Wilmington, Feb. 10—Testimony today in the trial of Lt. Governor W.B. Cooper and Thos. E. Cooper in Federal District Court ending the first week of the hearing paved the way for the appearance Monday of the government’s final witness by which the prosecution will seek to prove its charges that the Cooper brothers conspired in an alleged violation of the National Banking laws, and to embezzle and misapply the funds of the National Bank of Wilmington, of which they were president and chairman of the board of directors, respectively.
H.R. Tull, agent of the Federal Department of Justice, is the witness upon whom the prosecution proposes to link up the vast quantity of evidence introduced and reveal where the alleged conspiracy became effective. Investigation made by Tull after the bank closed lead to the arrest of the defendants and the cashier of the defunct bank, and Clyde Lassiter, who are also under indictment.
For the first time since the trial started, the prosecution placed on the stand a depositor, who testified to having lost everything in the failure of the bank. The depositor was Mrs. Cuthbert Martin, widow of a former vice president of the bank, who said that all her husband’s estate and more than $5,000 of her personal funds were entrusted to Lt. Governor Cooper at the time of the failure.
Mrs. Martin testified that Lt. Governor was administrator of her husband’s estate, that she had become dissatisfied with his methods and had sought to have herself named executrix. A legal action to this effect was brought before the judge who ruled that the Federal Court did not have jurisdiction.
From the front page of the Goldsboro News, Sunday, Feb. 10, 1924
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