Clark County WA Archives News.....Jones and Potter to Jail August 9, 1906
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Sheron Faynor nitwittwin@hotmail.com June 5, 2010, 12:15 pm

Vancouver Independentq August 9, 1906
One Year and $2000, Six Months and $500 Respectively
Portland,Aug-6- Willard N.Jones and Thaddens S.Potter, convicted at midnight 
October 15,1906, under and indictment returned by the Federal grand jury 
charging them jointly with conspiring to defraud the federal government of its 
public lands, were given their sentences by Judge Hunt in the United States 
District Court Saturday.
Jones received a fine of $2,000, in addition to a term of one year, at the 
government prison on McNeill's Island.Potter fared somewhat better, as Judge 
Hunt took several points into consideration,which,coupled with the fact that 
Francis J.Heney made a strong plea for leniency in his case, prompted his 
sentence of six months in the Multnomah county jail and a fine of $500. The 
attorneys for both were given ten days to perfect any legal action looking to 
an appeal, and in the meantime was required to give $8,000 bail,double the 
amount of his former bond, while Potter was permitted to go upon his original 
security.
The particular offense for which the two men were ocnvicted consisted in 
inducing a large number of Grand Army men to file soldier homesteads in the 
Siletz Indian reservation, under agreement to transfer title to Jones. Ira 
Wade, county clerk of Lincoln County, was tried under the same indictment, but 
in his case the jury returned a verdict of acquittal, the evidence not being 
considered sufficient to convict. John L.Wells, adjutant general of the G.A.R. 
was also involved in the scheme of conspiracy, his influence being exercised in 
the direction of securing locators among the old soldiers. Wells confessed his 
share of complicity in the fraudulent undertaking before the grand jury and was 
made a witness for the government. A general shake up in the local G.A.R was 
the result of the exposures, and Wells was compelled to resign.

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