Deak Currency Firm’s Founder Slain in Office

An apparently homeless woman who had claimed to be a part-owner of the financially troubled currency firm of Deak-Perera in several visits to its office, on Monday shot and killed the firm’s 80-year-old founder-chairman and his receptionist, police said.

Nicholas Deak, who emigrated to the United States from Transylvania in the 1930s and later developed one of the world’s largest currency, bullion and banking firms, was pronounced dead at a downtown Manhattan hospital of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Also killed was Frances Lauder, 58, Deak’s receptionist.

Double Slaying

Police said Lois Lang, 44, appeared at Deak’s 21st-floor office in the financial district at about 9:30 a.m., complaining that the firm had cheated her. Company personnel had her ejected, but she returned two hours later with a .38-caliber handgun. Police said she fired twice at Lauder, hitting her once in the head. She then confronted Deak in his office or at the door to it, according to the police report, and fired three times at him. One bullet struck him in the chest.

Lang was tackled and arrested by an arriving police officer after she ignored his order to put her hands up, police said. Police Capt. William Quigley told reporters that Lang had visited the firm’s offices more than once in the past year but had been ejected after “asking to see someone in charge.” It was unknown whether the woman had a legitimate grievance with the firm.

The company presided over most recently by Deak, a former intelligence officer with the wartime Office of Strategic Services, was scarcely a hint of the banking and currency-exchange empire that he had controlled as recently as a year ago.

Deak & Co., the holding company for a network of banks and bullion and currency companies, filed last Dec. 6 for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code, citing liabilities of $95 million and assets of $62.2 million. Deak owned 75% of the firm.

Panel’s Accusations

The filing came shortly after Deak & Co. was accused by the President’s Commission on Organized Crime of having laundered more than $100 million in contraband funds and filing 58 false reports on cash transactions with foreign depositors. In the next several months, said then-Executive Vice President R. Leslie Deak, Nicholas Deak’s son, depositors concerned about a federal investigation withdrew tens of millions of dollars.

At the same time, Deak officials said, the firm was faced with a sharp drop in the price of gold, which cut down on trading profits, and other business maladies.

Deak & Co. was sold in August for more than $52 million to an investment group headed by Chan Cher Boon, a Singapore lawyer. The sale included Deak-Perera U.S., the firm’s currency-trading operation, which was not otherwise involved in the bankruptcy filing.