People v. Bertsche

• Decision Date: 03 December 1914
• Docket Number: No. 9509.,9509.
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BERTSCHE et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

265 Ill. 272

106 N.E. 823

PEOPLE

v.BERTSCHE et al.

No. 9509.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 16, 1914.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 3, 1914.

Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Charles M. Walker, Judge.

Christian P. Bertsche and another were convicted of obtaining property by means of the confidence game, and they bring error. Affirmed.

Benedict J. Short, of Chicago, for plaintiffs in error.

Patrick J. Lucey, Atty. Gen., C. H. Linscott, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Maclay Hoyne, State's Atty., of Chicago, for the People.

CARTWRIGHT, C. J.

An indictment against the plaintiffs in error, Christian P. Bertsche, alias B. P. Christy, and Charles T. Crane, alias James Ryan, was returned into the criminal court of Cook county. It contained three counts, and in the first charged that the defendants obtained from Hope L. McEldowney United States treasury notes, bank bills, and silver of the value of $15,000, and a draft of the value of $12,500, by means and by use of the confidence game. The second count charged a conspiracy to unlawfully obtain money and property of Hope L. McEldowney of the value of $15,000 by means and use of the confidence game, and the third count charged the larceny of a draft of the value of $12,500 and lawful money of the value of $15,000. Upon the trial the jury returned a verdict applicable to the first count, finding each of the defendants guilty of the confidence game in manner and form as charged in the indictment, and the court sentenced the defendants in accordance with the verdict.

Money and drafts amounting to $15,500 were obtained from Hope L. McEldowney by the defendant James Ryan by fraud and deceit, and the fact was not disputed. He was the principal actor in the fraudulent scheme by which the money and drafts were obtained, and the defendant Christian P. Bertsche was charged as an accessory before the fact and therefore a principal. The evidence of the transactions of the defendant James Ryan with Hope L. McEldowney was, in substance, as follows:

In January, 1913, Hope L. McEldowney, a widow 42 years old, arrived in Chicago from Davenport, Iowa, where she had graduated from a school of chiropractics, which professes to teach a method of curing disorders by a treatment of the spine. She saw in the Sunday Examiner, a newspaper published in Chicago, the following advertisement of the defendant James Ryan under the style of Prof. C. T. Crane:

‘Prof. C. T. Crane, clairvoyant, permanently located and favorably known in Chicago for the past eleven years for his marvelous foresight and accurate advice upon the problems of life in their multifarious details, such as love, courtship, marriage, investment, speculations, patents, insurance, journeys, changes, property, etc. Positively reunites the separated, causes speedy marriages, removes evil influences, develops mediums, etc., and immediately brings about every ambition and wish, and saves you the sadest words that pen ever wrote: ‘It might have been,’ Full and complete reading to-day, only 50 cents. Hours 10:00 to 6:00 P. M. 204 North State street, corner of West Lake street, one block north of Marshall Field's. All ‘L’ trains stop at the door.'

