FILED 


JULY 1,2014 


In the Office of the Clerk of Court 


WA State Court of Appeals, Division III 


IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON 


DIVISION THREE 


STATE OF WASHINGTON, ) 

) No. 30765-4-111 

Respondent, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

MELODY LYNN WRIGHT, ) UNPUBLISHED OPINION 

) 

Appellant. ) 

SIDDOWAY, C.J. - Melody Wright appeals her conviction of 1 count of first 

degree theft and 10 counts of Medicaid fraud arising from her submission of false 

telephonic time invoices for in-home care provided to her mother. She challenges the 

sufficiency ofthe evidence, asserts an equal protection violation, and contends that the 

trial court abused its discretion in finding that her convictions of first degree theft and 

Medicaid fraud did not encompass the same criminal conduct. Finding sufficient 

evidence and no error or abuse of discretion, we affirm. 

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 

In May 2001, Melody Wright signed a four-year contract with the Washington 

Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) to provide in-home care services for 

her mother, Donna Siegfried, to be paid for by the Medicaid-funded Community Options 
1 

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No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

Program Entry System (COPES). Medicaid is a jointly funded federal and state medical 

assistance program under which the federal government reimburses state governments for 

a portion of the costs of providing medical assistance to low income individuals. Wash. 

State Hosp. Ass'n v. State, 175 Wn. App. 642,644,309 P.3d 534 (2013) (citing 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1396(a)-(e». Ms. Siegfried's needs for in-home services were assessed by employees 

ofDSHS, which authorized her to receive 188 hours ofin-home care a month. Each 

month thereafter, Ms. Wright submitted invoices for payment for the full 188 hours 

telephonically, by calling in to a system and entering specific information when prompted 

by a recording. She was paid accordingly. 

In April 2005, Ms. Wright signed a second four-year contract to care for her 

mother. Early in the. term of the new contract, a COPES case manager met with Ms. 

Wright and her mother for a reassessment of Ms. Siegfried's needs. The reassessment 

suggested that Ms. Siegfried needed far less in-home care than the 188 hours, so her 

authorized in-home care hours were reduced to 94 hours a month. Ms. Wright and her 

mother successfully appealed the reduction, obtaining reinstatement ofthe 188 authorized 

hours, and successfully represented a need for the 188 hours in the next reassessment. 

The case manager assigned to Ms. Siegfried remained skeptical about her care needs 

asserted on appeal and thereafter, suspecting that her need for 94 hours as assessed in 

2005 was more accurate. 

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No. 30765-4-III 

State v. Wright 

In March 2008, an investigator with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit ofthe 

Washington Attorney General's office received a complaint that Ms. Wright was 

claiming care hours not worked for Ms. Siegfried, while working two other jobs. The 

investigator requested timekeeping records for Ms. Wright from a private retirement 

home where he learned she was employed full time and asked that employees 

administering the COPES contract require Ms. Wright to provide time sheets reflecting 

her time spent providing care for Ms. Siegfried. 

In April 2008, Ms. Wright was asked by employees of DSHS to provide time 

sheets for the period from May 2007 to April 2008. Ms. Wright and DSHS employees 

dispute whether Ms. Wright had been provided with time sheets a year earlier and told to 

keep an ongoing record of her hours worked; in any event, she had not kept a record. 

Ms. Wright was therefore provided with time sheets to complete after-the-fact. 

She initially filled them out by indicating that she had provided in-home care either 10 or 

24 hours each day of the month. As completed, they reflected an hourly total far in 

excess of 188 hours a month. Ms. Wright was notified that the time sheets were 

unacceptable and was told to submit new time sheets that reflected her best record of the 

188 hours a month she claimed to have worked. Ms. Wright submitted a second set in 

response. Many of the hours reported by Ms. Wright on the second set of time sheets 

proved to overlap with the time sheets she had submitted to her private employer. 

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No.30765-4-III 

State v. Wright 

In light ofthe discrepancy, Ms. Siegfried was asked to come into the attorney 

general's office to speak with an investigator. She did, accompanied by Ms. Wright. 

