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# LEONARD CARTER,
# JESUP BANK HEAD,
# IS FOUND GUILTY
Sentence of Six Years in
Prison Reduced by Judge
to One Year at State
Farm
BRUNSWICK, Ga., Feb. 3.-L. Carter, president of the Jesup Banking company and vice president of the Odum Banking company, charged with fraudulent insolvency of the Jesup bank, was found guilty at 9:30 o'clock Thursday, and sentenced to not ess than six years and not more than eight in the penitentiary.
The sentence, however, was reduced later by Judge Eschal Graham to one year at the state farm. The judge explained that he set the verdict aside because the penalty virtually amountd to a death sentence.
W. H. Tyson, president of the Odum Banking company, and H. С. Dickerson, cashier, both entered pleas of guilty Thursday. On three misdemeanor counts the former was sentenced to pay fines totaling $1,-000, and to serve three months in jail. Dickerson was sentenced to serve from two to three months in prison. The case against C. L. Carter, son of L. Carter, was nol prossed.
The case went to the jury Wednesday night. Six of the seven attorneys in the case made arguments.
The defendant, on the stand Wednesday, reviewed his business career from the time he was making two dollars per week until he met with reverses in 1920. He insisted that the failure of the Jesup Banking company was due to the shortage in the accounts of Cashier Dickerson, of the Odum Banking company, an allied institution. He said also that his enterprises, including the Jesup bank, the Pickens company and the Jesup Mercantile company, were solvent, and could pay all claims if liquidation had been allowed in a businesslike manner. Every precaution had been taken, he declared, to properly safeguard the affairs of the bank. He even employed auditors to go over the accounts following the audit of the state examiners. Other evidence was introduced during the day to show that the Jesup Banking company was solvent when placed in receivers' hands. J. W. Talbert one of the receivers of the Pickens company and the Jesup Mercantile company, testified that from his information and examination these two companies were solvent and could be made to pay.
LeRoy Pharr, an Eastman banker, who assisted state examiners in the audit, stated that 300 shares of stock in the Cole Motor company, listed as bought by the bank, was not found in the bank's effects. A. R. Mann. former cashier, recalled, said Mr. Carter had told him that the stock had been sold.
