Case ID: nh_61/html/0143-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Clabk, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State v. Cloutman.
    Money drawn as a prize in a lottery may be the subject of embezzlement.
    Indictment, for the embezzlement of $1,000, the property of S., who held a ticket in the Kentucky State Lottery, which drew a prize of $1,000 payable in New York, and employed the defendant to collect the money, giving him the ticket and a written order for that purpose. He went to New York, collected the money, and, though requested, has never paid nor accounted for it to S. The defendant claimed that the state showed no title in S. to the money, and moved for a verdict on that ground. Motion denied, and the defendant excepted. Verdict, guilty.
    
      Gr. E. Cochrane and 8. M. Wheeler, for the defendant.
    
      W. R. Burleigh, solicitor, for the state.
   Clabk, J.

Illegality in the acquisition of property does not render it incapable of being the subject of embezzlement or larceny. Goods stolen from a thief who has stolen them from the owner, may be charged in the indictment as the goods either of the thief or of the true owner. 2 Bish. Cr. Law, s. 801. Under this indictment it was sufficient proof of the ownership of the money which the defendant is charged with having embezzled, that it came into the possession of the defendant lawfully, as the agent of S., and that it was the property of S. when the defendant received it. It was immaterial how the title of S. was acquired. Com. v. Rourke, 10 Cush. 397; Com. v. Coffee, 9 Gray 139; Galligan v. Fannan, 7 Allen 255; Booraem v. Crane, 103 Mass. 522.

Exceptions overruled.

Allen, J., did not sit: the others concurred.