Act, which had been passed with the aim of preventing the transportation of stolen automobiles across state lines. It was "a nationwide plot to recover insurance on automobiles claimed to have been stolen and transported from one state to another." After exhausting more than three years of delays and appeals in 1925, Whitaker served two years in United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth. Lindbergh case, return to prison, criminal schemes In March and April 1932, Whitaker gained what eventually became national notoriety during the Lindbergh kidnapping, which saw famed aviator Charles Lindbergh's infant child kidnapped from his New Jersey estate. Whitaker, out on bail after a Florida arrest for a scheme similar to his earlier auto fraud conviction, fled that jurisdiction and headed north, to conspire with former United States Department of Justice Agent Gaston Means, who had been a bagman for bribes during the corrupt Harding administration. The two concocted a scheme to swindle a wealthy but gullible heiress, Evalyn Walsh McLean, co-publisher of The Washington Post, by claiming to be in contact with the kidnappers, and convinced her that they could arrange for the baby's safe return. Means intended to use Whitaker, who posed as a gangster, as the bagman to pick up her ransom money, but both were arrested and eventually convicted. What Whitaker was really convicted of was "attempted" extortion. Means, without Whitaker's help, had earlier swindled Mrs. McLean out of $104,000, before enlisting Whitaker for a second con with a similar theme. Whitaker claimed that the Lindbergh kidnappers had refused $49,500 of the ransom money paid by Mrs. McLean because the serial numbers on the money had been published. Therefore, he demanded replacement money from her, in the amount of $35,000, in exchange for which he promised to return the original $49,500, plus the baby. She did not pay the second amount; that was when the Federal Bureau of Investigation was finally called in. The baby was found dead by father Charles Lindbergh in May 1932, two months after it had been kidnapped. Whitaker claimed in his 1933 trial in the capital, which became a national media frenzy, that he never got any of the money and, when asked what happened to the money, Whitaker replied, "I do not know and I wish I did." Means was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the initial successful swindle and attempted reprise, and died in prison. Whitaker was