OCR Text |
Show COFFEY FOUND GUILTY- Verdict Is Rendered by Jury After Thirty Minutes Min-utes Deliberation San Francisco, Feb. 17. The case- of Former Supervisor M. W. Coffey, ; accused of accepting a bribe of $4,000 I to vote for a trolley franchise for the ! United Railroads, was submitted to the jury at 11:34 o'clock this morn-I morn-I ing. i After deliberating for thirty min-I min-I utes the jury in the case of former I Supervisor Michael W. Coffey, indlct- ed on a charge of receiving a bribe of $4,000 to vote for a trolley franchise i for the United Railroads, returned a verdict of guilty shortly after noon today. Three ballots were taken by the jury, of which two stood 11 for conviction and ono for acquittal. On , the third ballot all voted "guilty." Su-. Su-. perior Judge Dunne fixed Saturday, February 27, as the date for pronouncing pro-nouncing sentence, which, under tho penal code, may be from one to fourteen four-teen years in the state penitentiary. 1 Coffey, who was ono of the Schmlti board of supervisors, all of whom, except ex-cept two, who were not involved, confessed con-fessed to having accepted bribes through the agency of Abraham Ruef, is the first member of that board who has been prosecuted. In common with the others, he made an immunity contract con-tract with the district attorney on agreeing to testify fully in regard to briber)' transactions in which they were involved. Later, when called upon to testify against Ruef and others oth-ers implicated in the bribery-graft matter, ho refused to repeat his evidence evi-dence given bpfore the grand jury. This caused the withdrawal of the promise of Immunity by the district attorney, the result being Coffey's trial and conviction. |