During his travels, Reservitz met his future second wife, a Scottish woman named Antoinette. When they tired of life in Israel – hampered by their inability to speak Hebrew and Reservitz’s failure to find work – they moved briefly to Edinburgh, where Antoinette’s parents lived. Reservitz also spent time in London, frequently gambling in high stakes games at a club called the White House, a college classmate told the Phoenix. Scotland Yard became interested in him in part because his passport showed him frequently traveling between Rome and Britain. British police checked with investigators in Italy, who informed them that Reservitz was traveling with Antoinette, and that he was expected to visit her family in Edinburgh for the holidays.
Meanwhile, Scotland Yard learned that Reservitz was wanted back in the States for the insurance fraud. On New Year’s Eve, 1971, Reservitz was arrested at the home of Antoinette’s family. He was transferred to Pentonville prison in North London, a grim, forbidding structure built in the 1700’s. Reservitz was to stay there for the next four months.
He was held in solitary confinement in an eight-foot-by-five-foot cell, with one small overhead light, a window about one square foot, and a solid-steel door with a peephole for guards to observe prisoners. There was no sink or toilet, just a plastic pail that was emptied once a day. He was released from the cell for a half-hour every day. Showers were allowed on Sundays. The mattress was straw, and Reservitz had one worn blanket. He had no radio. A two-month-long power outage meant that Reservitz sat in darkness for half his stay. “That is a very, very old prison,” Reservitz testified. “It’s exceptionally unpleasant.” While he was incarcerated, he was notified that his first wife had filed for divorce.
A Massachusetts assistant attorney general eventually went to London and obtained Reservitz’s extradition. Reservitz was released on bail after arriving in Brockton. While awaiting trial, Reservitz and Antoinette moved to an apartment in Brookline and started a women’s-clothing business – with Reservitz’s mother providing some of the seed capital. After a year out on bail, Reservitz pleaded guilty to two larceny charges and was sentenced to 18 months in the Plymouth County jail.
Despite his legal problems, Reservitz apparently remained quite solvent. He and Antoinette bought a large brick house in Brookline for $72,000, where he installed a pool. While Reservitz was in jail, Antoinette ran the clothing business. When he was released in 1974, he appears to have gone straight – for awhile. He merged the dress business into a retail clothing firm, which operated a store called Feathers, on Boylston Street in Back Bay. Reservitz opened branches in Quincy, Brookline, Newton, and in several Gilchrist department stores. But the Gilchrist chain went into bankruptcy, taking the Feathers chain with it, Reservitz testified. “They forced me into bankruptcy because I had so many goods left over that weren’t sold. There was nothing I could do. I owed money to so many people. And actually before we went into bankruptcy the business was insolvent.” When Feathers folded in November 1976, it went down hard – owing taxes to the federal government and money to 99 creditors and 10 employees.
