Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1917 — BRENNER IS VINDICATED [ARTICLE]

BRENNER IS VINDICATED

MAN WHO WAS ARRfESTED HERE IS ACQUITTED OF ' CONVERSION CHARGE. The following article from a Detroit paper was handed us by Mrs. James Nelson: Oscar Brenner will do right by his mother. In fact he always has, he showed in Justice Thomas’ court yesterday. The case charging Brenner with obtaining money under false pretenses at first promised an interesting “triangle,” with Mrs. Brenner, Sr., Mrs. Brenner, Jr., and Oscar Brenner as "the three sides. The three angles were all provided. But one of the sides, namely Mrs. Brenner, Jr., and one of the angles, dropped from the triangle early in the hearing," and two-side case was opened. Oscar Brenner furnished the other side to the story that began with a sorrowful tale of a deserted mother robbed by her -own son. The third angle dropped from the case when it was found that the home which Mrs. Brenner charged her son with obtaining from her under pretension was reallv owned by the son. He bought the home with his own money and had it deeded to his mother. She concluded a home in her name belonged to her, regardless of by whom it was bought. So when she deeded the .home back to her son and he made away with the money, she felt she had been robbed, she claimed. ' The original charge made by the mother was that her son had told her that he must go to war unless he could show he supported her, and that She had'deeded her house to him for this reason. He denied this. He said he knew he would have to go to war anyway. He testified that he had sold the home because the mortgage was about to be foreclosed. It being his money he put it in his pocket. Then he married Mrs. Fayne Black and they departed on their honeymoon to the home df her parents in Rensselaer, Ind., where he was arrested Saturday. “Shfr’s told you her side of the story,” said Brenner to the court, “now let me tell you mine.” And he rehearsed the story of his life since the time of his father’s death. He told of how he had been shunted about from guardian to guardian, refused the companionship of his mother because “she was not fit to be with him,” as they told him, and how he had-been sent from an orphan asylum to a school, onto a farm, to work at organ factory, until he at last sought repose in the United States army. He said their home, when he returned from his army enlistment, was mortgaged so heavily that it was embarrassing for him in the city, as creditors were beseiging him with hills no matter where he went. So the home was sold, he said, and another home was bought, and it went the same way, until the Sybil street property was bought with his money. Mrs. Brenner, the boy’s mother, denied everything her son said. She said she gave him SBOO to buy furniutre for the house, and he claimed he bought the furniture. At times during the informal hearing she would begin to scold her boy, until the court faded to an atmosphere of home. - Meanwhile, throughout the hearing, Mrs. Brenner would gaze scornfully at her son’s wife, who sat unconcerned in the corner of the court room. She had little to say, except when Mr. Brenner’s attorney asked her if Oscar gave his mother SSO it would suit her. “It makes no difference to me, she said, “It’s Oscar’s affair, and anything he does is all right.” Mrs. Brenner demanded six months rent for the house for the coming

half year, and asked that her son be made to pay the gas, water and electric light bills, which he said he had already paid. The court upon advise of Prosecutor Lehman, who basing his case on the warrant sworn to by Mrs. JJrenner, told her that she could make no demands upon her son, that he had done nothing unlaw - ful. He said, however, that whne there was no legal right on which she could receive any consideration from her son, there was a strong moral right and he asked Brenner to treat his mother right. Brenner said that he would do all that he could do, that he always had treated his mother kindly, and further stated that this matter would never have come to light if his mother had not been influenced. Brenner promised to pay his mother S6O immediately, and will help her frequently, if needs be. '* Brenner joined Company I last night and will leave here with the other members when Captain Volland receives the call. His wife, formerly ’ Mrs. Fayne Black, whom Mrs. Brenner claims she took in when she was without help, will remain here until her husband leaves for war, when she will return to the home of her parents in Rensselaer, where the honeymoon was rudely interrupted when three “correspondence school” detectives pussy-footingly surrounded the home of Mrs. Brenner’s parents and arrested Brenner as he sat peacefully reading the newspapers he had bought from one of the “police fellers about an hour before. . , ' - Sh? '*•»