Both women agreed to speak with investigators after being given Miranda l warnings and 

both affirmed, when asked, that the second set oftime sheets accurately reflected the 

hours Ms. Wright had worked providing in-home care. When asked, both annotated and 

initialed the sheets as "accurate." Report of Proceedings at 397,402-03. Ms. Wright was 

then confronted with the time sheets submitted to her private employer and, when 

questioned about the many overlapping hours, began to cry, telling the investigator, "'my 

husband left me and I have kids to take care of and I'm going to lose my house. I'm in 

debt.'" Id. at 403. She offered no other explanation for the inconsistent hours on her 

time sheets and later submitted a written statement saying the hours she turned in were 

not correct. 

Ms. Wright was eventually charged with first degree theft and with 10 counts of 

Medicaid false statement, a type ofMedicaid fraud provided by RCW 74.09.230. 

At trial, Ms. Wright testified that she had worked the 188 hours claimed each 

month during the charging period, but not necessarily at the times she later reported on 

her time sheets. The jury did not believe her, finding her guilty as charged. The court 

ordered $12,605 in restitution and, sentencing her as a first-time offender, accepted the 

1 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966). 

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No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

State's recommendation that it impose a sentence of 30 days converted tQ 240 hours of 

community service. She appeals. 

ANALYSIS 

I. Sufficiency ofEvidence: First Degree Theft 

Ms. Wright's first assignment of error is to the allegedly insufficient evidence 

supporting her conviction of first degree theft. The gist of her argument is that the State's 

theory and evidence were directed to a means of committing first degree theft that it did 

not charge. She focuses on the difference between two alternative means of committing 

first degree theft provided by RCW 9A.56.020(1): what is commonly referred to as "theft 

by taking," provided by the statute's subsection (a), and what is commonly referred to as 

"theft by deception," provided by its subsection (b). State v. Smith, 115 Wn.2d 434,438, 

798 P.2d 1146 (1990) (citing State v. Southard, 49 Wn. App. 59, 741 P.2d 78 (1987». 

She argues that the theft by taking that the State elected to charge required that it prove a 

trespass, which it did not undertake to do. She argues that her conviction oftheft by 

taking absent any evidence of a trespass denied her due process. 

In order to prove that Ms. Wright committed first degree theft under RCW 

9A.56.020(1)(a), the State was required to prove that during the charging period she 

"wrongfully obtained or exerted unauthorized control over property of another";2 that the 

2 To "wrongfully obtain" or "exert unauthorized control" means: 

(a) To take the property or services of another; 

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No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

property exceeded $1,500 in value; that she intended to deprive the other person of the 

property; that her acts were part of a common scheme, plan, or a continuing course of 

conduct; and that her acts occurred in the state of Washington. Clerk's Papers (CP) at 

186 (Jury Instruction 7). 

When reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence challenge, we ask whether, "after 

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, any rational trier of fact 

could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." State 

v. Hosier, 157 Wn.2d 1,8, 133 P.3d 936 (2006). 

Relying on State v. Thorpe, 51 Wn. App. 582,754 P.2d 1050 (1988), Ms. Wright 

contends that trespass is a required element of theft by taking under RCW 

9A.56.020(1)(a). In Thorpe, the State proved that the defendants in that case knowingly 

submitted inflated invoices to the State for meat delivered to a state institution, and that 

(b) Having any property or services in one's possession, custody or 

control as bailee, factor, lessee, pledgee, renter, servant, attorney, agent, 

employee, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, or officer of any 

person, estate, association, or corporation, or as a public officer, or person 

authorized by agreement or competent authority to take or hold such 

possession, custody, or control, to secrete, withhold, or appropriate the 

same to his or her own use or to the use of any person other than the true 

owner or person entitled thereto; or 

(c) Having any property or services in one's possession, custody, or 

control as partner, to secrete, withhold, or appropriate the same to his or her 

use or to the use of any person other than the true owner or person entitled 

thereto, where the use is unauthorized by the partnership agreement. 

