United States of America, and v. John C. Meyer, And

Meyer, Murphy and Kvasnicka were convicted on 15 counts of interstate fraud and interstate sale of unregistered securities, to wit: fractional oil interests. Meyer was the principal and Murphy and Kvasnicka were his agents. The sentences of the latter two were light and they have not appealed. Meyer received a five year concurrent sentence on each count. No question of sufficiency of the evidence is involved, but naturally in a trial lasting over a month Meyer has some points for appeal.

Before trial,. Meyer moved to sever. He asserted that Murphy and Kvasnicka had made statements to the government that would prejudice him. The government volunteered that it would not use the statements and the motion was denied. There would appear to be no error in the initial denial of a severance.

During the trial, Meyer did not testify. But Murphy and Kvasnicka did. They asserted good faith reliance on representations of Meyer to them. This opened the door for the government to show inconsistent statements of Meyer known to the other defendants that would reflect on the veracity of the defendant. This must have hurt Meyer, but it had nothing to do with the objections at the outset to the…