Camden Courier-Post – June 28, 1933
Defense, Calls 12 Character Witnesses in Trial at Woodbury
Wrote Checks ‘For Him’
Woodbury, June 27- Defense in the trial of Mrs. Alice C. Roberts, Swedesboro, charged with forgery and uttering, was started shortly be, for criminal court adjourned today with the calling of a dozen character witnesses.
Mrs. Roberts is being tried on one of nine indictments returned by the May Grand Jury. George W. Miller, 63, former farmhand, accuses her of forging his mark to a check for $10 dated July 29, 1931, and drawn on the Swedesboro Trust Company,
In his short opening to the jury of 12 men, George B. Marshall said he would show that Miller asked Mrs. Roberts frequently to draw checks for him and that each time he always touched the pen, He said Miller asked the woman to do so, after he had gone to the bank him self previously and came home dissatisfied.
Lives In Camden.
Miller now lives at 577 Stevens Street, Camden. He testified he went to work on the Roberts farm in May, 1926. On direct examination he denied he signed the check in question or placed his mark on it,
“Did you ever sign any checks at the Roberts home when Mrs. Roberts witnessed your mark?”
“No.”
“Did you ever authorize her to sign or put your mark or checks?”
“No”
He admitted Mrs. Roberts helped him make a check for $106.50 in a Philadelphia department store in February, 1928, but that was the only check she helped him make, he said.
“Didn’t Mrs. Roberts go to the bank and get money and give it to you to put in your wallet?”
“Not for me.”
“How do you know this particular check is not yours?”
“By the cross,”
He said he used only yellow checks, and other checks introduced into evidence were blue.
Contradicts Himself
Marshall asked Miller if he testified before Justice of the Peace Fred Gravino last February that he permitted Mrs. Roberts to draw money from the bank with his cross on checks. Miller denied he made that statement. Stenographic records, of the hearing before Gravino contradicted his testimony.
Miller said the check drawn in the department store was for silver for Mrs. Roberts and she never paid him back.
Webster A. Melcher, handwriting expert, testified the marks on the $10 check and mark made on “standards” by Miller were not made by the same person.
Paul Peterson, secretary and treasurer of the Swedesboro bank, said Miller withdrew $2640.40 from his account during his several years in that section. Eight other checks were introduced into evidence by the prosecution.
The defense conceded that all nine checks were in the handwriting of Mrs. Roberts, excepting where the mark was made.
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