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Filed 4/3/14 P. v. Weissman CA1/1 

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS 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 

publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication 

or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. 

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT 

DIVISION ONE 

THE PEOPLE, 

 Plaintiff and Respondent, 

v. 

MARC WEISSMAN, 

 Defendant and Appellant. 

 A136785 

 (San Mateo County 

 Super. Ct. No. SC073627A) 

I. INTRODUCTION 

 Defendant Marc Weissman, an attorney, entered a Chase Bank (Chase) branch in 

Foster City with a fraudulent check made out to his former law firm for $280,000 and, 

according to the bank teller and assistant manager, tried to cash it. Defendant testified he 

was 99 percent sure the check was fraudulent, because of the circumstances under which 

it came to him, but he just wanted the bank’s confirmation of his suspicion. He was 

joking when he said he wanted to cash the check. A jury evidently disbelieved him, 

because it convicted him of burglary (Pen. Code, §§ 459 & 460, subd. (b)) and check 

fraud (Pen. Code, § 476). Defendant was granted probation on the condition, among 

others, that he perform 400 hours of community service. In this court, defendant 

contends the evidence adduced at trial is insufficient to support his convictions. We 

affirm. 
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II. STATEMENT OF FACTS 

A. The Testimony of Bank Personnel 

 On Saturday, January 22, 2011, defendant walked into a Chase Bank branch in 

Foster City. No other customers were present. Wesam Deawah, a bank teller, noticed 

that defendant appeared to be waiting to speak to someone and asked if he could help. 

Defendant walked to Deawah’s teller station, handed Deawah a Chase cashier’s check for 

$280,000, and said he would like to cash the check. The cashier’s check was for a 

“relatively high [amount] to cash” and it looked very different from a Chase cashier’s 

check. Because it is unusual for someone to ask to cash such a large check, Deawah 

assumed he had misheard defendant, or defendant had misspoken, or defendant must be 

joking. So, Deawah asked defendant again what he would like to do with the check. 

Defendant repeated he wanted to cash the check. Deawah immediately began looking up 

the account number on the computer while simultaneously asking defendant for 

identification, per standard bank practice. Although the check was made out to “Weiss 

and Weissman, Inc.,” the name on the check matched the name on defendant’s 

identification. The account associated with the cashier’s check had many red flags for 

fraudulent activities. Deawah told defendant to wait while he presented the check to his 

assistant manager, Alpana Sinha. While Sinha was looking up the account, Deawah went 

back to defendant and asked if there was a letter with the check. Defendant said yes and 

handed over a letter to Deawah, which Deawah took with him when he went to talk to his 

manager. 

 Sinha confirmed the fraudulent activity on the account and called Chase’s fraud 

department. The bank employees were instructed to confiscate the check and any other 

evidence that came with it, and to notify the customer it is a fraudulent check that the 

bank is unable to process. 

 Deawah followed these instructions and told defendant, “[T]his is a fraudulent 

check and we are unable to cash it or process it.” He also said the bank had to confiscate 
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it and thanked defendant for bringing the fraudulent check to the bank’s attention. 

Defendant replied he still wanted to cash the check. He stated it was his check and his 

name was on it; it was his property and he wanted to keep it. Deawah said the check 

belonged to Chase and they had to report it. When defendant asked to take a closer look 

at the check, Deawah held it up at a distance. Defendant reached over the counter and 

tried to take the check from the teller’s hand. After a tug-of-war, the teller took the check 

back from defendant, who then said he was going to call the authorities. Defendant 

stormed out of the bank but returned a few minutes later and asked the teller to call the 

authorities for him. 

 Defendant never indicated to Deawah that he was joking. He never said anything 

along the lines of, “You probably can’t cash this check.” He never asked the teller to 

verify whether the check was fraudulent. Based on what he said and the way he acted, it 

seemed to Deawah that defendant was representing that the check was genuine. 

 After completing her duties with respect to the fraudulent check, Sinha went to 

Deawah’s teller station to lend him her support. Sinha never saw the letter; she heard a 

conversation about it between the teller and defendant. She also heard defendant say he 

wanted to cash the check “again and again.” She saw defendant grab for the check. He 

did not appear to be joking. Neither she nor the teller told defendant the check was 

fraudulent as far as she was aware. She thought defendant might have exited the bank as 

the police entered, but she was not sure. She saw Officer Blankswade, but bank policy 

prevented her from giving the check to the officer at that time. 