Former RCW 9A.56.010(19)(a)-(c) (2006). 

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No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

they received payment therefor. The State submitted the case to the jury on alternative 

theories, one of which was theft by taking. The defendants argued that while the 

evidence would support theft by deception, it did not support theft by taking and the court 

agreed. Construing the statute as "incorporat[ing] what were several distinct crimes 

under former statutory and common law," the court stated that "[o]ne element of 

wrongfully obtaining, or taking, property (including money) under RCW 9A.56.020(1)(a) 

is a trespass." Id. at 585. Because there was no evidence of a trespass and no way of 

knowing the basis for the jury's verdict, the court reversed the conviction of first degree 

theft and remanded that charge for a new trial. 

Ms. Wright correctly characterizes Thorpe but fails to take into consideration a 

later and controlling decision, Smith, 115 Wn.2d 434, in which the Washington Supreme 

Court disapproved of cases that, like Thorpe, had required proof of a trespass to establish 

theft by taking. The Court of Appeals decision in Smith had assumed as much, but the 

Supreme Court disagreed, explaining that while statements to that effect had been made 

in some earlier decisions, as dicta or otherwise, 

[t]respass is not required for statutory theft by taking. "The 

Legislature may define crimes. Where it does so, its statutory definition 

may supersede common law." ... Both this court and the Court of Appeals 

have affirmed convictions for theft by taking under RCW 9A.56.020(1)(a) 

without requiring evidence of a trespass. [A ]ny other decision inferring the 

contrary is disapproved. 

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No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

Id. at 441 (citations omitted) (quoting State v. Komok, 113 Wn.2d 810, 814, 783 P .2d 

1061 (1989». 

Evidence of theft by taking that the court found sufficient in Smith is conceptually 

indistinguishable from the State's evidence here. In Smith, a college student had ordered 

and paid by check for copyrighted software on multiple occasions, proceeded to copy 

both the software and instruction manuals upon receipt, and then stopped payment on his 

checks and returned the software either as an unauthorized purchase or as unusable on his 

computer. The manufacturer of one of the software programs discovered the student's 

practice and complained, resulting in the student being charged with theft by taking. The 

Supreme Court implicitly held that to convict a defendant of theft by taking, the item 

wrongfully taken could be one that the victim voluntarily delivered to the defendant. 

Here, the State proved that what was wrongfully obtained by Ms. Wright were 

COPES payments voluntarily made in response to her telephonic invoices. In light of 

Smith, that evidence was sufficient. 

II. Sufficiency of Evidence: Medicaid Fraud 

Ms. Wright's second assignment of error is to her Medicaid fraud convictions and 

is also based on a contention that the State charged the wrong crime. RCW 74.09.230(1), 

under which Ms. Wright was charged, makes it a crime to knowingly make or cause to be 

made any false statement or representation of a material fact "in any application/or any 

payment" under a medical care program authorized under chapter 74.09 RCW. 

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No. 30765-4-III 

State v. Wright 

(Emphasis added.) Subsection (2) ofthat statute criminalizes knowingly making or 

causing to be made any false statement or representation of a material fact ''for use in 

determining rights to such payment," or knowingly falsifying, concealing, or covering up 

a material fact "in connection with such application or payment." (Emphasis added.) 

Ms. Wright argues that, plainly read, 

[s]ection (1) criminalizes the falsification ofthe actual request for payment, 

i.e. a false statement, bill, or invoice for services, whereas section (2) 

criminalizes the falsification of information used in determining one's 

eligibility to participate in a given state-funded medical care program. 

Br. ofAppellant at 21. 

Ms. Wright argues that the State's evidence demonstrated only that the time sheets 

she was asked to prepare after the fact were not accurate-but since those time sheets 

were never offered or relied upon as her application for payment, they cannot establish a 

crime. She concedes that the State could prove a violation of subsection (1) by proving 

that she made knowingly false claims in her telephonic invoices submitted during the 

charging period, but argues "[t]he State provided no evidence that would lead a rational 

jury to reach such a conclusion." Id. at 22. 

