J-S81026-17

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT 

OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

ERICA NICOLE LAMBERT

Appellant No. 162 MDA 2017

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence imposed December 5, 2016

In the Court of Common Pleas of Lycoming County

Criminal Division at No: CP-41-CR-0001217-2014

BEFORE: PANELLA, STABILE, and PLATT,

* JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 06, 2018

Appellant, Erica Nicole Lambert, appeals from the judgment of sentence 

the Court of Common Pleas of Lycoming County imposed on December 5, 

2016. Appellant challenges the sufficiency and weight of the evidence. Upon 

review, we affirm.

Appellant was charged with two counts of hindering the apprehension1

of Rashawn Williams by (1) transporting Williams in her vehicle from 

Pennsylvania to North Carolina on June 1, 2014 after Williams shot and killed

Aaron Lowery outside of the Hookah Lounge in Williamsport, and (2) falsely 

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5105(a)(2). 
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reporting to the police on June 4, 2014 that Williams stole her car, and that 

the last contact Williams had with her was at 4:30 a.m. on June 1, 2014. On 

September 30, 2016, following a bench trial, the trial court found Appellant 

guilty on both counts. On December 5, 2016, the trial court sentenced 

Appellant to concurrent terms of six months to two years minus one day of 

imprisonment. Appellant filed timely post-sentence motions challenging the 

weight of the evidence, which the trial court denied, and thereafter filed a 

timely notice of appeal. On January 31, 2017, the trial court ordered Appellant 

to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement of errors complained of on appeal within 

twenty-one days. On May 25, 2017, Appellant filed an untimely Pa.R.A.P. 

1925(b) statement. On July 14, 2017, the trial court filed a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) 

opinion.2

Appellant raises two issues in this appeal, challenging both the weight 

and the sufficiency of the evidence. We first address Appellant’s weight of the 

evidence claim,3for which our standard of review is well settled: 

____________________________________________

2 The Rules of Appellate Procedure require a remand in the event that an

appellant fails to file a Rule 1925(b) statement. See Pa.R.A.P. 1925(c)(3). In 

this case, however, remand is unnecessary because Appellant ultimately filed 

a Rule 1925(b) statement and the trial court then issued its opinion. We 

remind counsel for Appellant that an appellant’s brief is to include a copy of 

the Rule 1925(b) statement, Pa.R.A.P. 2111(11), as well as the order in 

question, Pa.R.A.P. 2111(2), and the opinion of the trial court, Pa.R.A.P. 

2111(10). 

3 Appellant preserved her weight of the evidence claim by filing timely postsentence motions. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 607(A)(3).
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A motion for a new trial based on a claim that the verdict is 

against the weight of the evidence is addressed to the discretion 

of the trial court. A new trial should not be granted because of a 

mere conflict in the testimony or because the judge on the same 

facts would have arrived at a different conclusion. Rather, the 

role of the trial judge is to determine that notwithstanding all the 

facts, certain facts are so clearly of greater weight that to ignore 

them or to give them equal weight with all the facts is to deny 

justice. It has often been stated that a new trial should be 

awarded when the jury’s verdict is so contrary to the evidence as 

to shock one’s sense of justice and the award of a new trial is 

imperative so that right may be given another opportunity to 

prevail. 

An appellate court’s standard of review when presented with 

a weight of the evidence claim is distinct from the standard of 

review applied by the trial court:

Appellate review of a weight claim is a review of the 

exercise of discretion, not of the underlying question of 

whether the verdict is against the weight of the evidence.

Because the trial judge has had the opportunity to hear and see 

the evidence presented, an appellate court will give the gravest 

consideration to the findings and reasons advanced by the trial 

judge when reviewing a trial court’s determination that the verdict 

is against the weight of the evidence. One of the least assailable 

reasons for granting or denying a new trial is the lower court’s 

conviction that the verdict was or was not against the weight of 

the evidence and that a new trial should be granted in the interest 

of justice.

Commonwealth v. Clay, 64 A.3d 1049, 1054–55 (Pa. 2013) (internal 

citations and quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original).

