INSULL ARRESTED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 852, 28 August 1933, Page 1

INSULL ARRESTED.

Former Millionaire May be Extradited. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. ATHENS, August 26. Samuel Insull, formerly chairman of several electricity companies in America, has been arrested at the request of the United States Government. A message from Athens on December 27, 1932, stated that a Court had decided against allowing extradition of Insull on the grounds that the charges laid were not offences under the Greek penal code and that Insull had not personally benefited from his actions. Indictments of embezzlement and larceny were returned in Chicago on October 4 of that year by a grand jury against Insull, a London-born American financier, and his brother Martin. Such was the dramatic climax to the long-drawn-out investigation of the collapse of the gigantic Insull Public Utilities combine—the most extensive business failure ever known in the United States, which has involved investors in losses amounting to £400,000,000. The grand jury returned three true bills. One charged Martin Insull with embezzlement. The two others charged both brothers with embezzlement and “larceny by bailee”—which means the theft of funds placed in their personal trust. The charges are based on the alleged manipulations of securities and cash of the various Insull companies for the use of Martin Insull’s personal brokerage accounts. The charge against Martin Insull involves the sum of £68,944. The joint charges concern sums of £13,200 and £20,854. Secretary to Edison. Samuel Insull, w’ho went to America half a century ago as secretary to Thomas Alva Edison, the famous inventor, rose to a position of preeminence in Chicago and controlled traction, gas and electrical undertakings which served 5000 communities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. When he was at the height of his power his personal fortune was estimated at anything between £20,000,000 and £60,000,000. He left Chicago in June, 1932, a penniless exile. His brother Martin is living in a boardinghouse in Ontario, Canada. Samuel Insull fled from the United States to France, but extradition proceedings were taken from which he managed to escape to Greece where there was no extradition treaty at the moment. However, documents of ratification of the pending treaty were exchanged a few days after Insull’s arrival in Athens and the trial of December, 1932, was the second in which the United States Government has ask--efl the Greek courts to rule that the provisions of the extradition treaty should be retroactive. Insult’s defence to the charges of embezzlement and larceny brought against him were that his offence was only a technical evasion of the law’. He had no criminal intentions and his alleged crime was not premeditated. Political influences, possibly as a gesture in connection with the presidential election campaign in America, were responsible for the indictments against him. Previous Proceedings. Counsel for Insull at the proceedings at Athens in December, contended that he should be treated as a Greek citizen under Greek law, adding that the accusation of embezzlement could not be applied to a man of such universal fame who had been Edison’s secretary, then director of his enterprises, and had later attained the position of a king of electricity.