Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/107

 92 FEDERAL REPORTER. �Bbown, D. 3. The plaintiff is assignee in bankruptcy of Abraham Mead, who -was adjudicated a bankrupt, on petition of his creditors, on June 29, 1878. The assignee was chosen and the statutory assignment of the bankrupt's effects executed to him on September 6, 1878. On the twenty-fourth of August, 1880, this suit was brought for the purpose of reaching certain real estate, in this city, purchased by the bankrupt in 1867, with his own means, the title to which was taken in the name of his wife, the defendant Sarah J. Mead, together with the improvements afterwards made thereon by the bankrupt, and to subject the property to the payment of his debts then existing and subsequent. �The amended bill alleges that the bankrupt, in the early part of 1867, being a plumber and builder, contracted for the purchase, in his own name, of four lots of land on the nortli-east corner of Sixth avenue and Fifty-fifth street; that he paid $30,000 therefor, and caused the conveyance to be made from the seller to his wife, Sarah J. Mead, by deed dated and recorded May 22, 1867; that he was then "largely indebted and in embarrassed circumstances;" that one Littlefield then held a judgment against him reeovered by default in the New York court of common pleas, and docketed June 18, 1866, for $3,183 ; that in August, 1866, on Mead's application, the default was opened, and he was allowed to corne in and defend, the judgment meantime to stand as security for whatever might be reeovered thereon; that final judgment was reeovered in that action on April 29, 1875, for $5,118.28; that upon execution issued to the sheriff of the county the sum of $953.09 was made, and as to the balance the execution was returned unsatisiied on Febrixary 24, 1876, and that the residue of the judgment still remains unpaid ; that the bankrupt purchased said lots for the purpose of erecting buildings thereon; that he shortly after entered into possession of them, and prior to September 1, 1873, and mainly in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, erected five brown stone-front dwelling-houses thereon, in which he expended and invested upwards of $125,000; that he procured the title to be so conveyed to his wife, and paid the purchase price therefor, with intent to prevent the property from being subject to the lien of Lit- tlefield's existing judgment, with intent to contract future debts and to defraud future creditors, and made the subsequent improvements and expenditures upon the property with the same intent; that while erecting the buildings, and after completing them, he gave out and caused it to be understood and believed generally that he was the owner thereof, and on completion he occiipied a part of the promises, ��� �