UNUSUAL THEFT CASE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

UNUSUAL THEFT CASE

; MONEY OBTAINED BY MEDIUM. '! ■ MAORI WOMAN DEFRAUDS INDIAN. By Telegraph—Press Association. Hamilton, February 21. Charged, with the theft of money totalling £56 10s under unusual circumstances, a fashionably dressed young Maori woman, Martha Ormsby, or Omipi, was found guilty in the Supreme Court at Hamilton to-day. The money was alleged to have been stolen from an Indian tailor living at Otorohanga. The case was described as most unusual, the money being obtained from ar. Indian, Parhbu Govind, at a seance at which the Maori woman acted as medium. She ordered Govind to part with sums of money at various sittings. On one occasion, as the spirit in the seance, she demanded £2O under threat of Govind’s three-year-old daughter dying within three hours if the money was not forthcoming. The money was invested on racehorses, which were selected under a system known to the accused. The winners failed to materialise, however.. ■ Martha Ormsby was later ordered to come up for sentence within two years if called upon and to pay the costs of the prosecution, £lB 18s. Mr. Justice Fair remarked that if she had been a man she would have been imprisoned.