United States v. John Jay Beattie, Nathaniel Mack Burton

Defendant Burton owned a furniture store. Defendant Beattie was a loan officer of a bank. A scheme was devised by them pursuant to which numerous persons buying furniture at Burton’s store were given blank forms to obtain loans and open a “balance plus” account at the bank. The customers signed in blank and defendants inserted false information (such as overstating the customer’s income) so that the papers would appear to be in order at the bank. The loans exceeded the price of the furniture, and the proceeds were shared by defendants. Most of the loans were subsequently charged off by the bank as uncollectible.

Defendant Beattie was convicted on eight counts of wilful misapplication of bank funds in violation of 18 U.S.C. 656, and, along with defendant Burton, was convicted under the general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. 371, of conspiracy to misapply wilfully funds of the bank. Each of the 24 misapplication counts against Beattie in the indictment contained an allegation that said defendant “with intent to defraud and injure” the bank “did wilfully and knowingly misapply or caused to be misapplied monies” of the bank in that said defendant did cause a specified loan to be made…