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A yellow color box truck carrying $7,156 worth of cigarettes and other tobacco products was hijacked and its driver, Henry Derolf, of Ashley, kept prisoner for five hours on July 30, 1934.

Derolf, an employee of Horton Motor Lines, was stopped at a red light at William and Church streets in Pittston when five masked bandits armed with revolvers surrounded his truck.

Policemen believed the theft was premeditated as the five men approached Derolf’s truck in a Buick LaSalle.

“Derolf was kept a prisoner by three of the highway robbers in their automobile for five hours. He was released at 6 o’clock at Huntington Mills, and it took him an hour to reach a telephone to report the daring robbery, so that police did not start on the trial of the robbers until 7 o’clock last night,” reported the Evening News newspaper on July 31, 1934.

“Though the hijacking occurred between 12:30 and 1 o’clock, it was not known until shortly before 7 o’clock last night,” the Wilkes-Barre Record newspaper reported.

Derolf was transporting 80 cases of cigarettes and tobacco products to stores in Pittston and Scranton when he was robbed.

“As Derolf approached the corner of William and Church streets, Derolf said the traffic light changed and he was obliged to halt the truck. When he stopped, two men with automatic pistols crowded into he cab and commanded him to drive towards Scranton,” the Evening News reported.

The armed heist occurred in front of St. John’s Church.

“No trace of the bandits, truck or its valuable cargo had been found early this morning,” the Wilkes-Barre Record reported July 31, 1934.

The truck empty of its cargo was found Aug. 1, 1934, on a road between West Wyoming and Orange in Franklin Township.

Suspicious of a daylight robbery, state policemen believed Derolf had a part in the scheme.

On Aug. 7, 1934, Derolf and eight other men, including Exeter councilman John Zavada, were charged with larceny and receiving stolen goods. A ninth man, Frank Matzi remained a fugitive.

Zavada owned a cigar store and pool room.

Matzi was later arrested when found hiding in Hazleton.

“State police announced that the disappearance of the cigarettes, reported by Henry Derolf, of Hartford Street, Ashley, a truck driver, was not a hijacking job but a daylight theft consummated with the consent and aid of Derolf,” the Wilkes-Barre Record reported Aug. 7, 1934.

State policemen believed Derolf drove the truck to a tavern in Exeter where the defendants unloaded the cigarettes and tobacco products.

During a court proceeding on Nov. 30, 1934, Desiderio Condo, Nick Terzi, Anthony Gadela, Matzi and Zavada, all of Exeter, and Haskell Ginsburgh, Albert Sweitzer and Willima Perkosky, of Wilkes-Barre, pleaded no contest to the charges, the Record reported Dec. 1, 1934. They were each sentenced to two years at the Luzerne County Jail.

Derolf refused to enter a plea.

“Police did not believe Derolf’s story and they started an investigation which uncovered part of the stolen loot in a barn in Exeter,” the Record reported.

Derolf’s trial was held in February 1935 before Luzerne County Judge B. R. Jones. Attorney James McQuade represented Derolf and Assisant District Attorney Frank Williams prosecuted.

During the trial, Gadela testified Derolf planned the theft about a week before the reported hijacking.

“Gadela said he secured Frank Matzi, another man now in jail, to take part in the conspiracy and that they drove the truck to a house in Exeter where he unlocked the door of the truck and the shipment was unloaded. Then Derolf drove the truck about six miles to a place near Orange where it was abandoned and he other conspirators then drove him near Shickshinny where he reported the theft,” the Evening News reported Feb. 5, 1935.

Derolf testified in his own defense denying he had any involvement in the heist.

“Derolf insisted that Gadela and Matzi held him up and forced him to drive to a lonely spot where the cargo was unloaded,” the Evening News reported.

A jury convicted Derolf of larceny and receiving stolen goods. He was sentenced to two years at the county jail, the Record reported March 1, 1935.

Look Back: 1934 hijacking of cigarette truck in Pittston