The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-08-15

among the employees of the corpora tion, and if his engagement as audi tor was such that 1t was his duty to disclose that fact to the corpora ton, then if instead of disclosing 1t, he concealed the existence of the conspiracy or the act that 1t was defrauding the corporation and con cealed those facts with the inten- tion of thereby furthering the pur- poses of the conspiracy, then the jury might well find that he had thereby become member of the conspiracy.
 The same thing would be true of any officer of any corporation If his duties were such that he had the responsibility of seeing to 1t that other officers and employees did their duty.
 If such an officer obtained knowl- edge that conspiracy existed in- volving some other officer or em- ploye for the purpose of defrauding the cooperation and had 1t in his power to prevent such fraud but failed to act with the purpose of aiding the conspiracy, then jury might well find that thereby he had become member of the conspiracy. ! Prove Motive
 AS have said earlier in the charge, it is not incumbent on the State in any criminal case to. prove what motive the accused had to commit the crime wherewith he is charged. If there is evidence to prove that an accused person did have a motive to commit the crime then that is evidence which tends to prove that he did commit the crime. But if there is evidence out side of proof of motive which con- vinceS the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty then he should be found, guilty even though no motive is apparent for his having done the deed. So in a con- spiracy case, in order to prove that any given accused was a member of a conspiracy, it is not necessary that 1t appear that he was going to get any personal profit out of the con- spiracy. Still less Is 1t necessary that 1t appear that all of the profits of the scheme were to be Jumped in one bulk and divided among all oi the conspirators. It is possible tc have a conspiracy with one central plan but with several branches or notifications in which some of the conspirators get their profit out of one branch and others out of an- other branch. That in itself does not prevent their all being members of the one single conspiracy. Or again, 1t may be that some one or more of the conspirators was acting in con- junction with the others without any expectation of personal gain. That fact in itself would not prevent his being member of the conspiracy.
 Neither is it necessary that each conspirator has actually been in di- rect communication with all of the other conspirators. It is not even necessary that each of the con spirators be acquainted with all of the other conspirators or know who it was who made up the combination so long as there had been commun- ication between him and at least one of the other conspirators, so that he knew that g combination existed for the doing of an unlawful act. It is not essential that he know what the complete plan of the con- spiracy is. It is enough that he know that the conspiracy exists and that what he is doing is aiding in the accomplishment of some of the pur- poses of the conspiracy.
 Becomes Member
 If, knowing that a combination was in existence to accomplish an unlawful purpose, he intentionally does some act or acts for the pur- pose of assisting in the accomplish ment of the unlawful ends of the combination, he thereby becomes a member of the conspiracy whether he knows all of the persons who are in the conspiracy or not, or whether he personally is anticipating any profit out of the conspiracy or not.
 While l am. dicussing this ques- tion of what constitutes member. ship in a conspiracy, let me point out that this information upon which these men stand charged al- leges a single conspiracy. It does not allege a number of separate and distinct conspiracies. The question therefore, which you will have to decide as regards each one of the defendants is whether that defen- dant was a member of the single conspiracy charged. The question is not as to whether he was a member of some separate conspiracy distinct from the conspiracy charged. Now it is possible as suggested a mo- ment ago to have one single con spiracy which operates through and by means of various branches. That is the sort of conspiracy which the state claims existed here. The ques- ton which you will have to decide is whether the conspiracy proved by the evidence, if any conspiracy has been proved, is a general one among the defendants which was to be ex- ecuted through different parties to the general conspiracy by different acts at different times and in diff ferent places. and was, therefore, g single conspiracy. If so, 1t does not cease to be a single conspiracy sim ply because of the division of the entire class of conspiratprs into sev- eral grOups having respectively dif- ferent acts and functions to per- form. If, however, you find the facts to be merely that all the defendants had a similar general purpose in view and that each of several sep- arate groups of persons were coop crating within those separate groups without any privity each group with the other and net toward the same common ere. but toward separate ends similar in character, then such . state pf affairs would not consti-