The Crimes Code provides: “A person commits an offense if, with intent 

to hinder the apprehension . . . of another for crime . . . he (2) provides or 

aids in providing . . . transportation . . . or other means of avoiding 

apprehension or effecting escape; or . . . (5) provides false information to a 

law enforcement officer.” 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5105(a)(2), (5). The 
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Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the other person 

committed a crime or was wanted in connection with a crime. 

Commonwealth v. Johnson, 100 A.3d 207, 211 (Pa. Super. 2014). The 

Commonwealth must also establish that “the actor knew that the conduct 

charged against the aided person or which was liable to be charged against 

the aided person, would constitute a felony of the first or second degree.” Id.

The trial court rejected Appellant’s weight of the evidence claim for the 

following reasons:

The shooting occurred at the Hookah Lounge at 

approximately 2:36 a.m. on Sunday, June 1, 2014. Although 

[Appellant] claimed that she did not know Williams was involved 

in the shooting until Williams’ sister, Kimyatta, told her either late 

on Sunday evening or early Monday morning, the evidence 

presented at trial showed that this was a lie, and [that Appellant] 

was aware that Williams was involved in the shooting before she 

left Williamsport.

In her interview with Agent Kontz on June 4, 2014, 

[Appellant] stated that she heard something happened in the 

Hookah Lounge and heard it had something to do with somebody 

being shot. She also knew that Williams was at the Hookah 

Lounge[,] but she claimed that she didn’t know if he was involved, 

so she called his sister, [Kimy]atta. She noted that she was 

concerned that she was involved with someone who was “mixed 

up in trouble like this.” 

The evidence presented at trial shows that [Appellant] had 

several phone conversations and text messages with Williams and 

his sister between 3:00 a.m. and 4:08 a.m. Agent Kevin Stiles of 

the Williamsport Bureau of Police testified that the police obtained 

[Appellant]’s phone records. Those records showed that: Williams 

called [Appellant] at 3:52 a.m.[,] and the call lasted 2 minutes 

and 25 seconds; Williams called [Appellant] again at 3:57 a.m.[,] 

and the call lasted 2 minutes and 2 seconds; Lambert called 

[Appellant] at 4:08 a.m.[,] and the call lasted 45 seconds; and at 

4:14 a.m.[,] Williams called [Appellant,] and the call lasted 2 
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minutes and 45 seconds. There were also phone calls between 

[Appellant] and Williams’ sister between 3:10 a.m. and 3:36 a.m. 

as well as a text message from Williams’ sister to [Appellant], 

which said, “Call me when you can.” 

[Appellant] admitted in her trial testimony that she and 

Williams left Williamsport between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. Williams 

drove her gold car to her home[,] and they left “pretty much 

immediately.” They weren’t planning on leaving then, and 

[Appellant] left in such a hurry that she forgot her bag with her 

toiletries, cash and cell phone charger. [Appellant] drove the car 

from Williamsport to a Sheetz gas station in Selinsgrove. At 6:08 

a.m.[,] while they were at the Sheetz [station, Appellant] called 

her friend Amelia Nance, who lived in Chambersburg, and asked 

her if she could borrow $100.00. [Appellant] made arrangements 

to meet [Nance] in Chambersburg at around 8:00 a.m. to get the 

$100.00. After [Appellant] spoke to [Nance], she shut her phone

off because she didn’t want anyone calling her and asking her 

“fifty million questions.” 

According to [Appellant], Williams said he had been 

jumped[,] but they did not discuss it during the road trip. 

Specifically, they had “no discussion whatsoever” about the 

incident. Yet, they drove from Williamsport to North Carolina 

without any reason, without any verifiable explanation and clearly 

in haste to avoid prosecution.

[Appellant] had numerous conversations with others, 

including Kimyatta. While she claims that she left because she 

was very scared for the safety of [Williams,] who claimed he had 

been jumped, she did not report the matter to the police[,] nor 

did she stop at the police station. Even though she had a child 

and other family members, she only told her mother that she was 

leaving. She left so quickly that she didn’t take any money, her 

phone charger or her toiletries. She had numerous phone 

conversations with [Williams] both before and after the shooting 

and had telephone calls with Kimyatta before they even reached 

Selinsgrove. When they reached Selinsgrove at approximately 

6:00 in the morning on June 1, 2014, she needed to call a friend 

for money.

