United States v. J. C. Smothers

DUFFY, Senior Circuit Judge.

Defendant Smothers was indicted and convicted by a jury on fourteen separate counts of mail fraud in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 1341, often referred to as the mail fraud statute.

The indictment alleged that the defendant intentionally and wilfully devised a scheme and artifice to defraud the First National Bank of Gorham, Illinois, and the First National Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, and that said scheme entailed the preparation of fictitious bills of lading showing rail shipments of coal and other documents as securities for notes payable to the First National…