Tofanelli

The indictment in this ease charges a conspiracy to defraud the United States by engaging in the business of buying high-grade gold ores and gold amalgam, stolen from mines and mills in the county of Amador, state of California, reducing the gold ores and gold amalgam to the form of gold amalgam cakes, depositing the same in the United States Mint at San Francisco, Cal., and demanding and receiving payment therefor. From a judgment of conviction, two of the defendants have prosecuted the present writ of error. The principal error assigned is based on the refusal of the court to direct a verdict of not guilty at the close of all the testimony because of the insufficiency of the testimony to *582 support a contrary verdict. As will be observed from a reading of tbe indictment, the charge consisted in an agreement or conspiracy on the part of the defendants to defraud the United States by depositing gold amalgam cakes, derived from high-grade ore stolen from the mines and mills of Amador county, Cal., in the mint at San Francisco, Cal., and demanding and receiving payment therefor. But no evidence of any kind or character was offered or admitted tending to show that any ore was…