Schino

This is an appeal by two of three defendants from a judgment convicting them of conspiring to defraud the government by impairing its process of collecting and assessing federal taxes.

The parties have assigned many errors of the trial court for this appeal. These may be summarized as follows: (1) Sufficiency of the indictment; (2) denial of request for a bill of particulars; (3) refusal of a continuance because of the approaching pendency of hearings before the King sub-committee which might have bearing on many matters involved in the trial; (4) improper remarks of prosecuting attorney in argument to jury; (5) sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict; (6) admissibility of evidence as to'similar transactions; and (7) instructions to the jury.

The essence of the scheme, as developed by the government’s evidence, is as follows: Gertrude Jenkins, a convicted abortionist, was in tax difficulties. She contacted appellant Hartmann who told her that he could get it “fixed” for $5,000 so that she would not be criminally or civilly prosecuted. Hartmann contacted defendant Mooney (not an appellant), Chief Field Deputy of the Collector of Internal Revenue for the State of…