Stephen Arnold Douglas Puter

Stephen Arnold Douglas Puter (January 6, 1857 – May 10, 1931) was a criminal and author from Oregon, United States. After being convicted of land fraud, he lived as a fugitive for several months before being captured. He wrote a book after conviction, received a Presidential pardon, and later was convicted of mail fraud.

Early life Puter was born on January 6, 1857, in Trinity County, California, and moved with his family to Humboldt County, California, two years later. In 1902, he took his family to Berkeley, California.

Puter fled Oregon before being sentenced as had two of the other defendants. Oregon authorities declared their intention to apprehend him and his partner Horace G. McKinley anywhere in the world, and sent photographs through U. S. diplomatic channels. McKinley fled to China on a steamship; Puter escaped capture by U.S. Secret Service officers in an armed confrontation in Boston, Massachusetts, in March and was subsequently a fugitive for several months before being captured in late May 1906. The Alameda, California, police who apprehended him also discovered weapons in his rented room. After his capture and return to Oregon

In 1906, while incarcerated, Puter co-wrote the book Looters of the Public Domain with Horace Stevens, a former General Land Office clerk.

The timber land scandals were not limited to Oregon. The California Redwood Company in Humboldt County had also been running a claim scheme to secure title to thousands of acres of redwood timberlands.

President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned Puter after he had served 18 months of his sentence so that he could turn state's evidence.

Later life and death Puter's son, R. C. Puter, was charged with criminal negligence in 1915, after he allegedly hit and killed Mary Logan with his car in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was expected to be tried on a charge of manslaughter.

In July 1916, Stephen A. Douglas Puter was indicted, along with seven others (including his two sons and a son-in-law), for "Illegal Use of the Mails and Fraud" during the perpetration of the land fraud scandal. S. A. D. Puter, who was in New York at the time, declared himself the leader of those indicted, and insisted that they were innocent of any charges of fraud. They were fined; the highest amount, $1500, was assessed to S. A. D. Puter.

Puter died May 10, 1931, in Burlingame, California. He was survived by his wife, Sarah, and two daughters, Vivian McEwen and Gladys Jones, and his body was interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Colma, California.