COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Benton, Coleman and Fitzpatrick 

Argued at Alexandria, Virginia 

GARY WAYNE GREENE 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 1824-94-4 JUDGE JAMES W. BENTON, JR. 

 MAY 30, 1995 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 

Quinlan H. Hancock, Judge 

 Larry C. Brown, Jr., Assistant Public Defender 

 (Office of the Public Defender, on brief), for 

 appellant. 

 Monica S. McElyea, Assistant Attorney General 

 (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on 

 brief), for appellee. 

 The appellant, Gary Wayne Greene, contends that the evidence 

was insufficient to convict him of forgery of a public record. 

We affirm the conviction. 

 A police officer stopped and arrested appellant for an 

offense unrelated to this appeal. Appellant had in his 

possession a driver's license that identified him as "Mark S. 

Smith." When a police officer processed and fingerprinted 

appellant at the police station, appellant signed the fingerprint 

card as "Mark Smith." 

 Another investigator telephoned and spoke to an individual 

at the residence listed on appellant's driver's license. Because 

of information the investigator received, the appellant was 

reprinted. Appellant signed the new fingerprint card as "Gary 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
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Greene." 

 A fingerprint expert testified that the fingerprints on the 

card bearing the name "Mark Smith" were identical to the 

fingerprints on the card signed "Gary Greene." The expert also 

testified that the fingerprints on the two cards were identical 

to another card already on file and bearing the signature "Gary 

Greene." 

 By statute, in Virginia, it is a felony for "any person [to] 

forge a public record." Code § 18.2-168. "The fingerprint card 

. . . is clearly a public record." Reid v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. 

App. 468, 470, 431 S.E.2d 63, 65 (1993). 

 "'Forgery is the false making or materially altering with 

intend to defraud, of any writing which, if genuine, might 

apparently be of legal efficacy, or the foundation of legal 

liability.'" Bullock v. Commonwealth, 205 Va. 558, 561, 138 

S.E.2d 261, 263 (1964) (citation omitted). Under this broad 

definition, the crime of forgery "is committed by signing an 

assumed name, or a fictitious name, for a dishonest purpose and 

with intent to defraud." Moore v. Commonwealth, 207 Va. 838, 

841, 153 S.E.2d 231, 234 (1967). 

 The evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable 

doubt that one of the two names was either an assumed name or a 

fictitious name. Appellant signed the name "Mark Smith" on a 

fingerprint card when he was first arrested, and several hours 

later while he was still in custody, he signed the name "Gary 
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Greene" on another fingerprint card. Appellant does not dispute 

these facts. 

 From the evidence, the jury also could have found beyond a 

reasonable doubt that appellant signed the card using an assumed 

or fictitious name with fraudulent intent to conceal his 

identity. The evidence supports this finding because it proved 

that when appellant signed the name "Mark Smith" he was certainly 

aware that fingerprint cards on file identified him as Gary 

Greene. Furthermore, on the same day that he signed the name 

"Mark Smith," he signed the name "Gary Greene." One of those 

names was an assumed name invoked to mislead the police. No 

reasonable hypothesis of innocence arises from these facts. 

 For these reasons, we affirm the conviction. 

 Affirmed.