• U.S.

Army & Navy – COMMAND: Colonel Convicted

2 minute read
TIME

In a Los Angeles federal court last week Colonel Joseph James Canella (TIME, May 15) stood rigidly at attention and heard a jury foreman deliver the verdict which may end his long Regular Army career.

For 30 days the jury had listened to the story of the way brawny Colonel Canella had discharged his duties as quartermaster of the Santa Ana airbase. Witnesses testified:

Canella had tried to sell garbage, milk, laundry contracts. The dairy to which he gave the milk concession paid him 2% of its gross receipts. He had told Carl Mosk, owner of the post barber shop, that Mosk was making too much money and he “was going to have a cut off it or throw [Mosk] off the field.”

When he testified that his eldest son was killed during the Normandy invasion, the colonel had burst into tears. His other son had just departed for the Pacific theater. Both had graduated from West Point. Canella started his Army career 27 years ago, after ROTC at the University of Iowa, had less than four years to go to honorable retirement.

The verdict: “Guilty of conspiracy to defraud the Government of the U.S. . . .” which carries a maximum sentence of $10,000 fine, two years in prison. When he heard the verdict, Joe Canella wheeled without a word, sat down beside his wife, dropped his head in his hands.

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