One could infer from [Appellant]’s actions and comments 

that she was aware that Williams was involved in the shooting at 

the Hookah Lounge. If Williams got “jumped,” there was no need 
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to immediately flee the state of Pennsylvania. [Appellant] and 

Williams simply needed to go to the police station and report the 

incident. Furthermore, why would [Appellant] think people would 

be asking her “fifty million questions” unless she knew about the 

shooting at the Hookah Lounge? One could also infer that, by 

borrowing cash from her friend and shutting off her phone, 

[Appellant] was trying to protect her and Williams’ location from 

being discovered through electronic means such as credit card or 

debit card transactions or signals off of cell phone towers. 

[Appellant] tried to explain away the phone records showing 

her contacts with Williams after the shooting and before they left 

Williamsport by claiming that she was angry with Williams and 

[that] they were bickering back and forth in their brief phone 

conversations. If [Appellant] was angry with Williams and told 

him not to call her[,] as she claimed in her interview with Agent 

Kontz, why did she: answer his calls; call him back; call his sister; 

and abruptly drive from Williamsport to North Carolina with him 

at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.? Furthermore, it only takes a matter of 

seconds to tell someone to quit calling you, not two or three 

minutes. 

[Appellant] took an Amtrak train from High Point, North 

Carolina to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 3, 2014. The next 

day[,] she appeared at the Williamsport Bureau of Police 

headquarters to report her car stolen, even though she and 

Williams had driven it to High Point, North Carolina. She initially 

spoke to the Watch Commander, Sergeant Frederick Miller, but 

when he realized that the individual who allegedly stole the car 

was Williams, who was wanted for murder, he called Agent Kontz[, 

who] told Sergeant Miller that he and Lieutenant Arnold Duck were 

trying to find [Appellant].

[Appellant] tried to portray herself to Agent Kontz as a 

damsel in distress. She claimed that when everything hit the 

news[,] she was terrified she would be connected[,] and her 

family would disown her. She told Agent Kontz that the last time 

she talked to Williams was not long after 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, 

June 1, 2014. When asked where she was for the last three days, 

[Appellant] claimed she was at a friend’s, but she refused [to] tell 

Agent Kontz her friend’s name. She made it seem as if Williams 

had fled from the Hookah Lounge in her car immediately after the 

shooting or shortly thereafter[,] and she had not seen or heard 
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from him since then, when in fact she and Williams had driven to 

High Point, North Carolina together.

Not only did [Appellant]’s lies evidence her consciousness of 

guilt for hindering Williams’ apprehension by transporting him to 

North Carolina, [but] her lies formed the basis of the second count 

of hindering apprehension which was based on her providing false 

information to the police. 

Clearly, [Appellant] provided false information to Officer 

Miller and Agent Kontz with the intent to hinder the apprehension 

and prosecution of [Williams]. [Appellant] admitted that, before 

she returned to Williamsport, she knew [Williams] was wanted and 

allegedly involved in the shooting on June 1, 2014. The evidence 

established that the shooting occurred on June 1, 2014 at 

approximately 2:30 a.m. She admitted to driving Williams to 

North Carolina after leaving Williamsport at approximately 4:30 or 

5:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 1, 2014. When she arrived in North 

Carolina, she went to [Williams]’ sister Kimyatta’s house. She was 

told by Kimyatta either late Sunday on June 1 or early Monday 

morning on June 2 that the shooting had occurred[,] and that 

[Williams] was allegedly involved. 

Yet, she went to the Williamsport Bureau of Police on June 

4, 2014 to file a report that her car had been stolen by Williams. 

She clearly knew her car was not stolen[,] because she drove 

[Williams] to North Carolina[,] and she knew that he had the 

vehicle.[1] When [Appellant] spoke to Agent Kontz, she was aware 

that there was a warrant for Williams’ arrest[,] and the 

Williamsport police were interested in determining where he was. 

She knew she had driven Williams to High Point, North Carolina, 

but did not share that information with Agent Kontz or Lieutenant 

Duck.

