#fraudulent conversion

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"Judge Will Have To Review Term Given to Latham," Ottawa Citizen. April 23, 1930. Page 1. --- This Step is Necessary Be- fore Formal Action of Laying New Charges Against Housing Official Can be Taken. ---- Some City Fathers Not Impressed With Matter ---- Give Decided Impression They Are Merely Trying to Satisfy Public Opinion. ---- F. B. Proctor, K.C., city solicitor, will confer this afternoon with J. A Ritchie, K.C., crown attorney, regarding the new charges which will be preferred against Howard C. Latham. former secretary of the Housing Commission, on the instructions of the Board of Control. There is no obstacle to the laying of additional charges, just before Latham is brought from Kingston penitentiary to answer the new charges at once. it would appear that a judge will have to review the sentence already passed on Latham.

The Criminal Code makes it clear that an order of a judge must be secured and sets forth that the judge may issue an order to have the prisoner brought before the magistrate "if he is satisfied that the ends of Justice require it." The section under which Latham may be brought back is given on an inside page in a report of last night's proceedings at the city hall.

Unless the required order is given by the judge, the alternative would be to lay the new charges and have Latham tried on them after he has served his present sentence of two years. While City Council voted unanimously in favor of the laying of the new charges, several members do not hesitate to say that they acted in deference to public opinion as they interpret it and not that they think anything of consequence will be accomplished other than the satisfying of the public demand. If the trial would have to be delayed until Latham has served his term, many would be opposed to their going ahead then.

Latham pleaded guilty to stealing $50,000 and was sentenced to two years. The charge was for a lump sum covering from January 1, 1925, to Feb. 6 of this year. Additional defalcations include $14.357.20 prior to 1925. and an additional shortage of $3.704.17 reported by the auditors for the period since Jan. 1. 1925. In the $14.357 amount, 104 items are involved, the largest amount being for $300, and the majority of them for much smaller sums.

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“Hamilton Broker Gets Three-Year Term,” Brantford Expositor. April 22, 1931. Page 15. ---- HAMILTON, April 22 - C. E. Weller, at one time head of the now defunct stock brokerage company of C. E. Weller and company, Ltd., was sentenced to three years in Portsmouth penitentiary by Judge Thomson in county criminal court Tuesday when he was found guilty on four charges of conversion. Charges of theft were dismissed.

A three-year term was inflicted in each case and the sentences will run concurrently.

Complainants against Weller were former clients who had lost money through the activities of his firm.

[AL: Weller was 52. married, from Montreal, and was of course a stock broker. He was convict #2164 at Kingston Penitentiary and worked in an quarry gang. He did not support the October 1932 strike. He was paroled in May 1933.]

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“Three of Kitchener’s Legion Officers Resign,” Kingston Whig-Standard. April 24, 1930. Page 9.  ---- KITCHENER, April 24 — Following the recent prosecution of George Toms, former secretary of legion funds, three members of the executive of the local branch of the Canadian Legion have tendered their resignations. They are President C. Abbott, Secretary C. Craig and Treasurer C. Wesson. In tendering his resignation, President Abbott stated the desire of some members not to submit to rules good for the entire membership had caused trouble.

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“NEW CHARGES OF THEFT OF FUNDS,” Kingston Whig-Standard. April 24, 1930. Page 9. ---- Former Ottawa Housing Commission Secretary Now in Penitentiary ---- OTTAWA, April 21 — New charges of conversion of civic funds are to be laid against Howard C. Latham, former secretary of the Ottawa housing commission, who is now In Portsmouth Penitentiary serving a two-year sentence for theft of $50,000. The city solicitor announced last night following a conference with the local crown attorney that he would take this action in compliance with instructions from city council. 

After Latham pleaded guilty to theft of the large sum over a period of five years starting in 1925 and the two year sentence imposed protest that the punishment was inadequate came from many quarters. Further conversion of housing commission funds later was revealed by an audit of accounts.

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“Attempt to Convert Him Is Failure,” Border Cities Star. October 30, 1931. Page 9. ---- HAMILTON, Ont., Oct. 30. - Philip S. Gregory and his wife, who told the court she had married in the hope of converting her husband, were both convicted here on a charge of conversion. Gregory, alias Martindale, Starr, and Goodkind was sentenced to two years in Portsmouth Penitentiary, and his wife will spend three months in the city jail.

Gregory had spent 12 years in prisons of Canada and the United States, his wife told Judge Thomson, and she had brought she could influence him to go straight.

‘Like all such attempts to convert criminals, it ended in disaster,’ said the judge.

/// “Philip S. Gregory, who arrived in Hamilton some time ago with a large automobile and a Japanese chauffeur, has been convicted of conversion and sentenced to two years in Kingston Penitentiary. He tried to interest Hamilton in reclaiming valuable byproducts from garbage.” - from the Kingston Whig-Standard. October 30, 1931. Page 3.

[AL: Gregory had been in Kingston Penitentiary, back in 1911-1912, and Manitoba Penitentiary before, as well as Auburn and Joliet. He was largely a fraud or cheque artist. At Kingston Penitentiary, he worked in the change room and he thought the officer in charge was “hard on poor young fellows full of high spirits. He reported them for little things like stepping in the wrong place and he uses obscene language.” He took part in the October 1932, especially because this officer called him a cripple and mocked him. He submitted a list of complaints to the investigators. In April 1933 he wrote and circulated a petition to establish an orchestra for his cell block.  He was released in July of that year.]

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“Find no Evidence, Automobile Case,” Ottawa Journal. October 23, 1931. Page 01. ---- Judge Dismisses Charge Against Bert Lemlin and Allan A. Gemmell --- Bert Lemlin and Allan A. Gemmell, of Ottawa, were acquitted on a charge of converting the sum of $1,200 as a result of an automobile transaction when they appeared before Judge Constantineau at County Court this morning. Judge Constantineau told the court that he had read the evidence for the prosecution submitted at the preliminary trial and had found that unless that evidence could be supplemented the accused had to be given the benefit of the doubt. They were therefore acquitted. J. A. Ritchie, K.C., Crown Attorney, appeared for the prosecution, George F. Henderson, K.C., for Lemlin and Lee Kelley for Gemmell.

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“Thief Is Given Lengthy Term At Haileybury,” Border Cities Star. April 23, 1931. Page 08. ---- HAILEYBURY, Ont., April 23. - Sentence of five years hard labor at Portsmouth Penitentiary was yesterday meted out to Alexander M. Soloway, formerly in business at Kirkland Lake, Ont., as a merchant and steamship agent, who was convicted on three charges of fraudulent conversion of funds, by Judge Hartman. The charges were laid by the Crown on complaints made by former Jugo-Slavians now residing in Kirkland Lake. Crown Attorney F. K. Smiley, K.C., told the there were a number of other charges of a similar nature that were not being pressed, involving, in all, an amount of $3000. Soloway was arrested last December in Regina, Sask.

[AL: Soloway appealed his sentence several times, having a success in July 1931 and a re-trial in September 1931 that, nonetheless, confirmed the original sentence. He worked as a cleaner in the penitentiary, when he arrived in October 1931, and supported the riot in October 1932, desiring newspapers and recreation. A quiet prisoner otherwise, he laboured in a trusty work gang until his release in May 1935 on a general amnesty.]

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Dasuki: FG not disobeying court order on bail – Minister

Dasuki: FG not disobeying court order on bail – Minister

Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retd.)

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said the Federal Government was not disobeying any court order on the bail granted to a former National Security Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki.

Dasuki is standing trial in three different courts over fraudulent conversion of money among many other charges.

One of them is the $2.1 billion…

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