Department and the Adjutant General Office to uncover who permitted that fatal detour. Committee lawyers examined bank records, telegraph slips, and personal checkbooks to discover whether Bergdoll family money had secretly influenced army staff officers. Major General Peter C. Harris, the Adjutant General of the Army, took the stand to defend official paperwork bearing his signature that sanctioned the treasure hunt. Nolan presented internal army memos revealing that staff officers had dismissed multiple security warnings and approved the excursion based on nothing more than the unverified claims of hidden gold coins made by Bergdoll. Cross-examinations exposed how high-ranking administrators signed off on special privileges for a wealthy convict while ordinary soldiers remained confined behind disciplinary stockade walls.
Clerks compiled hundreds of pages of sworn testimony into the final public report of the committee, documenting systemic negligence throughout the War Department command network. Nolan presented these findings directly to the House floor alongside recommendations for the criminal prosecution of civilian accomplices who planned the vehicle escape. Committee messengers carried duplicate evidence files and witness transcripts to the Department of Justice for grand jury presentations. War Department administrators responded to the congressional findings by stripping post commandants of unilateral authority to grant off-post prisoner furloughs. Army leaders issued revised custodial regulations requiring heavy iron restraints, continuous armed double-guards, and direct department oversight for all future transfers of general prisoners outside federal stockades.
Courts Martial of Fort Jay Officer Leadership
Guards enforced these stringent transfer regulations across military stockades while judge advocates prepared disciplinary dockets for the personnel involved in the Philadelphia flight. The Army filed formal court-martial charges against Fort Jay commander Colonel John E. Hunt and his subordinate guards for dereliction of duty and permitting a prisoner to escape. Trial judge advocates drafted specific charge sheets under the 61st and 96th Articles of War, focusing on the failure to lock iron restraints onto Grover Cleveland Bergdoll during rail transit. Uniformed court officers assembled the general court-martial tribunal inside the post headquarters building on Governors Island, seating a panel of senior field commanders to judge the defendants. Defense attorneys representing Colonel Hunt, Sergeant John O'Hare, and Sergeant Calvin York laid thick binders of official War Department correspondence across the wooden counsel tables. Counsel argued that the garrison commander and the escort detail had acted strictly within written operational instructions received directly from higher regional headquarters.
Witnesses took the stand to confirm the authenticity of those operational directives and administrative travel vouchers. Court testimony established that high-ranking headquarters officers had approved the itinerary and relaxed security protocols, diffusing direct responsibility across the command structure. Major General Peter C. Harris, the Adjutant General of the Army, had endorsed the gold-recovery trip in signed telegrams dispatched directly to Fort Jay. Eastern Department staff officers had authorized Bergdoll to wear civilian clothes and instructed the escorts to omit visible mechanical restraints to prevent public commotion at passenger depots. Colonel Hunt testified that post commandants possessed no legal authority to overrule travel terms set by the Adjutant General and had ordered his sergeants to follow those parameters. Sergeants O'Hare and York stated under oath that garrison orders explicitly forbade them from drawing their Colt sidearms or placing Bergdoll in handcuffs while traveling through civilian rail cars.
Colonel Hunt and the escort detail were acquitted of criminal negligence, compounding the public relations disaster and institutional embarrassment for the War Department. Newspaper correspondents stationed outside the courtroom telegraphed the not-guilty findings across the country, igniting immediate protests among civilian communities and military veterans. American Legion posts adopted formal resolutions denouncing the verdicts, pointing out that working-class draftees faced harsh penal sentences while wealthy draft evaders received luxury excursions without consequence. Editorial boards in major metropolitan newspapers printed scathing commentaries accusing the military establishment of running sham court proceedings to protect culpable generals in Washington. War Department leaders found themselves unable to counter the public furor, having lost a prominent federal prisoner while failing to hold a single officer legally accountable for the breakdown.