The State's position is that Ms. Wright's criminal acts were, indeed, her 

submission ofthe 10 telephonic invoices during the charging period, each seeking 

payment for 188 hours of in-home care for her mother. The jury found Ms. Wright guilty 

ofmaking false statements on or about IOdates: May 31, June 30, July 31, August 31, 

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No.30765-4-II1 

State v. Wright 

September 30, October 31, November 30, and December 31 of2007; and January 31 and 

February 29 of2008. Those were the dates on which Ms. Wright submitted telephonic 

invoices. There is no dispute over the criminal acts on which the State relied. It 

characterizes the time sheets prepared after the fact not as the crime, but as circumstantial 

evidence that the earlier telephonic invoices were knowingly false. 

The jury was instructed that circumstantial evidence and direct evidence are 

equally reliable and that the term "circumstantial evidence" refers to evidence "from 

which, based on your common sense and experience, you may reasonably infer 

something that is at issue in this case." CP at 184. Evidence that Ms. Wright was unable 

to provide a credible account ofthe times that she worked during the charging period 

when asked to do so is not direct evidence of crime, but it is certainly circumstantial 

evidence from which the jury could infer that her telephonic invoices were false when 

made. Other circumstantial evidence that Ms. Wright's telephonic invoices were false 

included evidence that the hours worked by Ms. Wright for her private employer were 

during the time of day that Ms. Siegfried was most likely to need the in-care services that 

Ms. Wright was supposed to be providing. It included the State's surveillance evidence 

conflicting with the hours Ms. Wright allegedly provided in-home care. It included 

testimony from neighbors and other witnesses who had seen Ms. Siegfried able to walk 

unassisted, baby-sit her grandchildren, walk her grandchildren the several blocks to 

10 

No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

school, and perform basic household tasks, all of which cast doubt on whether Ms. 

Siegfried had ever needed a 188-hour per-month level of care in the first place. 

An evidence sufficiency challenge admits the truth of the State's evidence and any 

inferences the jury may reasonably draw from it. State v. Salinas, 119 Wn.2d 192,201, 

829 P.2d 1068 (1992). The State's evidence was clearly sufficient. 

III. Concurrent Charges and Equal Protection 

Ms. Wright next contends that the statutes criminalizing first degree theft and 

Medicaid fraud are concurrent in the sense that a violation of the more specific Medicaid 

statute constitutes a violation of the general theft statute in every instance. According to 

her, one cannot make a knowingly false statement in an application for payment under a 

medical care program without thereby wrongfully obtaining or exerting unauthorized 

control over the money. She argues that it is a denial of equal protection for a prosecutor 

to charge a crime under a general statute where a more specific statute prohibits the same 

conduct, yet carries a different penalty, citing State v. Alfonso, 41 Wn. App. 121, 125-26, 

702 P.2d 1218 (1985). Alfonso and cases like it reason that the principle of equality 

before the law is inconsistent with the existence of a power in a prosecuting attorney to 

elect, from person to person committing an offense, which degree of proof to apply to his 

or her particular case. See State v. Zornes, 78 Wn.2d 9,24,475 P.2d 109 (1970). She 

asks that we reverse the first degree theft conviction with directions to the trial court to 

dismiss the charge. 

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No.30765-4-III 

State v. Wright 

Alfonso's characterization ofstatutory concurrency as creating an equal protection 

issue is no longer good law, at least to the extent it was based on the federal constitution. 

Zornes, and by extension, Alfonso, was abrogated by the United States Supreme Court's 

decision in United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114,99 S. Ct. 2198, 60 L. Ed. 2d 775 

(1979) insofar as it held that equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment was 

violated by statutes defining the same offense but prescribing different punishments. As 

explained in City ofKennewick v. Fountain, 116 Wn.2d 189, 193, 802 P.2d 1371 (1991), 

there is not an appreciable difference between the discretion a prosecutor exercises when 

deciding whether to charge under different statutes having different elements and the 

discretion he or she exercises when choosing to charge one of two statutes with identical 

elements. The discretion exercised "does not empower the government to predetermine 

ultimate criminal sanctions." ld. 

