MECCA OIL CASE.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18170, 7 November 1930, Page 7

MECCA OIL CASE.

PIMENTEL SENTENCED. * TWO YEARS’ HARD LABOUR. A CUNNING ' FRAUD. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Friday. Two years’ hard labour was imposed .by Mr Justice Ostler on Pimentel in the Mecca oil case. His Honour severely criticised the methods, of accused, branding ‘ the scheme as one conceived in fraud and for which his whole capital came from the victims of speciously and cunningly worded advertisements and letters.* • ;• * Addressing Pimentel, His Honour said the jury had recommended mercy on the ground, as they put it, that if left alone he might have made good in his business. It was a little difficult for His Honour to understand that. “ Your method of carrying on your business made it, to my mind, mathematically certain that you could not have made good as an honest dealer in oil, and made it certain that the business must have come to ruin, but as you risked no capital all the losses would fall on 'the victims of your fraud.’’ ( His Honour also remarked that something like £IOOO of the money of Pimentel’s victims had disappeared, and until His Honour got satisfactory evidence to the contrary he could only assume that the greater part of it was stowed away somewhere where prisoner could get it. His Honour’s opinion was that Pimentel never thought he could made a /success of the business, and it was His Honour’s opinion that it was Pimentel’s intention to go on as long as he could raking in the money and then disappear when he had made a considerable sum. His Honour thought an appropriate term would have been three years, but in deference to the opinion of the jury he would reduce the term.