Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D),

this Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as precedent or cited before any court except for the purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or t he law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT : ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE : NANCY A. MCCASLIN GREGORY F. ZOELLER McCaslin & McCaslin Attorney General of Indiana Elkhart, Indiana GEORGE P. SHERMAN Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana


## IN THE COURT OF APP EALS OF INDIANA

ANGELA M. LEMARR, ) ) Appellant

- Defendant, ) ) vs. ) No. 20A05

- 1105

- CR

- 258 ) STATE OF INDIANA, ) ) Appellee

- Plaintiff. )

APPEAL FROM THE ELKHART SUPERIOR COURT The Honorable James W. Rieckhoff, Senior Judge Cause No. 20D05

- 1009

- CM

- 452
FEBRUARY 8, 2012 MEMORANDUM DECISION
- NOT FOR PUBLICATION SHARPNACK, Senior Judge2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant Angela M. Lemarr appeals her conviction of false informing, a Class A misdemeanor

. Ind. Code § 35

- 44

- 2

- 2 (d) (2007 ). We affirm

. ISS UE S
Lemarr raises two i ssue s , which we restate as: I. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting a recor ding of a telephone call

. II. Whether the evide nce is sufficient to sustain Lemarr’s conviction.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY On the morn ing of August 24, 2010, Sergeant Robert Baker of the Middlebury Police Department was on patrol when a dispatch er advised him of a report of battery. The dispatcher directed Baker to meet Lemarr and her husband, Jeremy, in the parking lot of a physical re habilitation center where Lemarr was undergoing treatment for unrelated prior injuries

. Lemarr to ld Baker that earlier in the morning , she had been at a convenience store where a man had struck her with a cooler door. Lemarr further stated
that the door “jarred her whole body,” Tr. p. 128, and that “her whole body was in pain,”
id. at 129. Baker asked if the contact could have been accidental, and Lemarr “was adamant that this was intentional.” Id. Lemarr d escribed the alleged batterer and the car he h ad been driving. In addition, Jeremy told Baker that prior to the incident at the convenience store, the Lemarrs had almost gotten into an automobile accident with the same man, who Jeremy claimed had pulled out in front of them as they drove down the3

str eet. By chance, t he Lem arrs and the man had gone to the same convenience store after the near

- collision. Next, Baker went to the conven ience store, where he review ed security video of Lemarr’s interactions with the alleged batterer . The video showed the alleged batterer withdrawing a bev erage from the cooler and closing the cooler door as Lemarr stood nearby. Neither the man nor the cooler door made contact with Lemarr. To the contrary, as Lemarr walked by the man, “he pushed himself up against the cool er to give her room” before going to pay for his beverage. Id. at 131. The video also showed that as the alleged batterer was paying for his beverage, Lemarr approached the checkout stand with her bev erage and stood nearby. He did not touch Lemarr at th at time, either. After reviewing the video , Baker returned to the physical rehabilitation center to speak with Lemarr again. He told her that he did not see any contact between her and the alleged batterer or the cooler door . Lemarr remained in sistent th at she had been hit , and “she w anted to file a report.” Id. at 136. She again complai ned of pain throughout her body. At that point, Baker left because Lemarr was “uncooperative.” Id. at 150. Baker had spent several hours investigating Lemarr’s claim, during which time he was unable to respond to any other calls for service. The State charged Lemarr with false informing . A jury determined that Lemarr was guilty, and the trial court sentenced her accordingly. This appeal followed.4 DISCUSSION AND DECISION
I. ADMISSION OF A RECORDED TELEPHONE CALL Rulings on the admission of evidence are subject to appellate review for abuse of discretion. McHenry v. State , 820 N.E.2d 124, 128 (Ind. 2005). A claim of error in the
admissi on or exclusion of evidence will not prevail unless a substantial right of the party is affected

