Title: ROBERT TENNANT v. THE STATE OF WYOMING

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

ROBERT TENNANT v. THE STATE OF WYOMING1989 WY 156776 P.2d 761Case Number: 88-241Decided: 07/13/1989Supreme Court of Wyoming
ROBERT TENNANT, APPELLANT 
(DEFENDANT),

v.

THE STATE OF 
WYOMING, 
APPELLEE (PLAINTIFF).

Appeal from the District 
Court, NatronaCounty, Dan Spangler, 
J.

Leonard D. 
Munker, State Public Defender, Gerald M. Gallivan, Director, Wyoming Defender 
Aid Program, Laramie, and Lari J. Trogani, Student Intern, Wyoming Defender Aid 
Program, for 
appellant.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Karen A. Byrne, Sr. Asst. 
Atty. Gen., Gerald P. Luckhaupt, and Terry L. Armitage, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY 
and GOLDEN, JJ.

URBIGKIT, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     This is a sufficiency 
of the evidence bailment embezzlement case involving an elderly veteran and the 
younger appellant, Robert Tennant (Tennant), age thirty-four. Tennant was 
assisting a veteran by disposition of his monthly income of about $1,657. For 
this assistance, Tennant was charged with bailment embezzlement, convicted after 
a bench trial, and sentenced to a jail term of four-to-six 
years.

[¶2.]     We 
affirm.

[¶3.]     After an 
acquaintanceship which started when the veteran, Vern Sherman (Sherman), was at a Veterans Administration domiciliary 
facility in Hot Springs, South Dakota, Sherman 
followed Tennant to Casper, 
Wyoming. A routine was thereafter 
established where Tennant received all of Sherman's monthly income, spent some 
for Sherman's needs, and expended the balance for himself and his family. 
Primarily, Sherman "needed" money for cigarettes - about 
$20 per month. Personal purchases made by Tennant from Sherman's funds included 
a satellite dish, a 25-inch Magnavox television, a truck, tires for the truck, a 
waterbed, as well as groceries, plane tickets and numerous other on-going 
expenditures, including payment of his monthly rent. In essence, all of the 
money was spent monthly and only a small part for Sherman.

[¶4.]     Tennant, who was 
himself receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits, came 
first into investigation by that agency about a joint checking account from 
which all of Sherman's money was expended. Initially, in 
addition to the funds received by Sherman, there was also a small Veterans 
Administration pension received by Tennant that was for a time also 
automatically deposited into the same bank account. Availability of "other 
income" was at issue for that supervising agency in conjunction with payment of 
the family support welfare benefits.

[¶5.]     Actually contested 
within this insufficiency of the evidence appeal is evidence demonstrating a 
bailment and proof of conversion. Even though questioning bailment and 
conversion, the fact that Tennant spent essentially all of Sherman's money is not in 
dispute. The criminal charge defense was essentially a combination of contended 
gifts and attributed compensation for services provided for the benefit of 
Sherman. It was 
in the nature of these events that all of the money came to be spent by either 
the first arrangement of two-party co-signed checks and then later by Sherman 
pre-signing checks after the Department of Public Assistance and Social Services 
had forced Tennant to remove his name from the bank account. In either case, 
Tennant had checks pre-executed by Sherman by which bank withdrawals and payments 
were made.

[¶6.]     The complexities of the 
continuing monthly transactions by which the Sherman funds were spent created 
issues for resolution of the factfinder - in this case the trial judge. 
Singularly included was testimony of Sherman that 
he was told by Tennant that $900 per month of his funds was being paid to the 
WyomingMedicalCenter in Casper on 
Sherman's unpaid 
hospital bill. Trial evidence suggested that, in addition to the periods when 
board and room were provided by Tennant, Sherman only received cigarette money for 
personal expenditures. Unquestionably, none of these funds were paid to the 
Casper 
hospital.1

