Edwin Nathaniel Gebhard v. United States

On September 1, 1967 the federal grand jury for the Central District of California indicted Gebhard on eight counts of perjury. On November 30, 1967 the original indictment was superseded and Gebhard was charged with thirty-two counts of perjury, the original eight plus twenty-four new counts. The indictment resulted from testimony given by Gebhard before a grand jury investigating cheating at gambling in the Los Angeles Friars Club. Of the thirty-two counts finally alleged, Gebhard-was convicted on fifteen, the government dropped four, nine were dismissed by the judge, and he was acquitted on the rest. The district court sentenced him to various terms on the different counts, the shortest being six months and the longest two years. The sentences are to run consecutively and the total sentence is seventeen years. Gebhard appeals. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Gebhard was one of many witnesses called before the grand jury in the summer of 1967 during its investigation of illegal card games at the Friars Club. The first two times Gebhard appeared before ,the grand jury he invoked his privilege against self-incrimination. He was then taken before the District Judge who…