Filed 2/24/22 P. v. Bonner CA6

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for 

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or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. 

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF 

CALIFORNIA,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

CHARLES EDWARD BONNER,

Defendant and Appellant.

 H048687

 (Santa Cruz County

 Super. Ct. No. F07142)

Charles Edward Bonner appeals the denial of his motion to reduce his felony 

forgery convictions to misdemeanors pursuant to Penal Code section 17, subdivision (b)1

(section 17(b)). Because we conclude that the trial court acted within its discretion in

considering evidence that Bonner had engaged in further financial impropriety, we 

affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Bonner was convicted in 2004 of two counts of felony forgery pursuant to 

section 470, subdivision (d), after forging two checks and attempting to deposit them in 

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
2

his bank account.2 He was granted probation for a term of four years, conditions of 

which included payment of restitution and service of 180 days in jail. 

A. Bonner’s Section 17(b) Motion

In July 2020, Bonner filed a motion with the trial court asking it to exercise its 

discretion under section 17(b) to reduce the convictions to misdemeanors.3 He included 

letters of support from his daughter-in-law, three friends, and a former employer, 

attesting to Bonner’s “character, transformation and support.” The letters generally 

spoke to Bonner’s compassion, selflessness, work ethic and commitment to helping 

others and benefitting the community. Bonner noted that it had been 16 years since his 

last criminal conviction and that he had made “many positive changes in his life since 

that time” and was “now a hard-working family man with a history of serving his 

community and striving to better himself.” In addition to his work as a chef and efforts to 

start his own catering company, Bonner cited his seven years of employment at the 

Homeless Service Center in Santa Cruz. 

Bonner acknowledged having been charged in 2018 with offenses alleged to have 

occurred in 2014 and 2015—“theft from an elder adult in violation of Penal Code section 

368(d), and two counts of felony grand theft in violation of Penal Code section 487(a).”

But Bonner “maintained his innocence” and noted “the prosecution had dismissed the 

charges for insufficiency of the evidence.”

2

In his opening brief Bonner requests that we take “judicial notice of the record of 

the proceedings in appellant’s underlying case at issue in the motion to reduce, case 

number F07142.” Because his request did not comply with California Rules of Court, 

rule 8.252, we are unable to identify why any particular aspect of the proceedings below 

not included in the appellate record here would be relevant to the issue on appeal; 

accordingly, we decline the request. (People v. Rowland (1992) 4 Cal.4th 238, 268, fn. 

6.)

3 The motion also sought a sentence reduction for a separate felony conviction as 

well as expungement of convictions in five cases pursuant to section 1203.4. We need 

not address those here, as they are not at issue in this appeal. 
3

B. Prosecution Evidence in Opposition

In opposition to the section 17(b) motion, the prosecution relied principally on the 

2018 allegations, asserting that Bonner had abused his position as a case worker at the 

Homeless Service Center “to take a significant amount of money from one of his 

vulnerable clients.” The prosecution contended that, “on December 12, 2014, and 

June 5, 2015, [Bonner] wrote two $15,000 checks to himself, deposited those checks into 

[his] personal bank account, and spent his client’s money on himself.” 

To substantiate the alleged financial abuse, the prosecution submitted what it 

characterized as a subset of the documents and records provided to Bonner in discovery: 

(1) records obtained from three financial institutions—Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo 

Bank, and Bay Federal Credit Union, (2) Bonner’s employment agreement with the 

Homeless Service Center and his acknowledgment of its policy against gifts from clients; 

and (3) reports by Detective Eileen Fincutter and Officer Ruben Badeo of the Santa Cruz 

Police Department, which documented the law enforcement investigation and included

interviews with identified witnesses. 

The Charles Schwab documents included an application to open an account signed 

by both Bonner and William M., then a client of Bonner’s at the Homeless Service 

Center. Although the application bore the handwritten initials “WDM” next to a checked 

box indicating that the account was to be an individual account, a second box—indicating 

that the account was to be held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship—was likewise 

checked, though not initialed. The Schwab documents further included two $15,000 

bank checks drawn on the jointly titled account—dated December 19, 2014, and June 5, 

2015, respectively—both payable to Bonner, both endorsed in his name. Detective 

Fincutter reported that five other checks drawn on the Schwab account had been made 

payable to either William M. alone or William M. jointly with Bonner, had been 
4

deposited either directly into William M.’s personal account at Bay Federal Credit Union 

or else cashed, with a corresponding cash deposit in the Bay Federal account. 

The Wells Fargo Bank documents consisted of Bonner’s personal deposit account 

statements for November-December 2014 and May-June 2015. They showed a $15,000 

deposit on December 19, 2014, and a $15,000 deposit on June 5, 2015. Detective 

Fincutter reported that these deposits had been followed by corresponding cash 

withdrawals within the week. 

