Opinion
Record No. 0619-92-1
July 20, 1993
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY E. EVERETT BAGNELL, JUDGE.
Robert G. Byrum (Shames Byrum, P.C., on brief), for appellant.
John H. McLees, Jr., Assistant Attorney General (Mary Sue Terry, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Judges Baker, Willis and Bray.
Argued at Norfolk, Virginia.
Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not designated for publication.
Elaine S. Moore was convicted of violating Code § 18.2-115, which provides in pertinent part:
Whenever any person is in possession of any personal property, including motor vehicles . . . the title or ownership of which he has agreed in writing shall be or remain in another, or on which he has given a lien, and such person so in possession shall fraudulently sell, pledge, pawn or remove such property from the premises where it has been agreed it shall remain, . . . or otherwise dispose of the property or fraudulently remove the same from the Commonwealth, without the written consent of the owner or lienor . . ., he shall be deemed guilty of the larceny thereof.
. . . The venue of prosecutions against persons fraudulently removing any such property . . . from the Commonwealth shall be the county or city in which such property or motor vehicle was purchased or in which the accused last had a legal residence.
Ms. Moore contends that because she purchased the subject vehicles in Norfolk and lived in Virginia Beach, the Circuit Court of Isle of Wight County was an improper venue for her prosecution. We disagree.
The vehicles were financed, and their titles were held, by a bank located in Isle of Wight County. In accordance with the parties' agreed procedure, Ms. Moore sent a check to the bank and thereby secured the release of the titles. She then disposed of the vehicles. However, the checks were not good. She failed to make the checks good or to deliver sufficient proceeds from the sales, or, alternatively, to return the vehicle titles, all as required by the parties' agreement. Thus, the fraudulent disposal of the vehicles and the defeat of the bank's lien interests therein were accomplished in part in Isle of Wight County. See Gregory v. Commonwealth, 5 Va. App. 89, 93, 360 S.E.2d 858, 860-61 (1987), aff'd, 237 Va. 354, 377 S.E.2d 405,cert. denied, 493 U.S. 845 (1989).
The indictment charged that Ms. Moore did "fraudulently sell and remove said property from the agreed location where it was to remain,. . . ." This was a charge of fraudulent disposition. It was not a charge of removal from the Commonwealth, invoking the special venue claimed by Ms. Moore. Rather, this case is controlled by Code § 19.2-244, laying venue in the county in which the offense was committed.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Affirmed.