The thirty-one-year-old Rudolph Diez, 4420 North Ashland Avenue, charged with extortion on four counts before Federal Judge Charles E. Woodward, was found guilty by the jury on the opening day of his trial. The Judge will pronounce sentence tomorrow.

The law provides for a maximum penalty of imprisonment for twenty years and a fine of five thousand dollars on each of the four counts. Since this trial is the first of its kind in Chicago since the Lindbergh tragedy, it is to be assumed that Federal Judge Woodward will have little inclination to be lenient even in view of the blameless past of the accused.

The proceedings were exceedingly brief and prosaic. There were threatening 2letters on exhibit which had been sent to Sophie Harrington, 232 East Walton Place; to Ann Ashcraft, 1144 Ashbury Avenue in Evanston; to Mary Miller, 647 Spruce Street in Winnetka; and to Florence Noyes, 1242 Lake Shore Drive, all of whom come from wealthy families. According to the testimony of their relatives, they were not married at the time they received the letters, but have become married since then.

To identify the threatening letters the following persons were called to the witness stand: the well-known Attorney Edwin M. Ashcraft, Jr.; Mrs. Sophie Harrington, wife of President George B. Harrington of the Chicago Wilmington and Franklin Coal Company; Mrs. Mary Miller, wife of Vice-President William S. Miller of the Northern Trust Company; and Ernest High Noyes, an employee of the Aluminum Company of America. They were all questioned by the assistant district attorney, Thomas Dodd Healy.

The testimony of Policeman A. E. Fielding of Evanston furnished a picture of what happened on the night Diez was trapped by the authorities. Fielding stated that he rode with Edgar J. Allen, the family chauffeur of the 3Ashcrafts, to the apartment building on 4427 North Ashland Avenue, where they left a package in accordance with instructions given in the threatening letter to Ashcraft. Diez appeared at 2 A.M., and was arrested by the various officers who were hiding in the vicinity at the moment he was trying to get away with the package.

The handwriting expert, Mrs. Katharine Keeler of Northwestern University, proved that all four threatening letters were written on a typewriter which was found in Diez's apartment.

At this point in the trial the attorney for the defense stepped in and contended that the indictment failed to bring proof that Diez was the sender of the letters and he therefore could not be cited for misuse of the mails for purposes of extortion. But Judge Woodward decided that the evidence against Diez was clear and turned the case over to the jurors.

In less than an hour the jurors arrived at a verdict of guilty, but recommended leniency because of the blameless past of the accused. Federal Judge 4Woodward had this recommendation stricken from the records of the court because such an expression is not within the jurisdiction of the jury.