“CHEATS & FRAUDS”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1941, Page 5

“CHEATS & FRAUDS”

LONG CONSPIRACY TRIAL ENDS IN AUSTRALIA FORMER STATE M.P. SENT TO GAOL. STERN COMMENT DY JUDGE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) SYDNEY, June 19. A conspiracy trial regarded as one of the most protracted in the history of N.S.W. courts, and involving wellknown men. ended last night. The case has been before the courts over two years. Ronald Bruce Walker, former State Parliamentarian; Albert Levitus, solicitor; William Kingsley Wicks, accountant: and Clive Oscar Airey. secretary, were charged with having conspired with John Woolcott Forbes, and two others not in custody to defraud shareholders of the Scottish Loan and Finance Co.. Ltd. Some of the evidence in this case was taken in New Zealand. The jury found Walker guilty with a strong recommendation to mercy. Levitus was also found guilty, and Airey not guilty. Walker was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and Levitus to five years. Airey was acquitted and discharged. The jury was unable to agree regarding Wicks, who has been remanded for re-trial when called upon. His bail is reduced from £lOOO to £lOO. Mr Justice Haise Rogers, in sentencing Walker and Levitus, said that assuming the prisoners had been led astray by a man who was cleverer than themselves, the fact remained that sharehawking had become an infamous occupation. Companies had sprung up whose main object was the sale of their own shares. Suave, plausible persons who went about procuring purchase of shares by the public were a menace to the community, and mostly they could be described as cheats and robbers. The offence of which both men were convicted was the more infamous because.it was engineered on the basis of false balance-sheets and faked financial statements, he added.