The Bay Federal Credit Union documents consisted of William M.’s personal 

checking and savings account statements, reflecting his own transaction history and, as is 

pertinent here, the absence of deposits following Bonner’s negotiation of the Schwab 

checks or his cash withdrawals from his Wells Fargo account. The June 2015 account 

statement reflected a number of cash withdrawals from William M.’s account following 

Bonner’s post-deposit withdrawals from his Wells Fargo account, but not deposits to 

William M.’s Bay Federal account until a $7,370 deposit on June 26, 2015. 

The Homeless Service Center also provided police with their employment 

agreement and employee policies, signed by Bonner, which provide that “Employees 

shall not accept gifts, money, or gratuities for their personal benefit from clients. Items 

‘gifted’ to the agency by clients who do not have a use for those items should be utilized

on site to the greater benefit of all.” 

Detective Fincutter and Officer Badeo documented their interviews with William 

M., who said that Bonner had withdrawn $30,000 and $15,000 without approval. 

William M. said that, because he was unable to drive, he and Bonner had an agreement 

by which Bonner could request checks on William M.’s behalf for deposit in William 

M.’s bank account. He “was under the impression Bonner could only pick checks up 

from Charles Schwab and not actually request checks or cash them without his 

signature.” William M. did not appear to the officer to understand that Bonner was in 

fact a co-owner of the Schwab account. Detective Fincutter described William M. as 
5

unfocused and erratic, with apparent mental health issues, including delusional thinking. 

William M. reported short-term memory loss as a result of recent brain surgery and told 

Detective Fincutter that he takes an antipsychotic medication. 

C. Hearings on the Motion

The initial hearing on Bonner’s motion was continued once for Bonner to review 

the prosecution evidence and respond to the allegations, again for Bonner to brief his 

assertion that the court was precluded from considering dismissed charges, and a third 

time for the prosecution to file with the court the evidence on which the now-dismissed 

charges had been based. Bonner ultimately did not dispute having become a title owner 

of a Charles Schwab account funded by William M.’s inheritance or having deposited the 

two $15,000 checks into his personal Wells Fargo account rather than into William M.’s 

Bay Federal account. Rather, his counsel maintained that the financial entanglement was

of no significance and that the arrangement was “completely known to his employers and 

everyone else,” and was “in order to give [William M.] the money that he needed [to], for 

example, rent a hotel room, Mr. Bonner would take the money out and then basically give 

him that cash.” 

After reviewing the prosecution’s evidence, the trial court denied Bonner’s 

section 17(b) motion,

4

finding that “$30,000 of the complaining party’s finances had 

been . . . deposited into Mr. Bonner’s account, and I don’t believe that Mr. Bonner could 

account for all that $30,000 . . . being returned to the source[.]” The court reasoned that

Bonner “at a minimum breached his employee agreement, and also breached the duty of 

statutory care that was associated with his position as it relates to the financial transaction 

he engaged in with the person he was providing services for.” 

Bonner timely appealed.

4 The trial court granted Bonner’s unopposed motion for dismissal of his prior 

convictions under section 1203.4.
6

II. DISCUSSION

Section 17(b) authorizes a trial court to declare an offense punishable alternatively 

as a felony or a misdemeanor to be a misdemeanor for all purposes.5 (People v. Tran

(2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 877, 885 (Tran); People v. Park (2013) 56 Cal.4th 782, 789.) 

Forgery as defined in section 470, subdivision (d), is a “wobbler” subject to section 17. 

(People v. Mutter (2016) 1 Cal.App.5th 429, 434; § 470, subdivision (d).) Unlike statutes 

that “contain express qualifications delineating, and thereby restricting, the particular 

exercise of discretion,” section 17 sets a “broad generic standard” by which reduction of 

a wobbler rests “solely ‘in the discretion of the court.’ ” (People v. Superior Court 

(Alvarez) (1997) 14 Cal.4th 968, 977 (Alvarez) [contrasting § 17 with §§ 1385 and 

1203].) A reduction under section 17(b) is an act of leniency, not an entitlement. (Tran, 

supra 242 Cal.App.4th at p. 892.) We review the court’s denial of section 17(b) relief for 

abuse of discretion. (Alvarez, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 978.)

