Opinion ID: 628688
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence as to Counts II and III

Text: 19 In 1989 Walser applied for farm disaster relief pursuant to a program whereby the ASCS compensated farmers who could prove, inter alia, an inability to plant an intended crop because of bad weather or other forces beyond their control. These claims were referred to as prevented planting claims. Walser's claims asserted the prevented planting of sweet corn, watermelon and cantaloupe. The ASCS county committee reviewing her claims denied relief for lack of documentary support. The committee, however, gave Walser another chance to present evidence to support her claims. At the committee's next meeting, Walser submitted photocopies of several documents purporting to prove her intent to plant sweet corn, watermelon and cantaloupe. These documents included: (1) a cash receipt from Kwik Way Foods (Kwik Way) for corn and cantaloupe seed, (2) a second Kwik Way receipt for cantaloupe seed, and (3) an invoice from Gold Kist Inc. (Gold Kist) for the purchase of watermelon seed, sweet corn seed and fertilizer. Walser told the committee she purchased the seeds for planting in 1989, but poor weather prevented her from planting them. (R.III-175.) 20 After the meeting the committee deliberated. It found the Gold Kist receipt suspicious because it was handwritten. Moreover, William Neighbors (Neighbors), an ASCS employee in Marion, Alabama, informed the committee of a recent conversation he had with Walser during which she mentioned that she had not purchased seeds for sweet corn, watermelons or cantaloupe. (R.III-170, 198.) The committee withheld their decision until the Gold Kist invoice could be verified. Subsequently, Gold Kist's manager informed the committee that the questioned invoice was an invalid ticket. The committee then recommended to the state committee that all payments to Walser be denied for 1989. 21 At trial, Mary Faith Wheeler (Wheeler), Gold Kist's operations manager, testified that Walser met with her sometime before Thanksgiving in 1989 and asked for a falsified invoice. (R.III-216-17.) Walser stated that she needed the invoice for an ASCS meeting the next morning. (Id.) Wheeler at first refused, but then agreed to Walser's request. (R.II-217-18). Wheeler then handwrote a false invoice for the purchase of watermelon seed, corn seed and fertilizer per Walser's specific instructions. (R.III-218-19.) Wheeler handwrote the invoice because Gold Kist's computer-generated invoices would have indicated the correct date and Walser's invoice needed to be back-dated to the previous spring. (R.III-219.) They selected March 22, 1989. (R.III-219-20.) Wheeler wrote charge on the invoice, signifying that Walser received the goods and that they were charged to her account. (R.III-220-221.) 22 Wheeler also testified that Walser wanted an invoice for cantaloupe seed. (R.III-222.) When told that Gold Kist did not sell cantaloupe seed, Walser allegedly stated that she could get Kwik Way to write her a bill on it. (Id.) 23 Gold Kist's one-page invoice forms contained three duplicate pages in differing colors. Walser told Wheeler to put the invoice's pink copy in Gold Kist's patron file as proof of the transaction. Walser kept the remaining three copies. Ordinarily, the form's yellow copy, marked Accounting Copy, was sent to the Atlanta office; the gold copy stayed in Gold Kist's warehouse; the white copy went to the customer. The document submitted to the county committee was a photocopy of the yellow copy, and was clearly marked Accounting Copy. Wheeler testified that there would be no reason for a legitimate customer to possess the yellow Accounting Copy invoice. (R.III-223). 24 The evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Walser made a second ASCS claim for the prevented planting of purple hull peas in 1989. To support that claim Walser submitted a photocopy of an invoice from The Wax Company, a wholesale seed distributor. The invoice indicated that her husband purchased 450 pounds of purple hull pea seed on March 18, 1989. At trial, Wally Barnard (Barnard), The Wax Company's records custodian, produced the original invoice. It differed from the photocopy submitted to the county committee in at least three ways. First, the original invoice listed Magnolia Aviation as the purchaser; the photocopy listed Walser's husband. (R.III-251.) Second, the original invoice listed the purchase date as July 18, 1989; the photocopy's purchase date was changed to March 18, 1989. (Id.) Last, the original invoice's order date was July 17, 1989; the photocopy listed that date as March 17, 1989. (R.III-251-52.) Barnard testified that he did not make any of these changes. (Id.)Ferrel Shiver (Shiver), a forensic document examiner with the United States Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, testified that he examined the original and photocopied Wax Company invoices. He concluded that the photocopied invoice submitted by Walser was altered to change the purchaser's name, the order date, and the date of sale. Shiver noted that the original invoice had been printed on a dot matrix printer; the three alterations were made with a full character printer, such as a typewriter. (R.III-268.) Shiver concluded that the original entries had been covered with an opaquing fluid, commonly known as White-Out, then typed over. (R.III-269.) 25 Walser testified as to Count III only. She stated that she had indeed altered the invoice, but only to correct what she thought were errors on it. (R.III-340.) When asked on cross-examination why she had not contacted The Wax Company to inform them of the purported errors and obtain a corrected copy, she stated that at the time, it didn't really mean anything. (R.III-335.)