B. The Police Investigation 

 Defendant was waiting outside the bank when Foster City Police Officer 

Rosemerry Blankswade arrived. To Blankswade, defendant appeared “flustered.” He 

was pacing in front of the bank with his arms firmly crossed on his chest and his eyes 

darting about very quickly. As soon as she was within earshot, defendant told her 
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spontaneously that the check was his and he wanted it back. He said he knew the check 

was fraudulent before he went to the bank, but he wanted to know for sure. 

 Defendant explained to Blankswade that on January 4, 2011, he received an email 

from a woman named Karen Clark informing him that her ex-husband, one David Barker, 

would be sending him a check for $290,000 “for partial payment.” Defendant said he did 

not know either Clark or Barker; they were not clients, friends, or colleagues. The email 

was directed to him personally and not to his former law firm. Defendant said he knew it 

was a scam because he did not do divorce work and had never done any work for these 

people. 

 On the morning of Saturday, January 22, defendant received a package containing 

a check for $280,000 and a letter naming two other people he did not know. At this 

point, defendant knew “for a fact” the check was fraudulent. Nevertheless, he called 

Chase Bank in an unsuccessful attempt to verify whether or not the check was fraudulent. 

The bank’s phone representative suggested he show the check to someone at a branch. 

When defendant got to the bank, he asked the teller if he could cash the check. 

Defendant told Blankswade he “wanted to verify whether or not that check was real by 

cashing it.” 

 Defendant never told Blankswade he was joking when he said he wanted to cash 

the check. Blankswade testified defendant said “[h]is intention was to cash [the check].” 

His exact words were: “I wanted to cash the check.” That admission was not 

memorialized in the police report. Neither was the fact that Blankswade interviewed the 

assistant manager. 

 Later, defendant forwarded to Blankswade the January 4 email. Blankswade 

memorialized the email verbatim in her police report. It said: “Dear Marc Weissman. 

Good day to you. Work has been highly demanding over here lately. This is to inform 

you that my ex-husband, David Barker, has just confirmed to me that he has made a 

partial payment of $290,000 in your firm’s name. He said his job currently took him to 
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Canada and certified funds was [sic] mailed from there. He also opines that funds will 

get to you today. Do confirm to me upon receipt of the funds. Please note that as soon as 

you receive the funds you are to deduct all of your charging fees and have the balance 

sent to me. Once again, thank you so much for making this happen. Awaiting your 

response, Karen Clark.” The forwarded email included defendant’s response: “Were you 

expecting only partial payment? Then I have good news. He paid it in full. Where do 

you want me to mail it to you?” 

 Blankswade obtained the letter that accompanied the check from the bank teller. 

The letter contained the names Winnie Bardot and David Achibang, as well as an email 

address and phone number. Although defendant sent “quite a few emails” to Officer 

Blankswade and Captain Froomin requesting the charges against him be dropped, he 

never asked them to investigate these two persons. 

 Chase Bank failed to provide the video surveillance for that day in response to a 

subpoena from the district attorney’s office. However, some snapshots from the bank’s 

digital video system were produced at trial. 

C. The Defense 

 Defendant testified on his own behalf. He is an attorney specializing in the 

practice of tax and estate law since 1980. He started a law firm in San Francisco, Weiss 

& Weissman, which he left in 1996 to practice out of his home. Although he maintains 

an association with his former firm, he has no ownership interest in it. 

 His law practice has been lucrative, earning him an average income of $245,000 

per year from 2007 to 2011. He and his wife own three rental properties that generate a 

positive cash flow of more than $51,000 per year. They have $400,000 of equity in their 

Foster City home, and retirement accounts worth $866,000. Despite this wealth, they live 

frugally and drive old cars. A member of Peninsula Sinai Congregation, a Jewish 
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temple,1

 defendant observes the Sabbath and does not like to be seen driving or working 

from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday; however, he picks and chooses which 

religious rules he follows. 

 It was not his intention to walk out of the bank with $280,000 in cash. 

 He immediately recognized from the original email that it was a scam. He 

responded to the email because he was bored and he thought, “[W]ouldn’t it be nice to 

turn a scam on a scammer.” The check looked real to him, although he was “99 percent 

sure it was phony.” However, he was not going to “just throw it out,” because it looked 

real and he did not “need the aggravation of the person who sent it to me asking where is 

the check, what happened to my money.” Besides, the people who sent the check were 

potential clients. 

 Defendant has had clients who sent him large amounts of money to be held in his 

trust account, including one client who sent him money to make monthly alimony 

payments to the client’s ex-wife. 

 He went to the bank intending to talk to a bank manager, but all the bank officers 

were with customers. When the teller asked if he could help, defendant said, “Sure, I 

would like to cash this check.” It was his “odd sense of humor.” He never seriously 

expected to cash a $280,000 check. He also wisecracked something like: “They 

probably don’t even have that much cash in the bank.” Defendant did not think the teller 

took him seriously. 

 While waiting for the teller to come back, defendant was “mad as hell” because 

the bank was wasting his time instead of letting him verify the check’s status on the 

phone, and because he was “out on Sabbath in public doing business, which is not 

something a good Jew should be doing.” Neither the teller nor the manager told him the 

check was fraudulent. They said they were going to keep the check. 

 

1

 Captain Froomin is also a member of the congregation. 
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 Defendant admitted that when it became apparent to him the teller was not going 

to return the check, he “tried to pull it out of [the teller’s] hand.” Initially, defendant said 

he was going to call the police: “This is my paperwork. They will get it back for me.” 

In the end, the teller had to make the call because defendant did not have his cell phone 

with him. 

 Defendant agreed he told the officer: “That check is mine. It has my name on it. 

It was written to me and I want it back.” He also said: “I knew it was fraudulent before I 

came over here, but I wanted to know for sure. So, I went into the bank to see for sure.” 

III. DISCUSSION 

 Defendant argues the evidence adduced at trial is insufficient as a matter of law to 

support his convictions for burglary and check fraud, because the evidence did not 

establish he had the intent to defraud the bank. We disagree. 

 In reviewing a claim of insufficiency of the evidence on appeal, “ ‘the relevant 

question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime 

beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ” (People v. Johnson (1980) 26 Cal.3d 557, 576, quoting 

Jackson v. Virginia (1979) 443 U.S. 307, 318-319.) “An appellate court must view the 

evidence in the light most favorable to respondent and presume in support of the 

judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the 

evidence.” (People v. Reilly (1970) 3 Cal.3d 421, 425; accord, People v. Pensinger

(1991) 52 Cal.3d 1210, 1237.) “Evidence is sufficient to support a conviction only if it is 

substantial, that is, if it ‘ “reasonably inspires confidence” ’ [citation], and is ‘credible 

and of solid value.’ ” (People v. Raley (1992) 2 Cal.4th 870, 891.) 

 A trier of fact may rely on inferences to support a conviction only if those 

inferences are “of such substantiality that a reasonable trier of fact could determine 

beyond a reasonable doubt” that the inferred facts are true. (People v. Raley, supra, 2 

Cal.4th 870, 891.) An appellate court must “accept logical inferences that the jury might 
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have drawn from the circumstantial evidence.” (People v. Maury (2003) 30 Cal.4th 342, 

396.) 

 “To warrant the rejection of the statements given by a witness who has been 

believed by a trial court, there must exist either a physical impossibility that they are true, 

or their falsity must be apparent without resorting to inferences or deductions. 

[Citations.] Conflicts and even testimony which is subject to justifiable suspicion do not 

justify the reversal of a judgment, for it is the exclusive province of the trial judge or jury 

to determine the credibility of a witness and the truth or falsity of the facts upon which a 

determination depends.” (People v. Huston (1943) 21 Cal.2d 690, 693, overruled on 

other grounds in People v. Burton (1961) 55 Cal.2d 328, 352.) 

 The jury here was instructed on Penal Code section 476: “To prove [that] the 

defendant is guilty of this crime, [the] People must prove that: One, the defendant 

attempted to pass or use a false check; Two, the defendant knew the document was false 

and; Three, when the defendant attempted to pass or use the document, he intended to 

defraud. Someone intends to defraud if he or she intends to deceive another person either 

to cause a loss of money or something else of value or to cause damage to a legal, 

financial or property right. It is not necessary that anyone actually be defrauded or 

actually suffer a financial, legal or property loss as a result of the defendant’s acts. A 

person attempts to pass or use a document if he or she represents to someone . . . that the 

document is genuine. The representation may be made . . . by words or conduct and may 

be either direct or indirect.” (CALCRIM No. 1935.) 

 The jury was also instructed, in relevant part, that to prove defendant guilty of 

burglary, “[the] People must prove that: One, defendant entered a building and; Two, 

when he entered the building he intended to commit check fraud, Penal Code section 

476,” as defined in the instruction on that crime. 

 Here, defendant’s “arguments of insufficiency of the evidence are built mainly 

upon actual or asserted inconsistencies in the testimony of various witnesses.” (People v. 
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Reinard (1963) 220 Cal.App.2d 720, 730.) For example, defendant focuses on 

differences between the testimony of the teller and the testimony of the assistant bank 

manager. He also points to discrepancies between Officer Blankswade’s testimony and 

the police report. But defendant does not show the teller’s testimony was inherently 

improbable, physically impossible, or demonstrably false. At most, defendant 

demonstrates the teller’s testimony was contradicted by the assistant manager on 

tangential issues: (1) whether she or the teller told defendant the check was fraudulent, 

(2) whether defendant said he was going to sue Chase, and (3) whether the assistant 

manager saw the letter defendant gave to the teller. None of these statements bear 

directly on defendant’s state of mind. 

 Similarly, defendant argues that Officer Blankswade testified defendant told her 

he wanted to cash the check, but she did not put that statement in her police report. 

Blankswade also testified she interviewed the assistant manager, but did not include that 

in her police report. She also put in her report that defendant told the teller he wanted to 

cash the check once, whereas the teller testified defendant made that statement “roughly 

about four times.” To be sure, these inconsistencies bear on the credibility of the various 

witnesses. However, these inconsistencies were brought to the jury’s attention by crossexamination and in closing arguments, and the jury made its credibility determinations. 

The asserted inconsistencies do not “surmount the hurdle of People v. Huston, [supra,] 21 

Cal.2d 690, 693.” (People v. Reinard, supra, 220 Cal.App.2d 720, 730.) 

 In his briefs and again at oral argument, counsel for defendant stressed that no 

“rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a 

reasonable doubt” (Jackson, supra, 443 U.S. 307, 318) because no reasonable jury 

familiar with modern day facts and conditions could have found defendant actually 

believed he could cash a $280,000 check in light of undisputed testimony and common 

knowledge that a person cannot cash a $280,000 check at a bank where he or she does not 

have an account. Essentially, defendant argues that since “[t]here was no imaginable 
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way, as a practical matter ” (i.e., it was a physical impossibility) for defendant to actually 

cash the check for $280,000, no rational jury could have concluded defendant, an 

attorney, believed he could get away with it. Defendant cites no authority for the 

assertion that the intent to defraud necessarily includes “a subsidiary element of belief in 

the possibility of obtaining a wrongful monetary benefit.” (Italics added.) Subjective 

belief in the success of a criminal enterprise, however delusional, is not part of the intent 

element of any crime so far as we are aware. Defendant testified he did not intend to 

walk out of the bank with $280,000 in cash. He testified it was his “odd sense of humor” 

talking when he told the teller he wanted to cash the check. He testified he “believed it 

[was] so obvious to anybody in the world that it is totally ridiculous to expect the bank to 

cash the check that I am astounded this whole process started.” However, in light of 

other evidence – his insistence on cashing the check even when told by the teller it was 

fraudulent, and his attempt to snatch back the check when told the bank would have to 

keep it – the jury evidently disbelieved defendant’s testimony. 

 The People’s case against defendant, if believed, was strong. It included 

numerous admissions by defendant and testimony from which a rational jury could infer 

defendant’s intent. Defendant’s own testimony corroborated much of the People’s case. 

The jury simply did not believe defendant was “only joking.” Applying the rules of 

appellate review articulated above, ample evidence supports the jury’s finding that 

defendant acted with the intent to defraud when he presented a check for $280,000 to a 

bank teller for cashing. Defendant’s convictions are supported by substantial evidence. 
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IV. DISPOSITION 

 The judgment is affirmed. 

 _________________________ 

 Dondero, J. 

We concur: 

_________________________ 

Margulies, Acting P.J. 

_________________________ 

Becton, J.*

 

*

 Judge of the Contra Costa County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice 

pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.