The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1923-11-15

guilty. Dy the jury IN HSr case just
| before noon today. The jury was
out about half hour before a
/ verdict was found. On the first
| ballot it is said the vote stood
nine for acquittal, one blank and
! two for conviction. The verdict
! was arrived at finding not guilty
/ after three ballots, had been taken.
I 1t doesn't seem nice to say that the
trial of a fat lady for larceny who
cried on the witness stand was funny;
but it was funny Anna Scherer was
the defendant and sat on the witness
trial in her own behalf attired in
| solemn black There were rolls and
rolls of her, and when she sobhed, she
shook all over. Yet there was some
thing simple and touching about her
story. There was something simple
and truthful about the story of Mike
Russo, her accuser, and the jury this
morning had to choose between her
/ that they might find that each had been
truthful, and yet that Anna Scherer
was not guilty of larceny.
| This is what happened, according
ito Mike Russo, who lives on Garden
street, little quick-tongued Italian,
who his friends say is as honest as
the summer day is long.
| May Z, 1923 and a day of high
wind. Scene, the interior of the First
National bank. Time, about $3.50 a. m.
Mike cashed check for 500 at the
! rri1{ +1,r +nxx oYAc
with five twenty dollar bills clasped
! in his hand. He opens the outside
door. Presto, comes the wild soft
sweet southwind! Mixes hand is
"blown open" The wind mischievous-
| ly catches his bills and blows them
into the banks interior. They fyl
/ Mike after them! One bill he catches
but he sees a lady clasping three Gas
he believes) of his flying twenty
dollar bills. ooh lady!' (says Mike)
"give me my money!" The lady re-
fuses. There is an argument. She
retains her money. In the afternoon
she, Annie Scherer, is arrested by the
police for larceny of Mikes money.
Mikes hand in which he clasped
the money is one partially paralyzed
due to an accident some years ago.
But Anna Tells Her Side.
Now this is what happened accord
| ing to Anna Scherer, who is Lithu-
anian and told her story through an
interpreter, her daughter, Mrs. Sophia
White:
Anna Scherer went to the First Ma
tional bank about $3.50 a. m. of the
! - ho
has a savings account in the bank
and she. was about. to deposit the pay
checks of her husband, her daughter
iwho works at Zion, and her son. She
! did not know the exact amount of each
pay-check, but knew that her hus-
bans check was usually from $40 to
$50, her daughters around $40 and
her sons in the neighborhood of
! $50 or more.
| She had some loose bills with her
in addition to the checks and after
cashing the checks stood ct two chairs
arranging the money. In one chair
I,she counted 500 in bills, in another
chair she counted another 500 in
bills. In the second chair she had
also some loose change. Mrs. Scherer
demonstrated the act by taking the
witness and the interpreter chairs,
turning her back to the court room
and gesturing toward the chairs while
she went rafting on in her foreign
! tongue. Every moment it looked as
! if she might tumble over backward
: into the arms of one of the masculine
| jurors, and the district attorney avert
ed this impending catastrophe by ask
ing the daughter interpreter to warn
| her mother, which she did.
Chases After Rolling Dime.
| Then, said Anna Scherer, a ten-cent
piece rolled over chair two and down
the floor of the bank. She started in
pursuit, with some of her own twenty
dollar green backs clasped in her hand.
| She had just stopped to pick up her
dime when this little man, indicating
| Mike, stopped her and demanded the
money she had in her hand. Anna
| indicated with a movement of the
shoulder and right arm how she indig-
nantly pushed him away. She said all
the money she had picked up from the
floor was her own dime. She was so
upset she went home without deposit
| ing the money, after the bank clerk
counted it and found she had $240
and some change, In the afternoon
| she came back and put it in the saw
ings deposit. When she came home
the police came to her door. Again
she put up her handkerchief and
sobbed with heart-broken commissions.
The daughter during the hearing on
Monday afternoon was carried faint
! ing out of the court room.
This morning the jury were called
upon to decide whether Anna or Ma
dame Southwind was the real culprit.