People v. Chamberlain

WOOD, J.

Appellant Wright and one Chamberlain were charged with grand theft. Trial was by jury. At the close of plaintiff’s case, the information was dismissed as to Chamberlain upon motion of the district attorney. Wright was convicted, and he appeals from the judgment. He contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the judgment.

On January 18, 1949, while Leon Furra, the victim, was tending bar in his tavern known as the Paddock Café, and while defendants Chamberlain and Wright were sitting at the bar, as his customers, Chamberlain introduced Wright to Furra as the owner and trainer of horses. Wright gave Furra a card on which was printed “ J. H. Wright, owner and trainer of thoroughbred horses.” Wright told him that he owned the horse named “Exigen,” and various other horses; and asked him if he ever bet the horses. When Furra replied that he did bet occasionally, Wright told him that he might have “something going” the next day and he would call Furra. The next morning Wright returned to the bar and told Furra that he had a race fixed that would be run that afternoon, that the race would be easy to fix because a certain jockey was not riding that day, and that he (Wright) would give Furra the information if Furra would give him $1,100 as his contribution toward the fixing of the race. Wright said that Furra would not have any time to think it over because he (Wright) had to go to the track to take care of it. When Wright showed Furra his driver’s license “registered” to his home address in Glendale, Furra went to his bank with Wright, in Wright’s automobile, and withdrew $1,100 in $100 bills. Before returning to the automobile, Furra “took down” the serial numbers of the bills. They returned to the tavern, and then Furra gave Wright the $1,100, and Wright gave him the name of a horse. Then Wright told him to go to the track and bet $1,500 on the horse to win, that it would prob

[180]

ably pay four or five to one. Purra went to the track and bet $1,500 on the horse to win, but it ran third.

The next morning Wright told Purra by telephone that the horse lost a shoe and the best they could do was to bring him in third, but “today” they had a long price horse that would make up for what Purra had lost. Then Wright said he would let Purra speak with jockey Allan Gray. Then another voice on the telephone said he was Allan Gray, and that “today they really had it all fixed”; and he told Purra to wire $1,000 to A. E. Gray in care of the North Hollywood Western Union, and as soon as they could confirm that the money was there they would give him the name of the horse. After that conversation Purra told a deputy sheriff what had happened. The deputy sent a telegram to the Western Union office in North Hollywood. That afternoon Wright told Purra by telephone that he had received confirmation that the money was there; and he gave Purra the name of a horse and told him to bet on it. Purra did not act on the information.