Opinion
24A-CR-375
08-09-2024
Suzanne S. Wilson, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT Michael Frischkorn, Frischkorn Law LLC. ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita, Megan M. Smith.
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision is not binding precedent for any court and may be cited only for persuasive value or to establish res judicata, collateral estoppel, or law of the case.
Appeal from the Hamilton Superior Court The Honorable J. Richard Campbell, Judge Trial Court Cause No. 29D04-2302-F6-001186
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT Michael Frischkorn, Frischkorn Law LLC.
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita, Megan M. Smith.
MEMORANDUM DECISION
Felix, Judge.
Statement of the Case
[¶1] In 2023, a jury convicted Suzanne Wilson of three counts of theft for actions she took while employed by J. Thomas McHugh Company (the "Company"). The trial court ordered Wilson to pay restitution and sentenced her to 20 days of incarceration and 525 days suspended to probation. Wilson now appeals and raises two issues for our review:
1. Whether the State presented sufficient evidence at trial to support Wilson's theft convictions; and
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by ordering Wilson to pay restitution.
[¶2] We affirm. Facts and Procedural History
[¶3] In March 2022, the Company hired Wilson as an hourly employee to manage its payroll, process daily invoices, and administer payments to management. A month or two into Wilson's employment with the Company, Thomas Bryant, the Company's owner, noticed an increase in the Company's payroll obligations while reviewing the weekly payroll reports. When Bryant questioned Wilson about these increases, she typically told him that she was too busy to give him more detailed reports. In July 2022, the Company terminated Wilson's employment for substandard performance.
[¶4] After ending Wilson's employment, Bryant directed an employee to conduct an audit of the payroll software to check for manually entered payroll hours. That audit revealed Wilson had manually altered her hours several times while employed with the Company. In particular, the audit showed that Wilson logged 89 hours of overtime for which Bryant had not given her the requisite verbal approval and that she often logged those hours using her predecessor's information. Wilson also deposited a Company check of $900 to her personal account. Wilson's conduct resulted in a loss of at least $4,182.20 for the Company.
[¶5] The State charged Wilson with two counts of theft as Level 6 felonies, one count of theft as a Class A misdemeanor, and one count of forgery as a Level 6 felony. At trial, Wilson admitted to manually entering and altering her time, but she stated that she logged overtime hours with Bryant's permission. Wilson also admitted that she would sometimes log her time under her predecessor's information, but she explained that she only did so because the software would sometimes automatically sign her in under that employee's information.
Id. § 35-43-4-2(a).
Id. § 35-43-5-2(b)(4).
[¶6] A jury found Wilson guilty of all three theft counts as charged and not guilty of the forgery charge. The trial court sentenced Wilson to a total of 545 days, with 20 days executed at the Hamilton County Jail and the remaining 525 days suspended to probation; the trial court also ordered Wilson to pay $2,870 in restitution. This appeal ensued. Discussion and Decision 1. The State Presented Sufficient Evidence to Support Wilson's Theft Convictions
Wilson fails to support many statements of fact in her Argument with citations to the record, as is required by Indiana Appellate Rule 46(A)(8)(a). Wilson also fails to cite the record in accordance with Appellate Rule 22(C), as is required by Appellate Rules 46(A)(5), 46(A)(6)(a), and 46(A)(8)(a). For example, Wilson cites to the Transcript without specifying which of the four volumes she is citing, and both Wilson and the State cite to trial exhibits without specifying where in the record they are located. The parties' noncompliance with our Appellate Rules does not substantially impede our review of Wilson's claims, so we choose to address the merits thereof. See Pierce v. State, 29 N.E.3d 1258, 1267 (Ind. 2015). However, we remind counsel that the purpose of our appellate rules-especially Appellate Rule 46 governing the content of briefs-"is to aid and expedite review and to relieve the appellate court of the burden of searching the record and briefing the case." Miller v. Patel, 212 N.E.3d 639, 657 (Ind. 2023) (emphasis added) (quoting Dridi v. Cole Kline LLC, 172 N.E.3d 361, 364 (Ind.Ct.App. 2021)).
[¶7] Wilson argues that the State presented insufficient evidence at trial to support her three convictions for theft.
Sufficiency-of-the-evidence claims trigger a deferential standard of review in which we "neither reweigh the evidence nor judge witness credibility, instead reserving those matters to the province of the jury." Brantley v. State, 91 N.E.3d 566, 570 (Ind. 2018). A conviction is supported by sufficient evidence if "there is substantial evidence of probative value supporting each element of the offense such that a reasonable trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Willis v. State, 27 N.E.3d 1065, 1066 (Ind. 2015). In conducting that review, we consider only the evidence that supports the jury's determination, not evidence that might undermine it. Teising v. State, 226 N.E.3d 780, 783 (Ind. 2024).Hancz-Barron v. State, 235 N.E.3d 1237, 1244 (Ind. 2024).
[¶8] To convict Wilson of theft as a Class A misdemeanor under Indiana Code section 35-43-4-2(a), the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wilson knowingly or intentionally exerted unauthorized control over the Company's property, with intent to deprive the Company of any part of the property's value or use. To convict Wilson of theft as a Level 6 felony under Indiana Code section 35-43-4-2(a)(1)(A), the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all the elements listed above plus that the property's value was between $750 and $50,000. Wilson makes a two-pronged attack on the State's evidence.
