David T. Wilentz
David T. Wilentz, Attorney General of New Jersey and prosecutor in the Lindbergh kidnapping case, was born in Lithuania. He was the fourth child of Nathan Wilentz, a tobacco importer, and Bertha Crane.
David came to the United States at age two with his parents, who settled in Perth Amboy, where his father continued the business. One of David’s earliest jobs was delivering tobacco leaf by horse-drawn cart.
He graduated from Perth Amboy High School in 1912. He then worked as a reporter and sports editor for the Perth Amboy Evening News. Simultaneously, he commuted to New York Law School, from which he graduated in 1917. He served in the Army during World War I. In 1919, he married his hometown sweetheart, Lena Goldman.
David returned to Perth Amboy and quickly became involved in Democratic Party politics. By 1928, he was chairman of the Middlesex County Democratic Party. A year later, he fielded a slate of Democrats for county offices. After this, the Democrats had no serious challenge for the next four decades.
It was this stunning swing of the political pendulum that catapulted Wilentz to statewide prominence. In 1934, he was appointed state Attorney General. Wilentz asserted his independence, though, reportedly telling a journalist: “I will accept on one condition. If I take the office I will be no dummy. I have no political or other obligations, and I will accept none imposed on me.”
As Attorney General, he famously prosecuted the 1935 Lindbergh baby kidnapping case. Wilentz, who had never before tried a criminal case, plunged into this one with energy, toughness, and brilliance. The defendant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant, maintained his innocence to the end. With its massive media coverage and circuslike atmosphere, it was often called the trial of the century. A month and a half after the trial began, Hauptmann was convicted.
Following the trial, “The General,” as he was known after the trial, became a close advisor to several Democratic governors and was instrumental in winning the state for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. He also headed the law firm of Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, which he founded in Perth Amboy in 1950, and which grew from six partners to a firm of 110 lawyers at the time of his death in 1988.
In the end, David Wilentz never had second thoughts about the Lindbergh case. Pressured by several unsuccessful appeals, at the age of 86 he bridled at a reporter’s calling him “the man who sent Hauptmann to the chair.” “First of all,” he shot back, “I didn’t send him to the chair. A jury did.”
At his funeral in 1988, he was remembered by the people of his hometown as a “wonderful man” who would “get [your] brother a job when he needed one. He didn’t mind giving you a $5 bill – in those days that was like giving you $50.” He loved his cigars and an occasional glass of whiskey. He loved his family and was known by his grandchildren as Poppy.