STOLEN LAUNCH

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 152, 19 February 1932, Page 5

STOLEN LAUNCH

MAN DESCRIBED AS SHREWD •- AND A CUNNING CRIMINAL EVADED THE POLICE AUCKLAND, Thursday. Described as a shrewd and eunning criminal, Frederick William Schluter, aged 37, an engineer, pleaded guilty to nine charges involving theft and ' f'dse pretences, at the Police Court this morning. As soon as Schluter entered the dock he handed to the court orderly '' written statement addressed to Mr. r. K. Hunt, S.M. Schluter was charged with stealing r gold wristlet watch, valued at £10; rnlawfully converting a motor 1 uinch, valued at £100, to his own • r«e; attempting to ohtain a motor car, valued at £185, by false pretences; "nd four charges of obtaining goods, i'-talling £54, and attempting to obtam goods worth £16 10s by means of , false pretences. "During the past 12 months Sclilu- - r has been engaged in a series of i '.riminal acts which commenced with r ihe theft of a gold >vristlet watch," siid Detective-Sergeant Doyle, who r rosecuted. "He is one of the most . (unning and shrewd criminals we lave had to deal with, and we have ! ad some difficulty in tracing him. ! 'or a long time he evaded the police - l y converting a launch to his own use and going' away in it. These- • -ffences started last May, and conr . t'nued until the time of his ari ?st a couple of weeks ago. He has * 1 een out of prison since 1927, after . serving three year's reformative de- ! i ention for false pretences." The magistrate convicted and renanded aceused for sentence. "I will "?ad the letter which he has handed me before I sentence him," added I Ir. Hunt. "He has been out four years, so that's something in his „ f avour."