United States v. Post
| Citation | 113 F. 852 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. POST. |
| Decision Date | 05 March 1902 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
J. N Stripling, U.S. Dist. Atty.
Bisbee & Bedell, O. T. Greene, and T. A. Ledwich, for defendant.
The indictment presented for examination, after striking out surplus words and allegations, alleges, in substance. That one Helen Wilmans Post had devised a scheme to defraud. This scheme was this: She pretended she could cure all diseases and poverty by mental science, and as a part of the scheme she advertised and represented in certain pamphlets and circulars that she possessed the power by that method to effect cures of disease, weakness, and poverty, and would treat persons in their absence, and in such advertisements requested people to open correspondence with her for the purpose of receiving treatment, intending to induce persons to send her money for treatment, but fraudulently intending to get possession of such money, and fraudulently convert it to her own use, without rendering to the person sending the same any service or thing of value therefor; which scheme was to be effected by opening correspondence with divers persons by means of the post office establishment of the United States; and that she, on the 17th day of July, 1901, having devised said scheme to defraud, in and for executing the said scheme by means of the post office department, did unlawfully receive from the post office a certain letter, which had been conveyed by mail.
Following the views of the supreme court in the case of Stokes v U.S., 157 U.S. 187, 15 Sup.Ct. 617, 39 L.Ed. 667, it may be safely concluded that an indictment drawn under section 5480 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, as amended by Act March 2, 1889, must allege and charge three particular things: (1) That the defendant must have devised a scheme or artifice to defraud; (2) that he must have intended to effect this scheme by opening, or intending to open, correspondence with other people through the post office establishment of the United States, or by inducing other persons to open correspondence or communication with him by that means; and (3) in carrying out such scheme such person must have deposited a letter, packet, writing, circular, or advertisement in some post office of the United States, to be sent or delivered by said post office establishment, or have taken or received such therefrom.
The language of the indictment upon the second and third points is sufficiently clear, distinct, and positive to support the charge that any scheme devised was intended to be effected by opening correspondence through the post office establishment of the United States, and that a letter was received and taken from the mails in furtherance of said scheme; but when we come to examine the allegations of the indictment as to the first and most important requirement, 'that the person charged must have devised a scheme and artifice to defraud,' a more difficult question presents itself. Not only must the indictment allege that the person had devised a scheme and artifice to defraud but it must set out clearly and distinctly what that artifice was, wherein the fraud consisted, and the facts and circumstances by which it was to be accomplished. U.S. v. Hess, 124 U.S. 483, 8 Sup.Ct. 571, 31 L.Ed. 516.
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