The Hollow Promise

The business manager of a membership organisation persuaded two elderly women to lend it money. One lent $3,000 and later signed a further note. The other handed over more than $13,000 in cash plus bonds. He told them the loans would be secured by mortgages on property and said the money would go toward buying a theatre. No mortgage was ever given, and the money went to the organisation's running costs. He was convicted of theft by false pretenses. His defence: a broken promise about the future is not a lie about an existing fact.