[¶9] First, Wilson argues that the State failed to prove that she knowingly or intentionally exerted unauthorized control over the Company's money. "A person engages in conduct 'knowingly' if, when he engages in the conduct, he is aware of a high probability that he is doing so." Ind. Code § 35-41-2-2(b). "A person engages in conduct 'intentionally' if, when he engages in the conduct, it is his conscious objective to do so." Id. § 35-41-2-2(a).
"[K]nowledge and intent are both mental states and, absent an admission by the defendant, the trier of fact must resort to the reasonable inferences from both the direct and circumstantial evidence." Stokes v. State, 922 N.E.2d 758, 764 (Ind.Ct.App. 2010), trans. denied. So given this real-world constraint, a defendant's mens rea may be proven by "circumstantial evidence,"-that is, it may be reasonably "inferred from a defendant's conduct and the natural and usual sequence to which such conduct logically and reasonably points." Id.A. W. v. State, 229 N.E.3d 1060, 1064-65 (Ind. 2024) (alteration omitted).
[¶10] The evidence supporting the jury's verdict shows that Wilson never obtained the required authorization to complete overtime hours, and she admitted to manually altering her time sheet, logging a total of 89 hours of overtime over the course of 10 weeks. Additionally, Wilson used her predecessor's information to input some of her unauthorized overtime hours. The jury could have reasonably inferred from this evidence that Wilson knowingly or intentionally exerted control over the Company's money.
[¶11] Second, Wilson claims that she did not exert unauthorized control over the Company's money. A person "exerts control over property" if that person obtains, takes, conceals, sells, conveys, or possesses property, or secures, transfers, or extends a right to property. I.C. § 35-43-4-1(a). Such control is "unauthorized" if it is exerted "without the other person's consent" or "in a manner or to an extent other than that to which the other person has consented." Id. § 35-43-4-1(b)(1), (2).
[¶12] The evidence supporting the jury's verdict shows that Wilson was responsible for running the Company's payroll but that only Bryant had the power to authorize Wilson to log overtime hours. Nevertheless, Wilson manually entered numerous hours of overtime without approval from Bryant, and she sometimes entered those unauthorized hours under her predecessor's information.
[¶13] In support of her argument that she did not exert unauthorized control over the Company's money, Wilson points to her own testimony alleging she obtained Bryant's approval for all her overtime hours, but Bryant testified that he did not give Wilson the requisite permission. Wilson also claims that Bryant implicitly authorized her overtime hours by signing her checks, but Bryant testified that when he began noticing increases in the Company's payroll obligation, Wilson refused to give him more detailed information about why those increases were occurring. Wilson further contends that she did not "hid[e] the overtime that she worked," Appellant's Br. at 15, but this contention overlooks her own testimony that she would sometimes log her overtime under a former employee's information. In short, all these arguments are requests for us to reweigh the evidence and reassess witness credibility, which we cannot do, see Hancz-Barron, 235 N.E.3d at 1244 (quoting Brantley, 91 N.E.3d at 570). Based upon the evidence presented to the jury, the jury could have reasonably inferred that not only did Wilson exert control over the Company's money, but that her control was unauthorized as to the unapproved overtime hours.
[¶14] In light of the foregoing, we conclude the State presented sufficient evidence to support Wilson's three theft convictions.
2. The Trial Court Did Not Abuse its Discretion by Ordering Wilson to Pay Restitution
[¶15] Wilson also challenges the trial court's sentencing order to the extent it requires her to pay restitution. "An order of restitution is a matter within the trial court's sound discretion," so we will reverse such an order only "upon a showing of abuse of discretion." Archer v. State, 81 N.E.3d 212, 215 (Ind. 2017) (citing Bell v. State, 59 N.E.3d 959, 962 (Ind. 2016)). A trial court abuses its discretion by ordering restitution "only if no evidence or reasonable inferences therefrom support the trial court's decision." Id. at 216 (quoting Little v. State, 839 N.E.2d 807, 809 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005)). In determining restitution, the trial court must consider the victim's property damages resulting from the crime, among other considerations. I.C.§ 35-50-5-3(a)(1).
[¶16] Wilson specifically argues that the State "failed to establish any harm or loss as a result of" Wilson's unapproved overtime hours because Wilson claims she actually worked those hours, thus conferring upon the Company the benefit of her labor. Appellant's Br. at 17. Assuming arguendo that Wilson worked all the hours for which she logged unauthorized overtime, the fact remains that she did not obtain Bryant's approval to work those hours. Wilson also did not have the authority to approve those hours on her own or to log those hours under a former employee's information. The harm or loss resulting from Wilson's theft is the amount of money the Company paid her for unauthorized overtime hours. Thus, Wilson has not shown that the evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom do not support the trial court's decision to order restitution. We therefore cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in entering that order.
Conclusion
[¶17] In sum, the State presented sufficient evidence to support Wilson's three convictions for theft, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion by ordering Wilson to pay restitution. We therefore affirm the trial court on all issues raised.
[¶18] Affirmed.
Riley, J., and Brown, J., concur.