The Times - UK (2021-12-18)

the times | Saturday December 18 2021 89

Readers’ Lives

Greenwich Village, where the paper

was produced. Taking advantage of

the distance from their Jewish

families, they also seized the

opportunity to sample food that did

not feature on the kitchen tables at

home: pizzas, burgers and non-kosher

hot dogs.

At 16 Jeff got a place at Fordham, a

Jesuit research university in New

York, but felt himself to be too young

socially and after a year dropped out.

The teaching was turgid, he said.

Journalism was his calling and he got

a junior role as a copy boy at The New

York Times, delivering the reporters’

stories to the news editor. In

November 1963 he carried the copy

announcing that John F Kennedy had

been shot.

When he was notified in the late

Sixties that he was due to be drafted

into the US army and hence the

Vietnam War he sidestepped the issue

by enlisting in the US air force. After

basic training in Texas he was posted

to RAF Chicksands in Bedfordshire

and in 1969 set foot for the first time

in England, securing a post on the

base as “information specialist” —

“the closest job I could get to being a

journalist”, he said — and providing

news from home, as well as sport and

social events, to the base’s newspaper,

The Antenna.

During his years in England he

befriended the journalist Frank

Branston, and in 1979, after Jeff had

returned to New York to complete a

degree in English and film production

at the City University, Branston gave

him a call. He had decided to start a

paper, Bedfordshire on Sunday, and he

wanted Jeff to be deputy editor.

“Beds on Sunday”, as it was known

locally, was a successful freebie that

had been widely presumed to fail.

With just four journalists, it prided

itself on highlighting local sleaze,

fighting local government on behalf

of individuals and getting exclusives.

Numerous stories were fed to Private

Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column.

Jeff took control of the paper’s

photography and arts pages while his

kind, sympathetic manner made him

the natural choice for breaking

intimate bad news stories.

For a brief period Jeff worked on a

regional newspaper in Portsmouth

but in 1987 a call came through from

a close family friend, Bart Schwartz,

asking if he wanted to join Kroll,

which was opening a London office.

He was at Kroll for ten years,

bringing to the fore his penetrating

attention to detail and hunger for the

truth. He was tasked with recruiting a

network of investigators and sources

across Europe, north Africa and the

Middle East to facilitate complex

cross-border investigations and rose

to become head of European

operations.

In 1998 he left to join Bishop

International, which specialised in

insurance cases. It was not doing well

and he helped to revive it by bringing

in investigators from a range of

backgrounds including the Serious

Fraud Office and the Serious

Organised Crime Agency, as well as

intellectual property experts.

In Bedfordshire in 1981, at a talk on

the freedom of the press, Jeff met

Frances Wilkinson, a teacher at an

independent girls’ school. They lived

in Bedfordshire and moved to

Harpenden, Hertfordshire, where Jeff

stayed for the rest of his life.

There was a generosity of spirit to

Jeff that was evident not only in the

time that he gave to friends but also

to colleagues. Each year at the Bishop

Christmas party he would choose a

book that he thought would be of

interest to each of the 20 or so

employees. He had a range of

passions that included American

handball, in which players hit with

their hands a small rubber ball against

a wall, and he travelled annually to

New York to play at the handball

courts in Greenwich Village.

He also loved food, seeking out the

farthest corners of every city for the

establishments that would deliver the

best — usually apple-based —

pastries. He unashamedly moved the

premises of Bishop International from

the City to the West End for its

proximity to better-quality patisseries,

cafés and restaurants. Firm favourites

were Giovanni’s in Covent Garden

and the Wolseley in Piccadilly, where

his larger-than-life personality

revealed a gift for storytelling.

Yet for a man whose veins coursed

with investigative journalism there

was a surprising anomaly: he

distrusted technology. No TV was

allowed in the house, he seldom

texted and smartphones were ignored

in favour of the “dumbphones” that

he bought in Switzerland. For his

research he relied on hard copy that

someone else printed and brought to

his desk for him to read.

Jeff Katz became head of European operations for Kroll. Left, in the US air force

Alexander’s, a department store. He

had a younger brother, David, who

also went into sales.

