LAWYER'S BOGUS DIVORCE MILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 168, 16 July 1921, Page 19

LAWYER'S BOGUS DIVORCE MILL.

PBRJURY AXD FORGERY OX A G'RjAXD SCALE. HaT.VRS HTRBD AT £2 PER COURT ACT. Almost incredible In its audacity was the scheme by which a bogus lawyer set up a divorce mill, wileh ground out a couple of score of fake decrees, saye the "Daily Chronicle" New Tork correspondent. Four indictments nave been returned against the man, wtio is missing, while his victims, some of whom have removed aibroad with their new husbands, while others have ibecome mothers, are plunged into dismay at their predicament. This unscrupulous swindler appears to hare stopped at nothing. ■He forged the names of Supreme Court justices to some of the "decrees' , he furnished to hie victims, with whom he sot In touch through advertisements. ■He charged, needless to say, all that he could squeeze out of his unfortunate clients. Through a group of perjured witnesses, whom he referred to humorously as hie "pony ballot, , ' and who it seems were willing to engage in their risky trade for £2 for each appearance in court, he managed in one case to procure a genuiue decree for an Italian woman whose hudband wae in Italy. These perjurers made affidavits that the defendant husband had been served with subpoenas, and that he had been guilty cC misconduct, the only offence for which a divorce can be granted under the law of the State. That when the case came α-o for trial another member of The "pouy iballot" impersonated the accused man, who, of course, was wholly ignorant of what was happen,ing in his absence. With a certified copy of the court's decree, .bearing the official seal and signature <yi the county clerk, ih e wae tt'ble to swindle another woman iby substituting for the first page another ibearing her name an<l that of her husband, from wliom, with tfcie evidence, she believed she h-dd been divorced, although, she had never appeared in conrt. This certified copy cost him a shilling, and through it he got several 'hundred pounds out of his "client," who, in her gratitude at tx-tng released ■with co little trouble and no publicity, was willing to give him nearly evervUiiug she possessed.