MECCA OIL FRAUDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20716, 8 November 1930, Page 13

MECCA OIL FRAUDS.

SENTENCE ON PIMENTEL.

TWO YEARS' IMPRISONMENT. DISAPPEARANCE OF MONEY. [bv telegraph.—-press association.] WELLINGTON. Friday. A sentence of imprisonment for two years was imposed by Mr. Justice Ostler to-day on Morton Parker Pimentel in the Mecca Oil Company case. . llis Honor severely criticised the methods of the accused, branding his scheme as one conceived in fraud, for which his whole capital came ''from victims of speciously and cunningly-worded advertisements and letters..

Addressing Pimentel, His Honor said the jury had recommended him to mercy on the ground, as they put it, that if left alone ho might have made good ;n his business. "The method of carrying on your business," said His Honor, "made it. to my mind, mathematically certain that you could not have made good as an honest dealer in oil, and made it certain that the business must have come to ruin, but as you risked no capital, all the losses would fall on the victims of vour fraud."

His Honor also remarked that about £IOOO of the money of the victims had disappeared and until His Honor got satisfactory evidence to the contrary he could only assume that the greater part of it was stowed away somewhere where prisoner could get it. His Honor said his opinion was that Pimentel never thought he could make a success of the business, and that it was Pinientel's intention to go on as long as ho could raking in money and then disappear when he had made a considerable sum. Ho thought an appropriate term would have been three years, but in deference to the opinion of tho jury he would reduce the term.