Case ID: ohio-cc-ns_11/html/0271-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PROSECUTIONS FOR. EMBEZZLEMENT.
    Circuit Court of Hamilton County.
    Austin W. Tidd v. State of Ohio.
    Decided, June 6, 1908.
    
      Criminal Law — Indictment for Embezzlement — Time Laid Immaterial, When — Ownership of Property — Evidence.
    The time laid for the receiving of the money in an indictment for embezzlement is immaterial, when it appears that at the time the embezzlement occurred the ownership of the property was as alleged in the indictment.
    
      Thomas L. Michie, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Froome Morris, contra.
    Smith, J., Saving, P. J., and Gippen, J., concur.
   The plaintiff in error was convicted of embezzlement in the common pleas court of this county and sentenced to the penitentiary, to reverse which judgment this suit in error is brought.

The only ground of error complained of is, that while the indictment charges Tidd with embezzling money, the property of the Smith Envelope Company, a corporation, on the 14th day of March, 1907, which money came into his posession and care as treasurer and manager of such corporation at the time of the embezzlement, yet he can not be held under the indictment, for the reason that at the time of the embezzlement is alleged to have occurred -no such corporation existed, and therefore he should be discharged.

We do not think the time laid in the indictment as to the embezzling of the money is material.

The record shows that at the time of the delivery of the money from Ellerhorst to Tidd, there was talked over the formation of the corporation to be known as the Smith Envelope Company; that soon afterward such a company was duly incorporated; that certificates of stock were issued by the company, signed by Ellerhorst, as president, and Tidd, as treasurer; that Tidd expended a part of the money entrusted to him in fitting up the office of the company, and for sundry necessary expenses, and when the jury found him guilty of embezzlement, it was for the embezzlement of money after the incorporation of the company, and necessarily found that the money belonged to the Smith Envelope Company.

The record further discloses that the defense made to the jury at the trial of the case was that the money alleged to have been embezzled was not the money of the Smith Envelope Company, but belonged to the Standard Pay Envelope Company. The jury were called to pass upon this question of fact, and found in their verdict that the money entrusted to him, for which he was convicted, was the money of the Smith Envelope Company. As has been said in cases cited by counsel for State, if a man has received a thing of another under a claim of agency, he should not be allowed to turn around, after having embezzled it or any part of it, and claim that he was not the agent in taking it.

From all the evidence in the case we are of the opinion that the verdict of the jury is sustained, and believe that the plaintiff in error had a fair trial

We find no errors in the record, and the judgment will be affirmed.