Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/499

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492 FEDERAL REPORTER. �United States v. Cooars. [Oircuit Court, E. B. Wisconsin. , 1880.) �1. f liBSBKTlSG FAI.SE ClAIM AGAIN8T GOVBKNMBNT— PkNSION— ReV. ST. �i 5438.— Section 5438 of the Kevised Statutes provides that"every person who makea, or causes to be made, or presenta, or causes to be presented, for payment or approval, to or by any person or ofBcor in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, any claim upon or against the government of the United States, or any depart- ment or offlcer thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious, or fraudulent," shall be gnilty of the offence charged, and shall be sub- ject to punishment therefor. Sdd, that such section includes a false claim presented by a person as a pensioner, demauding money as a ' pensioner. �2. Same— Same — Samb. — ITeld, further, that whcre the pension certificate �was genuine, but had been fraudulently obtained, each presentation of the certificate consiituted a distinct ofEence within the mcauing of the statute. �Demurrer to Indietment. �G..W- Mazleton, District Attorney, for the United States, , Jenkins, EUlott d Winkler, for the defendant. �Dbummond', C. J. a demurrer has been interposed to the jndiçtment in this case, and it is insisted by the counsel of the defendant, in a very able and ingenions argument, that the indietment is insufficient. I think the indietment is sufS- cient. The offence charged in the indietment may be stated in general ternis to be this: The defendant was a private in Company K, in the sixteeïith regiment of the Wisconsin volunteers, during the war of the rebellion. Several years ago, long enough before this indietment was found to enable the defendant to plead the statute of limitations to the offence then commitced, he, by affidavit and otherwise, in a false and fraudulent manner eaused his name to be entered on the pension roll at Washington for a pension, on the ground that he had been wounded in the heel by a shell at the battle of Corinth,onthefourthof October, 1862. His name was accord- ingly entered on the pension roll, and the usual certificate ■was given to him that he was a pensioner entitled to a pen- sion from the United States; and the pension then became ����