MISSING BONDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 November 1927, Page 12

MISSING BONDS

ALLEGATIONS OF BRIBERY

MELBOURNE, November 16.

Extraordinary evidence regarding the alleged offer of a bribe to a Commonwealth official was given, and other remarkable allegations were made before Judge Moule in the Insolvency Court to-day, when applications in the insolvent estate of Solomon Myer Lyons, manager, of St. Kiida, were being heard. The estate of Lyons was compulsorily sequestrated in October. Liabilities were set down at £715 11/5, and the assets at £1676. Lyons applied by notice of motion to have the names of the Opera House Investment Co. Pty., Ltd., and Mrs Miriam Hyams (sister-in-law of Lyons) expunged from the list of creditors. Their claims were for £2200 and £797 respectively. Included in the grounds upon which Lyons claimed that the claimants should be struck off the list of creditors was that he was alleged to have committed a misdeameanour in the manner in which he had come into possession of certain bonds. He also alleged that the bonds were given to him by Alfred Abrahams, a director of the Opera House Investment Co., to be used in bribing certain Commonwealth officials. Mr Gorman intimated that he had been instructed to watch proceedings on behalf of the Commonwealth Government.

Alfred Abrahams, merchant, said that in June, 1926, he went to a safe deposit and cut the coupons from certain bonds; he found that there was a shortage and told Lyons, his brother-in-law, that £BOOO worth of bonds were missing. He had given him bonds for £16,000 about February, 1926. io pay a deposit on some property in Sydney. Later, when detectives called at Lyons’ house in connection with the matter, Lyons called witness to one side and said, “For God’s sake do not send me to gaol. Say you gave the bonds to me.” Witness said to the detectives, “Yes, I

gave them to him.” He did not want to bring disgrace on his sister by sending Lyons to gaql. Detectives took him away, and subsequently* they came back with £6OOO worth of bonds which Lyons obtained at his mother’s place. Mr Coppel (who represented Lyons) : 1 suggest that you handed him, within the last two years', considerable sums for negotiations concerning your troubles with the Taxation Department? —I did not.

Mr Coppel Lyons is going to swear that he spent sums of money for you and your brothers with your knowledge in an endeavour to have these prosecutions stifled —1 say that is a deliberate lie. Opening the case for Lyons, Mr Coppel said that Lyons went to Sydney in May, 1926, and while there he spent large sums of money, including a payment of £5OO to a man in the Home and Territories Department, and £l5O to a former officer in the consular service. The last mentioned payment had been in connection with a passport for Emanuel Abrahams to leave the country. When Lyons returned to Melbourne he was introduced to five men, one of whom was an officer in the taxation office, and promised them £25,000 if they would secure a certain file in the taxation office. He paid them £lOO each on account. Solomon Meyer Lyons said that he was a brother-in-law of Alfred Abrahams, and had been associated with him for over 20 years. He had to approach several people on. behalf of the Abrahams brothers. Alfred Abrahams asked him to secure a passage for Emanuel Abrahams to go to an unknown destination, and from December, 1925, to February, 1926, Alfred Abrahams also gave witness £BOOO in bonds for the purpose of passing them on to certain persons who had certain papers. . , _ . . , “I paid £5OO to Frederick Gabriel, an officer of the Home and Territories Department, to secure a passage tor Emanuel Abrahams,” said Lyons, gave Gabriel another £l5O to pay to a Mr Anderson, who was in the Swedish consular service. To a merchant in Sydney I paid £2OO. In regard to a passage for Louis Abrahams, I paid out between £5lO and £550 to people in Melbourne whose names I did not know. x . Judge Moule: I think that a telegram should be sent to the officer named. The hearing was adjourned.