STOLE SIX MILLIONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 235, 22 February 1913, Page 2 (Supplement)

STOLE SIX MILLIONS

AN AMAZING FRENCHMAN. Particulars are furnished of the remarkable career of a Frenchman named Kocliette.

Rochette was arrested on March 23, 1008. on the charge of having embezzled something,like £6,000,000 through company promoting. On July "28, 1910, Rochette was convicted in Paris and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. On his appeal the sentence was quashed, owing to a flaw in procedure, and a new trial was ordered at Rouen. On July •20. 1012, Rochette was convicted again and sentenced this time to two—not three—years of imprisonment. He lodged a final appeal before the Supreme I Court of Cassation. He had previously been let out on bail, after 47 clays' preventive imprisonment, giving his own suretv in £BOOO.

On December 10 the Court of Cassation threw out his final appeal. Next lay Rochette hid vanished, giving up his CSOOft. It is a small price to pay for eii.OOO.OOO. He is believed to have missed over to Folkestone, and to lie now on his way to Ameriea. ITe can. of course, be extradited if discovered. But if not brought up for trial .within five years all the proceedings against him will, under French law, lapse, and he will be able to return to France a free man. liochette's career is probably the must amazing in the history of swindling. .About 15 years ago he was an errand hoy in a tiny restaurant at Melum. the railway station for the artists' village of Barbizon. Ten years later Roehette was a Parisian multi-millionaire. He was running, not errands, but half a dozen financial companies for the working of electric light patents, Spanish mines, Paris hanks, etc.. but designed chielly, and successfully designed to fill Roehette's pockets. Roehette knew all the tricks of the law. and now that he was finally to have been brought to hook he has successfully got away. Tie is a character worth studying. Tn private life he is a model husband and a model father. Tie has robbed the public, not. as the public usually believes the purpose of swindler* to be, to live a gay life at, Montmartre. but to keep his wife and many children in the best luxury to the end of their days, and presumably to leave his sons and daughters a fortune after him.