COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Bumgardner and Humphreys 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

MARK THOMAS 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 0738-02-2 JUDGE RUDOLPH BUMGARDNER, III 

 DECEMBER 10, 2002 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 

Robert W. Duling, Judge Designate 

 Craig W. Stallard, Assistant Public Defender 

(Office of the Public Defender, on brief), 

for appellant. 

 Kathleen B. Martin, Assistant Attorney 

General (Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General, 

on brief), for appellee. 

 The trial court convicted Mark Thomas during a bench trial 

of receiving stolen property, Code § 18.2-108. He contends the 

evidence is insufficient to prove that the items were stolen or 

that he knew they were stolen. Concluding the evidence was 

sufficient, we affirm. 

 We view the evidence and all reasonable inferences 

therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth. 

Commonwealth v. Taylor, 256 Va. 514, 516, 506 S.E.2d 312, 313 

(1998). The defendant sold 2,240 pounds of aluminum pipe and 

plates to a scrap metal firm for $1,008. He explained he was 

 

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not 

designated for publication.
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"cleaning up a yard and . . . this was surplus material." The 

pipe was "brand new material," and though unbundled, it still 

had the banding and labels attached. On the labels and stamped 

in ink on the pipes was the name and address of Industrial Alloy 

Fabrications. 

 The scrap dealer called the plant manager at Industrial 

Alloy Fabrications and asked if he had recently disposed of a 

lot of heavy wall pipe. The manager checked the inventory and 

discovered that about 9 - 12 pieces of pipe were missing from 

the fenced storage yard. Each pipe was 12 - 14 feet long but 

weighed between 150 to 200 pounds. The total weight was about 

2,000 pounds, and the total value was about $3,000. The pipes 

were part of a special order fabricated for a job in Waynesboro 

and were "very, very odd material." The plant manager had seen 

the pipes a week earlier. Within that week, the lock on an old 

gate had been broken, and the gate, which had not been opened in 

years, had been forced open. 

 As the trial court noted, "these goods are not everyday 

household goods." They were "a special run of [heavy] pipe." 

They bore the name and address of the owner and were 

specifically identified by the owner as being stolen within a 

week. The owner could identify these nearly unique pipes, and 

the evidence supported a finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, 

that they had been stolen. 
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 The defendant did not deny possessing the pipes within a 

week of being stolen. Possession of recently stolen property 

"constituted prima facie evidence that the defendant received 

the stolen goods with guilty knowledge and cast upon him the 

burden of going forward with evidence in explanation." Roberts 

v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 264, 271, 337 S.E.2d 255, 260 (1985). 

The defendant told the purchaser he was cleaning a yard, but the 

trial court is not required to accept his explanation. Schaum 

v. Commonwealth, 215 Va. 498, 501, 211 S.E.2d 73, 75 (1975). 

 The pipe looked brand new, still bore the markings of the 

owner, and was a special form of unusually heavy aluminum pipe. 

The trial court could reasonably infer that the pipes the 

defendant sold as surplus scrap were not found while cleaning a 

yard. "When the defendant's hypothesis of innocence is 

[rejected as] unreasonable, evidence of possession of recently 

stolen goods is sufficient to support a conviction for the crime 

of larceny . . . or the crime of larceny by receiving stolen 

goods." Westcott v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. App. 123, 127, 216 

S.E.2d 60, 64 (1975) (citation omitted). See also Stapleton v. 

Commonwealth, 140 Va. 475, 488-89, 124 S.E. 237, 241-42 (1924) 

("'when goods are shown to have been stolen, recent possession 

of them is evidence against the possessor, tending to show . . . 

a guilty receiving by him'"). Accordingly, we affirm. 

 Affirmed.