Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

A MINING FRAUD.
SYDNEY, Thursday.
Judge Heydon made some very severe
remarks to-day in passing sentence on
Michael Percival Cosgrove, who was An
victed at the quarter sessions of having
obtained £250 by fraud from Andrew
McKye, of North Sydney. The charge
had reference to a mining property at
Hargrave, in the Mudgee district, which
he had represented as of marvellous rich
ness, and sure to yield a fortune to the
investor. Counsel for the prisoner had
asked that he might be treated as a first
offender. Judge Heydon replied that
he could not entertain the application for
one moment. The evidence showed that
the prisoner had been practising gross
fraud systematically, employing a no
torious criminal as his agent, and tell
ing that agent from Sydney to telegraph
to Sydney that rich gold had been struck,
instructing him as to the false state-
ments which he was to make, urging him
if he got a chance "on the quiet to lay
out" the person who had been acting
against them, and forging and lying at
every turn. He (Judge Heydon) consid
ered every day the accused was at large
was a day of danger to someone, and
every day he was locked up was a day of
greater safety to the community. Cos
grove was a thorough rogue and danger
ous criminal, and the sentence would be
penal servitude for five years.
$