. Pruitt v. State , 834 N.E.2d 90, 117 (Ind. 2005). Here, the trial court admitted into evidence State’s Exhibit 2, a compact disc containing a recording of a teleph one call Jeremy made to the police department after the Lemarrs and the alleged batterer had almost had an auto accident. When the State moved to admit the recording, Lemarr objected on grounds of lack of foundation, authenticity, and hearsay. On appeal , Lemarr contends that the admission of the recording violates Indiana Evidence Rule 1002, also known as the best evidence rule. Lemarr did not present this specific objection to the trial court, so it is waived. See Treadway v. State , 924 N.E.2d 6 21, 631 (Ind. 2010) (“A party may not add to or change his grounds for objections in the reviewing court

. ”). Waiver notwithstanding, any error in the admission of the recording was harmless. Lemarr fails to explain how the admis sion of the recording infri nged upon her substantial rights

. Furthermore , the recordin g was merely cumulative of Jeremy ’s and Lemarr ’s testimony, during which t he y both described the automobile incident and Jeremy’s telephone call to the police

. See Davies v. State , 730 N.E.2d 726 , 735 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000) (determining that the admission of a recording of a police interview was harmless5

because the recording was cumulative of other evidenc e) , trans. denied . We find no abuse of discretion

. II. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE When an appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a conviction, we do not reweigh the evidence or judge the credibility of the witnesses. Joslyn v. State , 942 N.E.2d 809, 811 (Ind. 2011). We consider only the probative evidence and reaso nable inferences drawn from the e vidence that support the verdict

. Id. We will affirm if the probative evidence and reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence could have allowed a reasonable trier of fact to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonab le doubt. Id. In order to convict Lemarr of false informing as a Class A misdemeanor , the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lemarr (1) gave a false report of a commission of a crime or (2) gave false information in the official i nvestigation of a commission of a crime (3) knowing the report or information to be false (4) resul t ing in substantial hindrance to any law enforcement process. Ind. Code § 35

- 44

- 2

- 2 (d)

. Here, Lemarr disputes that Baker was pursuing an official investigat ion of a

comm ission of a crime when she spoke with him. Instead, she contends that he was only
respon ding to her description of “what she believed constituted a crim e.” Appellant’s Br. p. 11. Furthermore, she notes that no battery charges were filed at the time of her meeting with Baker, so she was merely reporting a “possible future crime.” Id. at 13. We disagree. Baker was dispatched to investigate an allegation of battery that the Lemarrs had reported to the police. He interviewed Lemarr to learn her version of the6

events and to decide how to proceed with the matter. Thus, Baker was engaged in the investigation of a crime when he interviewed Lemarr , even though the alleged crime did
not actually occur and no battery charge was pending

. See Howell v. State , 684 N.E.2d 576, 578 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997) (determining that an officer was officially investigating a crime of underage drinking at the time of the defendant’s false statements, even though it
was later discovered that the defendant was not under age). Next, Lemarr contends that there is insufficient evidence that she knew her
statements to Baker were false because “[s]he was sure that she had been touched and she
was terrified

. ” Appellant’s Br. p. 13. This contention is without merit

. 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) (1977). Knowledge is a mental
state of the actor and may be proved by circumstantial evidence and i nferred from the circumstances and facts of each case. Wilson v. State , 835 N.E.2d 1044, 1049 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005), trans. denied

. The conven ience store’s security video was played for the jury, and it showed that neither the alleged batterer nor the coo ler door made contact with Lemarr. Furthermore, an employee of the convenience store testified that she was at work when Lemarr and the man were in the store, and she did not see a battery or receive

a report of a battery . The jury could have reasonably inferred from this evidence that Lemarr knew that the man had not battered her and knew that her statements to Baker

were false. Finally, Lemarr asserts that her actions did not substantially hinder any law enforcement process

. We are not convinced. Baker spent several hours investigating7

Lemarr’s baseless claims . He interviewed people at the store and reviewed security video. Baker was unable to respond to any other calls w hile he investigated Lemarr’s
assertions . This evidence is sufficient to es tablish that Lemarr hindered a law enforcement process. See Jones v. State , 774 N.E.2d 957, 964 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002) (determining that the evidence supported the defendant’s conviction for false informing
as a Class A misdemeanor because th e defendant’s f alse statement to an officer about an auto accident “delayed [the officer’s] processing of the accident scene”).
CONCLUSION For the reasons stated above, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. Affirmed

. ROBB, C.J., and FRIEDLANDER, J., concur.