Notwithstanding the deferential standard of review, Bonner contends that reversal 

is required because the court violated “basic fairness principles of due process” in 

denying his motion, by basing its decision “solely upon information related to a separate 

case that was dismissed by the prosecution for lack of evidence,” when “[t]he evidence 

related to the dismissed case was both unreliable and irrelevant.” Implicit in Bonner’s 

constitutional claim is the premise that he is due the same process in a post-probation 

motion under section 17(b)(3) as in an original sentencing proceeding, and that the 

prosecution bears the burden of disproving the entitlement to section 17(b) relief. Neither 

proposition is self-evident, however. 

5 Section 17(b) provides: “When a crime is punishable, in the discretion of the 

court, either by imprisonment in the state prison or imprisonment in a county jail under 

the provisions of subdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by fine or imprisonment in the 

county jail, it is a misdemeanor for all purposes under the following circumstances: 

[¶] . . . [¶] (3) When the court grants probation to a defendant and at the time of 

granting probation, or on application of the defendant or probation officer thereafter, the 

court declares the offense to be a misdemeanor.” (§ 17, subd. (b)(3).)
7

We need not resolve these issues, however, because as we shall explain, the record 

reflects no error in the trial court’s consideration of evidence properly before it. (See 

People v. Partida (2005) 37 Cal.4th 428, 437 [no due process violation where no abuse of 

discretion in evidentiary rulings].) 

By the close of the three successive hearings on Bonner’s motion, the sole 

disputed fact of consequence was whether the $30,000 Bonner had transferred from the 

Schwab account to his Wells Fargo account was in some manner restored to or spent for 

the benefit of William M., as Bonner’s counsel argued.6 He acknowledged his 

professional relationship with William M., even claiming that it was his fiduciary duty as 

case manager for a brain-injured client that necessitated his control over William M.’s 

money and Schwab account, for William M.’s benefit. There was no dispute as to the 

following facts reported by police and reflected in the business records: although the 

funds were William M.’s, the Schwab account was opened as a joint tenancy account 

with right of survivorship, despite the ambiguity introduced by William M.’s initials 

designating it an “individual account”; Bonner twice deposited Charles Schwab checks 

for $15,000 into his personal Wells Fargo account at a time when his account balance 

was otherwise negligible; although William M. had Bay Federal checking and savings 

accounts which he regularly used for his expenses, sums corresponding the two Schwab 

checks were not thereafter deposited into either Bay Federal account. 

The trial court was entitled to find the pattern of deposits and withdrawals 

documented in the bank records to be at least circumstantially incriminating, much like 

the designation of the Schwab account as a joint tenancy account with right of 

6 At an earlier hearing, before the prosecution had provided the documentation to 

the court, Bonner had expressly denied every aspect of the allegations: “[i]t’s all 

disputed, Your Honor,” and “our contention is that none of this happened.” Once the 

People submitted the documentary evidence showing the transfer of funds, however, 

Bonner neither reiterated his denial nor disputed that evidence, but contended instead that 

certain of William M.’s contradictory statements to police “completely exonerated” him. 
8

survivorship. Even under the standards applicable to an original sentencing hearing, the 

trial court was well within its broad discretion to deny Bonner the requested reduction, 

based on its finding that the prosecution had adequately rebutted Bonner’s claim of 

rehabilitation. 

Bonner generically characterizes the totality of the prosecution evidence as 

irrelevant, but because he does not engage at all with the evidentiary record, we are hard 

pressed to intuit what aspect of it he believes should have been inconsequential to the 

trial court’s assessment of Bonner’s “ ‘appreciation of and attitude towards the [prior] 

offense’ ” (Alvarez, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 978) or his “rehabilitation, and the longevity 

and duration thereof (Tran, supra, 242 Cal.App.4th at p. 892).7 The evidence that Bonner 

assumed co-ownership of his brain-injured and mentally ill client’s inheritance, then 

deposited money from that account into one that only he controlled, would seem to be 

particularly relevant where, as here, the offenses of conviction involved Bonner’s

attempted deposit of forged checks into his personal bank account with intent to defraud. 

(§ 470, subd. (d).)

Bonner also disputes the reliability of the prosecution evidence, but here again, his

contentions suffer from a lack of particularity. To the extent that Bonner seems to 

suggest on appeal as in the trial court that the absence of a criminal conviction stemming 

from his deposit of $30,000 in William M.’s money precludes its consideration, he has 

cited no authority for such a proposition.8 Nor could he: even in an original sentencing 

proceeding, where a defendant has a cognizable liberty interest and the prosecution bears 

the burden of proving aggravating factors, a court may consider relevant uncharged 

7 An appellant’s failure to specify how the evidence below was deficient may be 

deemed a waiver of the issue. (People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 793 (Stanley).)

