People v. Crandall

DORAN, J.

Appellant, charged by information with ten counts of grand theft, with a prior conviction of grand theft and of issuing checks without sufficient funds, was found guilty on each of the ten counts by separate verdicts of the jury returned after trial. Appellant admitted the prior conviction, but appeals from the present judgments and the order denying his motion for a new trial.

The record reveals the following facts: Appellant was released on parole from San Quentin State Prison on or about August 5, 1939. A few days later, while stopping at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, he chanced to meet Mrs. Nellie B. Lantz, a widow past sixty years of age. After her husband’s death Mrs. Lantz had been under the guardianship of her attorney from 1932 to 1937, and was then restored to competency by court order in June, 1937, at which time there

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was turned over to her property and money to the extent of approximately seventy to eighty thousand dollars. Appellant’s acquaintance with Mrs. Lantz appears to have rapidly ripened into a friendship and about September of 1939, Mrs. Lantz began advancing sums of money to appellant. The money appears to have been advanced largely for investment in various business ventures. According to appellant’s testimony, he and Mrs. Lantz had decided to become partners and she would furnish the money while he would do the work. According to Mrs. Lantz’ testimony, given at the preliminary hearing and read into evidence at the trial, she advanced the money because of representations made to her by appellant, chief of which appears to be his claim to ownership of a large estate in Connecticut, and because appellant seemed to know a number of people she knew and one, whom Mrs. Lantz regarded as a reputable business man, commended appellant to her. Appellant also appears to have played somewhat on Mrs. Lantz’ sympathy. From September, 1939, to about June, 1940, Mrs. Lantz advanced to appellant a total sum in excess of $65,000, of which about $10,000 seems to have been placed by appellant in business ventures. There is evidence that during the same period appellant made various personal expenditures, including purchases of jewelry, mostly feminine, in the sum of $10,918.47. One witness, an actress, testified to receiving from appellant during that period, among other things, gifts of jewelry, a fur coat and a Buiek car. The evidence further reveals appellant to have been otherwise liberal and his assumed social standard to have been somewhat expensive.