Court Opinion

ID: 9448229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:26:43.634898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:20.214606
License: Public Domain

Appellee’s Petition for Rehearing.
SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge.
In Ader v. United States, 7 Cir., 284 F. 13 (cert. denied 260 U.S. 746, 43 S.Ct. 247, 67 L.Ed. 493), we reviewed a conviction of Ader and others under an indictment charging violation of § 215 of the Criminal Code and also a conspiracy to violate that section. In brief, the indictment charged defendants
“ * * * devised a scheme for obtaining money and property from a certain class of persons by means of false and fraudulent pretenses- and representations. * * * ”
and that
“ * * * class of persons were-described as those whom the defendants should ‘by means hereinafter described’ induce to give, send, and pay their money and property to the defendants * * *”
for purchasing shares of stock in a corporation known as Consumers’ Packing Company.
It was also charged that,
“ * * * having devised the scheme and artifice, and for the purpose of executing the same, the defendants placed and caused to be placed in the post office at Chicago for delivery by mail a letter addressed and to be carried by mail to one Fred Frazier, who is alleged to be one of the persons of the class of persons referred to in the indictment * *
In separate counts, allegations of mailing to other persons were set forth.
At page 23 of 284 F., we said:
“ * * * Under the scheme as-charged the defendants could not themselves know, when they devised it, the particular persons who would be injured. It was the proper province of the indictment to describe the scheme as it was devised as accurately as possible, and in those cases where the scheme is of the nature of a dragnet to capture all of the public who may be attracted to- and entangled in its mesh, without regard to individuals, it would quite clearly be inaccurate and misleading to attempt to name the persons designed to be injured. To do so would characterize the scheme as one aimed at the particular individuals, when in fact the scheme as devised did not do so. As we view it, the scheme here set out as alleged to have been devised contemplated the public as *893its field of operation, and we see no reason for requiring that those who may be injured as the scheme is executed be named nor excuse given for omitting their names. The nature of the scheme is itself sufficient reason for the omission. The indictment, in our opinion, falls outside that under consideration in the case of Larkin v. U. S., [7 Cir.,] 107 Fed. 697, * *
Having fully considered the petition for rehearing, it is denied.
Petition for rehearing denied.