“Wolf Bounty Frauds,” Toronto Globe. March 26, 1910. Page 04.
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FINKELSTEIN AND LEVISON COMMITTED FOR TRIAL
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George Westcott’s Store of His Dealings With Winnipeg Men - Nine Prisoners Who Had Pleaded Guilty Sentence.
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(C.P.R. Press Despatch.)
Fort Frances, March 25. - Interest in the wolf bounty frauds continued to-day when Moses Finkelstein and Bejamin Levison, fur dealers of Winnipeg, were arraigned in the Police Court here charged with complicity in the conspiracy to defraud the Ontario Government.
In order to prove the alleged complicity the Crown called George Westcott, now under sentence, who is, in an apparently straightforward story, told the whole circumstances. According to Westcott, he visited the accused fur dealers, and seeing a pile of wolf skins, was told that he could make easy money in this district under certain conditions. Mr. Westcott said he, therefore, arranged to take a number of wolf skins, those with good ears only, on the understanding that he got his money back less $1 for rental. The witness said he had obtained probably one hundred skins from Leviston in this way, on which the bounty had been paid.
At the conclusion of the Police Court proceedings, the prisoners who had pleaded guilty last week and were in jail awaiting sentence, were brought before Judge Fitch, who sentenced them as follows; - George Westcott, two years in the Kingston Penitentiary; M. T. Cathcart, two and a half years in the same institution; Thos. Godin, Joseph Maxim, Robert Horrocks and Thos. Killpatrick, three months each in the district jail, and a fine of $150 or a further term of nine months. The three Indians were left off more lightly, McGinnis and Blackbird getting three months each and Baptiste four months.
