CANADIAN PUBLIC

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 117, 14 November 1930, Page 9

CANADIAN PUBLIC

ROBBED BY BROKERS

STOCKMARKET GAMBLING SENTENCES IMPOSED United Press Association—By Electric Tele-eraph-rCopyrinht (Roccived 14th November, 1 p.m.) TORONTO, 13th November. Dishonest brokers who last year robbed the Canadian public of millions of pounds in a great saturnalia of stockmarket gambling, are being sentenced to the penitentiary in an official cleanup of the brokerage business which today is sweeping the Dominion. Isaac Solloway and Harvey Mills, partners in one firm, have finally abandoned their appeals and started serving their sentences. The examination of their books shows that they profited by eight million sterling, and probably have five million still safely sequestered in foreign banks. They have paid fines of £150,000 and about £3,000,000 has been repaid "busted" customers, who were able to prove direct losses. At Toronto eight brokers were given individual sentences, ranging from two to three years, totalling twenty-one years, by Mr. Justice Jeffrey in the Assizes on Thursday. Appeals have been entered with the exception of two cases. The proceedings 'followed the trials, on various charges of conspiracy to defraud the public, of the members of five large Toronto mining brokerage houses. The prosecution was instigated by the Ontario Government last winter. -The first of this series of charges against Canadian stockbrokers was heard last June, when I. W. C. Solloway, head of the firm of Solloway, Mills, and Company, was sentenced to four months' imprisonment and fined 225,000 dollars on four charges of conspiracy to defraud. The trial lasted sixteen days and attracted enormous interest. It followed a Dominion-wide investigation into the activities of stockbroking firms. Solloway's deals had been made during the mining boom, when he took three millions sterling monthly from the public for the purchase of stocks. Most of these were bought on margins, and Solloway, who was not called on to deliver certificates, sold issues short and then encouraged a slump which brought them within 20 per cent, of their previous value.