COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Willis and Elder 

Argued at Alexandria, Virginia 

JOSE A. SAGASTUME 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 0802-97-4 CHIEF JUDGE JOHANNA L. FITZPATRICK 

 JUNE 2, 1998 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY 

James H. Chamblin, Judge 

 Paul A. Maslakowski, Assistant Public 

Defender, for appellant. 

 Marla Graff Decker, Assistant Attorney 

General (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 Jose A. Sagastume (appellant) was convicted in a jury trial 

of statutory burglary, attempted rape, abduction with intent to 

defile, and two counts of grand larceny. On appeal, he contends 

the trial court erred in denying his motion to strike one of the 

grand larceny convictions as required by the "single larceny 

rule." Finding no error, we affirm. 

 I. 

 "On appeal, we view the evidence in the light most favorable 

to the Commonwealth and grant to it all reasonable inferences 

therefrom." Barlow v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 421, 428-29, 494 

S.E.2d 901, 904 (1998). "The jury's verdict will not be set 

aside unless it appears to be plainly wrong or without evidence 

to support it." Watkins v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 335, 348, 

494 S.E.2d 859, 866 (1998). 
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 In 1994, appellant worked odd jobs for Margareta and Thomas 

Blitz on their sixty-acre farm. After he left the Blitz's 

employment, appellant was arrested and incarcerated. On May 4, 

1996, Mrs. Blitz noticed food and money missing from her home. 

On May 6, 1996, Mrs. Blitz learned that appellant had escaped 

from the Loudoun County jail. She called the police to report 

the thefts, but a search of the area was fruitless. 

 That afternoon, Mrs. Blitz was working in her garden when 

she was struck on the head from behind. She awoke shortly 

thereafter to find someone blindfolding her. The attacker took 

her at knifepoint to a wooded area about six hundred feet away. 

There, he tied her hands around a tree, undressed her, and 

attempted to have sexual intercourse with her. After redressing 

her, he tied her feet to another tree and began asking her 

questions about her husband and a key. The attacker took Mrs. 

Blitz's Seiko watch and a key to the carriage house from her 

pocket. He told Mrs. Blitz that he was going to the house to 

wait for her husband to return home. 

 After about twenty to thirty minutes, Mrs. Blitz freed 

herself and phoned police from a tenant house on the property. 

Officer David Domin arrived in twelve to fifteen minutes and 

observed Mrs. Blitz's blue Volvo pulling out of the driveway with 

the trunk open. The Volvo driver attempted to evade the 

approaching police cars by driving over the grass. When the car 

hit a tree and stopped, a man Domin identified as appellant 
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jumped out and fled. The police pursued him on foot and took him 

into custody. 

 The police inventory of the Volvo contents revealed two 

rifles in a gun case, a kitchen style knife, a pair of blue 

trousers, a lady's style hat, cloth strips torn from a t-shirt, 

and a pair of tennis shoes. In the pocket of the trousers, the 

police found a Casio watch, four bottles of fingernail polish, 

women's makeup, a gold bracelet valued at $4,700, a pair of 

earrings, a necklace with a pendant, two Seiko watches, the key 

to the carriage house, a New York City subway map, a pair of 

sunglasses, and a pair of rubber gloves. In the trunk of the 

Volvo, the police found two backpacks which contained men's and 

women's clothing, a purse, and shoes. 

 Appellant was indicted for, inter alia, grand larceny of 

Mrs. Blitz's Volvo, grand larceny of firearms belonging to the 

Blitzes, and grand larceny of their personal property. At the 

conclusion of the Commonwealth's case-in-chief, the trial court 

granted appellant's motion to strike the grand larceny charge 

distinguishing the firearms from the other personal property, but 

denied the motion with respect to the larceny of the Volvo. 

 The trial court ruled that separate larcenies may be charged 

"only if the evidence showed that the offenses were separate and 

distinct and not committed pursuant to one intention, one impulse 

or one plan."1 The court reasoned that "what occurred inside of 

 

 1The trial court recessed to review the panel decision in 

Richardson v. Commonwealth, 23 Va. App. 668, 479 S.E.2d 87 
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the house . . . [was] all one offense," and the personal property 

"might have been items . . . that he could sell to raise money. 

With the automobile, however . . . the jury could conclude . . . 

that he took it because he wanted to use it for transportation." 

 The trial court ruled as follows: 

 [A]s to the items inside of the house that 

are alleged to have been taken, the evidence 

would be as only one continuous larceny 

event, but as to the Volvo, I cannot include 

that. I think the jury has sufficient 

evidence upon which to find that the intent 

was separate and distinct. 

