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Filed 1/21/21 P. v. Walter CA3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for 

publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication 

or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT

(Shasta)

----

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

COREY RYAN WALTER,

Defendant and Appellant.

C091537

(Super. Ct. No. 19F0004267)

After defendant Corey Ryan Walter pleaded no contest to two counts of burglary, 

the trial court awarded victim restitution to the local high school that defendant 

burglarized, including reimbursement for the school’s “loss” of 18 hours of work time

that the principal spent on tasks outside his normal duties as a result of defendant’s 

misconduct. On appeal, defendant argues the trial court abused its discretion in making

this award. We affirm.
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BACKGROUND

The underlying facts of defendant’s crime of conviction are largely irrelevant to 

the issues raised on appeal. Simply put, in December 2018, defendant pleaded no contest 

to two counts of burglary (Pen. Code, § 459).

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 At the same hearing, the trial court

sentenced defendant to serve two years in state prison (to be served in county jail) on one 

burglary count, and a concurrent two-year term on the other. The trial court imposed 

various costs not at issue in this appeal, and reserved jurisdiction to award victim 

restitution to the local high school that defendant burglarized (§ 1202.4).

At a January 2020 restitution hearing, the school principal testified that after the 

“sheriff’s department . . . told [the school] to collect [their] information,” he spent six 

hours on three separate days (a) reviewing surveillance footage from multiple cameras on 

campus trying to determine the identity of the burglar and (b) “clipping video content” 

and “burning DVDs” to document the extent of damage caused.

Ultimately, the trial court awarded $2,255 to the high school pursuant to section 

1202.4. Of that amount, $1,404 was for the “loss” to the school due to the principal’s 

“attention away from his normal duties,” at a rate of $78 per hour for 18 hours. 

Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal. 

DISCUSSION

Defendant argues the trial court abused its discretion2 when it ruled the principal’s 

time spent reviewing video footage and creating DVD’s for law enforcement was

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 Where a victim has suffered economic losses as a result of a defendant’s actions, a 

trial court must require the defendant to make restitution. (§ 1202.4, subd. (f); People v. 

Phu (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 280, 283.) We give the right to restitution a broad and 

liberal construction. (Ibid.) The trial court may consider almost any kind of information 

in calculating restitution, and we review the court’s resulting order for an abuse of 
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compensable victim restitution under section 1202.4. He contends People v. Ozkan

(2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 1072 (Ozkan) stands for the proposition that “restitution for 

investigative costs by a public agency such as” the high school “may not be awarded 

pursuant to . . . section 1202.4.” 

The People argue the principal’s time was compensable because the school was a 

victim, the principal was performing work outside his normal duties, and his 

“investigation into [defendant’s] criminal activities was necessary to uncover the nature 

and extent of the loss and damage to the school and to allow the school to recoup the full 

amount of loss.” 

We agree with the People and conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion.

“The general restitution statute, . . . section 1202.4, subdivision (a)(1), provides 

that ‘a victim of crime who incurs any economic loss as a result of the commission of a 

crime shall receive restitution directly from any defendant convicted of that crime.’ The 

definition of a ‘victim’ in . . . [s]ection 1202.4, subdivision (k)(2), includes a 

governmental agency ‘when that entity is a direct victim of a crime.’ ” (Ozkan, supra, 

124 Cal.App.4th at p. 1076, italics omitted.) Restitution shall be fixed in a dollar amount 

to fully reimburse the victim for losses “for every determined economic loss incurred as 

the result of the defendant’s criminal conduct, including, but not limited to” specified 

kinds of losses. (§ 1202.4, subd. (f)(3).) 

In Ozkan, the defendant engaged in a scheme to sell regular grade gasoline as 

higher priced mid-grade and premium gasoline. The trial court found the direct victims 

of this fraud included the State Board of Equalization (SBE), to which taxes were due. 

The defendant was convicted of grand theft by fraud and filing false and fraudulent sales 

and use tax returns, and ordered to pay restitution to the SBE for unpaid taxes, penalties 

discretion. (Id. at pp. 283-284.) An order based on an error of law would constitute an 

abuse of discretion. (People v. Jennings (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 42, 49.)
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and interest. But the court declined to order the defendant to pay for the agency’s 

investigative costs, consisting of time spent by an internal auditor analyzing invoices and 

sales tax returns to determine the total misappropriations. (Ozkan, supra, 124

Cal.App.4th at pp. 1073-1075.) The Court of Appeal upheld that ruling, explaining that 

“public agencies are not directly ‘victimized’ for purposes of restitution under . . . section 

1202.4 merely because they spend money to investigate crimes or apprehend criminals.” 

(Id. at p. 1077, italics added; see also People v. Torres (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 1, 3-4 

[restitution inappropriate for a law enforcement agency’s expenditures on a controlled 

buy of contraband, as this is an ordinary “cost of its doing its job”].)

The trial court did not commit an error of law in following this distinction between 

the ordinary costs of an agency performing its function and extraordinary expenses not 

within the agency’s function. A key point overlooked by defendant in this case is that the 

high school itself was a victim and the trial court found it suffered a direct loss when the 

principal spent 18 paid hours “away from his normal duties” as a result of defendant’s 

conduct. Unlike the work performed by the SBE’s auditor in Ozkan, the principal’s 

investigation of the burglaries was not part of his normal job duties. The award of $1,404 

is for the principal’s normal-duty hours that the school paid for but did not receive; not 

for the principal’s investigation, per se. As such, it is compensable under the general

restitution statute and specifically under section 1202.4, subdivision (f)(3)(D) and (E), 

which mandate restitution for “[w]ages . . . lost due to injury incurred by the victim” and 

“[w]ages . . . lost by the victim . . . due to time spent as a witness or in assisting the police 

or prosecution.” (See also In re Johnny M. (2002) 100 Cal.App.4th 1128, 1134 [“a 

restitution award may also properly include the reasonable value of employee work 

product lost as a result of the criminal conduct of another”].)

Defendant’s suggestion that the principal’s time is not compensable under section 

1202.4 because he essentially was a volunteer and “assumed unnecessarily” “a function 

of the Sheriff’s Department” when he viewed video footage “to see if there were 
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burglaries,” “to determine the damages,” or “to identify the burglar or burglars,” is 

unpersuasive because it would undermine the broad remedial purpose of the statute and 

read a necessity requirement into the law not found in the text. Further, it runs contrary 

to the plain text of section 1202.4, subdivision (f)(3)(D) and (E), as noted above.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

 KRAUSE , J.

We concur:

 RAYE , P. J.

 RENNER , J.