Cook's employees pleaded guilty, but Cook insisted on his innocence and went to trial. Also tried was his head advertising copywriter, S. E. J. Cox, who had been previously convicted of mail fraud in connection with his own oil company promotions. Among other deceptive practices, Cook was charged with paying dividends from stock sales, rather than from profits. Cook's attorney was former politician Joseph Weldon Bailey, who clashed frequently with the judge. The jury found Cook guilty on 14 counts of fraud. In November 1923, Judge Killits sentenced Cook and 13 other oil company promoters to prison terms. Cook drew the longest sentence, 14 years 9 months. His attorney appealed the verdict, but the conviction was upheld. Later life Cook was imprisoned until 1930. Roald Amundsen, who believed he owed his life to Cook's extrication of the Belgica, visited him several times. Cook was pardoned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, ten years after his release and shortly before his death of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 5. He was interred at the Chapel of Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo. Popular culture Cook & Peary: The Race to the Pole (1983) – American TV movie The Last Place on Earth (1985) – British miniseries The Navigator of New York (2003) – Novel by Wayne Johnston La jaula de los onas (2021) - Novel by Carlos Gamerro Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night (2021) - by Julian Sancton A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith Chapter 25 (1943) Notes References External links The Papers of Frederick Cook at Dartmouth College Library Winner Takes All: Dr. Cook and the Theft of the North Pole (1973) at Dartmouth College Library Samuel J. McCracken scrapbook on Cook's North Pole Claim at Dartmouth College Library 1865 births 1940 deaths American explorers American people of German descent American polar explorers American surgeons Belgian Antarctic Expedition Burials at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo) Columbia University alumni Discovery and invention controversies Explorers of the Arctic History of geography New York University Grossman School of Medicine alumni