 The jury convicted appellant on both grand larceny charges, 

and the trial court sentenced him to ten years imprisonment for 

grand larceny of the Volvo and seven years for grand larceny of 

the personal property. 

 II. 

 Appellant contends the evidence supports only one conviction 

of larceny. We disagree. 

 It is a long established and fundamental principle that: 

 where several articles of property are stolen 

at the same time and place, though the stolen 

goods belong to different persons, the 

stealing is regarded as one transaction, and, 

therefore, as one offense, which may be 

charged in a single count. 

Alexander v. Commonwealth, 90 Va. 809, 810, 20 S.E. 782, 783 

 

(1996). At the time of trial on February 25, 1997, we had not 

yet granted en banc review of that decision. However, the trial 

court's statement of the applicable law is consistent with this 

Court's en banc holding in Richardson. See 25 Va. App. 491, 489 

S.E.2d 697 (1997) (en banc). 
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(1894). "The concept is commonly referred to as the 'single 

larceny doctrine.'" Richardson v. Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 491, 

495, 489 S.E.2d 697, 699 (1997) (en banc). 

 Broadly stated, the general rule is that the 

taking of property at different times, though 

from the same place and the same owner, will 

constitute separate offenses; and no 

aggregation of successive petit larcenies, 

not constituting parts of a continuous 

transaction, but each complete and distinct 

in itself, can be combined in one prosecution 

so as to make a case of grand larceny. 

 But a series of larcenous acts, 

regardless of the amount and value of the 

separate parcels or articles taken, and 

regardless of the time occupied in the 

performance, may and will constitute, in 

contemplation of law, a single larceny, 

provided the several acts are done pursuant 

to a single impulse and in execution of a 

general fraudulent scheme. 

West v. Commonwealth, 125 Va. 747, 754, 99 S.E. 654, 656 (1919) 

(emphasis added). See Jha v. Commonwealth, 18 Va. App. 349, 354, 

444 S.E.2d 258, 261 (1994) (aggregating the value of multiple 

calls made to "900" numbers by illegal use of a telephone line 

access device). 

 "[A]pplication of the doctrine becomes problematic when 

applied to the infinite variety of circumstances that can arise." 

Richardson, 25 Va. App. at 495, 489 S.E.2d at 699. 

 The primary factor to be considered is the 

intent of the thief and the question to be 

asked is whether the thefts, although 

occurring successively within a brief time 

frame, were part of one impulse. The 

circumstances to be considered that will bear 

upon the issue are the location of the items 

stolen, the lapse of time between their 

taking, the general and specific intent of 
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the thief, the number of owners, and whether 
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 intervening events occurred between the 

takings. 

Id. at 497, 489 S.E.2d at 700. 

 In Richardson, the theft of two purses from a nurses' 

station "occurred at approximately the same time, from the same 

room or location, and pursuant to a single impulse or design to 

steal items from that nurses' station." Id. at 498, 489 S.E.2d 

at 701. This Court held "[t]he only conclusion that a fact 

finder could reasonably draw from this record is that Richardson 

went to the tenth floor nurses' station intending to steal purses 

or other items of value and that he stole two purses during one 

continuous act or transaction." Id. at 499, 489 S.E.2d at 701. 

 The full Court in Richardson declined to reconsider the 

panel's unanimous holding that two thefts "from separate 

buildings in the same complex were separate offenses, even though 

they were in furtherance of the defendant's general scheme to 

steal." Richardson, 25 Va. App. at 494 n.1, 489 S.E.2d at 699 

n.1. Consequently, thefts of purses and backpacks from different 

buildings within the Medical College of Virginia Hospital Complex 

were considered separate larcenies. See Richardson v. 

Commonwealth, 23 Va. App. 668, 479 S.E.2d 87 (1996), aff'd in 

part, 25 Va. App. 491, 489 S.E.2d 697 (1997). 

 In the instant case, the record indicated that the various 

larcenies of the watches, jewelry, and other personal property 

occurred inside the house, and the evidence supported the 

inference that the purpose of the thefts was to sell the items, 
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or possibly in the case of the rifles, to use them for 

protection. The jury could also have inferred that the larceny 

of the Volvo occurred at a later time, outside the home, and the 

intent evinced by this theft was to steal the car to transport 

appellant away from the scene of his crimes. Consequently, the 

jury could reasonably have concluded that, despite any "general 

scheme" on the part of appellant, "each [theft] was a separate 

and discrete offense and was not part of the same impulse or 

continuous larcenous act at the same location." Richardson, 25 

Va. App. at 498, 489 S.E.2d at 701. The jury's verdict was 

supported by the evidence and was not plainly wrong. For the 

foregoing reasons, the convictions are affirmed. 

 Affirmed.