Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1909 — BANK'S EMPLOYE HELD FOR THEFT [ARTICLE]

BANK'S EMPLOYE HELD FOR THEFT

ANepd Embezzler of $7,000 Is Found lo tbe Army. WELL KNOWN IN INDIANAPOLIS

Surprised Acquaintances When He Purchased Automobile and Entertained Women on a Salary of $1,200 a Year—He Wae Able to Get Away With Money, It Is Said, by Establishing Account With Fictitious Person. Indianapolis, Nov. 2. —Oscar F. Cochrane, formerly a bookkeeper in the Americsu National bank, at Fort Slocum. N. Y., is a prisoner. The arrest was made on warrants charging him with the embezzlement of $7,000 of the money of the bank and with falsifying the books of a national banking company. Cochrane was serving as an enlisted man in the regular infantry. Cochrane's case, according to the evidence and testimony on which the indictment was returned against him, was another one, it seems, of women and wine and living at a fast clip on the $1,200 salary of a bank clerk. He spent a great deal of bis time and money with one woman who was a clerk in a downtown store. They say that he told her his father had died at Connersville. He bought diamonds, it is said, for the woman and blossomed out with a new $2,200 ahtomobile. After Cochrane disappeared it was found he had operated very shrewdly. He had reduced by $7,000 the deposits of one of the largest and regular depositors of the bank whose account came under his bookkeeping. He had selected an extensive account so that there would be no danger of an overdraft. He had, at the same time, it is supposed, opened a bogus account in the bank to the credit of one Horace Burke, so far as known a fictitious character. Then, by some process which is not yet known, he caused a big deposit to be made from this bogus account to the credit of Horace Burke ip the First National Bank of Connersville He then operated, it is said, by drawing checks in Burke’s name on the First National Bank of Connersviile It is said the woman who caused tbe young man s downfall now Is prominent !d r he theatrical world.