[¶7.]     A realistic review of 
the evidence of the case reveals a factual basis sufficient to justify the 
conviction entered. This court has frequently addressed the standards for 
evidentiary review and certainty for conviction in appeals which test the 
sufficiency of the evidence. Recently, in Munson v. State, 770 P.2d 1093, 1095 
(Wyo. 1989), 
we summarized:

The rules for our 
consideration of the constitutional inquiry of sufficiency of the evidence to 
convict date back to the territorial day case of Palmerston v. Territory, 3 Wyo. 
333, 23 P. 73 (1890), and are easily stated. In reviewing sufficiency of the 
evidence for criminal conviction, this court must determine whether, after 
viewing the evidence and appropriate inferences in the light most favorable to 
the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential 
elements of the crime to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Corson v. 
State, 766 P.2d 1155 (Wyo. 1988); Wells v. 
State, 613 P.2d 201 (Wyo. 1980).

[¶8.]     The decision of the 
trial court constituting a finding of guilt for the offense charged is entitled 
to the same weight as a jury verdict. Simmons v. State, 687 P.2d 255 (Wyo. 1984); Desmond v. Snyder, 62 Wyo. 478, 174 P.2d 139 (Wyo. 1946); Seep v. Ferris-Haggarty Copper Mining Co., 120 
C.C.A. 191, 201 F. 893 (C.C.A.Wyo. 1912); Foster v. Sumner, 378 S.E.2d 659 (W. 
Va. 
1989).

[¶9.]     The weight of 
documentary evidence produced by checks drawn on the depository account, 
confirmed by oral evidence of investigation and examination, and strengthened 
with AFDC records meets the Munson test for evidentiary sufficiency to sustain 
conviction. Viable evidence was introduced sufficient for the trial court to 
find the elements of the crime of grand larceny by bailee, W.S. 6-3-402, 
resulting from Tennant's use of Sherman's money encompassing (1) a crime 
occurring within Natrona County, Wyoming between the dates of January 1 through 
October 1, 1987; (2) Tennant was entrusted with the control, care or custody of 
the money or property of Sherman; (3) he did, with the intent to steal or 
deprive the owner thereof; (4) convert the money to his use; and (5) in an 
amount in excess of $500. United 
States v. Burton, 871 F.2d 1566 (11th Cir. 
1989).

[¶10.]  Tennant's challenge to elements of a 
criminal offense presented by this appeal for the defense of insufficiency of 
the evidence are denied bailment and unproven conversion. The mute bank account 
records of what happened to the monthly income of $1,657 speaks volumes in 
practical and dispositive proof. The trial court was properly entitled to find 
that Tennant received the money, at least in part, misinformed Sherman about its use, and 
essentially spent everything for himself and his family. Neither intended gift 
to disprove actual bailment nor Sherman's actual benefit in usage to disprove 
conversion, which constituted the asserted defenses, were sufficiently placed in 
evidence to require this court to reverse the factfinder under our standard of 
review. Wells v. State, 613 P.2d 201 (Wyo. 1980). We need neither to distinguish the 
excellent authorities cogently recited by Tennant nor review plain error 
questions argued by the State to enunciate a sufficiency of the evidence appeal 
that fails on the well-presented factual panorama.

[¶11.]  We affirm the conviction and 
sentence.

FOOTNOTES

1 It is interesting how 
the investigation and prosecution were commenced. A social worker at the 
WyomingMedicalCenter, Lola Reynolds, contacted Vickie 
Crume, a social worker within the Department of Public Assistance and Social 
Services, who headed the Natrona County Adult Protection Team. Based on the 
expressed concern about a possible exploitation status of Sherman, Crume initiated 
an investigation which moved to the case supervisor for the AFDC account for 
Tennant himself and then to the bank account and resulting financial records 
secured by a search warrant. The trial record also reveals that Tennant had 
prior problems at the Veterans Administration facility in Hot Springs, South 
Dakota with staff personnel who had ordered him off of 
the premises. The exclusion apparently arose from hospital personnel suspicions 
about Tennant's acquisition of money from patients.