A City Hall Boodler Falls: Whatcom's Ex-Deputy Clerk Convicted of Forgery
Eighteen grand jury indictments, and E. Y. Grassett is convicted on one — with a perjury charge still to come and other indicted ex-officials waiting for the February term.
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.
WHATCOM, Dec. 26. — [Special.] — Ex-Deputy City Clerk E. Y. Grassett, against whom the grand jury found eighteen true bills, most of them for forgery and obtaining money under false pretenses, has been convicted on one charge of forgery and will doubtless be sentenced this week. The county attorney may file information against him for perjury committed on the witness stand.
The petit jury has been dismissed, and the cases against other indicted ex-city officials, Inslee and Lawrence, will not come up for trial till the February term.
“The county attorney may file information against him for perjury committed on the witness stand.”
A deputy city clerk indicted eighteen times for forgery and false pretenses, then threatened with perjury for lying on the stand, is a small-town corruption cascade that rhymes with every modern probe into a city official abusing the public purse. Whatcom is now Bellingham — the courthouse and the ledgers have moved, the pattern has not.
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