From the News

Dated: May 25, 1916

SPY IN AN EDMONTON REGT. ARRESTED AT COAST

Vancouver, May 21. -- Two years in the penitentiary was the sentence imposed on Fred G. Leman yesterday by Judge McInnis, on the charge of forgery.  Leman, who is a young German, was taken from the Seattle train on this side of the border as he was making an attempt to get out of the country.  While the charge on which Leman was sentenced, however, was that of forgery, before the accused was sentenced a sensational phase of the case was developed when a letter was read in court, which was found in the accused's possession, and which presumably was intended for his parents, and was in German.

Leman was arrested on a charge of forging a letter of recommendation from Dr. Keeley, of Nanaimo, for whom the accused had worked, to Dr. Finlay, of Vancouver.  The forged letter was only one of several forged documents Leman had in his possession when arrested, another document, a discharge from one of the prairie battalions, being forged to make it read that he had served in the Gallipoli campaign.  The accused had served with an Edmonton battalion and had secured his discharge, because, as he had written in his letter, he was afraid that if he went to the front he would run the risk of being found guilty of high treason.  Leman is suffering from an injury to one of his eyes and this injury was used by Leman by way of proof that he had been at Gallipoli and had been wounded.