ESPIONAGE IN AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23672, 2 December 1938, Page 9

ESPIONAGE IN AMERICA

THE TRIAL CONCLUDED VERDICTS OF GUILTY NEW YORK, Nov. 30. The jury found oohanna Hofmann and Voss guilty on a charge of espionage. Erich '"’laser was found guilty on a charge of turning over a military aviation code to German spies. The jury recommended r. ~cy. Early in October Mr Lamar Hardy, in opening his address as attorney to the jury at the trial of Johanna Hofmann, Voss, and Erich Glaser, German spy suspects, said: “ This conspiracy was conceived and directed f • i Germany.” and disclosed sensationally, first, a plot by German spies to forge President Roosevelt’s signature on White House stationery in an attempt to obtain vital secrets regarding American aircraft carriers; secondly, a boast by Berlin intelligence chiefs that they had obtained blueprints of certain American destroyers and found defects of construction; thirdly, the rifling jf transatlantic mail pouches on German ships, and the opening of an envelope containi” t a Soviet armament contract with the Bethlehem Steel Corporation; fourthlv. a display of 100-dollar notes supposed to be destined for epr ent of informers on neriscope designs; fifthly, a plan to rpen a house in Washington where officers of the army and navy would b( entertained with “ wine, women and song.” The 14 others who were indicted were safe m Germany. Gunther Rumrich is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty.