COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judges Coleman and Overton 

Argued at Salem, Virginia 

JAMES DAVID SPARKS, a/k/a 

 JAMES D. SPARKS 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 0452-96-3 JUDGE SAM W. COLEMAN III 

 MARCH 4, 1997 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WASHINGTON COUNTY 

Willis A. Woods, Judge Designate 

 Joseph F. Dene (Dene & Dene, on brief), for 

appellant. 

 Eugene Murphy, Assistant Attorney General 

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

brief), for appellee. 

 The issue presented in this appeal from two convictions of 

obtaining money by false pretenses is whether the trial court 

erred by admitting into evidence certain bank records under the 

business records exception to the hearsay rule. Specifically, 

the question is whether the bank's vice-president, who had 

general supervisory authority over bank personnel but no direct 

supervision over the persons responsible for preparing or 

maintaining the bank's records, was a person who could 

authenticate the bank's records. We hold that the trial judge 

did not err by admitting the bank records into evidence. 

Accordingly, we affirm the appellant's convictions. 

 James Sparks, the appellant, was convicted on two counts of 

obtaining money by false pretenses in violation of Code 

§ 18.2-178. The evidence proved that on two separate occasions 
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the appellant presented checks at a local grocery store that 

purported to be payroll checks drawn on S & S Salvage Company's 

account. Both checks were made payable to the appellant and 

purported to have been signed by an Edward Sparks. The store 

cashed both checks. The checks were subsequently returned by 

First Union Bank because the account upon which they were drawn 

had been closed. 

 At trial, Karen Emanuelson, the vice-president of corporate 

security for First Union Bank, offered as evidence copies of 

several bank documents, including a deposit slip for the S & S 

Salvage account, a signature card for the account, a First Union 

form giving authority to open a business account to an 

unincorporated individual, and a W-9 federal tax form. The 

appellant objected to the admission of the documents on the 

ground that they had not been properly authenticated. He argued 

that Ms. Emanuelson was neither the custodian of the documents 

nor the supervisor of the custodian of the documents as required 

by the modern "shopbook" rule and Code § 8.01-391. After a voir 

dire of Ms. Emanuelson to determine her knowledge of and access 

to the records, the trial judge ruled that the documents were 

admissible. 

 Virginia follows the modern "shopbook" rule or business 

records exception to the hearsay rule, which allows introduction 

"into evidence of verified regular [business] entries without 

requiring proof from the original observers or record keepers." 
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Neeley v. Johnson, 215 Va. 565, 571, 211 S.E.2d 100, 106 (1975). 

 If the records are kept in the normal course of business and are 

relied upon in the transaction of the business by the entity for 

which they are kept, then they have a certain guarantee of 

trustworthiness and reliability. "Automatic" Sprinkler Corp. v. 

Coley & Peterson, Inc., 219 Va. 781, 792, 250 S.E.2d 765, 773 

(1979); Hooker v. Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 454, 456, 418 S.E.2d 

343, 344 (1992). "Admission of such evidence is conditioned, 

therefore, on proof that the document comes from the proper 

custodian and that it is a record kept in the ordinary course of 

business made contemporaneously with the event by persons having 

the duty to keep a true record." "Automatic" Sprinkler, 219 Va. 

at 793, 250 S.E.2d at 773; see also Kettler & Scott, Inc. v. 

Earth Tech. Cos., 248 Va. 450, 457, 449 S.E.2d 782, 786 (1994). 

In order to admit a business record into evidence, it must be 

"verified by testimony of the [entrant of the record] or of a 

superior who testifies to the regular course of business." Ford 

Motor Co. v. Phelps, 239 Va. 272, 276, 389 S.E.2d 454, 457 

(1990); see also Charles E. Friend, The Law of Evidence in 

Virginia § 18-13 (4th ed. 1993). Similarly, a copy of a business 

record is admissible "provided that such copy is satisfactorily 

identified and authenticated as a true copy by a custodian of 

such record or by the person to whom said custodian reports, if 

they be different, and is accompanied by a certificate that said 

person does in fact have custody." Code § 8.01-391. 
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 The facts in this case, as they relate to the qualifications 

of the witness to authenticate the bank's records, are strikingly 

similar to the facts in French v. Virginian Ry. Co., 121 Va. 383, 

93 S.E. 585 (1917). We find that the holding in French controls 

our holding here. In French, the defendant attempted to 

introduce a railroad company's records showing the times of its 

trains' arrivals and departures. Instead of calling as a witness 

the railroad's dispatcher in whose office the records were made 

and kept, the defendant called a claims adjuster, who worked for 

the railroad company in its division office. Id. at 385, 93 S.E. 

at 585. The Virginia Supreme Court held that, even though the 

records preferably should have been authenticated by the 

dispatcher, "failure to do so affects, not their admissibility, 

but their credibility, and the vital question is, not by whom 

they were proved, but whether or not they were the original 

[documents]." Id. at 387, 93 S.E. at 586. The Court held that 

the railroad's records were admissible because the claims 

adjuster testified that he had access to all of the railroad's 

records, that the arrival and departure records were the original 

records entered in the regular course of the railroad's business, 

and that he obtained them from the place where they were properly 

kept in custody. Id. 

 At trial in the instant case, Ms. Emanuelson testified that 

the bank's records at issue here were kept in the regular course 

of the bank's business. She testified that her job as 
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vice-president of corporate security involved gathering 

documentation from the bank's records whenever the bank suffered 

a non-credit loss. She testified that the bank's records are 

stored at the Roanoke service center and that no one individual 

is the custodian in charge of the records. As a vice-president, 

she has access to all records stored at the service center. She 

can personally retrieve documents or have someone at the service 

center pull the records and send them to her. She is not, 

however, the immediate supervisor of the employees at the service 

center. 

 After Ms. Emanuelson demonstrated her knowledge of how the 

bank maintains its records and testified that she has access to 

those records, she further testified that the challenged 

documents were prepared at the Grundy branch bank by a bank 

employee and were then sent by courier to the Roanoke service 

center. She testified that deposit slips are microfilmed as soon 

as they reach the service center; the originals are destroyed, 

and the film is kept for seven years. Ms. Emanuelson testified 

that she went to the service center and personally made copies of 

the originals of the documents that were offered into evidence. 

 Ms. Emanuelson's demonstrated knowledge of how the bank's 

records were maintained in the regular course of its business and 

her testimony that she had access to the records established the 

trustworthiness and reliability of the bank's records, which are 

the cornerstones of the business records exception to the hearsay 
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rule and Code § 8.01-391(D). Therefore, we uphold the ruling of 

the trial court and affirm the convictions. 

 Affirmed.