It was obvious from primary school

that academically Jeff was a step

ahead of his contemporaries and he

skipped a year to arrive early at his

all-boys high school, DeWitt Clinton,

in the Bronx. Not altogether happy

with the regime, Jeff played truant,

seeking solace in the American

Museum of Natural History and the

New York Public Library.

His English teacher Lou Simons,

thinking he could provide a cure for

his restlessness, asked him to edit the

school’s award-winning newspaper.

It was a satisfying result and an

enduring passion for journalism was

born. Jeff and a friend would journey

at night to the printing presses in

Perhaps the most high-profile case
that Jeff Katz worked on for the
global investigators Kroll Associates
was for the family of Roberto Calvi. In
1992 Jeff was hired to look into the
death of the Italian banker who ten
years earlier had been found hanging
from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars
Bridge in London.
Question marks were raised over
whether Calvi — dubbed “God’s
banker” for the connections between
Banco Ambrosiano, of which he was
chairman, and the Vatican — had in
fact been murdered. By the time Jeff
was called into play there had been
two inquests. The first had recorded a
verdict of suicide, and the second was
an open verdict. It was not good
enough for Calvi’s family, not least
because Calvi was a devout Catholic
unlikely to have taken his life.
It seemed more likely he had
been murdered and placed
there by boat. Jeff’s
investigation was little
short of exhaustive.
With the help of
forensic scientists,
he arranged for
the examination
of a dilapidated
boat to see if its
green paint
matched that
found on Calvi’s
clothes; a boat trip
to Blackfriars at night
to check timings; and a
journey to Calvi’s home
town of Milan so that the rest
of the clothing that he had been
wearing at the time could be
inspected.
By the time the report was
submitted to Calvi’s son Carlo the
conclusion was inescapable. Italian
courts ruled that Calvi was murdered
yet in 2007 five suspects were
acquitted in Rome with insufficient
evidence to form a successful
prosecution.
Founded in New York in 1972, Kroll
specialises in services including

cybersecurity, asset tracing, due
diligence and data analytics. Clients
comprise large corporations, law
firms, banks and insurance companies
with deep pockets. Yet for Katz, whose
primary motivation was to dig out the
truth through sheer determination
and sharp intellect, it was in the
overturning of miscarriages of justice
for individuals where he found his
greatest rewards.

Tenacious

journalist

turned Kroll

investigator

In 2017, some ten years after he had

moved from Kroll to be chief

executive of the smaller investigations

firm Bishop International, Jeff was

sought out on behalf of Richard

Alden. Alden had arrived in Nairobi

to pay what he presumed would be a

brief visit to his holiday home. By

lunchtime on the day of his arrival a

female Kenyan friend living in the

house was dead from a single gunshot

wound fired from Alden’s gun. There

were two domestic workers in the

house but suspicion fell on Alden and

he was imprisoned and charged.

Alden wrote: “I had been in another

room at the time I heard the gunshot

and to complicate matters the

gunshot entry point was at an angle

that was neither consistent with

suicide nor murder.”

On bail for murder, Alden was

unable to meet Jeff and so all

conversations were by phone. Jeff

engaged one of the best experts on

ballistics in the field and after

months of scientific

simulation and theory-

testing a scientifically

provable hypothesis

emerged. The

friend had

accidentally fired

the gun at the

ground, the

bullet had

ricocheted and

entered her body

at a strange angle.

She died en route

to hospital.

The Kenyan police

were persuaded to reopen

the investigations, confirmed

that Alden had not been in the same

room and the case was withdrawn.

Jeff was born in 1946 in the Bronx,

New York City, to Max, who worked

in the payroll department of a

construction company, and Mollie

(née Portugalo), a saleswoman in

Jeff Katz, 74

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If you would like to commemorate

the life of a relative, friend or

colleague, call 020 7782 5583 to

discuss the content and cost, or

email: [email protected].

Jeff with Frank Branston, the editor of Bedfordshire on Sunday, in 1984 thetimes.co.uk/static/terms-and-conditions

Jeff moved the company

to the West End for its

better-quality patisseries

He dug out the truth

using determination

and a sharp intellect