The Gold Brick Swindler Faces Trial
A notorious 'gold brick' confidence man is headed to the superior court after a dramatic legal clash in the courtroom.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
W. A. Knowlton, the alleged 'gold brick' swindler, was bound over to the superior court for trial yesterday afternoon by Justice Caldwell on $5,000 bond. The hearing was taken up with arguments by Prosecuting Attorney Miller in reply to James Hamilton Lewis, who had argued a motion to dismiss the day before. Miller cited authority after authority, commenting on each in its relation to the case. He maintained that whether the banker made a thorough investigation or not, the element of fraud remained. Knowlton appeared particularly interested when the prosecutor cited a California case involving a 'bunko game.' Later, on the way to the county jail, Knowlton told Constable Terry King that the California case was 'one of his,' and that he felt he could have testified about it himself.
“Knowlton looked up while Miller was speaking with an expression indicative of particular interest in the case.”
Confidence games—specifically those involving 'gold bricks' or get-rich-quick schemes—have long been a fixture of Seattle's growth years, prefiguring the sophisticated digital scams that target the city's modern tech-wealth. The legal tug-of-war over whether a victim's 'due diligence' absolves a fraudster remains a central tension in modern white-collar criminal law.
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