Visit the FBI vault online to read all six of the Liberace files now made public.

File number one  details the case when Lee was robbed of his jewels at the Statler Hilton Hotel Governors Suite in Dallas Texas on Valentines Day 1974.

The file includes the drawings below by Liberace detailing what was taken from his suite.

Thankfully the crime was solved. The jewels had been left in a locked briefcase from which latent prints were recovered. February 17th just three days after the robbery a salesman reported that his jewels had been stolen from the Travelodge hotel in Dallas.

Adolph Lewin was arrested April 17, 1974 at the conclusion of a raid on his jewelry store.  He had several trays of rings in his possession matching those reported stolen in the Travelodge robbery and Liberace’s unique watch. At the time of his arrest Lewin was already on probation for tax evasion for approximately $156,000.  The FBI had his business under investigation in Chicago at the time of the Liberace robbery suspected of fencing stolen items and failure to report income to the treasury department.

The FBI brought a photo to Liberace to identify that the “L”  on the Tiffany Platinum pocket watch encrusted with 42 diamonds was for Liberace – not for Lewin as the suspect had claimed.

At Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York on April 26, 1974 Liberace met with the FBI to confirm the condition of the pocket watch and its repair history at Tiffany’s New York.  A female friend or employee of Liberace’s was simultaneously contacted in Los Angeles to verify that this was indeed Liberace’s watch.

Liberace’s watch had its own FBI file with pictures of it, and all of the press clippings related to its recovery. Read it here. 

Did the L on this pocket watch stand for Lewin or Liberace? The FBI did an intensive investigation to ensure it was for LIBERACE!

Adolf Lewin passed away in 1999, the Chicago Tribune made no mention of this chapter in his life in the official obituary.  After a two day jury trial he was convicted of the robbery with a sentence of five years. The first 177 days to be in prison with the remainder on probation.

Nearly a year after the robbery the watch was returned to the FBI office in Los Angeles to return to Lee.

FBI instructions to return the pocket watch to Liberace