J-S81004-16

* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

v.

ANGEL COLON

Appellant No. 288 EDA 2016

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence December 22, 2015

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0001942-2015

BEFORE: BOWES AND MOULTON, JJ., AND STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Angel Colon appeals from the judgment of sentence of three years 

probation, imposed following his conviction of theft, criminal conspiracy, and 

receiving stolen property. We affirm. 

The convictions stem from Appellant’s role in the assault and robbery 

of Maureen Colosi-Mattis on Market Street, Philadelphia. During the bench 

trial, the victim testified as follows. At approximately 8:45 a.m. on 

November 12, 2014, she and her then-boyfriend, Frank Huesser, were 

walking on the 900 block of Market Street. Ms. Colosi-Mattis observed 

Appellant and two women “sizing [her] up.” N.T., 12/22/15, at 11. The 
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victim identified one woman as Jennifer Antonetti, Appellant’s paramour,1

but was unable to identify the other woman. Ms. Antonetti quickly withdrew 

a small umbrella and freed one of the prongs so as to wield it as a weapon. 

Id. at 12. 

Colosi-Mattis continued that, accompanied by Appellant and the other 

unknown assailant, Ms. Antonetti approached her and her companion and 

assaulted them both, poking her in the eye with the exposed prong from the 

umbrella. Id. at 12-13. Ms. Antonetti beckoned to Appellant in Spanish, and 

he and the other woman joined the assault, punched her in the stomach and 

legs, and pulled her large designer handbag from her shoulder. Id. at 13, 

15, 49. Appellant took the purse and ran across the street with the 

unidentified woman. Id. at 44. The assault continued for eight to ten 

minutes before police arrived. Id. at 16. 

Once the police arrived, Colosi-Mattis informed them that her designer 

handbag, watch, and jewelry were missing. The police found the purse near 

where Appellant was standing on the other side of Market Street, but the 

watch and jewelry were never recovered. Id. at 17-18, 47. Ms. ColosiMattis indicated that $222 was missing from her purse when it was returned 

____________________________________________

1 Appellant described Ms. Antonetti alternatively as “my kid’s mother” and 

what we interpret as his common-law wife, i.e., “she’s my wife by, you 

know, . . . about eight years together.” N.T., 12/22/15, at 83. As commonlaw marriages contracted after January 1, 2005, are invalid, we refer to Ms. 

Antonetti as Appellant’s paramour. 
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to her. Id. at 46. The police arrested Appellant and Ms. Antonetti. Id. at 

17.

Philadelphia Police Officer Luis Rivera testified that he was sitting in a 

patrol vehicle parked on Market Street when the altercation erupted. Id. at 

51. He did not observe the woman Ms. Colosi-Mattis was unable to identify. 

The officer described the incident as two couples approaching one another, 

and the two women began yelling at each other as the couples converged. 

Id. at 52-53. As he exited the patrol car and attempted to navigate through 

traffic on the four-lane thoroughfare, Officer Rivera observed Ms. Antonetti 

physically assault Ms. Colosi-Mattis. Id. at 53-54. He did not see Appellant 

or Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s companion get involved in the altercation. Id. at 55, 

58. By the time he crossed the street to intervene, Ms. Colosi-Mattis was on 

the ground “[a]nd Ms. Antonetti was on top of her furiously slapping her and 

kicking her and screaming at her.” Id. at 55. Officer Rivera lost track of 

Appellant as he attempted to restrain Ms. Antonetti and call for back up. Id. 

at 56. When a second police officer arrived, Officer Rivera learned that Ms. 

Colosi-Mattis was missing some of her property. Id. at 56. Officer Rivera 

transferred that aspect of the investigation to his colleague, Philadelphia 

Police Officer Blake Chim, so that he could arrest Ms. Antonetti. He did not 

recover the victim’s watch or jewelry from the assailant. Id. at 59.

Officer Chim testified that he was patrolling nearby when he responded 

to a police radio call for back up and assistance with a street fight in the 900 
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block of Market Street. Id. at 63. When Officer Chim arrived on the scene, 

Ms. Antonetti was secured in a patrol car and Officer Rivera was interviewing 

the complainant, who stated that her purse was missing. Id. She described 

the handbag to Officer Chim as a large brown bag designed by Michael Kors. 

