Trent v. United States

HOOK, Circuit Judge.

Trent and Erad were convicted of fraudulent use of the mails (Penal Code, § 215), as charged in three counts of the indictment. The scheme to defraud may be briefly described as follows:

The accused, operating as the Oakland City Townsite & Emigration Company, obtained title to 420 acres of land in Oklahoma. The land was on the summit of a range of hills called the Poteau Mountains. It was very rough and rocky, and embraced abrupt hills and deep ravines or canyons. It was devoid of merchantable timber,’ unfit for cultivation, four or five miles from the nearest railroad,…