## In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas

at Fort Worth

___________________________ No. 02

- 19

- 00351

- CR

___________________________

On App eal from County Criminal Court No. 3

Denton County, Texas Trial Court No. CR

- 2016

- 0153 7

- A
Before Sudderth, C.J.; Gabriel and Wallach, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Justice Gabriel 

### L EON 

### W ILL IAMS 

### , Appellant

V


### . T HE 

### S TATE OF 

### T EXAS2 MEMORANDUM OPINION Appel lant Leon Williams appeals from his conviction for the ft between the

amounts o f $750 and $2,500. In a single issue, he challenges the suffi ciency of the evidence to prove that the appliances found in his rental truck had been stolen and
that t hey were valued at between $750 and $2,500

. Because the evidence circumstantially established that the found appliance s were the stolen property all e ge d
in the in formation and that their value was wit hin the statutory range , we affirm the
tria l court’s judgment.
I. BACKGROUND In the early morning hours of October 30, 2015, Jeremy Boydston

— a loss

prevention man ager for a Lowe’s in Denton County

— saw a Bud get rental truck drive

ar ound to t he back of the store. He test ified this was not normal at 4 :00 a.m. at
Lowe ’ s. Boydston watched the truck on a security camera and saw it back up to a
Lowe’s storage trailer

. B oydston knew th at the locked trailer contai ned used appliances Lowe’s sells to s alva ge yards and he testified that he had never given
per mission to a non employee to enter the trailer

. As Boydston watched , he saw the
trailer do or s open ; he call ed the s tore ’ s manager and the police

. When Officer M arquilla Kilson arrived at the scene, she saw the tr uck backed
up to th e trailer. She heard “banging in side” the truck that sounded like “things being
thrown ” inside of it

. She also c ould hear people inside the truck but was un able to3

identify any perso n in the dark. Kils on did not attempt to confront the individuals , electing “ for safety reaso ns” to wai t for backup to arrive.
O fficer Yancy Green arrived at the scene shortly afterwards and saw th e truck
sp e ed out of the parking lot. Green st opped the tr uck, which Brian Rayford was driving and in which Willi ams was the passenger. A f ter Green go t them o ut of the
truck and informed them of their righ ts, Rayford and Williams told Green that they

w ere “scrapping,” which Green explained w as collectin g disc arded “junk” or scrap metal to sell fo r a profit

. Williams stated that he had permissi on to go “scrapping” at Lowe ’ s bu t he could not remember who had given him this permission. W illiams

as serted that the items he had gathered behind Lowe ’ s had be en on t he gro und
around the ou tside of the trailer.
Green ’ s ba ck

- up officer searched the tr uck and found a pa ir of bo lt cutters between the driver ’ s and p assenger ’ s seats. He also found a rental agree ment for the Budget truck in Willi ams ’ s name. In the back of the truck, t he officers found several used appliances : cooking r anges , clothe s washe rs , and dryers

. Green asked Boydston if he had any inven tory docu mentation to verify by serial number that the found appliances were from Lowe’s , but Boydston had no ne . 1 Boydston later valued these

1 When Lowe’s installs new appl ia nces fo r their customers, Lowe ’s ta kes possession of the old appliances and stores them in the trailer. Boyds ton testified that Lowe’s does not log any individually identifying inform ation

— such as a ser ial number , make , or mode l

— for each used appliance they acquire. Lowe’s then periodically sells the used appliances to salvage or recy cling companies , with p rices based on the total volume of the storage trailer.4

appliances at approxi mately $1,200 to $1,500. An other l oss
- prevention employee for
Low e ’ s , Bria n Townley, valued the appliance s found in the truck at approximately $850 to $1,100.
W illiams was arr ested and charged with th eft in an amount greater than $750 and less than $2,500. See Tex. Penal C ode Ann. § 31.03(a) , (e)(3)

. A jury fo und Williams guilty of the charged offense, an d the trial court assessed punishment at one year’s co nfinement with a $4,000 fine. On appeal, W illiams chall enges the sufficiency
of the evid ence to support his conviction

.

II. SUFFICIENCY O F T HE EVIDEN CE When reviewing a claim like Williams ’ s , we view all the evidence in the light
most favorable to t he verdict to d etermine whether any rational fac t

- finder could have found the crime’s essentia l elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Zuni ga v. S tate , 551 S.W .3d 729, 732 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). Th is st andard of review is the same for
direct

- and circumstan tial

- evidence c ases because cir cumstantial evid ence is as probative as direct evidence in establishing guilt. Id. at 733. W e presume that the
fac t

- finder re solve d any conflicting inference s from the evide nce in favor of the
verdic t and must defer to that reso lution. Id.
T h e essential elements of the ft that the S tate was required to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt were that Wil li ams unlawfully appropria te d prope rty , valued at between $750 and $2,500, with the intent to deprive the owner of that property. Tex.
Penal Code Ann. § 3 1.03(a). Williams arg ues that the State failed to sufficiently prove5

two of these elements: that the app li ances found in t he truck were owne d by Lowe ’ s and were valu ed at between $750 and $2,500.
First , Williams conten ds that the evi dence w as insufficient to establish that t he
ap pliances found in the truck were owned by Lowe ’ s based on (1) Boydston ’ s

tes timony th at he cou ld not confirm by serial number or other wise whether the appliances found in the rental truck had be en taken from t he Lowe ’ s trailer and (2) Town ley ’ s testim ony that th e applianc es found in the truck possibly could have
come from somewher e other t han Lowe ’ s . Wil liams relies on Chenever t v. State in
which a n appellat e cou rt found insufficient evidence to support a theft conviction.
No. 01

- 06

- 00806

- CR, 2007 WL 4283367 , at *3

– 4 (Tex. App.