Officer Chim crossed Market Street and approached Appellant, who was 

standing against a wall near a large purse that matched the description 

given by Ms. Colosi-Mattis. Id. at 65. Officer Chim explained, the “purse 

was sitting on top of a trash can within arm’s reach of [Appellant].” Id. The 

victim identified the handbag as the one that she was carrying prior to the 

assault. Id. at 66. 

Appellant was charged with robbery, aggravated assault, theft, 

criminal conspiracy to commit theft, simple assault, recklessly endangering 

another person, and receiving stolen property. He testified that he 

mistakenly collected the victim’s purse along with Ms. Antonetti’s handbag 

during the assault and suggested that he intended to return the purse to the 

victim. The trial court rejected his testimony. As it relates to this factual 

determination, the trial court observed,

I found [Appellant’s] testimony about not knowing that [he] had 

this other woman’s extremely large purse . . . completely 

incredible[.] I don’t know how [he] thought taking the stand to 

tell a Judge that [he] had . . . accidently picked up this other 

very large purse - - . . . I think, . . . quite frankly, it takes a lot 

of nerve.

Id. at 106-107. 
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Appellant was convicted of theft, conspiracy, and receiving stolen 

property. The court imposed three years probation for criminal contempt 

and no further penalty for theft. Receiving stolen property merged for the 

purposes of sentencing. This timely appeal followed. Appellant complied 

with the trial court’s order to file a concise statement of errors complained of 

on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b), and the court authored its Rule 

1925(a) opinion. 

Appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, claiming that the 

Commonwealth did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of 

theft and criminal conspiracy. Appellant’s brief at 4. Specifically, he asserts 

that the Commonwealth did not establish that Appellant intended to 

permanently deprive Ms. Colosi-Mattis of her property or that he entered 

into an agreement with Ms. Antonetti to steal the victim’s property. For the 

reasons that follow, no relief is due.

Our standard of review is well-settled:

[W]e examine whether the evidence admitted at trial, and all 

reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, viewed in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, support the 

jury's finding of all the elements of the offense beyond a 

reasonable doubt. The Commonwealth may sustain its burden by 

means of wholly circumstantial evidence.

Commonwealth v. Doughty, 126 A.3d 951, 958 (Pa. 2015). 

Moreover, 

the Commonwealth need not establish guilt to a mathematical 

certainty. Any doubt about the defendant's guilt is to be resolved 
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by the fact finder unless the evidence is so weak and 

inconclusive that, as a matter of law, no probability of fact can 

be drawn from the combined circumstances. The Commonwealth 

may sustain its burden by means of wholly circumstantial 

evidence.

Commonwealth v. Lynch, 72 A.3d 706, 708 (Pa.Super. 2013) (internal 

citations and quotation marks omitted) (en banc).

Pursuant to the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, “[a] person is guilty of 

theft if he unlawfully takes, or exercises unlawful control over, movable 

property of another with intent to deprive him thereof.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3921. 

“Deprive” is defined as: “(1) To withhold property of another permanently . . 

. or (2) to dispose of the property so as to make it unlikely that the owner 

will recover it.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3901. Thus, in order to prove theft under § 

3921(a) in the present case, the Commonwealth was required to establish 

that Appellant unlawfully took, or exercised control over, Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s 

purse with the intent to deprive her of it permanently. See 

Commonwealth v. Goings, 867 A.2d 526, 530 (Pa.Super. 2004). (“Proof 

of Theft by Unlawful Taking requires three elements: (1) unlawful taking or 

unlawful control over movable property; (2) movable property belongs to 

another; and (3) intent to deprive (permanently)”). 

Appellant’s arguments implicate the intent-to-deprive element of the 

offense. In Goings, supra at 530, we explained, “the Commonwealth may 

prove [intent to deprive] by showing an intent to withhold property of 

another permanently or by showing an intent to dispose of the property so 
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as to make it unlikely that the owner will recover it.” Instantly, Appellant 

concedes that he removed Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s purse during the scuffle but 

contends that he picked it up by mistake and did not intend to keep it. 

Thus, he argues that the evidence did not reveal his intent to deprive Ms. 

Colosi-Mattis of the handbag permanently. We disagree.

