The Bunko Man's Five-Minute Trial
A grifter who terrorized two Norwegian women is convicted in record time after a failed attempt to discard incriminating evidence.
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.
L. Goodfriend, the second of a trio arrested for swindling two Norwegian girls of $297 on Decoration Day, was put on trial before Judge Humes yesterday. The evidence was similar to that given against Hart, who was convicted the night before. Goodfriend and his cohorts had pretended to be officers, frightening the women into silence by threatening them with arrest for 'bunko-stealing.' When he was taken to the station house, he threw away a large pocketbook containing flesh paper, a $1,000 check on the Boston Journal bank, and several bogus steamer checks. When searched at the police station, officers also found bunko props—one good lock and one rigged to fleece countrymen. The two victims identified Goodfriend beyond question. The evidence was all in by 4 o'clock, and after half-hour arguments, the jury stayed out exactly five minutes and returned a verdict of guilty as charged.
“The judge's charge was brief and so was the deliberation of the jury, which stayed out exactly five minutes and came in with a verdict of guilty as charged.”
Bunko schemes—con games preying on the gullible or newly arrived—were a constant anxiety in 1890s Seattle as the city struggled to project a image of civilized law and order. The speed of this justice, however, highlights the era's reliance on police testimony and social bias against those deemed 'foreign' or suspicious.
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