The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-07


 Ynent Of guilty against the remain ing defendants, except defendant Borgnaes, who did not appear, and appeal by certain of the defendant.
 There Is no error on the appeals of Hayes, Leary, Kelly, Fleming. Dunn, Santalucia, Healey, Coppeto, Miner and Johnston. There Is er- TOT in the denial of the motions to set aside the verdicts against OCon- nor, Alderman, Kingsley and Meany the Judgment is St aside as to them and the case remanded with direc- ton to grant their motions to set the verdicts aside.
 Maltbie, 0. J. While this opinion Is handed down under the name Of the chief justice, 1t should be stated that 1t is the result of collaboration on the part of all the members Of the court to an unusual degree.
 Information Filed
 On May i9, 1888, an information was filed against the following de- fendants: Thomas Francis Hayes, also known as Frank Hayes and T. Frank Hayes, Daniel J. Leary, Carl D. Olsen, Thomas P. Kelly, Thomas !, Fleming, Martin J. Dunn, Charles 6. O'Connor, John H. Carey, Thomas A. Shanahan, Michael F. Slavin, Philip Coppeto, Ralph Coppeto, Timothy J. Morgan, Frank A. santalucia alias Frank Burns; James P. Healey, Henry Minor, all of waterbury; Harry E. Mackenzie of Bethel; Charles E. Williamson of Darien; Edward c. Levy and Si- mon !. Alderman of New Haven; Donato Pietraroria alias Dan Peters of Bristol; John c. Purdie alias John Conway, John s. Johnston, George II. Kingsley, William R. Murray, John B. Meany and Enoch Borgnaes, all of New York. These defendants will hereinafter be re- fcrred to by their surnames. The information charged that they, with others, combined, confederated and conspired together between January i, 1880, and May 19, 1888, to cheat and defraud the city of Waterbury and the residents and taxpayers thereof, and to violate several pro- visions of the charter of the city and of the statutes. The informa- ton covers twenty-five printed pag- ss in the record, states in great de- tail the methods alleged to have been used by the various defend- ants in the prosecution of the con- spiracy and alleges that as result the city of Waterbury was defraud- ed of more than one million dollars.
 All of the defendants except Ralph Coppeto, Murray, Slavin and Borg macs were convicted. Crary, Shana- han, Mackenzie, Williamson, Pietra- roria and Purdie have served or are serving their sentences. Judgment was suspended in the case of Hor- gan. Olsen appealed but abandoned his appeal The remaining defend- ants Hayes, Leary, Kelly, Fleming, Dunn, OConnor, Santalucia, Healey, Philip Coppeto, Minor, Johnston. Alderman, Kingsley and Meany ap- pealed from the denial of certain preliminary motions, from the over- ruling of pleas in abatement, from the judgment, from the denial of their motions to set aside the ver- dict as against the law and the evil dence and also filed motions in ar- rest of judgment. We shall first consider the denial of the motions to set aside the verdict as against the evidence.
 The defendants were entitled to the benefit of the presumption of innocence but the effect of that presumption is limited to the impo- sltion of the burden of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt upon the state and 1t is not evi- dence.
 Presumption
 The state was unable, in this case, to produce direct evidence of the conspiracy and relied on evidence of a large number of transactions. showing 6 similarity of plan and purpose and from which 1t claimed that the existence of the conspiracy could be reasonably inferred. "The proof of this Cconspiracy) is not often made. by direct. open and poe sitiVe evidence; but more generally and more naturally. by proving a repetition of acts of Q character conducting Co show a mutual pur- pose. n such case. it is seldom true. that any one act, taken by