As with the remaining elements of the offense, the Commonwealth 

may prove the intent to deprive by circumstantial evidence. Presently, the 

evidence demonstrated that Appellant took the large designer purse from 

the victim while she was engaged in a physical altercation with Ms. 

Antonetti, carried it across four lanes of traffic to the other side of Market 

Street, and placed it on top of a trash can. Then, standing on the other side 

of the thoroughfare with the victim’s purse within arm’s reach, Appellant 

watched as Ms. Antonetti continued to the assault. 

As noted supra, the fact-finder rejected as incredible Appellant’s 

explanation that he was going to return the handbag. It inferred from 

Appellant’s behavior an intent to deprive the victim of her property. In its 

Rule 1925(a) Opinion, the court reiterated its rationale, 

While Appellant testified that he had no idea he was carrying Ms. 

[Colosi-]Mattis' handbag across the street, this Court, sitting as 

fact finder, found his testimony to be extremely incredible. 

Appellant testified that [Ms. Antonetti] had tossed him her own, 

much smaller, purse prior to throwing any punches; as such, he 

knew what [her] purse looked like. Moreover, given the sheer 

size of Ms. [Colosi-]Mattis' handbag -- which was depicted in 

photographs submitted into evidence -- it was glaringly distinct 

from the smaller purse belonging to [Ms. Antonetti].
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Trial Court Opinion, 5/27/16, at 8-9.

From the evidence presented, the fact finder was entitled to conclude 

that Appellant’s actions in taking the purse from Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s body or 

the the location of the assault and standing with it on the other side of a 

four-lane thoroughfare established Appellant’s intent to deprive the victim of 

her property. While Appellant asked the fact finder to infer that he intended 

to return the property to Ms. Colosi-Mattis, the evidence adduced during trial 

supported the trial court’s contrary inference that Appellant intended to 

deprive Ms. Colosi-Mattis of the purse permanently.2 As Appellant failed to 

present any legal authority to support his position that the fact-finder’s 

inference was unreasonable in light of the foregoing evidence, his argument 

fails. 

Appellant’s second issue assails the sufficiency of the evidence that the 

Commonwealth adduced in support of the criminal conspiracy conviction. 

Pursuant to the Crimes Code, 

A person is guilty of conspiracy with another person or persons 

to commit a crime if with the intent of promoting or facilitating 

____________________________________________

2 While not stated expressly in his statement of questions presented, to the 

extent that Appellant’s brief also challenges the intent-to-deprive element of 

his receiving stolen property conviction pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 3925(a), 

we reject that claim for the identical reason as set forth in the body of this 

memorandum, i.e., the certified record supports the trial court’s finding that 

Appellant retained Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s purse with the intent to deprive her of 

it permanently. 
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its commission he: (1) agrees with such other person or persons 

that they or one or more of them will engage in conduct which 

constitutes such crime or an attempt or solicitation to commit 

such crime[.] 

18 Pa.C.S. § 903

As our High Court previously stated, “[t]he material elements of 

conspiracy are: “(1) an intent to commit or aid in an unlawful act, (2) an 

agreement with a co-conspirator and (3) an overt act in furtherance of the 

conspiracy.” Commonwealth v. Gross, 101 A.3d 28, 34 (Pa. 2014). The 

crux of the instant complaint is that the evidence does not demonstrate by a 

preponderance of the evidence that Appellant agreed to commit a criminal 

act or that he engaged in any criminal behavior. Again, no relief is due. 

The fact-finder can infer an agreement from “the relation of the 

parties, knowledge of and participation in the crime and the circumstances 

and conduct of the parties surrounding the criminal episode.” 

Commonwealth v. Garcia, 847 A.2d 67, 70 (Pa.Super. 2004). 

Pennsylvania jurisprudence has recognized that circumstantial evidence is 

typically the only means to establish a conspiracy. Commonwealth v. 

Swerdlow, 636 A.2d 1173, 1177 (Pa.Super. 1994) (“An explicit or formal 

agreement to commit crimes can seldom, if ever, be proved and it need not 

be, for proof of a criminal partnership is almost invariably extracted from the 

circumstances that attend its activities.”). 
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Contrary to Appellant’s contentions, which principally assail Ms. ColosiMattis’s credibility rather than any defect in the evidence, the certified 

record sustains the criminal conspiracy conviction. During the trial, Ms. 