— Houston [ 1st Dist.] Dec. 6, 20 07, no pe t.) (me m. op., not designated for public ation ).
In Chenevert

, Dianndrea Telsey was see n shopliftin g on camera by th e store’s
loss

- prevention employees and was detained. Id. at *1. The loss

- prevention employees also detained Angela Chenevert , w ho had be en seen shoppin g with Telsey , outside of the s tore
. Id. Officers found two pair s of jeans bearing a store

- exclusi ve brand in the glove compartment of Telsey’s car. Id. Chenevert , who h ad been alone
in Telsey ’ s car , did not have a receipt for t he jeans. Id. The loss

- prevention employees did not see Chenevert take anything or act susp iciously while s hopping
with Te ls ey , but she was occasionally out of sight of the security cameras

. Id. The appellate court held that because there was no eviden ce that C henever t “consc iously asserted any ri ght to t he jeans concealed in Telsey’s glove compartment” and b ecause6

there wa s no evidence that the jeans had been unlawfully appropriated, the eviden ce was legally insufficient to support Chenevert’s theft co nviction even th ough she had
had access t o Tel sey ’s ca r. Id. at *3

– 4. Here, the evidence of Williams ’ s gui lt is more comp elling than that in Chenevert

. Williams ’ s rental truck was watched conti nuously from the time the truck arrived at
Lowe’s in the ea rly

- morni ng dark ness to the time Williams and Ray ford were apprehended by the police. The normally locked tr ailer was unloc ked after the truck sped out of the parking lot. Bo lt cutters and appli a nces such as the ones kep t in the trailer were found in the truck. Taken t ogether, the cumulative force of th is circumstantial evidence pro vided the jury with a sufficient ba sis to reasonab ly infer
that the applian ces found in Williams ’ s truck had been ta ken from the Lowe ’ s trailer.
See , e.g. , Nickerson v. State , 810 S .W.2d 398 , 400

– 01 (Te x. Crim. App. 1991) ; Jones v.
State , 458 S.W.2d 89, 91

– 92 (Tex. Crim. App. 1970); Jahan ian v. State , No. 14

- 07

- 00945

- CR, 2009 WL 1493014 , at *12 (Tex. App.

— Ho uston [ 14t h Dist.] May 28, 2009, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designat ed for publicatio n); Benson v. State , 240 S.W.3d 478, 481

– 82 (Tex. App.

— Eastland 2 007, pe t. ref’d) ; Rogers v. Stat e , 92 9 S.W.2d 103, 108 (Tex. App.

— Beaumont 1996 , no pet. )

. Second , Williams a sserts t hat th e evidence was insufficient to establish that the
app liances found i n his rental truck were valued at between $750 and $2,500

. An
item ’ s fa ir market va lue i s the approp riate valuation measur e , and an owner ’ s testi mony is suffic ient to prove s uch va l ue. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 31.08(a); Holz7

v. State , 320 S.W.3d 344, 3 50 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (relying on Sullivan v. S tate , 701 S.W.2d 905, 909 (Tex. C rim. App. 1986) ). A loss

- prevention employee qualifie s

as a special owner w ho may testify on beh a lf of his employer as to a stolen item ’ s fair
market value. See Sando ne v . State , 394 S.W.3d 788, 792

– 93 (Tex. App.

— For t Wor th
20 13, no pet.) ; se e also McCur dy v. State , 550 S.W.3d 331, 338 (Tex. App.

— Houston [14th Dist. ] 2018, no pet .)

. Boydston a nd To w nley testified that the appli ances found
in Williams ’ s rental truck could have been sold for between $ 7 50 to $1,500. This

tes ti m ony wa s sufficien t to establi sh th e fair market v alue of the stolen property. See,
e.g. , Ray v. State , 10 6 S.W.3d 299, 3 01

– 02 (Tex. App.

— H ouston [1st Dist.] 2003, no pet.) ; Hagan v. State , No. 14

- 01

- 0 0790

- CR, 2002 WL 1438679, at *2 (Tex. App.

— Ho uston [ 14th Di st .] July 3, 2002, pet. r ef ’ d) (not designated for publicat ion). See generally Keeton v. State , 803 S .W. 2d 304, 305 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (holding fair
market value is the amoun t stolen pr operty would sell for , given a reasonable time to sell it )

. III. CONCLUSI ON
Becaus e the evidence allo wed a reas ona ble fact

- finder to find that the appliances found in Willia ms ’ s rental t r u ck were owned by Lowe ’ s and that the fair market value of those appliances wer e valued at between $750 and $2,500, the
evidence was sufficien t to supp ort Williams ’ s t hef t conviction. We overrule
Williams ’ s issue and affirm the trial court ’ s judgment. S e e Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(a).8 /s/ Lee Gabriel
Lee Gabriel Justice Do Not Publish Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)
Delivered: March 26, 2020