Vineberg

The defendants were convicted of seven counts of grand theft arising from the sale by them of gold and silver which was stored with their company, United States Silver Corporation (hereinafter referred to as U.S. Silver).

The Facts

Defendants Norman Vineberg and Douglas Todd Parker were at all times relevant to these proceedings, the owners, operators, and persons in control of U.S. Silver. U.S. Silver was in the business of buying, selling and storing gold and silver coins and bullion. As respects its storage operation, U.S. Silver maintained a vault on its premises and advertised for storage customers, stressing the safety of placing the precious metals in its vault for safekeeping.

In addition to storing its own gold and silver in its vault, U.S. Silver stored gold and silver purchased by its customers on margin and gold and silver which was wholly owned by the storage customers. U.S. Silver did not segregate company-owned bullion from customer-owned bullion, nor was the property of one storage customer segregated from the property of the others.

During the years of 1974 and 1975, each of the seven persons who are named as victims in the seven counts with which…