She went with a friend, Nellie Hoople, to the place named in the advertisement and was ushered by a doorman into a reception room, where she found a number of ladies waiting for the professor to solve the problems of life by his marvelous foresight, and after a time she was admitted to the defendant. By his direction she wrote a number of questions on a slip of paper. She was in doubt whether to locate in California or Florida, and one of the questions asked for his advice which it would be best to do. The paper was folded up and the professor was supposed not to see the writing, but he did see it by some method, as he admitted, and another fortune teller testified that they saw the questions by switching the papers. He held the paper to his forehead and answered the questions. He said the trip to California would not be successful, that she would not be happy, and that Chicago would be a betterplace to make money. He asked her if it was really necessary for her to practice chiropractics as a livelihood, and she told him it was not, and he ascertained that she had considerable property, amounting, as he said, to $125,000 or $130,000. He told her that she should be a very happy and successful woman, but an evil influence was following her, and he would like to remove that. He charged her 50 cents for what he called the ‘reading’ and $20 for removing the evil influence. He asked her to come to his office and talk about it with him, and on the second visit he asked her about her investments. She had lived at West Salem, Wis., where she had been assistant cashier in a bank. She told him that she was getting 5 per cent. on her mortgages, and he said that he could invest her money and make a great deal more. He gave her a book on psychology and mental thought, and she reported afterward that she was progressing and feeling much better. She called on him frequently, and he was very attentive to her, and their relations became very intimate. He telephoned her many times a day and asked her how she was feeling, and she would tell him that she was feeling better. She saw him nearly every day, and he sent her flowers, books and bonbons and presented her with a diamond ring. At first she stopped at a hotel, where he called on her very often and took her to dinners and suppers, and he also gave her daily automobile rides and took her to theaters. After a time she changed her location from the hotel to rooms at 2507 Michigan avenue, where the same relations existed between them. Soon after the acquaintance was formed he told her that his father and he had a broker on the board of trade who supervised all their investments, and he would like to prove to her how easily he could make a good profit on a small sum. She gave him a draft for $400 drawn by the La Crosse County Bank of West Salem on a bank in Chicago and $100 in cash. He made no investment, but in about a week brought her $121 and said that was the result of the investment of the $500. About February 13, 1913, she gave him another draft, for $2,500, to be invested on the board of trade. He said they never took money without giving collateral of some sort, and on each occasion gave her his note for the amount received. Some days later he told her that Murray, who was in high esteem and employ of James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railroad, was in Chicago and in close conference with himself and his father for three days, and had told them about some bonds and advised them to get Great Northern railroad bonds, and that he and his father were going to take a good many of them, and they would be a better investment for her money than on the board of trade. He showed her a bundle of bonds which he said were worth about $7,500 and belonged to him. He said that he and his father had helped a great many people and had done a great deal of good in the world; that God had given him a marvelous gift, and he had never abused that gift, and if he did anything wrong the gift would be taken from him. He said he lived with his father and sisters and brothers on Sheridan road and was a single man, all of which was false. On the representation that he would buy bonds for her she procured another draft from the same bank for $12,500 and gave it to him on March 3, 1913, to buy the bonds. The bonds did not come, and he showed her what purported to be a telegram from New York that the man authorized to sign the bonds was attending the inauguration at Washington, and as soon as the man returned the bonds would be signed and sent to him. He had proposed marriage to her, and it was agreed that they should go to New York and be married. He turned the draft for $12,500 over to his confederate, and he started with her ostensibly for New York, but on the way told her that his father had requested him to stop in Indianapolis to attend to an estate worth about $400,000 in which he was interested. They stopped at Indianapolis and stayed at a hotel as husband and wife for two days while he claimed that he was trying to find a judge, and he then said that there was important business for him back in Chicago, and they would have to go back and start again the next week for New York. They left Indianapolis the evening of March 6th and took a compartment and arrived in Chicago on the morning of March 7th. She then went to West Salem and had some news which caused her to come back to Chicago, when he had disappeared and the rooms at 204 North State street were vacant. While he had her away at Indianapolis the draft was collected, and it is a fair inference that it was a part of the scheme that she should be absent from Chicago at that time. On April 18, 1913, Ryan was arrested in Mannsville, Wyo. He resisted extradition, and Mrs. McEldowney went to Wyoming to identify him in a habeas corpus proceeding. At the hearing he testified that he had never lived in Chicago, that he was never there more than two days at a time, and that he never went by the name of C. T. Crane. He was remanded to the sheriff and sued out a writ of habeas corpus from the Supreme Court of the state, and there gave the same testimony, which is admitted to have been false. He never made any investments of the money or the proceeds of the drafts and never intended to, but claimed that he gave the drafts to his brother, Frank Ryan.

The testimony of the defendant Ryan did not tend to relieve him of the charge made against him, although he denied some of the statements of Mrs. McEldowney. He did not deny obtaining the money or the drafts, or that he disposed of them as claimed, but testified that he told Mrs. McEldowney that he was married, but he and his wife were not congenial, and she asked him when his wife was going to get a divorce, so that they could be married as they had agreed. In fact, he was living...