The main first-hand account of Bogdan-Pitești's 1919 imprisonment comes from Ioan Slavici's "Închisorile mele" ("My Prisons"). According to Slavici, the art patron had a luxury cell with a view over Bucharest. Alexandru Rosetti, citing Arghezi, records one of Bogdan-Pitești's witticisms on the issue of prison life. When a Gendarme wrongly attempted to push him into Arghezi's line of suspected traitors, Bogdan-Pitești snapped: "Pardon, eu sunt escroc!" ("Pardon me, I'm a con artist!"). Zambaccian writes that, during the first of his legal battles with Take Ionescu, Bogdan-Pitești commented on Ionescu's deposition: "He sure is talented, that crook!" The pro-Entente nationalist Octavian Goga was especially upset by Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești's stances, and, in his record of 1916 events (including the Ionescu trial), wrote him off as a "bandit" fed with "German money".