STATE v. GORDON
Supreme Court, Kansas, July Term, 1895.
Reported in 56 Kansas Reports, 64.
Gordon was convicted and sentenced in the District Court upon a charge of obtaining money from Trenier on false pretences. He appealed from the judgment.
The facts alleged and proved were, in brief, as follows:—
Gordon represented to Trenier that Gordon and a certain Indian owned and possessed a gold brick of the value of $10,000; that they were about to take the brick to the United States Mint at Philadelphia to be coined into money; that the Indian would not allow the brick to be taken to the mint unless he received a certain sum of money on his interest in the brick. Gordon told Trenier that, if Trenier would give Gordon money to pay the Indian on his share in the brick, he (Gordon) would deliver said brick to Trenier to be by Trenier taken to the mint, and that Trenier should have a third interest in the money coined from the brick. Relying on these statements, Trenier gave Gordon money to pay the Indian.
It appeared that Gordon and the Indian did not own or possess a gold brick; that the representations were all known by Gordon to be false; and that they were made for the purpose of defrauding Trenier.[[317]]
Johnston, J.... The substantial features of the charge were representations and assurances of present existing facts, viz., that Gordon and the Indian were then the owners and possessors of a valuable gold brick, which they then had in Shawnee County, and that they were then on their road to take the gold brick to the United States Mint at Philadelphia to be coined. It is alleged that on the faith of these representations and the assurance of those facts the money was obtained from Trenier. The mere fact that a false pretence of an existing or past fact is accompanied by a future promise will not relieve the defendant or take the case out of the operation of the statute. Besides,
“It is not necessary, to constitute the offence of obtaining goods by false pretences, that the owner has been induced to part with his property solely and entirely by pretences which are false; nor need the pretences be the paramount cause of the delivery to the prisoner. It is sufficient if they are a part of the moving cause, and without them the defrauded party would not have parted with the property.” (In re Snyder, 17 Kan. 542.)
[Remainder of opinion omitted.]
Judgment affirmed.[[318]]