United States v. Carter & Co.

56 F. Supp. 311, 3 SEC Jud. Dec. 692, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2174
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Kentucky
DecidedMay 25, 1944
DocketNo. 21793
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 56 F. Supp. 311 (United States v. Carter & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Carter & Co., 56 F. Supp. 311, 3 SEC Jud. Dec. 692, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2174 (W.D. Ky. 1944).

Opinion

MILLER, District Judge.

Counts 1, 2, 3 and 8 through 13 of the indictment herein charge the defendants with employing a device or scheme to defraud by the use of the mails in the sale of a security. Counts 4, S, 6 and 7 charge the defendants with the use of the mails in carrying out a scheme and artifice for obtaining money and property by means of false pretenses. The 14th Count charges the defendants with a conspiracy to use the mails to carry out' a scheme or artifice to defraud and to effect the fraudulent sale of securities. The defendants have demurred to each count of the indictment.

It is first claimed that the allegations of each count are too indefinite and fail to set out with sufficient particularity any scheme which would advise the defendants of the nature and character of the charge. A reading of the allegations of the first count of the indictment respecting the scheme and representation relied upon, which are incorporated by reference into each of the 12 succeeding counts, is sufficient by itself to dispose of this contention. Summarizing it briefly, it alleges that the defendants organized a Kentucky corporation known as W. T. Carter and Company with its principal office in Louisville, Kentucky, to engage in the business of buying, selling and trading in whiskey warehouse receipts and securities for its own account and for the account of customers; that the defendant William Taylor Carter was President and Director and participated in the management and control of the company with the defendants Robert Simons and Henry Bernstein; that the defendants falsely represented to its customers that the company was an old, reliable and well established firm in good financial standing; that the defendants falsely represented to its customers that the company had developed a market for the disposal of the products of certain distilleries and would therefore secure the maximum return of money on the customers’ whiskey; that defendants induced the customers to pay cash in advance for whiskey warehouse receipts which the defendants did not intend to purchase or deliver to the customers but on the contrary intended to convert to their own use; that the defendants falsely represented to the customers that they bottled and sold whiskey and that customers would save money by having Carter and Company bottle the whiskey direct instead of paying additional commissions and fees to other firms; that the defendants induced customers to deliver to them whiskey warehouse receipts under the pretense that the defendants would bottle the whiskey and remit the proceeds within a certain time, whereas in fact the defendants planned to sell the whiskey and appropriate the proceeds to their own use; that the defendants falsely represented that the company had the authority and right to bottle the whiskey under the Old Grand-Dad Label; that the defendants falsely represented to customers that they would exchange barrels of whiskey with them when as a matter of fact they never intended to make such exchange but intended to sell the customers’ whiskey for. the defendants’ own use and benefit; that the defendants issued to customers bottling contracts wherein they represented and promised that they would bottle and sell the customers’ whiskey within a specified time, which bottling contracts were merely a trick to extract the customers’ whiskey from them, which whiskey the defendants afterwards sold and then converted the proceeds therefrom to their own use; that the defendants transmitted through the United .States mails circulars and other mail matter for the purpose of soliciting the names of various customers who held warehouse receipts ; and that the defendants would send written confirmations of purchases and sales and make partial payments to said customers on said alleged sales, when as a matter of fact no such sales had been made. The time and place is fixed as between January 1, 1939, and December 31, 1943, in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. The names -and addresses of 39 alleged victims are specifically given, and in each of [313]*313the first 13 counts, a particular letter written and mailed by one of the defendants to one of the alleged victims is specifically set out in its entirety. The contention on this score obviously has no merit.

It is next contended that the counts dealing with the sale of a security are defective because the security referred to is not copied in its entirety in the respective counts of the indictment. Reliance is had upon an early Federal Court ruling from the District Court of Mississippi in United States v. Watson, 17 F. 145. However, such a ruling if it ever existed is apparently not the controlling rule of law at the present time. In United States v. Heinze, C.C., 161 F. 425, 428, the Court states the rule to be “the rule which requires a setting out of the entire instrument or its tenor seems limited mainly, if not wholly, to cases of forging, counterfeiting money, and threatening letters,” citing in support thereof United States v. French, C.C., 57 F. 382 and United States v. Grunberg, C.C., 131 F. 137. The Statute which governs the offense in question (Section 77q, Title 15 U.S.C.A.) refers to “the sale of any securities.” The words of the indictment specifically charge the sale of a security in the language of the statute, and then in each instance describes it generally as a bottling contract issued by the defendant W. T. Carter and Company. This, together with a particular letter relied upon in each instance, sufficiently advises the defendant of the nature and character of the written instrument relied upon by the Government. Whether or not the evidence offered by the Government will establish it to be a security within the meaning of the statute is an entirely different question which will be disposed of at the close of the Government’s case.

It is next claimed that none of counts 1 through 13 sufficiently charge the use of the mails so as to bring the offenses within the provision of the respective statutes. Section 77q of Title 15 U.S.C.A. provides :

“It shall be unlawful for any person in the sale of any securities by the use of any means or instruments of transportation or communication in interstate commerce or by the use of the mails, directly •or indirectly — (I) to employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud, or * * *.”

Counts 1, 2, 3 and 8 through 13 specifically charge that the defendants “in the sale of a security, to-wit, a bottling contract * * * issued by W. T. Carter and Company, did unlawfully, wilfully, knowingly, and feloniously employ said scheme and artifice to defraud by the use of the mails * * *.” These allegations practically follow the exact language of the statute and clearly are sufficient. Counts 4, 5, 6 and 7 do not allege the sale of any security but charge the sale of certain whiskey warehouse receipts and whiskey itself. These counts use the same language as is used in the other counts namely, taking the 4th count as an example:

“The said defendants, in the sale of certain whiskey warehouse receipts on behalf of James R. Lyons, Cartersville, Georgia, as broker, did unlawfully, knowingly, wilfully, and feloniously employ said scheme and artifice to defraud by the use of the mails in the following manner, towit: * * * *."

Such counts are brought under Section 338 of Title 18 U.S.C.A.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
56 F. Supp. 311, 3 SEC Jud. Dec. 692, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2174, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-carter-co-kywd-1944.