Colosi-Mattis testified that Appellant, Ms. Antonetti, and the unidentified 

female examined her initially while she was walking down Market Street and 

converged upon her and her companion in unison. While Ms. Antonetti 

initiated the physical assault, she soon called out to Appellant in Spanish and 

he and the other woman joined in the beating, pulled the victim’s handbag 

from her shoulder, and fled across the street. Hence, in light of the 

Appellant’s and Ms. Antonetti’s relationship, the latter’s entreaty for 

Appellant’s assistance during the physical altercation, and Appellant’s 

participation in the assault and theft, sufficient circumstantial evidence exists 

in the certified record to satisfy both the agreement and the the unlawful act 

elements of criminal conspiracy. 

Stated differently, the circumstantial evidence, viewed in the light 

most favorable to the Commonwealth, leads to the inference that Appellant 

agreed with Ms. Antonetti to provoke Ms. Colosi-Mattis and steal her purse. 

Moreover, the circumstantial evidence raises the inference that Appellant 

aided the common plan by joining the attack, attempting to separate Ms. 

Colosi-Mattis from her purse, and then taking the property across the street. 

Hence, Appellant’s claim that the conspiracy conviction is premised upon 

insufficient evidence fails. 
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Furthermore, we reject the principle focus of Appellant’s argument, 

which is nothing more than an attack on Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s credibility. 

Specifically, Appellant contends that aspects of Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s trial 

testimony relating to Appellant’s role in the assault and theft were 

inconsistent with her prior testimony during a preliminary hearing. Appellant 

also highlights portions of Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s testimony that are unrelated to 

him, which he asserts were inconsistent with other witnesses who testified 

during the trial. Relying upon our Supreme Court’s perspective in

Commonwealth v. Farquharson, 354 A.2d 545 (Pa. 1976), Appellant 

concludes that the evidence of criminal conspiracy is so unreliable and 

contradictory so as to make the trial court’s factual determination regarding 

the existence of an agreement pure conjecture. We disagree. 

We note that our High Court has previously found that challenges to a 

verdict pursuant to the Farquharson standard implicate the weight, and not 

the sufficiency of, the evidence. Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 36 A.3d 24, 

37 (Pa. 2011). However, in a more recent decision, the Supreme Court 

elected to address a sufficiency claim through the lens of the Farquharson

standard. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 52 A.3d 1139 (Pa. 2012). The 

Brown Court ultimately found, as we find now, that even if this standard is 

applicable to a sufficiency claim, an appellate court “will not, on sufficiency 

review, disturb the finder of fact’s resolution except in those exceptional 

instances . . . where the evidence is so patently unreliable that the [fact-
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finder] was forced in engage in surmise and conjecture in arriving at a 

verdict based on that evidence.” Id. at 1166.

There is no exceptional circumstance in the case at bar that warrants 

the application of the Farquharson standard. First, we observe that the 

alleged inconsistencies between the testimony proffered by Ms. Colosi-Mattis 

and the three other witness did not pertain to Appellant or his role in the 

criminal enterprise. In addition, as it relates to when she first observed 

Appellant, Ms. Colosi-Mattis explained that the cause of her confusion during 

the preliminary hearing stemmed, in part, from her interaction with the 

Police detectives who took her initial statement following the incident. N.T., 

12/22/15, at 33. She also confirmed during the trial that, notwithstanding 

her prior testimony that she did not see Appellant at the outset of the 

incident, she has consistently identified him as one of the assailants who 

beat her, and the person who stole her purse and ran across the street. Id. 

at 32, 33, 34-35, 36. Moreover, insofar as Officer Rivera testified that he 

watched the couples converge immediately prior to the fight, the record 

supports Ms. Colosi-Mattis’s testimony that Appellant was, in fact, present at 

the outset. Hence, Appellant’s perceived inconsistency regarding whether 

the victim first noticed him before the assault started is both inaccurate and 

inconsequential in light of her consistent testimony that Appellant was 

engaged in the assault along with Ms. Antonetti and that Appellant stole her 

purse and absconded across the street with it. No relief is due. 
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As the the certified record sustains the trial court’s finding that the 

Commonwealth proved beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of theft by 

unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and criminal conspiracy to commit 

theft, Appellant’s sufficiency of the evidence claims fail. 

Judgment of sentence affirmed

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 2/15/2017