Rasmussen

Defendants and one Bigelow were convicted of having devised and intended to devise 'a scheme and artifice to defraud certain persons and others unknown and using the mail for the purT pose of executing the scheme. Section 215, Penal Code (Comp. St. § 10385).

The charge was that defendants were to organize associations known ¿s 66 Oil Syndicate and 44 Oil Syndicate of Seattle, for the purpose of selling units or shares in such organizations to the persons named and referred to in the indictment. Defendants were to represent that the syndicates were formed to drill for oil in Allen and Warren counties, Ky., and had assets in certain described leases of 438 acres in said counties; that the leases were of great financial value; that the tracts covered by the leases would probably produce petroleum in large and profitable quantities; that all moneys paid by investors to defendants would be devoted entirely to the drilling for petroleum and developing the tracts, and would not he used for any other purpose; that certain named mercantile agencies and various banks in Kentucky and Washington had investigated the financial condition of the syndicates and had found them to be sound, and…