BOGUS BARON SENTENCED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 7, 27 May 1914, Page 6

BOGUS BARON SENTENCED.

11. AN AMAZING CAREER. London, April 11. At tlio London Sessions, a fashionably dressed man named Otto Frederick | von Meder (forty-one), stated to lie a tutor, of Xcedlmm Market. rinli'olU, was ' sentenced to three years' penal servitude, and recommended for deportation, for obtaining jewellery from two firms „ by false pretences. J Mr Walter Frampton, who prosecuted, said the prisoner had at various ■"i times represented himself as. a count or j baron. Upon different dates in last autumn he drove up to the premises of , Messrs Printer and Haws, jewellers in j Regent street. London, and, by posing us a baron, he secured possession of £(;.'!!) worth of jewellery. The property he obtained he pawned, !,and the great part of it had been rc- ! covered. Aliout September, 1012, while "travelling in (iermany, he made the ac- : (piaintance of a young Knglkh schoolj boy, the son of a family of n very high : standing in this country. The bov was j on his way home lo England, and the ! prisoner won his confidence by talking jof liis large estates and representing himself as a baron and a man of great .wealth. | He invited the boy to a country shoot I when he next visited (■'erman :. and on ' the boy's arrival in London he introducjed the prisoner to his family. The I; mother, aft-,- a time was iniitieneed by • i "vjsimer'; ;>J : .ydl>V mann-;. .-.nd t |i,j v „t SI Oc-nht ,his .statements as to his stains in society. Afterwards it was easy for • .him to obtain an introduction to 'Mesi-rs _ I l-'r:\7.nv and Haws, jewellers, Horrent St., jinvl obtain jevvellerv to the value of j rm. | i Return being sent< :i--ed the pvi.-o::---" !. pi wlcd fhit be had bad .rrn.'U trouble. He wns brought up :> - :\ ymn:g man of ■•,v..vil(!i :::>rl ;.--!t:e;i. a;.J did iV;t know v. hat P-r.rtv- wn=. Unfortunately, Ms father ■■' ;, ll() ,1 ifTi-.-ultiis. and he had commiHvd these nlVences to assist Ms narrnl' ill's mnflier was totally blind. His parents would starve while lie was in prison, lie wns at Eton as a bov, and he passed at Oxford with-good success.