People v. Zurek
| Decision Date | 04 April 1917 |
| Docket Number | No. 10874.,10874. |
| Citation | 115 N.E. 644,277 Ill. 621 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. ZUREK. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Criminal Court, Cook County; Joseph H. Fitch, Judge.
Frank Zurek was convicted as an accessory before the fact on an indictment in two counts, charging the obtaining of money by means of the confidence game, and of larceny, and he brings error. Affirmed.Bernard J. Brown, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.
P. J. Lucey, Atty. Gen., Maclay Hoyne, State's Atty., of Chicago, George P. Ramsey, of Springfield, and E. E. Wilson, of Chicago, for the State.
Frank Zurek, plaintiff in error, Walter Nowicki and one Kaminski were charged in the first count of an indictment returned into the criminal court of Cook county with obtaining from John Piniaszek accessory before the fact was convicted. game, and in the second count with larceny of that sum of money. Nowicki and Kaminski were not found, but Zurek was tried and upon evidence proving him to have been an He was sentenced to the penitentiary, and He was sentenced to the penitentiary, and sued out a writ of error from this court to obtain a review of the judgment.
The only evidence touching the commission of the alleged crime was the testimony of John Piniaszek and the defendant. Piniaszek gave the following account of what occurred: The defendant kept a saloon and did some business as a real estate agent. He and Piniaszek were friends of several years' standing, and Piniaszek was frequently in the saloon. About three weeks after Christmas, 1914, Piniaszek was in the saloon, and the defendant asked him about how much money he had in the box. Piniaszek told him about $400, and the defendant said he had a man who could make money and Piniaszek should not say anything about it to anybody, but should come to the saloon on Tuesday, when the man would be there. Piniaszek came to the saloon at the time fixed, and the defendant took him into the kitchen and introduced him to Kaminski. The defendant then said to Kaminski that this was the man he had been telling him about; that he had money in the box and could bring money, and would like to see how Kaminski made money. Kaminski took some white paper from his pocket, but the defendant said that when the man would be there. Piniaszek day, but Piniaszek should come some time tomorrow. The next day Piniaszek went to the saloon and went with the defendant and Kaminski from the kitchen to the front room, where Kaminski took a paper from his pocket, and the defendant took money from his pocket and gave Kaminski two $1 bills. Kaminski put a bracket on one side of a bill and another bracket on another side, covered the paper and put it in a telephone book, and the defendant stood on it. Kaminski then directed the defendant to get a pail of water, and Piniaszek then stood on the telephone book. When the defendant brought in the pail Kaminski covered the pail with a rag, put the papers in it, and took out three $1 bills, and Kaminski said to the defendant that he could made them much better than that. Piniaszek was given the two $1 bills, which it was supposed had been made, and he took them with him to his work. They were wet, and he dried them on the steam radiator. In the evening Piniaszek came to the defendant and told him it was impossible for Kaminski to make money-that there was a number on it; but the defendant said that Kaminski knew how to make money; that he had been making it for a long time; that he made a $5 bill, and his wife changed it in a grocery store and it was good. The defendant told Piniaszek to come again on Friday, which Piniaszek did, and he then met the defendant and Kaminski. They asked him if he wanted to make the money, and he said ‘No.’ Kaminski went out, and the defendant told Piniaszek not to be afraid; that people never got rich working. Three days afterward Kaminski came to the house of Piniaszek, stayed a few minutes, and told Piniaszek not to speak to the defendant about it. Five days afterward Kaminski came to the house again, carrying a satchel, in which it afterward turned out there were two sticks of wood and some waste paper. In the meantime Piniaszek had taken money from the bank amounting to $1,915, part of which belonged to him, part to a girl who boarded at his house, and part to his brother-in-law. He gave the money to Kaminski, who selected from it two $10 bills and three $5 bills, and said they were no good. He straightened out the bills, put them together, covered them with a paper, put them between two boards, pressed the boards together, gave them to Piniaszek, and said he should keep them, and he would go out and bring some oil. After half an hour Piniaszek opened the boards, found some blank paper and nothing else, and never saw Kaminski after that. The paper was discolored, and Piniaszek thought Kaminski had spoiled his money, as he broke a bottle in the room and it smelled terribly. The defendant had told Piniaszek that the money Kaminski would make would be divided between them-half to Kaminski, one-fourth to the defendant, and one-fourth to Piniaszek. About four weeks after the disappearance of Kaminski, Piniaszek went to the saloon and told the defendant that Kaminski had spoiled his money, and the defendant told him that he should be quiet or he would go in a hole. Piniaszek was arrested at the instance of the girl boarder, and then told what had occurred. The defendant denied in detail all the testimony of Piniaszek concerning any knowledge on his part of the transaction or participation in it, and testified that Kaminski had been introduced to him by Nowicki as a prospective purchaser of real estate; that Kaminski claimed he had lately left Russia on account of the war and asked him to change some Russian money, which the defendant refused to...
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People v. Bruner
...of the law as well as the facts in a criminal case, provided they upon their oaths considered that they knew the law; upon People v. Zurek, 277 Ill. 621, 115 N. E. 644, and People v. Karpovich, 288 Ill. 268, 123 N. E. 324, in which it was decided that, because of the statute under review, a......
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...for honesty or past honest dealings with the victim is alone sufficient to shield the swindler from the statute. In People v. Zurek, 277 Ill. 621, 115 N.E. 644, Zurek was convicted of obtaining money of the complaining witness by means of the confidence game. He kept a saloon and did some b......
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...People v. Logan (1934), 358 Ill. 64, 192 N.E. 675, and People v. Bruner (1931), 343 Ill. 146, 175 N.E. 400, with People v. Zurek (1917), 277 Ill. 621, 115 N.E. 644.) Also, the court in Herring noted that its decision concerned only the right to argument at the conclusion of the evidence, an......
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People v. Van Cleve, 53902
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