People V Sattlekau

120 App.Div. 42, 104 N.Y.S. 805 (1907)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Sattlekau (D) placed an ad in the New York Herald seeking a good woman housekeeper for hotel purpose and possible matrimony. D placed the ad under the name of Ernest Paul. Rosa Kaiser answered the ad. D and Rosa met a number of times. D said he was then the owner and proprietor of a certain hotel called 'Uncle Sam Hotel.' He also said another man was ready and desirous to purchase the said hotel from him for the sum of $6,000, and that he then and there had an option for the lease for the period of fifteen years, for the sum of $20,000, of a certain hotel called the 'Studio.' D eventually fed her a story about how he needed money to lease the other hotel and that D needed her $1000 to make the deal work and that it would be a nice place for them to occupy upon their marriage. D wrote a letter detailing out the fake transactions and how he was going to be short and needed to find some extra money. Of course, Rosa was taken by D and gave him the $1000. When they met, D made sure that Rosa understood the urgency of his need for the $1000. He promised her she would get it back and that he was a wealthy man. When she gave him the money he, of course, said he had to go and finish the deal. Rosa received a telegram that the place was afire. D even wrote a letter promising to pay her back her money. Rosa never heard from D again. D was arrested just as he was bowing to and addressing another woman who had some flowers in her hand. D admitted that he was a married man and that he had received probably a hundred answers to similar advertisements he had put in the newspapers and had in his possession a list of the names and addresses of his correspondents. The evidence was sufficient to justify the finding that the representation that D was the owner of the Uncle Sam Hotel was the representation of an existing fact, that said representation was false, that the complaining witness believed it to be true and that in reliance upon its truth she gave the $1,000 to D. There was no Uncle Sam Hotel where D said it was. D was convicted at trial and appealed alleging a number of defects in the indictment.