Incarceration Of Legrand

This Rascal Safe for 27 Years.

LONDON, Nov. 25. - Charles Grande, alias a dozen other names, who has been on trial here on charges of blackmailing, was today found guilty and sentenced to 20 years' penal servitude. Grande had been pursuing his nefarious practices for a long time and numbers among his victims several titled ladies. It was his habit to write letters to these ladies, threatening them with his vengeance unless they complied with his demands for money. To one of them he wrote that if she didn't pay him a certain sum of money he would blow her to atoms. In this letter he referred to the ease with which he placed a quantity of dynamite under a door mat so arranged that when she stepped upon it it would explode and kill her. He also referred to the alleged fact that he could without discovery remove a brick in the walls of her home, fill the aperture with dynamite and blow the house and every one in it to destruction. Many of the ladies were so frightened by the rascal's threats that they paid him money. When Grande was arrested the police found in his possession a forged bill of exchange. This afforded an opportunity for another charge to be made against him, in addition to the charge of blackmail. The prisoner was convicted on this also, and on this conviction he was sentenced to an additional term of seven years' penal servitude.

Source: Elmira Gazette, Wednesday Evening, November 25, 1891