Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 110, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1899 — The Circuit Court. [ARTICLE]

The Circuit Court.

The trial of William A. Martin, now of Monou, was held Thursday He was charged .with obtaining goods under false pretences. Last spring tie accompanied a man named J. B. Ellis, from nowhere in particular, to Parr, where Ellis proceeded to do up the John F. Judy and Logau Wood firm to tl}e extent of a team of horses and considerable other live stock, some vehicles, farming tools etc. Ellis gave a mortgage on a whole lot of property he never owned, and Martin’s alleged part in the transaction was in backing up Ellis in his false claims of owning property. Martin’s principal defence was that he Was a tool and perhaps largely a dupe of Ellis; and that he did not know he was doing a oiiminally liable act in helping Ellis swindle Wood and Judy. The jury seemed to take this view and this, Friday morning they brought in a verdict of not guilty. Ellis, who got the property, made good his escape, and has never been arrested. One of the horses he got was finally recdovere