Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1914 — John W. Paris to Pay Off Some Old Scores. [ARTICLE]

John W. Paris to Pay Off Some Old Scores.

A dispatch from Kokomo states that Jo^ (( Paris, now of Now York City, where he is said to have become a millionaire through real estate dealings, will pay the losses of depositors of the , Greentown, Howard county, bank, which failed sopjo twphty years ago. Paris was formerly of Rensselaer and was associated,, wlt)| (> the Zimri Dwlggina chain, of banks at Brookston, Oxford and other places which failed about the same time as the Greentown bank. The dispatch says:

“Pepßopa, who had deposited in the Farmers’ Bank, of Greentown, which failed 21 years ago and who took the precaution to put their claims to judgment, will get their money back with Interest. "John W. Paris, who was at the head of the bank, and who left Indiana in 1894, has been found in New York City, and is to pay all judgments against him 1 on the records of the Howard circuit court. These judgments and the interest amounts to thousands of dollars. "Paris was connected with Zimrl Dwigglns, of Chicago, 'in operating a string of banks in small Indiana towns. All these banks were ruined in 1893. Paris was indicted for the alleged wrecking of the Greetown. bank. He was tried at Frankfort and the jury, finding him guilty, recommended his imprisonment for six years. Paris got another trial on a technical error in the records, and in his second trial the jury disagreed. Preparations for a third trial wee under way When James Cujess, the principle prosecuting witness, died. The trial was postponed and the case finally was dropped. "About a dozen depositors took judgment against Paris, and they will get their money. Whether the depositors who did not take judgment’ will get anything is a question. “No one in Howard county heard from Paris for more than seventeen years. In 1910 Conrad Wolf, an attorney, who was the prosecutor when Paris was tried, learned of him through an advertisement Paris had in a magazine. This advertisement sjioke of him as a man who had started with nothing and made a million in a few years. Wolf went to work to force him to make restitution to the persons who had lost money in the Greentown bank. After nearly four years of effort on the part of Wolf, Paris has agreed to pay." i