United States v. Ryder

The bill was filed at the suit of the United States to obtain payment of a recognizance for $10,000 from the property of one Edward P. Williams, or the proceeds thereof, in the hands of Seth B. Ryder, one of the defendants. The recognizance was entered into on the eighth day of November, 1876, by Williams and three other persons, conditioned that Williams 'should appear in person at Trenton, before the United States district court there, and submit to such sentence as the said court should order and direct.'

Williams did not appear according to the condition of the recognizance, but absconded, and, as the bill alleges, 'became a fraudulent, absconding, concealed, and absent debtor, and at the same time was a convicted criminal, and a fugitive from justice,' and never has since appeared nor been found. The bill further alleges that a scire facias was issued, and a judgment entered upon the recognizance, and an execution issued to the marshal of the district against the goods and lands of the cognizors; and that certain real estate of the sureties was levied upon, insufficient (as alleged) to satisfy the execution; but that no levy was made upon the goods and lands of Williams, for the reason that they were in the possession of said Ryder, who claimed the right to hold the same partly as assignee under a general assignment made by Williams for the benefit of his creditors, in July, 1876, and partly as auditor in attachment, appointed by the circuit court for the county of Union, in the state of New Jersey, under an attachment issued against Williams on the fifteenth of November, 1876, and levied on the twenty-third of same month. The bill alleges that Ryder has since sold the property in his possession by order of the Circuit Court of Union county, and has in his hands the proceeds, amounting to several thousand dollars.

J. H. Ashton, for appellant.

John R. Emery, for appellees.

BRADLEY, J.