The Secretary of State to Minister Furniss.
Washington, May 4, 1906.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 50,a of the 12th ultimo, forwarding the claim of Michael J. Kouri against the Government of Haiti.
The department has read and carefully considered this claim, which is for alleged false imprisonment; for injury to business resulting from such false imprisonment; for injury to his character as a result of prosecution alleged to be unfounded; and injury to property, duly specified in the various documents submitted to this department.
It will be observed that these various claims arise as the direct or indirect consequence of Mr. Kouri’s prosecution during the course of 1905 upon the charge of counterfeiting Haitian currency.
Mr. Kouri states, and his statement is borne out by the documents submitted, that he was acquitted on appeal; but a careful examination of the evidence, of the defense, and the judgment of the court of ultimate resort shows clearly that Mr. Kouri was acquitted not because he was wholly innocent of the charge, but solely because the preparations for the commission of the crime of counterfeiting had not proceeded so far as to constitute the crime of counterfeiting.
His codefendants, the Puzo brothers, would seem to have been engaged in the active work of preparation. It was notorious that they were men of questionable antecedents; that they had previously been convicted of counterfeiting, or forgery, and that they had been pardoned. A contract entered into with them by Kouri, in which the Puzo brothers were placed in charge of the Tropical Soap and Candle Company, was, to say the least, indiscreet, inasmuch as it opened up unlimited possibilities to the Puzo brothers, and Mr. Kouri must have known that they were not the men to let an opportunity slip.
The ultimate acquittal of principal or accomplice did not establish the innocence of the various parties; it merely established the fact that the statutory crime of counterfeiting was not completed. The defense, therefore, was technical and is consistent with complicity in the preparation, falling short of the completed crime.
[Page 872]From this point of view the department is unable to see any equity in the claim, as submitted, of Mr. Kouri, and must, therefore, decline either to bring it to the notice of, or to press it upon, the Haitian Government.
I am, etc.,
- Not printed on account of its great length.↩