Opinion
No. 97-1388
Opinion filed June 17, 1998 JANUARY TERM 1998
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Indian River County; Robert A. Hawley, Judge; L.T. No. 96-1285.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Paul E. Petillo, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Denise M. Mitchell, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
We affirm appellant's conviction of grand theft, contrary to section 812.014(2)(c)1, Florida Statutes (1995). Appellant stole the hard drive portion of a computer from Wal-Mart. In its normal course of business, Wal-Mart did not sell the hard drive separately. Instead, it sold the hard drive together with a monitor for $869. Wal-Mart did not sell either item separately and its witnesses could not price the hard drive and the monitor separately. The trial court did not err in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal, since there was evidence in the record that the value of the hard drive was not less than $300. A witness testified that the monitor retailed for "anywhere from a hundred to two hundred dollars." Section 812.012(9)(b), Florida Statutes (1995), provides that "[i]f the value of property cannot be ascertained, the trier of fact may find the value to be not less than a certain amount."
STONE, C.J., FARMER and GROSS, JJ., concur.