News-Record.com

No, his dad didn't go straight, says Michael Wigerman.

He was referring to a March 13 front page article in the News & Record about the Hallmark Gang, a group that burglarized fine homes in ritzy neighborhoods, including Irving Park. Ted Wigerman, Michael's father, was a gang crew chief.

The story cited an early 1980s interview with Wigerman while he was on parole for crimes that included stealing $175,000 worth of jewels from the late Benjamin Cone's house on Country Club Drive.

Wigerman, who was from the Philadelphia area, said he hoped to go straight.

But he added it may be tough to do so if he had to continue working for $140 a week at the Winston-Salem landfill, as he was doing at the time.

Wigerman and his fellow burglars were known as the Hallmark Gang in North Carolina. Elsewhere, they were called the K&A Gang, for the intersection of Kennsington and Allegany streets in Philly, where they hung out.

Ted Wigerman receives a fair share of space in a just-published book, "Confessions of a Second Story Man: Junior Kripplebauer and the K&A Gang," by Temple University professor Allen Hornblum.

Kriplebauer, with Wigerman, was another crew leader in the gang.

The book said that Wigerman had died in 1995, but didn't say whether he had stayed straight. The book's author has not returned a phone call.

Alas, it turns out the temptation for crime was too much for Wigerman. according to Michael Wigerman, who e-mailed the News & Record and later talked by telephone.

"My father did not stay clean and did time again," the son said. "He spent over one-third of his life behind bars."

Michael Wigerman said after the landfill stint in Winston-Salem, his father moved to Florida and worked in construction. He and some cronies decided to buglarize a Tampa, Fla., mansion. They botched the job and got caught.

At that time, Ted Wigerman was getting on in age and had health problems, his son said. The judge went easy. Ted Wigerman was released early because of failing health.

"He died of a heart attack while fixing his mother's sink, and he died broke and alone," Michael Wigerman said.

It's a sad story, but there's good news about Michael Wigerman and another family member.

Michael's mother - Patricia Wigerman, Ted Wigerman's former wife - became a corrections officer in Atlantic City, N.J., and was later promoted to deputy with the Atlantic County Sheriff's Department. She died about four years ago from cancer.

"I really believe she became a law enforcement officer out penitence," Michael Wigerman said. "She felt she had profited by her husband's wrongdoing. She felt she could have done more to protest his activities."

Michael Wigerman said he was in the fifth grade, living high off Ted Wigerman's ill-gotten gains in a nice neighborhood in New Jersey, when the police busted down the door and took his father away.

When he was 17, Michael Wigerman joined the Navy for five years and later served a stint in the U.S. Army Reserve.

"I worked in electronic warfare," he said. "I also flew in Europe for over two years for the Department of Defense and NATO. I hold U.S. and NATO security clearance."

He's also a skydiver with more than 2,000 jumps and a scuba instructor.

He now flies Lear Jets for a living and resides in Pompano Beach, Fla. He's married to a fellow jet pilot.

As for his father, he remembers him as charismatic, extremely intelligent and a genius at chess. If he had applied himself, the son said, he could have been a highly successful person instead of a cat burglar.

At least in this case, the old adage - like father, like son - doesn't apply.