Administrators processed formal retirement paperwork for Colonel Hunt shortly after the tribunal adjourned, allowing the former commandant to leave active service and escape persistent public criticism. Adjutant General Harris approved the departure from the active rolls without imposing disciplinary reductions in rank or pension benefits. Regimental commanders reassigned Sergeant York and Sergeant O'Hare away from military prisons, sending both noncommissioned officers back to regular company duty in line infantry units. War Department clerks packed the trial transcripts, subpoena records, and witness exhibits into heavy wooden storage crates for permanent filing in federal archives. Staff officers at Fort Jay locked the unserved arrest warrants of the fugitive inside the post adjutant safe and returned the island garrison to routine peacetime duties.
Vigilante Kidnapping Operations in Weimar Germany
Soldiers stationed with the American occupation force in the Rhineland refused to let those unserved Fort Jay warrants sit forgotten inside garrison safes while the wealthy draft evader lived in open comfort across the border. American sergeants Franz Zimmer and Carl Naef launched an unauthorized cross-border ambush at the Eberbach train station in January 1921, resulting in gunfire and their imprisonment by German authorities. The two noncommissioned officers had slipped away from their base in Coblenz carrying concealed sidearms, intending to overpower Bergdoll on the railway platform and smuggle him across the frontier into Allied custody. Local police officers and armed railway workers rushed onto the tracks the moment shots rang out, surrounding the two American soldiers before they could drag the fugitive away. German constables confiscated forged travel papers, loaded revolvers, and iron handcuffs from the intruders before locking them inside a regional jail. War Department officials in Washington immediately disavowed the rogue venture, leaving Zimmer and Naef to serve long penal terms in a German prison.
Corliss Hooven Griffis refused to be discouraged by the imprisonment of those soldiers and recruited a gang of American and European conspirators to seize the fugitive by force. Former American officer Corliss Hooven Griffis led an armed raid on the hotel of Bergdoll on August 10, 1923, where Bergdoll shot and killed conspirator Karl Schmidt in self-defense. The kidnapping team had tracked Bergdoll to his living quarters at the Gasthof zum Karlsberg, carrying ether-soaked rags, lead-weighted saps, and loaded pistols to subdue their target. Several men burst into the room and tackled the fugitive onto the floorboards, attempting to wrap his face in a chemical cloth to knock him unconscious. Bergdoll broke free from the melee, drew a hidden handgun from his clothing, and fired several point-blank shots into the chest of his primary assailant. Schmidt dropped dead on the carpet while the surviving raiders panicked, dropped their gear, and bolted downstairs toward an idling getaway automobile parked on the street.
Policemen intercepted the fleeing vehicle at a roadblock outside town, capturing the conspirators before they could cross into the French occupation zone. German courts sentenced Griffis and his associates to penitentiary terms, sparking diplomatic tension and requiring American petitions to secure their release. Judges in the regional court at Mosbach rejected arguments that the vigilantes were acting out of patriotic duty, ruling that an armed assault on foreign soil was a direct assault on the legal sovereignty of the Weimar Republic. The court handed Griffis a sentence of twenty-one months at hard labor and ordered his fellow surviving conspirators into penal servitude. Prison guards transferred Griffis under armed escort to the state penitentiary at Bruchsal, locking the former officer inside an isolation cell to serve out his term alongside common felons.
Veterans across the United States reacted with fury to the incarceration of their former comrade in a German penitentiary while a convicted deserter walked free. American Legion posts held mass rallies in major cities and gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures on formal petitions demanding immediate executive action. Diplomats from the State Department carried these petitions into high-level conferences with the German foreign ministry in Berlin, seeking an administrative compromise during delicate postwar treaty negotiations. German authorities ultimately commuted the prison sentence in early 1924, releasing Griffis at the border in exchange for the payment of court fines and an expulsion order. Armed bodyguards patrolled the perimeter of the Eberbach hotel day and night, ensuring that no further American raiding parties could approach the fugitive.