CONSPIRACY PROVED

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1933, Page 9

CONSPIRACY PROVED

FRAUD BY AMERICANS. LINDBERGH BABY CASE. J Washington, May 16. Gaston B. Means and Norman Whitaker were found guilty to-day of conspiring to defraud Mrs. Evelyn Walsh Mac Lean of 35,000 dollars (£7OOO at par) for use as ransom in the Lindbergh baby case. y Amazing allegations were made by Means in his defence. He stated that the body which was found in New Jersey and identified by Colonel Lindbergh a year ago as his child was a “plant,” according to information which Means said had been given to him by Wellington Henderson, whom he had identified previously as one of the kidnappers. Accused said that Henderson visited him when he (Means) was out on bail after his arrest in connection with the Mac Lean case (for which he is serving a 15 years’ sentence) and said he had the real Lindbergh baby at Juarez. This was on May 17 last year, said Means, who added that Henderson had told him the Lindbergh baby was still alive at that date. Accused said the baby was stolen by New Jersey liquor runners, adding that Max’ Hassel and Max Greenberg were responsible for the. kidnapping. He did not know these men, but they had sold beer to servants at Colonel Lindbergh’s , home. A Federal official, after investigating Means’ story, described it as “a figment of a weird imagination that makes Baron Munchausen look like a piker.”