Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1913 — JURY DECLARES KAHN GUILTY IN ARSON CASE [ARTICLE]

JURY DECLARES KAHN GUILTY IN ARSON CASE

Verdict Comes After Thirty-Eight Hours’ Deliberation and is Surprise to Attorneys. ■jt" '* *'■, -*X' £' j?South Bend, Ind., March 7.—Ben Kahn, merchant, and one of the two men held in South Bend as members of a gigantic prson trust, was this morning found guilty of arson and on Monday morning will be sentenced to prison for a term of from two to twenty-one years. Ben Fink, the supposed “torch’ of the arson trust, will be placed on trial Monday. The verdict, coming after the jury had been out for thirty-eight hours, surprised the attorneys for both the state and defense, an acquittal or disagreement being expected. After the jury had been discharged, it was stated that the jurors had up to an early hour this morning 'stood eleven to one for conviction. Kahn’s attorney is out of the city, but will return tomorrow and prepare a motion for a new trial, which will be presented Monday morning. The defendant was found guilty of setting fire to his establishment, the Fanners’ and Workingmen’s Friend Store, in this city, in April last. It was charged by the prosecution, during the course of the trial, that the proprietor paid Fink a fixed sum for setting the blaze. As he was a partner of Benjamin Fink, the supposed “torch” of the trust, there is no longer any doubt as to the outcome of the sweeping arson investigation which was launched by Prosecutor Chester R. Montgomery in this city almost a year ago. South Bend newspapers played a prominent part in the local investigation, working with Prosecutor Montgomery in securing evidence against the “trust.”