(One year three months and a day Imprisonment)
Shanghai, Dec. 23.
Benjamin Teodore, alias Bernardo Teodoro, 25-year-old Filipino, was sentenced to one year, three months and a day in Bilibid Penitentiary, in the Philippines, by Judge Milton J. Helmick in the United States Court for China yesterday morning for viola~ Yien of the Harrison Act, a statute relating to the transportation, buying selling of narcotic drugs, and felon iously escaping from the custody of the US. Marshal. Teodoro pleaded iullty (o both charges and received a Sentence of one year and a day on the first count and three months on the escape charge.
"Teodoro was in the custody of the US. Marshal on September 9, await: ing investigation of a narcotic charge against him afler his arrest the previous night when he was found to Wye two grains of heroin and 2 quantity of opium in his possession. Me was hated by the Settlement police because he was riding a bicycle without a light and during the subsequent search the police discovered the drug on his person. While inves. tigation of his ease was being carried ft, Teodoro calmly walked out of the Marshal's ofthe and into the street and was not apprehended until December when she. was arrested by two members of the SMP. narcotic squad Ouiside the Metropol Theatre.
making his address to the court, the District Attorney asked that the mused be sentenced to two years imprisonment on the first charge and Uhre years on the second. Mr. Shields said that Teodoro should re ceive a stiff sentence for escaping from the Marshal's custody in order to serve notice on the public that no tone can "monkey with the process of the US. Court for China" Mr. Shields maintained that it was not absolutely necessary. to 'a gun on a man after he had been arrested, and declared that the second charge Was the more serious of the to.
cannot alford to let this go une challenged," "the District Attorney said, "therefore Task that the accused Sentenced to three year's imprisonment on the second charge:
Mr. Myron Wiener, of Messrs. Rodger and Wiener, who had been appointed counsel for the defendant bby the court, made a moving appeal for clemency' to Judge Helmick. He illustrated the rather sordid back~ ground of the defendant, son of a Filipino father and a Chinese mother, who had been born in Shanghai and brought up in the streets of the city. Mr. Wiener said that the accused mad held a series of small jobs but never earned more than seventy-five eighty dollars a month. "Con-Sidering the background and chances {in life which the accused has "had." said Mr. Wiener, "I should say that hho Is not a bad boy, but a foolish, wayward youngster.
The defendant's counsel stressed the point that the amount of heroin found fan the defendant at the time of his for one dose. He said that the prosecution could not show that there had been any sale of the drug but merely possession, and maintained that in the United States all evidence of the prosecution would be suppressed under the illegal seizure act. then quoted the laws of the United States az applicable to U.S. citizen in China who might be found guilty of transporting opium and said that was considered a misdemeanour, [punishable by a fine not exceeding $00. He said that the sentence asked by the District Attorney for the first charge was the same which was imposed in large scale eases of selling narcotics, and added that he lad" never come across any case wherein the amount of the drug Involved was as low as two grains.
As to the escape charge, the counsel for the accused declared that the facts admitted demonstrated that the defendant was not a vicious, bad boy. but a foolish one, He contrasted the escape of the defendant from the U.S. Marshal's office with other gaol-breaks in: which violence was used and said that it was just a ease of a foolish boy seeing an open door and walking out. Mr. Wiener said that incarceration for five years would do more harm to the defendant and Society that a short sentence. A prison form would teach the defendant all the technique of crime, he said, and would make him more of a menace to society than if he was sentenced to a term in Ward Road Gaol, The District Attorney said that the amount of the drug found on Teodoro id not lessen the seriousness of the crime. "Trafic in heroin is one of the most base, dastardly rackets that can "be used' to poison humanity,' said Mr, Shields, "It is sixteen times stronger than morphine and its effect is volcanic"" The District Attorney said that under Chinese law the pen~ alty for carrying heroin was death fand said that is the reason why Chinese will not carry the drug.
Questioned by Judge Helmick, Teodoro said that he was twenty-five years old and had been working for hhis father as a cigar salesman, He had not been living with his family for two years but was living alone at &3 Carter Road. Here the District Attorney rose to say that the boy's father had said that he would have nothing more to do with him and that the father said that the defendant came to see him only once oF twice a week, twice in the company of a blonde white girl named "Dixie." The accused told the Judge that he had been carrying opium to use as medicine for a toothache and did not know that he had heroin in his possession also. He said that the drug was given to him by a Chinese friend, "It's always hard to know what to do with a young man," said Judge Helmick, then, after a few minutes consideration he sentenced. the a cused to one year and a day in Bilibid Penitentiary and to serve three months' confinement at. the expiration of the first sentence. He ordered the prisoner to be held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending his transportation to the Philippines, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals For the Ninth Circuit nor 6 ALLMMAX, ApmRLLANT
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.