Record

Court opinion

1935-11-18

CourtListener

Galatas v. United States, 80 F.2d 15 (8th Cir. 1935)

The Eighth Circuit's affirmance of the conspiracy convictions of Richard Tallman Galatas, Herbert Farmer, Louis Stacci and Frank B. Mulloy, arising from the plan to free Frank Nash. It sets out Nash's escape, his capture at Hot Springs, and the walk through Union Station.

Date
1935-11-18
Kind
court-opinion
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
10237, 10238, 10241, 10246
Rights
Opinion of a federal court. A United States government work; judicial opinions are not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. § 105). The text is served by CourtListener.

The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided four consolidated appeals on November 18, 1935. The indictment, as the court recites it, charged that Frank Nash had been sentenced to twenty-five years for assaulting a United States mail custodian, was committed to Leavenworth on March 3, 1924, and “on October 19, 1930, he escaped from the penitentiary and remained at large, a fugitive from justice, until June 16, 1933.” The court states that “on June 16, 1933, Nash was captured at the White Front pool hall or cigar store in Hot Springs, Ark.,” and was taken by train toward Kansas City.

The opinion describes the arrival on the morning of June 17, 1933: the officers and Nash walked from the train through the waiting room of the Union Station and crossed to the cars. The appellants were convicted of conspiring to free Nash from the custody of the Attorney General. “The judgments and sentences appealed from are therefore affirmed.”

The court’s statement of facts comes from the trial record. The FBI’s history page gives its own account of the same events.

itemUnited States v. Richard Tallman Galatas, et al. (W.D. Mo.), criminal case file SS100The National Archives file of the conspiracy case against Galatas and co-defendants runs 593 digitized pages; the first scan is a Leavenworth form of 7 July 1936 in which prisoner Louis Stacci states he was sentenced on 5 January 1935 to two years and a $10,000 fine.itemAlcatraz Warden's Notebook page: Richard Tallman Galatas, No. 331A Bureau of Prisons notebook page for Alcatraz inmate 331: conspiracy, two years and a $10,000 fine from W.D. Missouri, received 6 August 1936 from Leavenworth and transferred back 25 September 1937, with a 'Reason For Transfer' that refers to the murder of officers returning Frank Nash.itemFrank Nash (FBI photograph, 75th Anniversary series, National Archives)An FBI display photograph of Frank Nash with the Bureau's caption: member of the Keating-Holden-Nash gang, a 'burglar, bank robber and killer,' participant in the Leavenworth break of 11 December 1931, killed on 17 June 1933 in the Kansas City Massacre.itemKansas City Massacre and "Pretty Boy" Floyd (FBI history page)The FBI's history essay on the June 17, 1933 shooting in front of Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri, in which four officers and their prisoner Frank Nash were killed. It places the car directly in front of the station's east entrance.itemState v. Richetti, 119 S.W.2d 330, 342 Mo. 1015 (Mo. 1938)Missouri Supreme Court opinion affirming Adam Richetti's conviction and death sentence for killing Kansas City police officer Frank Hermanson in what the court calls the "Union Station Massacre" of 17 June 1933.