Benjamin B. Hoffman v. United States

249 F.2d 338 Benjamin B. HOFFMAN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. No. 15391. United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit. November 4, 1957. Louis B. Whitney, Paul W. LaPrade, Loretta S. Whitney, Phoenix, Ariz., for appellant. Jack D. H. Hays, U. S. Atty., William E. Eubank, Asst. U. S. Atty., Phoenix, Ariz., for appellee. Before DENMAN, Circuit Judge, HAMLEY, Circuit Judge, and GOODMAN, District Judge. DENMAN, Circuit Judge. 1 This is an appeal from a judgment of the district court in a jury-tried case holding Hoffman guilty as charged on ten out of eleven counts of an indictment charging violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud) and 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (fraud by interstate wire). The punishment imposed was the maximum of five years on each count to run concurrently with the others. With such concurrency we are considering and affirming in Count XI only. That count reads as follows: 2 "On or about the 29th day of May, 1953 Benjamin B. Hoffman, hereinafter called the defendant, devised a scheme to obtain money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises; that the scheme so devised was substantially as follows:…

I concur.

In my opinion this appeal is devoid of merit. The evidence fully sustains the judgment of conviction on all ten counts and the judgment on all counts should be affirmed.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the district court in a jury-tried case holding Hoffman guilty as charged on ten out of eleven counts of an indictment charging violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud) and 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (fraud by interstate wire). The punishment imposed was the maximum of five years *339 on each count to run concurrently with the others. With such concurrency we are considering and affirming in Count XI only. That count reads as follows:

The artifice of buying on the falsely described credit of the two dummy companies to defraud Brice by an intended non-payment in full of the credited purchase price and the immediate sale for cash to be kept for Hoffman’s sole use and not for the companies’ assets and the use of interstate wires for that purpose clearly violate the fraud-by-wire statute providing:

*340 Count XI is one “sufficiently apprises the defendant of what he must be prepared to meet * * Hagner v. United States, 1932, 285 U.S. 427 at page 431, 52 S.Ct. 417, 419 , 76 L.Ed. 861 .

Appellee’s brief correctly describes the proof supporting the jury’s verdict. Ted R. Brice, Manager of the T. L. Brice Company, located in Sherman, Texas, received a…