8 “ ‘[E]very brief should contain a legal argument with citation of authorities on 

the points made. If none is furnished on a particular point, the court may treat it as 

waived, and pass it without consideration.’ [Citation.]” (Stanley, supra, 10 Cal.4th at 

p. 793.)
9

conduct and acquitted conduct. (See, e.g., BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore (1996)

517 U.S. 559, 573, fn. 19, citing Williams v. New York (1949) 337 U.S. 241; People v. 

Towne (2008) 44 Cal.4th 63.) 

Throughout his briefing, Bonner appears to deem hearsay categorically unreliable 

and therefore unfit for consideration. But even assuming it were the prosecution’s burden 

to disprove a petitioner’s presumptive entitlement to a section 17(b) reduction,

“ ‘[w]hether hearsay evidence is sufficiently reliable to support a sentencing decision 

depends on the facts of the particular case, and is committed to the sound discretion of 

the . . . court.’ ” (People v. Hall (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 831, 839.) The trial court based 

its decision on reliable primary documentation: the Schwab brokerage account forms, 

copies of the checks transferring money from the Schwab account into Bonner’s Wells 

Fargo account, the parties’ bank account statements, and the Homeless Service Center 

employee policies. As the trial court stated, “the documentation reflects that $30,000 of 

the complaining party’s [finances] had been inherited checks were deposited into 

Mr. Bonner’s account, and I don’t believe that Mr. Bonner could account for all that 

$30,000 for being returned to the source -- from [William M.’s] account.” Even by the 

third hearing on his motion, despite notice that the reports and bank records would be 

produced to the court, Bonner provided no evidence—not even a declaration of his 

own—tending to show that he had in fact returned any of the $30,000 to William M. or 

William M.’s accounts, or that his arrangement had been approved even tacitly by his 

employer. (See, e.g., People v. Lamb (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 664, 683 [defendant’s 

advance notice of accusatory letters supported finding of reliability].) At a minimum, the 

trial court was within its discretion to find the evidence sufficiently reliable to impeach 

Bonner’s representations about his good character and the value to be ascribed to his 

years of employment with the Homeless Service Center. 

The only apparently unreliable out-of-court statements before the trial court were 

William M.’s various statements to police, which the police themselves flagged as 
10

contradictory and of questionable value. There is no indication in the record that the trial 

court did in fact rely on William M.’s statements for their truth, as opposed to their 

relevance in establishing his susceptibility to fraudulent exploitation, or to explain the 

subsequent investigation by the officers. Bonner submits that the silence of the record 

should inure to his benefit. But on appeal, “ ‘ “[a]ll intendments and presumptions are 

indulged to support [a judgment] on matters as to which the record is silent, and error 

must be affirmatively shown.” ’ ” (People v. Giordano (2007) 42 Cal.4th 644, 666.) 

Bonner likewise makes much of the trial court’s early supposition that the 

Homeless Service Center had disciplined him for the financial impropriety. But Bonner’s 

counsel appropriately clarified that the record did not establish any adverse employment 

action by the Homeless Service Center, and the trial court thereafter explained that it 

nonetheless considered reduction unwarranted. The trial court accordingly narrowed its 

rationale to what it characterized as Bonner’s breach of employment policies prohibiting 

gifts from Homeless Service Center clients and the statutory duty of care. We have no 

basis to conclude the trial court continued to rely on the cessation of Bonner’s 

employment at the Homeless Service Center as having any marginal probative value.

In his reply brief, Bonner relies heavily on People v. Banda (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 

349 to argue that a sentencing court’s consideration of hearsay is contingent upon an 

express determination of its reliability. This mischaracterizes Banda, in which the 

appellate court concluded that an implicit finding of reliability was—given the specifics 

there omitted as to the sources of the hearsay at issue—an abuse of discretion. (Id. at 

pp. 358-359.) Moreover, Banda is inapposite, dealing with a petition for relief pursuant 

to Health and Safety Code section 11361.8, subdivision (b), which unlike section 17(b) 

presumes a defendant’s eligibility for relief and places the burden on the People to 

prove—by clear and convincing evidence—that the petitioner did not satisfy the criteria 

to have his sentence dismissed. (Banda, supra, at p. 355.) 
11

The evidence before the trial court was sufficiently reliable that the trial court did 

not abuse its discretion in finding that Bonner did not merit discretionary relief. Even 

assuming that reasonable minds could differ on this ultimate issue, it is not our role as a

reviewing court to substitute our judgment for that of the trial judge. (Alvarez, supra, 14 

Cal.4th at p. 978.) 

III. DISPOSITION

The trial court’s order denying Bonner’s motion is affirmed. 
___________________________________

LIE, J.

WE CONCUR:

______________________________________

DANNER, ACTING P.J.

______________________________________

WILSON, J.

People v. Bonner

H048687