Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-05-14
APPEL DROPS
CASSELMAN CASE
ATTORNEY CONVINCED GIRL
WILL NOT TELL TRUTH
YOUNG WOMAN LOSES POSSIBLE
CHANGE FOR RELEASE
Counsel Has Long Talk with Prisoner,
~ After Which He Announces
Withdrawal from the
Defense

Miss Ruby Casselman. the young
woman now in the county Jail convicted
of forgery and awaiting sentence, mas
lost one possible chance for release.
Yesterday afternoon Attorney Horace
II, Appel, who had been retained by
friends of the young woman to thor-
oughly investigate her case, after
long interview with her in her prison
quarters announced definitely ana
finally that he had washed his nahos
of her and would have no more 10 oo
with the case whatever.
"Why?" Attorney Appel was asked:
81 have told you that | have washed
my hands of her and | VIII tell you
why.
First. she is surrounded by lot
of cranks who are managing her case
and are managing her nave peeli
trying to get at the truth, and under
the circumstances 1t is impossible.
Second it is impossible to get at tne
truth because | cannot rely upon her
statements and because she is liaple
to turn around and make false charges
against innocent persons. Her case mas
been mismanaged and 7 cannot tind
substantial error in the record upon
which I could reverse her case.
personally I believe that the girl
Ii a kleptomaniac. a mania which has
grown upon her from the time when
she was a little child. But according
to some authorities and decisions KEEP
tomania is only manifestation OF
what is termed impulsive insanity, ana
a more irresistible impulse Is not SUI
ficient, under the laws of California,
TO absove person from the PUNISH
ment of a crime"
l.nr inv r
ing Ruby Casselman's case for a con-
siderable time. After making the state
ment quoted he went into more detail.
She Calls Them "Liars"
81 had a long talk with her today,
he said. II tried to convince her that
| was trying not to do her harm, but
good She told me hat every one who
had testified against her as to forgery
charges was a liar. This was at the
close of a long talk. Then | told her:
IF you believe that every one else is
a liar you must be perfectly sane ana
| will have nothing more to do with
your case.
Her own friends and protectors have
told me that she would steal Saythlng
that she could lay her hands on. My
idea is that she never was right for
the reason that she has no apprecia-
ton of the danger existing to herself
She does these things of which she mas
been convicted cunningly. but she does
them openly. Her forgeries are clumsy:
They are not only clumsy. but many or
them plainly would be called forgeries
even by a novice.
For instance, she claims that she
got a man named Switzberger to cash
a check for her for $50 when she want
cd to make a payment for an interest
in Belongs school of telegraphy. She
made the payment. When she was
asked where the check came from she
said IL was sent to her from Canada
by her aunt there. Then the aunt
writes that she had not written to her
niece or sent anything to her for two
years, and investigation unearths the
fact that the check cashed on the day
she made the payment was not for $50,
but for $50.
cit is the same way all the way
through. 1 have had evidence present
ed to me that ! cannot disclose that
follows my theory of kleptomania. But
f. Judson Brown, her attorney, and
Armand V. Davis and others of those
who have been about her, declare that
she is not insane. She says that she is
sane. That is her own story. That Is
all there is to it,"
Miss Casselman will again appear in
department one for sentence May %.