The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-06-10
Sugar Frauds Case Reaches
Jury This Afternoon.
NEARING CLOSING ADDRESSES
Interested Crowd Gathers at Final Day
of Celebrated Trial - Last Words
Being Said For and Against
the Three Defendants.

New York, June 9.-Before the Unit
ed States circuit court adjourns this
evening the sugar frauds case will be
IN the hands of the jury.
Some time tonight or tomorrow
the three defendants will know their
fates.
These are Charles X. Heike, aged
former secretary of the sugar trust;
Ernest w. Gerbracht, former superin-
tendent of the Brooklyn refinery, and
James b. Bendernagel, former superin-
tendent of the refinery.
In the beginning there were six de-
!endants, but three of the accused men
In the middle of the trial decided to
plead guilty, following the testimony
of Oscar Splitter, former dock superin-
tendent, who was pardoned from At
lanta prison and made a full confes-
sion of the sugar weighing frauds.
The closing scenes at the trial at
tracted an interested crowd In which
prominent sugar men were conspicuous.
When counsel for the government and
for the defendants in the sugar trial
began their summing up addresses in
the United States circuit court there
were five to talk. Winfred Z. Deni-
son opened for the government and
Henry l.. Stimson will close. Henry
f. COchrane summed up for Bender
nagel and Clarence w. Lexow for Ger
bracht. John b. Stanchfield summed
up for Heike this morning.
"We do not claim" said Mr.. Denison,
that these defendants knew of the
frauds on the specific cargoes men-
toned in the indictment. 1t is not nee
essary to prove that, but it is incon-
ceivable that the defendants here
should not have known of the frauds
in general, as the very atmosphere of
fraud permeated the whole trust. Ben
dernagel was located at the distribut-
ing point. Figures went from him to
Wall street. We do not claim he was
the originator or operator, but it is as
plain as day that he must have known
the government was being defrauded.
1T is pitiable situation for him to
be in. He is man of honorable dis
position, and he must have suffered
cruelty during all those years to find
himself the center of Il system so dis
honest This is a consideration, how
ever, only for the court when it comes
time to impose sentence"
Mr.. Denison denounced Gerbracht,
the $4,000 year superintendent, so
fiercely that his lawyers objected. He
derided Gerbracht's defense of being
merely an instrument of "Old Man"
Havemeyer and maintained that Ger
bracht sanctioned the thefts and re-
warded its perpetrators.
OF Heike, Mr.. DenisOn argued that
to assume Havemeyer's MAN Friday"
did not know of the weights was be-
yond all human possibility. AS chief
of the bookkeeping department, a man
whose hobby for twenty-nine years
was in weight statistics, Mr.. DenisOn
asserted that Heike was the one man
in the sugar trust offices at 1T Wall
street who knew of the discrepancies.
1T was Heike," he declared, ''who
conceived and conducted the remarka-
BILE bookkeeping system which has
made it so difficult to place blame on
him"
Mr.. Cochrane for Bendernagel said
there was no evidence to show that his
client had had any physical participa-
ton in the frauds or was even ac-
quainted with those who had.
Mr.. LeXOw for Gerbracht said that
frauds on the docks are conceded, but
not to the extent alleged by the gov
ernment. He followed this up by an
attack on the tabulatiOns of Harry
Waters, the customs llquldator.
THE whole dock" he said, "was
tainted with the pestilential taint OF
Oliver Spitzel." When the sugar trust
paid more than $2,0OO,OOO to the gov
ernment 1t paid out money not only for
the short weights, but also paid the
penalty for having such a man as
Splitter in its employ.