***SPOILERS*** A bit disappointing Dragnet episode with both Sgt. Joe Friday and his sidekick Officer Bill Gannon, Jack Webb & Harry Morgan, working of all places the LAPD Bunko Squad or Fraud Division in order to bust a Ponzie or Pyramid scheme operation in the city. Even though both Friday and Gannon go undercover to get the goods on the fast talking as well as taking, her naive followers cash, Bonnie Bates, Virginia Gregg, the two stick out like a sore thumb. It's nothing less then amazing that sharp eyed and scheming Bonnie didn't spot them as undercover cops as soon as they stepped into what look like a religious revival meeting of hers.
Buying, at LAPD expense of course, some of the get rich quick merchandise, including an hour long audio tap recording, that Bonnie was peddling at the meeting Sgt.Friday Officer Gannon and the local D.A plan to use it as proof that she's swindling her customers and thus breaking the law. The trial of Bonnie Bates at first turns out to be a disaster for the D.A's office with the star witness for the prosecution Sgt. Friday making a complete fool of himself by pawning himself off as an expert in the science of geometric progressions. A claim which Bonnie's lawyer proves he's completely ignorant of.
***SPOILERS****It's assistant D.A Hal Davis, Bert Fields, who ends up pulling the state's case against Bonnie Bates chestnuts out of the fire by trapping the main witness for her defense mathematics professor Edger Sundstrom,Robert Cornthwaite. Davis tricks Prof. Sundstrom into admitting that the odds of any of her costumers making money in her Ponzi scheme was mathematically calculated to be an astronomical 360 million to one! That's almost twice the population of the US at the time!
What was a big tun off in this Dragnet episode is that for once Sgt. Friday came off second best in not getting all his facts, or just the facts ma'am, straight. The quick thinking and always on the ball Sgt. Friday ended up looking like he was either on powerful mind altering drugs, like LSD, or just plain brain dead on the witness stand. As for Bonnie Bates who in fact got the best of Joe Friday all she ended paying for her crime of fleecing hundreds of people out of their hard earned money, which could well have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, was a $500.00 fine and six months probation! And they say that crime doesn't pay!
Buying, at LAPD expense of course, some of the get rich quick merchandise, including an hour long audio tap recording, that Bonnie was peddling at the meeting Sgt.Friday Officer Gannon and the local D.A plan to use it as proof that she's swindling her customers and thus breaking the law. The trial of Bonnie Bates at first turns out to be a disaster for the D.A's office with the star witness for the prosecution Sgt. Friday making a complete fool of himself by pawning himself off as an expert in the science of geometric progressions. A claim which Bonnie's lawyer proves he's completely ignorant of.
***SPOILERS****It's assistant D.A Hal Davis, Bert Fields, who ends up pulling the state's case against Bonnie Bates chestnuts out of the fire by trapping the main witness for her defense mathematics professor Edger Sundstrom,Robert Cornthwaite. Davis tricks Prof. Sundstrom into admitting that the odds of any of her costumers making money in her Ponzi scheme was mathematically calculated to be an astronomical 360 million to one! That's almost twice the population of the US at the time!
What was a big tun off in this Dragnet episode is that for once Sgt. Friday came off second best in not getting all his facts, or just the facts ma'am, straight. The quick thinking and always on the ball Sgt. Friday ended up looking like he was either on powerful mind altering drugs, like LSD, or just plain brain dead on the witness stand. As for Bonnie Bates who in fact got the best of Joe Friday all she ended paying for her crime of fleecing hundreds of people out of their hard earned money, which could well have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, was a $500.00 fine and six months probation! And they say that crime doesn't pay!