Joseph Smith's First Fraud Conviction

[alanmolstad]

from what I see of the issue, Joe seems to be going around telling people that he has a gift to be able to find money on their land if they will pay for him to do that.....typical scam it would seem...

[RealFakeHair]

Originally Posted by DannyBoyPoker

As a separate, briefer post, I'll mention my understanding of 'Joseph Smith's First Fraud Conviction'. There are, actually, no fraud convictions, so 'first fraud conviction' is especially cute. It appears that Joseph Smith's first fraud conviction is supposed to have been in 1826, when indeed Smith was arrested, as I understand. But he didn't give a sworn statement or enter a plea, or have a lawyer. There was no trial, this appears to have been a preliminary hearing and he was discharged. I could add that in only a few more years, Smith did have some trials, for being a disorderly person, and there are court records and all that jazz, his testimony, no dispute about what even the charges were or who filed them (as in the 1826 arrest). But, in these trials he was exonerated. Not that he got through his life without being arrested again, he especially spent one miserable winter in jail in Missouri, though charges were never brought. Actually all of the Mormon leaders had been arrested, and the order was given for them to be executed, but the officer refused to carry out the order, writing that he considered it an unlawful order and would not kill these men in cold blood so help me god etc. It's all very interesting stuff, lots of troubles, lots of excitement in early Mormon history. And of course Smith was killed, in jail, while again awaiting trial, and the charges were juicy stuff, treason and such.

Why then, do I read, here, about Smith's 'first fraud conviction'? Insisting on putting it that way is, to my eyes, the fraud.

Jack-mormons are welcomed here

[dberrie2000]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

from what I see of the issue, Joe seems to be going around telling people that he has a gift to be able to find money on their land if they will pay for him to do that.....typical scam it would seem...

And where do we find Joseph asking for money in order to seek treasure?

[alanmolstad]

In the long statement on the court case I think I remember that the idea was that Joe would claim to be able to use his secret stones, or some type of gift or whatever to be able to find lost treasure on a person's land.....for a nice little fee thank you very much...LOL

When I first came in contact with the topics that had posted the long records of what Joe was charged with and stuff, i admit I too did not really want to go too deep into the reading as it was a challenge to understnad who was who....and what they were talking about.
I think I posted a few times asking for someone to "cut to the chase" and just tell me what it all was talking about?

What i learned kinda shows us where all of Mormonism came forth from....and why what later Joe would claim turns out to be simply an extension of what he had been up to for years before this.




But lets face it...Joe was just a conman, and that all he was doing was looking for a sucker who would buy his line of BS, and then take him for all he could get.
This is how we find that Joe came up with the whole "golden Plates" idea, and for the means he came up with for "translating said plates.


Now when Christians look at the lies of Joe, and his clear record of cheating people out of their money we tend to think "how in the world could Mormons today be so fooled by him?"
But the answer to that question is to keep in mind that "There is one born every minute"


People can be fooled by a con man because the con man's story tends to be what the person wished to hear, and wished to be true.

[dberrie2000]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

In the long statement on the court case I think I remember that the idea was that Joe would claim to be able to use his secret stones, or some type of gift or whatever to be able to find lost treasure on a person's land.....for a nice little fee thank you very much...LOL

Where do we find that Joseph Smith ever advertized a charge to find treasure? Told anyone he could find treasure for money?