Johnson v. United States, 1,668.

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
• Citation: 158 F. 69
• Decision Date: 10 December 1907
• Parties: JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES.
• Docket Number: 1,668.

158 F. 69

JOHNSON
v.
UNITED STATES.

No. 1,668.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

December 10, 1907

J. C. Muse and Geo. E. Miller (Muse & Allen and Miller & Dycus, on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

William H. Atwell, U.S. Atty.

The plaintiff in error, B. H. Johnson, E. H. Coleman, and A. F. Mitchell, were jointly indicted for conspiring to commit an offense against the United States. The indictment, omitting formal parts, is as follows:

'Heretofore to wit, on the 25th day of January, A.D. 1904, one B. H Johnson, one E. H. Coleman, and one A. F. Mitchell did unlawfully and fraudulently conspire together within the Dallas division of the Northern district of Texas, to wit in Navarro county, state of Texas, and within the jurisdiction of this court, to commit an offense against the United States of America, in the manner and form as hereinafter shown; that is to say, the said E. H. Coleman was then and there at the said time engaged in the selling of drugs and druggist's sundries in the town of Frost, county of Navarro, and state aforesaid, and he, the said E. H. Coleman, and he, the said B. H. Johnson, and he, the said A. F. Mitchell, on the date aforesaid and within the venue aforesaid, conspired and agreed and confederated to the effect and in substance that he, the said E. H. Coleman, should file his voluntary petition in bankruptcy under and as provided for in and by the acts of the United States Congress in the act commonly known and called the 'Law of Bankruptcy,' but that he, the said E. H. Coleman, should unlawfully, knowingly, and fraudulently conceal, secrete, and keep a certain part of his stock of drugs out of and from his schedules in the said bankruptcy proceedings, and should conceal, as aforesaid, unlawfully, knowingly, and fraudulently from his trustee [158 F. 70] in bankruptcy a certain part of his said stock of drugs and a certain amount of money, which said drugs and which said money were really a part of the assets of the said E. H. Coleman belonging to his said business and subject to the said bankrupt act, and which should be properly scheduled as a part of his estate in bankruptcy, and by him turned over to his trustee in bankruptcy, and that he, the said B. H. Johnson, and he, the said A. F. Mitchell, would assist the said E. H. Coleman in the sort of concealment aforesaid of his said property, and on the said 25th day of January, A.D. 1904, the said E. H. Coleman filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in the Dallas Division of the said District, his certain voluntary petition in bankruptcy, and was thereupon and thereunder, to wit, on the said date, adjudged a bankrupt under the provisions of the act of Congress relating to such matters by the Honorable Eugene Marshall, who was then and there the properly appointed, qualified, and acting referee in bankruptcy for the Dallas Division of the Northern District of Texas; that, thereafter, and in the regular and legal course of said bankruptcy proceeding, to wit, in February, A.D. 1904, the said B. H. Johnson was duly and legally appointed and elected trustee in the said bankruptcy proceeding, and thereafter, in the said month of the said year, he, the said B. H. Johnson, duly qualified as such trustee, and continued to act as such trustee from that date up to the time of the presentment of this bill of indictment into this honorable court; and the grand jurors aver that before and while the said E. H. Coleman was a voluntary bankrupt, as aforesaid, and before and while the said B. H. Johnson was his duly appointed, qualified, and elected and acting trustee in bankruptcy, as aforesaid, he, the said B. H. Johnson, and he, the said E. H. Coleman, and he, the said A. F. Mitchell, within the Dallas Division of the Northern District of Texas, on the date aforesaid, to wit, on the 25th day of January, A.D. 1904, did, as aforesaid, unlawfully and fraudulently conspire and confederate and agree that the said E. H. Coleman, when he should become such bankrupt, and while such bankrupt, should unlawfully, knowingly, and fraudulently conceal a portion of his stock of drugs, as hereinbefore set out, which said portion and part of his stock of drugs was then and there a portion and part of the property that should be and ought to have been listed by him as such bankrupt and turned over to the possession and custody of him, the said B. H. Johnson, as trustee as aforesaid, which said property was the following, to wit: (Here follows a detailed description of the property.) And in pursuance of such agreement and confederation so unlawfully and fraudulently made, as aforesaid, and to effect the object thereof, he the said E. H. Coleman, did unlawfully, knowingly, willfully, and fraudulently conceal while such bankruptcy, as aforesaid, the aforementioned property from his trustee in bankruptcy, as aforesaid, the said property then and there belonging to the said Coleman's estate in bankruptcy, and he, the said E. H. Coleman, then and there well knew that the said property then and there belonged to his estate in bankruptcy, and should have been scheduled and turned over, as aforesaid, to his trustee in

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