140 Cal. App. 444 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1934
Defendants V. L. Coffelt and G. R. Searl were jointly indicted, tried and convicted on the charge of grand theft. Defendant Searl has not appealed, but defendant Coffelt has appealed from the judgment of conviction and the order denying his motion for a new trial.
The charge was tried upon the theory that a conspiracy existed between the defendants for the purpose of obtaining money and property from the public in exchange lor stock of the Lusitania Corporation upon false and fraudulent representations and that the property of the complaining witness, Mrs. Clara M. Thornton, was unlawfully taken in pursuance of such conspiracy. The transcript is very voluminous, containing almost 2,000 pages, and it appears that over' 150 exhibits were offered at the trial. We believe, however, that the essential facts for the purposes of this opinion may be briefly stated.
Mrs. Thornton owned a piece of land in Concord consisting of about three acres. She had authorized her agent Adams to sell this property. Adams was approached by defendants with a proposition for the purchase thereof. After certain negotiations, in which the purchase price of $3,000 was practically agreed upon as a basis for the deal, Mrs. Thornton finally exchanged her property for the sum of $500 and 125 shares of the preferred stock of the Lusitania Corporation. . Mrs. Thornton previously knew nothing of said corporation and relied upon written and
As above stated, the oral representations in the Thornton transaction were made by defendant Searl. We do not believe that appellant seriously questions the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction of his co-defendant Searl, but appellant does contend that there is no evidence connecting him with the crime charged. In our opinion this contention is without merit. There- is abundant indirect evidence in the record to sustain the implied finding that an unlawful conspiracy existed between appellant and his co-defendant Searl and that the representations made by defendant Searl in the Thornton transaction were made pursuant to and in furtherance of the objects of such conspiracy. It may be here noted that the jury was fully and fairly instructed on the subject of conspiracy and that no. exception is taken upon this appeal to the giving of any of said instructions.
We will summarize briefly some of the evidence relied upon to establish the conspiracy between the defendants Searl and Cofllelt. Coffelt acquired for a nominal sum the charter of an inactive assessment mutual life insurance association known as the Victory Mutual Life Insurance
Appellant further contends that nothing of value was received by him from the Thornton transaction. Perhaps the record fails to show that appellant personally profited directly by the Thornton deal. At the suggestion of appellant the stock certificate was made out in favor of one Rose, a salesman in the stock selling campaign. The Thorn-tons were requested to make out the deed to one Jaek Prietas who had been acting as Portuguese interpreter for one of the salesmen. The deed was so made out and Prietas then signed certain papers concerning which he knew nothing but which were in fact an application for a loan from the Pitts
Appellant further contends that there is no evidence to show that Mrs. Thornton was induced to sell her property in reliance upon any false representation of a material fact. Under this heading appellant deals only with the false representation regarding the ownership of the Lusitania building and claims that “it is inherently improbable that the Thornton transaction was predicated” upon said representation. Appellant’s argument ignores the other numerous false representations regarding the assets, income and financial prosperity of the corporation. These were all representations of material facts and there was ample evidence to sustain the jury’s implied finding that Mrs. Thornton parted with her property in reliance thereon.
The remaining contentions of appellant all relate to the admission of evidence not directly connected with the Thornton transaction. Appellant refers to the testimony
The judgment and order denying a new trial are affirmed.
Nourse, P. J., and Sturtevant, J., concurred.
A petition by appellant to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on September 13, 1934.