Evening star., 1941-05-07
Early Hearing Sought
On Perjury Charge
Against Delegate
Houck Under 81 900 Bond
After Indictment by
Baltimore Grond Jury
By the Associated Press.

BALTIMORE, May 7-Bernard j.
Wells, States attorney, said today
he would request an early hearing
on charges of perjury and attempted
obstruction of justice against Dele
gate Charles S. Houck, jr., Fred
erick County Democrat.
The charges were contained in
an indictment returned yesterday
by the Baltimore grand jury which
has been investigating reports Of
"shakedoWn" attempts in connection
with legislative measures during the
recent session of the General AS
sembly.
MI. Houck, at liberty under ST 900
bond, indicated through his attor-
ney that he would plead innocent.
Couldn't Identify Lawyer"
h...The two-count indictment pur-
ported to show by quoting testimony
that the delegate named fictitious
lawyer as the man who solicited
funds through Mr.. Houck from type
writer concerns, but that on a Sec
ond appearance before the jury Mr..
Houck admitted that he had pocket
ed the $50 for his own use,
The perjury account of the in
dictment asserted that on April "a
MI. Houck testified that he had
been approached by lawyer named
walters or Waters who said it
! was necessary to collect money to
pass certain legislation of interest
to typeWriting concerns and that
he, therefore, received $50 from a
typewriter dealer in Frederick
County who was named as Tommy
Williams, and turned the money
over to the lawyer" whom, he said,
he could not identify.
Four days later, the indictment
asserted, the Delegate reappeared
before the grand jurors and testi-
fed:
Everything I told you was the
truth with the exception that took
this money, this $50, to Annapolis
to pay to man.
Il did not take the $50 to An
napolis to pay to a man, and the
reason why l got the check cashed
was at the time that l got the
money there was no thought in my
mind as to doing anything wrong
with it.
Temptation Was Great"
"Mr. Williams came to me, as I
told you, at the end of the 1889 ses-
sion and said they wanted this bill
repealed or this license repealed
What 1 was going to do with this
money was to take it down there
and throw party for the Ways and
Means Committee, and 1 had every
intention of doing that, but when
the bill went through the commit
tee so easy, without any opposition
at all, I fully expected that the
adding machine company and the
cash register company would have
a lobbyist down there fighting this
repeal bill, why suppose the devil
| got in men and temptation was toe
great-I had the $50-that's right.
And I just kept the $50-the bill
was only brought up that one aft
ernoon and it only took matter o1
seconds. 1 mean there was just nc
opposition to it, and then after the
bill had gone through is when the
idea came to me, Well, have the
$50 and might just as we'll keep it.
The indictment then alleged that
Mr.. Houcks previous testimony that
he handed the money over to q
lawyer was, in the words of the de-
fendant, Just a plain lie
and that it has been preying on my
mind so that I just had to come il
and get myself clear with you gen.
tlemen because I am poor
liar and that it is the first time that
I ever got mixed up in anything like
this"