State v. Bouslog

• Decision Date: 30 November 1915
• Docket Number: No. 18730.,18730.
• Citation: 266 Mo. 73,180 S.W. 859
• Parties: STATE v. BOUSLOG.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

180 S.W. 859

266 Mo. 73

STATE v. BOUSLOG.

No. 18730.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

November 30, 1915.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Jackson County; Ralph S. Latshaw, Judge.

Levi Bouslog was convicted of embezzlement, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Defendant was tried in the criminal court of Jackson county upon the charge of embezzlement. The jury found him guilty, and fixed his punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of two years. From this conviction, after making the conventional motions, he has appealed. The facts are brief, and, so far as they are material in the illumination of the points discussed in the opinion, run thus:

Defendant was engaged in the real estate business in Kansas City. He had certain dealings in real estate with one Mrs. Edith McClintock, who is the prosecuting witness in the case, by which defendant acquired from Mrs. McClintock certain farms in Nebraska and at Polo, Mo., and certain town property at Excelsior Springs, and Mrs. Mc-Clintock acquired from defendant a farm in Barton county, Mo. All of this property seems to have been very heavily incumbered with mortgages. In addition to the property exchanged by Mrs. McClintock with defendant for the Barton county farm, the former owned a house and lot in Excelsior Springs, which was incumbered for $1,200, upon which incumbrance the holders were threatening foreclosure. The Clay County Bank, with which Mrs. McClintock had dealings, was willing to take over this incumbrance, but was unwilling to take this latter property for the security of the full amount of the $1,200 incumbrance, and insisted that the amount thereof should be reduced to $800. Being unable otherwise to obtain this sum of $400, Mrs. McClintock arranged with defendant to obtain this money for her on the Barton county farm; the defendant representing to her that he could get from $500 to $700 on Mrs. McClintock's equity in this farm, if she would execute a blank warranty deed therefor to be put up, as defendant expressed it, "in escrow." Some time about the latter end of the year 1910 or the beginning of 1911, Mrs.'McClintock executed and acknowledged a warranty deed to the Barton county farm, leaving the name of the grantee therein blank. Upon this warranty deed defendant, some time in the early days of March, 1911, obtained $500. Subsequently and on March 10, 1911, he paid to the Clay County Bank $300 on the sum of $400 which the bank demanded of Mrs. McClintock as a condition precedent to its taking up the $1,200 loan on her Excelsior Springs property. Defendant at the time claimed that the $300 was advanced by him out of his own money. The balance of the $500 procured by defendant through the use of the warranty deed on the Barton county farm was never paid by him to Mrs. McClintock. Mrs. McClintock did not learn that defendant had used the warranty deed until the Barton county farm was lost to her; defendant having obtained the money on an agreement to repay the same within 90 days.

The proof shows that the check for the sum of $500 in question was payable to Mrs. McClintock, and that defendant, according to his own admissions upon the trial, indorsed such check by request of Mrs. Mc-Clintock and collected it in Kansas City, Mo. Defendant admitted obtaining the check for the sum of $500 by the means set cut above, but contends that in addition to the $300, which it is conceded he paid to Mrs. McClintock, and which was used in reducing the incumbrance on the Excelsior Springs property, he paid her in cash the further sum of $200. He also contends that he pa..d certain interest on incumbrances on the property she traded to him, and which she admits she agreed to pay, and that he paid the sum of $100 to obtain the extension of the 90-day redemption period on the Barton county farm. All these latter contentions are denied, however, by Mrs. McClintock. The record is obscure and unsatisfactory, but to eke it out, so far as it is possible, its condition considered, reference will be made in the opinion to further facts.

George M. Jacques, of Kansas City, for appellant. John T. Barker, Atty. Gen., and Lewis H. Cook, of Jefferson City, for the State.

FARIS, P. J.

The only questions so raised as to challenge our attention as matters of law, are (a) that the venue was not shown to be in Jackson county; and (b) that there was such a...