[1]Appellant was purchasing the vehicle through 

Brenner Car Credit, which had installed GPS on the 

vehicle. The Williamsport police discovered that the 

vehicle was in Danville[,] Virginia through the GPS. 

The vehicle was abandoned in Danville, Virginia. The 

license plate had been removed. Danville, Virginia is 

approximately three-quarters of a mile away from the 

North Carolina/Virginia state line.
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In her trial testimony, she claimed that her car was stolen 

from Brentwood Street in High Point, North Carolina when 

Williams dropped her off at Kimyatta’s house and did not return. 

If that were the case, though, she would have reported her car 

stolen to the police in High Point, North Carolina on Monday, June 

2, 2014, or Tuesday, June 3, 2014[,] before she left North 

Carolina on the Amtrak train. [Appellant] didn’t believe her car 

was stolen; rather, she was trying to keep the police from 

discovering the whereabouts of Williams and her role in his flight 

from Pennsylvania. 

Furthermore, she lied to Agent Kontz when she told him that 

the last time she had spoken to [Williams] was 4:00 or 4:30 a.m. 

on June 1. She admitted that when they pulled up at his sister’s 

house in the afternoon, Williams told her to grab her stuff[,] and 

he was going to park the car. She claims that she answered the 

question referring to the phone when in fact the question related 

to talking to him generally. 

Pa.R.A.P. 1925 Opinion, 7/14/17, at 4-10.

Based on our review of the record, as aptly summarized by the trial 

court, we conclude that the trial court acted within its discretion in determining 

that Appellant’s challenge to the weight of the evidence lacks merit. 

In her second issue, Appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence 

underlying her convictions for hindering apprehension. This claim also lacks 

merit.

As our Supreme Court has explained:

A claim challenging the sufficiency of the evidence is a question of 

law. Evidence will be deemed sufficient to support the verdict 

when it establishes each material element of the crime charged 

and the commission thereof by the accused, beyond a reasonable 

doubt. Where the evidence offered to support the verdict is in 

contradiction to the physical facts, in contravention to human 

experience and the laws of nature, then the evidence is insufficient 

as a matter of law. When reviewing a sufficiency claim the court 

is required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the 
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verdict winner giving the prosecution the benefit of all reasonable 

inferences to be drawn from the evidence.

Commonwealth v. Widmer, 744 A.2d 745, 751 (Pa. 2000) (citations 

omitted). Under this standard, we review all circumstantial evidence in the 

light most favorable to the Commonwealth. See Commonwealth v. 

Fitzpatrick, 159 A.3d 562, 567 (Pa. Super. 2017) (citations omitted). 

Viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the 

circumstantial evidence identified in pages 4-10 of the trial court’s opinion 

establishes each element of hindering apprehension in both counts beyond a 

reasonable doubt. With regard to Section 5105(a)(2), the evidence 

demonstrates that Appellant transported Williams to North Carolina to help 

him escape arrest for the shooting at the Hookah Lounge on June 1, 2014. 

The evidence of record provides no other plausible explanation for Appellant’s

decision to embark on a 400-mile trip with Williams in the dead of night, mere 

hours after the shooting, without bothering to pack any necessities or even 

obtain cash before leaving town.

With regard to Section 5105(a)(5), the trial court properly determined, 

based on the evidence of record, that Appellant lied to Williamsport police on 

June 4, 2014 when she stated she last talked to Williams shortly after 4:00 

a.m. on Sunday, June 1, 2014, and that she had been at an unidentified 

“friend’s” house for the next few days. She implied falsely that Williams fled 

from the Hookah Lounge in her car on the morning of June 1, immediately 

after the shooting or shortly thereafter, and she had not seen or heard from 
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him since. In reality, she and Williams drove to North Carolina together on 

the morning of June 1. She and Williams spoke as late as the afternoon of 

June 1, upon their arrival at Williams’ sister’s house in High Point, North 

Carolina. She also lied to Williamsport police that Williams stole her car in 

North Carolina, even though she did not report the car stolen to High Point 

police during her three-day visit. For these reasons, we conclude that 

Appellant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is devoid of substance.

Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 02/08/2018