Zimmer based his refusal upon the ground that in his opinion the Grand Jury had indicted a number of gentlemen upon evidence which Mr. Zimmer regarded as insufficient, and that he would not, to protect his own interests, testify.[288]
The court instructed Mr. Zimmer that his position was untenable. The witness continued obdurate. The court sentenced him to serve five days in the county jail for contempt.
After his five-days’ term had expired, Zimmer was again called to the stand, and again did he refuse to testify; again was he sentenced to serve in the county jail, this time for one day. Upon the expiration of this second sentence, Zimmer was for the third time called to the stand, for the third time refused to testify. For the third time was he adjudged guilty of contempt. His third sentence was to serve five days in the county jail and pay a fine of $500. Before he had served his time, the Glass trial had been concluded. Zimmer, therefore, escaped testifying against his associate, Glass. But for his refusal, he served eleven days in the county jail and paid a fine of $500. The maximum penalty for the crime of bribery alleged against Glass was fourteen years penal servitude. Mr. Zimmer thus served fewer days than Mr. Glass might have been sentenced to serve years had he been convicted. The testimony which Zimmer[289] gave before the Grand Jury, was not presented to the trial jury.
Nevertheless, the prosecution considered that it had made out a strong case, but Mr. Heney and his associates had reckoned without D. M. Delmas, Glass’s chief counsel. The defense introduced no evidence, but Delmas, in a masterful argument, raised the question of reasonable doubt. He insisted that Glass had not necessarily given the money to Halsey. He argued that several others of the officials of the company could have authorized the transaction. By an elaborate chain of reasoning, for example, Delmas insisted that if the money had been given Halsey at all, President Henry T. Scott[290] could have provided for it.
The jury, after being out forty-seven hours, failed to agree. At the final ballot it stood seven for conviction and five for acquittal. That Delmas’s argument had strong influence upon those who voted for acquittal was indicated by their published interviews. If these statements are to be credited, Glass escaped conviction because a number of the jurors held to the opinion that some telephone company official other than Glass could have authorized the passing of the bribe money.[291]
As soon as the prosecution could bring Glass to second trial, impaneling of the jury began.[292] Glass, at this second trial, was tried for the alleged bribery of Supervisor Lonergan. The trial was in many particulars a repetition of the first. Again, there was no serious attempt to dispute that Halsey had paid Lonergan the bribe money. Zimmer again refused to testify against his superior, and was again committed for contempt. But the prosecution was careful at the second trial to show beyond the possibility of the question of a doubt that neither President Henry T. Scott, nor any other official of the Pacific States Telephone Company, other than Glass, could have authorized the payment of the bribe money.
By the minute books of the corporation, the prosecution showed that checks drawn by the corporation on San Francisco banks were to be signed “by the assistant treasurer or his deputy, and by the president, or his private secretary, E. J. Zimmer, for him, or by the general manager.” As for Mr. Scott, the prosecution showed by the testimony of Assistant Treasurer Eaton[293] of the telephone company that the corporation did not notify the banks to honor President Scott’s signature until February 27, which was after the alleged bribery of Supervisor Lonergan had been consummated.
The jury, after being out less than a half hour, brought in a verdict of guilty.
Pending his appeal to the Appellate Court, Glass was confined in the county jail.
Of the Pacific States Telephone bribing charges, those against T. V. Halsey remained to be disposed of.