Two men from Jamesport, MO, Frank Marshall and Robert Miller, were given jail sentences after pleading guilty in federal court on a scheme concocted while they were in the Livingston County Jail at Chillicothe, MO, in 1931.
A conspiracy to make counterfeit coins was hatched in the Livingston County Jail while Frank Marshall and Robert Miller, both of Jamesport, were serving sentences, the former for counterfeiting and the latter for violating the liquor laws. The two plead guilty in federal court held at St. Joseph; Marshall was sentenced to serve three years in the federal prison at Leavenworth, KS, on counterfeiting and conspiracy while leniency was shown to Miller because of his almost destitute family, including an invalid and one mentally incompetent dependent.
The case was presented by assistant U.S. District Attorney Chet Keyes. Marshal was a nurse in Oklahoma City prior to 1927 and there read about people counterfeiting notes. He then made some, passing them in Oklahoma City. Later he went to Kansas City where he was arrested in 1927 and was sent to the penitentiary on a counterfeiting charge.
When released he again took up his old profession, this time making smaller change. Again arrested, Marshall was sentenced to serve a term in the Livingston County Jail. While in jail there he met Robert Miller who was serving a sentence on a liquor violation charge. When the two completed their sentences, they went to Miller’s farm and began the manufacture of counterfeit money. The duo were indicted by a federal grand jury in session at Joplin.
— reprinted from the Gallatin North Missourian, Jan. 22, 1931
