TRIAL VOIDED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 26, 22 April 1927, Page 1

TRIAL VOIDED

FORD LIBEL ACTION WIFE OF A “BOOTLEGGER” FIVE WASTED WEEKS By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright Reed. 8 a.m. DETROIT, Thursday. The Ford Sapiro libel suit came to a dramatic end when Judge Raymond granted a motion declaring a mistrial. Mr. Henry Ford’s lawyers presented a motion alleging that Mrs. Hoffman, a member of the jury, was guilty of conduct prejudicial to Mr. Ford. A fair trial was impossible under the circumstances. It was charged first that Mrs. Hoffman represented her husband to be a plumber, when actually he was a bootlegger. Second, that detectives had heard her converse with an individual known as “Kid” Miller, who mentioned that there was an opportunity to make much money. Third, she gave an interview to a Detroit newspaper denying improper conduct as a member of the jury. Fourth, she told a cousin before the jury was chosen that it would be bad for Ford to have her selected. The decision sweeps aside five weeks’ testimony and wastes thousands of dollars. —A. and N.Z.

The action which opened at Detroit on March 14 was brought by Mr. Aaron Sapiro, a noted attorney of Jewish extraction and the organiser of the most important group of agricultural co-opera-tive societies in America. He sued Mr. Henry Ford for £200,000 damages on the ground that he was personally libelled in a series of 20 articles which were printed in Air. Ford’s weekly paper, the ‘‘Dearborn Independent.”