The State recognizes that the assignment of error may raise an issue of statutory 

construction, since "[i]t is a well established rule of statutory construction that 'where a 

special statute punishes the same conduct which is punished under a general statute, the 

special statute applies and the accused can be charged only under that statute.'" State v. 

Shriner, 101 Wn.2d 576,580,681 P.2d 237 (1984) (quoting State v. Cann, 92 Wn.2d 

193, 197, 595 P.2d 912 (1979». In order for statutes to implicate this statutory 

construction concern, the general statute must be violated every time the special statute 

has been violated. ld. We determine whether two statutes are concurrent by examining 

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No.30765-4-III 

State v. Wright 

the elements of each to determine whether a person can violate the special statute without 

necessarily violating the general statute. State v. Heffner, 126 Wn. App. 803, 808, 110 

P.3d 219 (2005). 

First degree theft requires proof that the defendant wrongfully obtained or exerted 

unauthorized control over another's property valued at more than the statutory minimum, 

with the intent to deprive that person of the property. RCW 9A.56.030(1)(a); RCW 

9A.56.020(1)(a). The Medicaid false statement with which Ms. Wright was charged 

requires proof that the defendant knowingly made or caused to be made any false 

statement or representation of a material fact when applying for payment under a medical 

care program. RCW 74.09.230(1). 

One can make a false statement in applying for a payment yet not receive the 

payment. If so, no theft has occurred. RCW 74.09.230(1); RCW 9A.56.020(1)(a). At 

the same time, the false statement of material fact knowingly made in applying for a 

Medicaid-funded payment completes the crime of Medicaid false statement. Because the 

first degree theft statute is not violated every time the Medicaid fraud statute is violated, 

the State was free to charge Ms. Wright with first degree theft in addition to Medicaid 

fraud. 

IV. Same Criminal Conduct 

Finally, Ms. Wright argues that the trial court erred in failing to treat her 

convictions of first degree theft and Medicaid fraud as the same criminal conduct. In the 

13 

No. 30765-4-II1 

State v. Wright 

trial court, she argued that because the State elected to aggregate 10 payments she 

received in order to arrive at the dollar amount required for first degree theft, the 

Medicaid fraud occurred during the same, roughly 10-month time frame as the theft. 

Contending that the Medicaid fraud was the "same criminal conduct" as the theft in all 

other relevant respects, she argued that her offender score should be zero. The State 

disagreed, taking the position that the crimes were not the same criminal conduct and her 

offender score was 10. The sentencing court adopted the State's position. 

Except in the case of serious violent crimes, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1981, 

chapter 9.94A RCW, directs a trial judge wh<? is sentencing a defendant for mUltiple 

current offenses to count other crimes being sentenced as part of the offender score for 

each other crime, but then have the sentences for the crimes run concurrently with each 

other. RCW 9.94A.589(1). An exception exists if a trial judge finds that multiple current 

offenses constituted the "same criminal conduct." In that instance, the multiple offenses 

are to be treated as one crime for scoring purposes. RCW 9.94A.589(1 )(a). "Same 

criminal conduct" for this purpose "means two or more crimes that require the same 

criminal intent, are committed at the same time and place, and involve the same victim." 

Id. If any element is missing, the crimes do not constitute the same criminal conduct. 

State v. Maxfield, 125 Wn.2d 378, 402,886 P.2d 123 (1994). "[B]ecause a finding by the 

sentencing court of same criminal conduct favors the defendant, 'it is the defendant who 

must establish [that] the crimes constitute the same criminal conduct.'" State v. Johnson, 

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No.30765-4-II1 

State v. Wright 

_ Wn. App. _,320 P.3d 197,203 (2014) (alteration in original) (quoting State v. 

Graciano, 176 Wn.2d 531,539,295 P.3d 219 (2013)),petitionjor reviewfiled, No. 

