Young v. State

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Sylvester L. Y. Young was tried and convicted on an indictment for embezzlement, and sentenced to serve a term of seven years in the Maryland penitentiary. This appeal is from that judgment. There was a demurrer to the indictment, which was overruled.

Appellant in his brief does not point out any error ⁹⁰ in the ruling on the demurrer and we find none. The transaction out of which the indictment arose was as follows: Mrs. Mattie L. Oarter, the prosecuting witness, purchased a house through the traverser for $1,850. Of this, $500 was paid in cash and Young borrowed for her $1,200 on first mortgage, and the vendor took a second mortgage for $150. Payments in small amounts from time to time were made by Mrs. Oarter to Young.

Out of these payments the second mortgage was paid, and interest on the first mortgage, but the balance of the payments, which were within a few dollars of enough to pay off the entire indebtedness, was used by Young for his own purposes. Mrs. Oarter testified: “I asked Mr. Young to arrange a mortgage for me so that I could make payments from time to time as best I could. He said I could pay him just as I felt like it and just as I got the money. * * * I was to pay the interest and principal to him. I know that when I made payments to Mr. Young from time to time he said it would cut the interest down.” Young testified that he had been in the real estate business since 1904; that he had an arrangement with Mrs. Oarter how the $1,200 mortgage was to be paid. “The arrangement was that she would pay me monthly payments at her convenience, and that I would invest and use the money, allowing her the interest thereon until such time as the full $1,200 would be paid.

I was to allow her interest on these installments, which were to be paid at various times, and when the interest came due on the mortgage, I used that interest money to help pay the interest and she paid me the balance of the interest due. * * * I turned the interest over to the mortgagee as agreed. I carried out the agreement which I had with Mrs. Oarter with the exception of paying over the $1,200 at the appointed time.” He explained that he could not pay it because of heavy losses from bad investments which left him penniless. There are twenty-two bills of exception, all, except two, which were not pressed and in which we find no error, to ⁹¹ rulings of the trial court permitting testimony to be offered by the State relative to transactions other than those mentioned in the indictment. One of these was with a Mrs. Domberger, another with a Mr. Hottle, and the third with a Mr. Momingstar.

The first two were similar to that mentioned in the indictment; the third was of a different character, in that money in this instance was alleged to have been placed with the traverser for investment and improperly appropriated by him to his own use. None of these transactions were connected in any way with, or related to, that for which traverser was being tried, or occurred at the same time. The several parties do not appear to have been in any way connected with the prosecuting witness in this case or with each other. There is nothing in the record to show that any of the transactions in any way led up to or promoted the one mentioned in the indictment, or that they with it were parts of a common plan made with them in view.

If the traverser was guilty of all these offenses, there is nothing to show that they were anything more than a series of defalcations which any defaulter might have committed from time to time,