SENSATIONAL MURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20618, 17 July 1930, Page 11

SENSATIONAL MURDER.

ATTORNEY'S ALLEGED ACT.

LOS ANGELES COURT CRIME.

LOS ANGELES, July 15

The City Hall Court, Los Angeles, today was tho scene of a murder which arose out of tho investigation into tho notorious Julian Petroleum Corporation scandal in which tho public losses exceeded £20,000,000. Motley Flint, millionaire and leading financier, formerly postmaster at Los Angeles, had just finished giving evidence and was stepping down from the witness-box when Frank Kcaton, attorney and real estate broker, is alleged' to liave shot him in the neck, killing him instantly. Kcaton surrendered to the police. Tho murdered man was vice-president of the Savings Bank and charges were pending against him of violation of trust in connection with the Julian swindle. Recently ho had returned from Europe to face the charges and had defied Keaton.

Ranking as of a type with the Mississippi Rubble, the collapse of the stock of tho Julian Petroleum Corporation of Los Angeles early in 1927 shook the financial fabric on which business in California rests. Fifty-five men, whose names were high in tho business records of tho State, were indicted in connection with the alleged issue of fraudulent and unauthorised stock to the astounding total of about £35,000,000. A number of oil operators from New York and Toxas arrived in Los Angeles a year before and took over an oil concern, capitalised at £6,000.000 and said to bo tottering. Within a year, unauthorised and overissued stock, running to £35,000,000. was issued. When the collapse came, 40,000 investors were involved with it. Tho false inflation was discovered when tho California-Eastern Oil Company completed negotiations to buy the Julian concern and endeavoured to effect a stock transfer by issuing its nwn for Julian stock. It transpired that over 4,000,000 shares of Julian stock outstanding did not show on the corporation's books, and were adjudgod fraudulent, although purchased in good faith by buyers. The resultant crash threw the Julian Corporation into a receivership and another corporation with it. When the company failed huge sums of stolen cash were taken to Now York, whero some was traced to deposit vaults. Leading cinema millionaires wero threatened with prosecution for participation in pools which lent money to the Julian Company at interost as high as 10 per cent. ;i month. A spectacular figure in the case was Mr. C. C. Julian, who organised the original corporation and financed it by H,lS,sands ot smnlMot throughout, tho south-west. Mr. Julian was forced out of the corporation before the trouble began and issued a• warning about » banking burglars. He then pushed the indictments. \\ >; pnS0 ™° f of bis advertisements wero shut out the Los Angeles newspapers he, constructed a radio station at a cost of £4O 000 in Hollvwood. from which he indicted the principals from tho air every evening, inviting them to sue him lor scandal.