100 years ago in Spokane: A man was acquitted of forgery as insults flew in the courtroom

Jay E. Hough was acquitted of forgery in a massive financial fraud case after fiery closing arguments.

Hough’s attorney called his client’s associate, John B. Milholland, a “dirty cur,” “a contemptible snake” and “a veritable Mr. Hyde.”

The attorney added another literary reference when he said Milholland was “dissolute, but lacking the latent courage and manhood of Sidney Carton,” the main character in “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Hough and his attorneys convinced a Spokane jury that he had been bullied by his senior partner, Milholland, into participating in a scheme to defraud an Idaho mining magnate of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hough testified that Milholland choked him and threatened his life numerous times, and coerced him into signing forged documents. Milholland committed suicide while officers pounded on his door to arrest him.

The prosecutor’s closing argument was nearly as incendiary. He called Hough a “faker and a liar” and accused him of fabricating stories to “complete a link in the chain of his defense.”

In the end, though, the jury was apparently swayed by the many corroborated stories of Milholland’s threatening behavior, along with the fact that Hough turned himself in and confessed to police while Milholland was still alive.

Hough was not entirely out of the woods.

Prosecutors said they would proceed with another trial, in which Hough was accused of forging a different bond.