The City Settles with Embezzler's Bondsmen
A complex financial deal ends the civil litigation over Adolph Krug’s flight from the City Treasurer’s office.
The story, cleaned up
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The final settlement between the bondsmen of former City Treasurer Adolph Krug and the city has been made, and the banks involved have handed over certified checks to the city. While the civil proceedings are at an end, the criminal charges against Krug remain outside the city's control. City Corporation Counsel Donworth managed the negotiations, which required the city to accept various assets, including notes, property, and cash, to cover the significant deficiency Krug left behind upon his September 12 disappearance. Despite the recovery of many assets, including a brewery note and land, a mystery remains: approximately $30,000 in cash remains unaccounted for. Krug was permitted to keep his home, which was deemed community property belonging to his wife, but he has signed away nearly all other assets to cover the city's loss and his own legal defense fees.
“All the explanations made from time to time of the nature of Krug's defalcation have failed to account for from $20,000 to $30,000 cash. Even now this remains a mystery except possibly to Krug himself.”
This 1893 scandal involving a missing city treasurer and a tangled web of private assets and public liability echoes the ongoing civic scrutiny of municipal funds in Seattle. The difficulty of reconciling the missing $30,000 highlights the lack of transparency in early city accounting, which frequently necessitated complicated out-of-court settlements between private bondsmen and the public purse.
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