CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 923, 16 September 1910, Page 5

CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD.

- FINE AND IMPRISONMENT. ; By Tdoeraph—Pres« Anoociation—Copyright New York, September 11. Ernest Garbracht, a former superintendent at the Wiiliamsburg. Refinery, his been sentenced to two years' imprisonment and .fined five thousand dollars for .conspiracy to defraud the' Government.; ' . , • DOCK SUPERINTENDENT'S'' EVI- ', , -DENCE. Tho New York' correspondent of the London "Daily Telegraph," writing on May 23, states:—Oliver; Spitzer, formerly' a dock superintendent employed _by the Sugar Trust, in, his. evidence in the United States Supreme Court in the trial of. six defendants alleged, to have been concerned" in ,-the frauds, stated that .he' had been. in . the :Sugar Trust's employ, for about thirty, yea'rs, • and. 'declared that. tho .first. frauds were perpetrated on the' Government .in'lß9l. -,The first device, employed was to hang a bag of shot on tile scale lever, which underweighed every bag by about 181b. This; system, however,..: was discovered,, about six. years ago by a Customs inspector, who ordered the scale .levers to be boxed in ' to prevent the fraud. .' "Then,''; said the, witness, "we hit upon the scheme of a'secret spring fixed to the scales. .This spring was fixed bv Sugar. Trust'employees in such,a way that the bags were underweighed by many pounds, and- the Government defrauded of millions of dollars in Customs duties on sugar import's." "Did you arrange 1 a system of- signal rights in the .scale-house to give-warning ol the. approach of danger suddenly f "asked the ..prosecutor. , , "Yes, sir," replied Spitzer. .."We. installed ~ red . electric lights so that. we could signal the checkers when necessary. They were worked from, a switch in ,my office." -

Spitzer added that he andtlie checkers wore paid regularly until his conviction. After the raid on.tho sugar docks in' November, 1907, some of the chcckei;s, said Spitzer, asked if they-would lose their, jobs, but Garbracht, then the Sugar Trust cashier, told, him to say that the checkers would be cared for, "and," ho added, "I .also understood that-I- should not be abandoned " : , - . '