Some may question whether James Jennings' position, as stated in his affidavit, on the key George Damon turned in during 1901, was accurate.
It has been suggested a while back that Jennings was probably not the person who purchased the keys, so that
when he stated that the Hotel used keys made from a different ( iron ) metal than brass, he was mistaken. Jennings confirms that
he assigned someone ( Tommy Thompson) to purchase keys for the hotel, sort of like when my wife assigns me to get specific items from local stores.
Let's consider the following scenario: My wife asks me to purchase cleaning sponges for our home. She wants sponges
of one type with cellulose on one side ( a durable, hybrid sponge) and others with no cellulose. The more durable cellulose sponges are for the
bathroom, and the non-cellulose sponges are for other areas of the home, such as for dishes and glasswork. My wife didn't purchase the sponges
but knows which ones are for what room and for what use.
What's the difference between Jennings sending someone to purchase keys for his hotel and my wife sending me to the store to purchase sponges for her home?
Nothing, as far as I can detect.
My wife knows exactly what sponge is for what purpose and where it goes, and Jennings, in his affidavit, is clear in his detailed deposition
that iron keys....not brass....were used on the fifth floor. No hesitation. No pause for reflection or contemplation. He examined the key
in front of Ovide Robillard, Ali's attorney. Unless Robillard went deaf, dumb, and blind when Jennings filed his affidavit, he knew there was a potentially big problem
with the key Damon turned in. There are no two ways about it. The only alternative is that Robillard may have felt Jennings was mistaken and let it slide, but at least
he was cognizant of the potential problems with Jennings not attaching the key to Room 31.
The other scenario, the one I believe in but won't try to prove, is that Robillard didn't care whether the key was authentic or not. The key represented a means
of getting Ali out of prison and a new, bright feather in his hat as an attorney if the pardon campaigners could pull it off.
Other points in favor of Jennings not being mistaken:
1. Is it remotely believable that Thompson, a manager of the Hotel and employee of Jennings for 8 years, and Jennings, were never together
with the keys Thompson purchased and Jennings not knowing which keys went where? Is it possible that during the eight years they are together,
Thompson never once comes back from purchasing the keys, shows them to Jennings, and the floors or rooms where the different types of keys go aren't mentioned?
2. Is it believable that Jennings, in all the time he was proprietor, never entered a room on the fifth floor, using an iron key or not knowing what type of key
was for those rooms?
3. Jennings had no dog in the fight and probably didn't care one way or the other whether the pardon campaigns flopped or succeeded.
District Attorney's Office
City & County of New York
June 1901
In The Matter Of The Application For Pardon Of 'Frenchy' Alias Amer Ben Ali
State, City, And County Of New York
James Jennings, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he resides at 2106
Madison Avenue, in the Borough of Manhattan, in the City of New York; that he
was the proprietor of the East River Hotel, # 14 Catherine Slip in said City and
Borough at the time of the killing in said hotel of the woman known as
'Shakespeare'; that he had been the proprietor of said hotel some four of five years
prior to the time of said murder; and that he gave up the place and moved away
from there about four or five months after said murder.
That a man named Thomas Thompson, since deceased, had charge of and
attended to the letting of the rooms and had charge of the keys.
That the brass key shown him, deponent, in the presence of Mr. Robillard, counsel
for the prisoner, so far as he is aware, was never used in the hotel of which he was
then the proprietor; that Room 31 was on the top floor; that as far as he has any
recollection all the rooms on that particular floor, at the time of said murder, had
iron keys with brass oblong tags attached; that the keys on the other three floors
of the hotel were some of brass and some of iron; that all the keys had brass tags
some round and scalloped, some oblong, some may have been square, but all the
tags varied from about an inch to an inch and a half long, and from an inch to an
inch and a half wide, and that no tag was as small as the one on the key now
produced.
Sworn to me on the 10th day of June,1901
William H. Broderick, Notary Public
All arguments to the contrary welcome.
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