"DELIBERATE FRAUD"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 25, 29 July 1933, Page 13

"DELIBERATE FRAUD"

YOUNG MAN SENTENCED

After a strong plea for leniency had been made by counsel for David Rozeutal, alias David Ross, a Polish Jew, aged 23, Mr. Justice Reed, in the Supreme Court today said he did not think he would be doing his duty uuless> lie sentenced the prisoner"-- to reformative detention. Tho term imposed by his Honour was twelve months. Rozental was found guilty by a jury on Wednesday, with a recommendation to leniency on account of his age, on a charge of stealing £.36 6s 7d in money and on two' charges of obtaining drapery goods valued at £158 IDs Id by false pretences. Mr. J. Moltzor, who appeared for Rozental, said ho thought one was justified in saying that the case'eouid bo distinguished from some of the more serious classes of cases that came before the Court from time to time. Ho did not suggest that the case in. itself was not a serious one. Rozental apparently had not been blessed with that type of upbringing one would wish him to have had, and accordingly hie had started off at an early age with an entirely wrong conception of what business principles should be. When he came to this country he had not known what it was to work, because he was too young.: Counsel- said ho' was given to understand that Rozental came from a family that had seen beuter days. The family was living at Moscow at the time of the second revolution. His parents lost their property and fled as refugees to Poland. From Poland, Rozental was sent to Germany. Later he was in Paris. One of his brothers emigrated to Western Australia, and the family subsequently followed him- there and' then came over to Now Zealand. ■ . . . *-...■ Counsel referred to the police re-' port about RozentaK'He submitted that there was not a tittle' of evidence to support the suggestion that he was an' undesirable type of citizen. There was no evidence that ■ the boy had been living riotously. While he was travelling round with goods it was a fact that he had been contributing to the support of his mother. Counsel asked the, Court to consider the question of probation. ■ : . . t The Crown Prosecutor (Mr. P. S. K. Macassey) said that according to information received by the police Rozental had been going to so-called parties on his way to'different towns. In addition to tho goods mentioned in the charges on which he had been found guilty, he had obtained goods from another man which he had 'sold and for which he had not accounted. He had stayed at a boarding-house- at Palmerston North, and had gone away without paying the unfortunate proprietress anything for his board. Mr. Macassey said it appeared to him that Rozental had set out on a deliberate, scheme of fraud, and in addition to that he had gone into the witness-box and told a lot "of falsehoods. ,„■ "Yes, I don't think I would be doing my duty unless ,1 sentenced him to reformative detention," said his Honour. . ' .