90276-3 (Wash. May 27, 2014). We review an offender score calculation de novo but 

review a determination of what constitutes the same criminal conduct for abuse of 

discretion or misapplication of the law. State v. Mutch, 171 Wn.2d 646, 653,254 P.3d 

803 (2011). 

Ms. Wright argues that it is "undisputed" that the crimes of which she was found 

guilty involved the same criminal intent (theft by color or aid of deception) and the same 

victim (the State), and "obvious" that the crimes all occurred in the same place. Br. of 

Appellant at 28. The only issue, she contends, is whether the crimes occurred at the same 

time. She argues that the 10 counts of Medicaid fraud occurred over the same date range 

(June 4, 2007 and April 2, 2008) as the acts of theft that the State elected to aggregate 

for 1 count of first degree theft. 

While the State disputes Ms. Wright's contention that the crimes constitute the 

same criminal conduct on the merits, it also makes a threshold argument that Ms. Wright 

was sentenced as a first-time offender under RCW 9.94A.650 and may not appeal her 

sentence. Under RCW 9.94A.585(1), "a sentence imposed on a first-time offender under 

RCW 9.94A.650 shall ... be deemed to be within the standard sentence range for the 

offense and shall not be appealed." Ms. Wright's brief does not challenge her sentence, 

however; it challenges the "same criminal conduct" determination, which, having been 

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No. 30765-4-111 

State v. Wright 

made by the sentencing court, will bind any future court should she be charged and 

convicted of other crimes. RCW 9.94A.525(5)(a)(i); Johnson, 320 P.3d at 202-03. 

Given the nature of her challenge, RCW 9.94A.585(1) does not preclude appeal. 

Turning to the merits, the State will concede only that the victim was the same. 

As to intent, the relevant inquiry is to what extent the criminal intent, when viewed 

objectively, changed from one crime to the next. State v. Tili, 139 Wn.2d 107, 123,985 

P.2d 365 (1999). "This, in tum, can be measured in part by whether one crime furthered 

the other." State v. Vike, 125 Wn.2d 407,411, 885 P.2d 824 (1994). In State v. 

Dunaway, 109 Wn.2d 207, 743 P.2d 1237, 749 P.2d 160 (1987), the Washington 

Supreme Court held that kidnapping and robbery constituted the same criminal conduct 

where the objective of abducting the victim was to commit robbery. While the State 

argues that the criminal intent in this case changed from the Medicaid fraud to the theft, 

we are not persuaded. Viewed objectively, Ms. Wright's Medicaid fraud furthered her 

theft in the same way that kidnapping furthered robbery in Dunaway. 

We agree with the State, however, that Ms. Wright fails to establish that the 

crimes occurred at the same time and place. As to the time when the crimes occurred, the 

charging decision to aggregate Ms. Wright's receipt of a series of payments as a common 

scheme or plan does not change the fact that her theft was not continuous but involved a 

series of transactions taking place on discrete dates-and those dates were consistently 

several days after she submitted the corresponding false telephonic invoice. Even former 

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No.30765-4-II1 

State v. Wright 

RCW 9A.56.01O(IS)(c), which defines "value" to pennit the State to aggregate third 

degree thefts in order to charge first degree theft, recognizes that what is being 

aggregated is "any series a/transactions which constitute theft." (Emphasis added.) 

As to the place where the crimes occurred, the State correctly points out that Ms. 

Wright has not identified any evidence that the crimes were committed in the same place. 

It submits that "it defies common sense to suppose she placed the calls from her bank, the 

place she wrongfully obtained the funds." Br. ofResp't at 34. 

Because Ms. Wright fails to establish that the Medicaid fraud and theft were 

committed at the same time and place, the trial court's refusal to treat them as the same 

criminal conduct was not error. 

Affinned. 

A majority of the panel has detennined that this opinion will not be printed in the 

Washington Appellate Reports but it will be filed for public record pursuant to RCW 

2.06.040. 

Siddoway, 5z~/C~ C.J. 

WE CONCUR: 

Fearing, J. 

17