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Show WITNESS IH LAND FRAUD CASE FINED IN WASHINGTON - e "WASHINGTON, March 28 In yesterday's yester-day's session of the trial of Binger Her-, mann for alleged, misconduct while commissioner of the land office, Judge Stafford fined withness A. G. King of Seattle Se-attle $200 for refusing to obey a summons sum-mons which made it necessary for him to be brought to Washington by a Marshal. King's fee and mileage as a witness amounted to $304. This will leave him sufficient funds to pay for his return to Seattle, which was the basis of the fine. - When D. Valk, a clerk in the general gen-eral land office, was cross-examined he admitted that he had been in the employ em-ploy of John A. Benson, now one of the defendants in the Hyde-Benson-Dimond land fraud eases, from 1897 to 1903. During this time Valk received approximately $2500 from Benson, and remarked that he had not received all that was due him. The agreement was that Valk should expedite the land cases in which Benson was interested, for which he was to receive $10 an acre. Harlan, chief of the division in which Valk was then special examiner, exam-iner, was taken into the combination at the outset, but a misunderstanding soon arose regarding the compensation they were receiving from Benson, and Valk said that he continued in the employ em-ploy of Benson, but did not know whether Harlan did or not. The last payment Valk received, he said, was given him by Benson in a bathroom in the New Willard hotel in this city in 1903. He said that he made this arrangement ar-rangement with Benson under the direction di-rection of United 8tates Attorney Byrnes in order to trap Benson and carry out his part "under great protest.'.' |