Court Opinion

ID: 9539200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 11:09:24.858962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:36.199503
License: Public Domain

Opinion issued August 3, 2023

                                       In The

                               Court of Appeals
                                      For The

                           First District of Texas
                             ————————————
                               NO. 01-22-00318-CR
                            ———————————
                     DONOVAN JACOB FARR, Appellant
                                         V.
                       THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

                    On Appeal from the 209th District Court
                            Harris County, Texas
                        Trial Court Case No. 1675614

                          MEMORANDUM OPINION

      Donovan Jacob Farr entered a plea of guilty to the offense of tampering with

a government record. The trial court withheld a finding of guilt and placed Farr on

deferred-adjudication community supervision for a period of four years. Later,

finding that Farr had violated the terms of his community supervision, the trial court
adjudged him guilty of the offense and assessed his punishment at ten years in prison.

Farr appeals, arguing in a single issue that the trial court abused its discretion in

finding that he had violated the terms of his community supervision. We affirm.

                                  BACKGROUND

      The State moved to revoke Farr’s deferred-adjudication community

supervision and adjudicate his guilt. It argued that he had violated the terms of his

community supervision by violating Section 32.51 of the Texas Penal Code, which

makes it an offense to fraudulently use or possess another’s identifying information.

      Farr pled not true to the State’s allegations. And the trial court, sitting as

factfinder, held an evidentiary hearing to decide whether the allegations were true.

      The State called three witnesses, the first of which was Jackie Scurry, the court

liaison officer for the 209th District Court. As part of her job, she is the custodian of

records for probation-related documents. Scurry testified that Farr had been placed

on deferred-adjudication community supervision for a period of four years in

connection with a prior case alleging that he tampered with a government record.

She further stated that Farr’s period of deferred adjudication had not yet concluded.

      Scurry explained that the 209th District Court imposed terms and conditions

on Farr in connection with the deferred adjudication and that these terms and

conditions had been explained to Farr. Farr indicated that he understood the terms

and conditions by signature. One of these terms and conditions was that he not

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commit any criminal offenses. But Farr did not comply, specifically by committing

the offense of fraudulently using or possessing another’s identifying information.

      A copy of the district court’s order of deferred adjudication was admitted into

evidence without objection. Accompanying the order was a document entitled

Conditions of Community Supervision. Its first term provides that Farr “[c]ommit

no offense against the laws of this or any other State or of the United States.”

      The State’s second witness was D. Frederick, a peace officer with the

Pasadena Police Department. He conducted a traffic stop when Farr made an unsafe

lane change and ultimately arrested Farr due in part to an outstanding warrant.

      During the traffic stop, Frederick searched Farr’s vehicle. He found two

checks in the center console that he “believed to be fraudulent at the time.” Once at

the jail for booking, Frederick searched Farr’s wallet for contraband and found

“several IDs and debit cards that did not belong to him.” The names of the persons

associated with these IDs and debit cards were Camron Finney, Ikoreous

Youngblood, Daniel Reyes, Christian Saenz, Joshua Blackmon, and Danielle Lewis.

      Farr told Frederick that he purposely obtained the card belonging to Christian

Saenz under a false name. That is, Farr claimed that he was Saenz, explaining that

he used a false name in this case because he was a convicted felon under his own

name. Farr claimed Reyes was his cousin. He further claimed Finney was his

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nephew. Farr gave no explanation as to why he had the ones relating to Blackmon

or Lewis, but he claimed that Youngblood “was possibly his sister’s boyfriend.”

      On cross-examination, Frederick stated with respect to the two checks that he

“passed the investigation off to our financial crimes detectives.” Thus, Frederick

himself did not know one way or the other whether the checks were fraudulent.

      Frederick also agreed that he called a second officer, K. Adams, to the scene

of the traffic stop. Frederick did not recall whether he or Adams first collected Farr’s

wallet during the traffic stop. But body-camera footage showed that Adams did so.

      Adams conducted an inventory of the contents of Farr’s vehicle. Frederick

admitted he “wasn’t aware exactly” what Adams did during this process. Defense

counsel asked whether it was possible that Adams “may have found some more of

those cards, like the ones you found, and then put them in” Farr’s wallet “just to

condense them.” Frederick replied “anything is possible” but said he did not know.

      Farr told Frederick the vehicle he was driving belonged to his brother.

Frederick testified that he runs the vehicle registration during all traffic stops, but he

could not recall the results here. So, he did not know to whom Farr’s vehicle was

registered. Nor was this detail memorialized in Frederick’s report about the stop.

      Finally, the State called Ikoreous Youngblood to the stand. Youngblood

testified that he did not know Farr. He said he left his ID in his car, which was stolen.

Youngblood said he never gave Farr or anyone else permission to have his ID.

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      Farr then testified in his own defense. The day he was stopped, he was out on

bond and did not have his own vehicle, so he had borrowed his brother’s vehicle.

      Farr testified he did not know about the checks in the vehicle’s console. He

denied that Youngblood’s ID had been in his wallet. He said he did not know how it

got in there. Farr said that none of the other IDs or debit cards had been in his wallet

either. But he conceded on cross-examination that his charge for tampering with a

government record arose from an attempt to buy a vehicle with a fraudulent ID.

      In his closing argument, defense counsel argued that the trial court should

credit Farr’s testimony that the various IDs and debit cards in others’ names were

not in his wallet. Defense counsel maintained that the IDs and cards may well have

just been in the vehicle and then placed in Farr’s wallet by Officer Adams when he

inventoried the vehicle so as to collect them all in a single place. According to

defense counsel, the IDs and debit cards may have belonged to Farr’s brother instead.

      The trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the State’s

allegation that Farr had committed the offense of fraudulently using or possessing

identifying information was true. Thus, the court adjudged Farr guilty of the offense

for which he had been on deferred-adjudication community supervision—tampering

with a government record—and sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment.

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                                  DISCUSSION

      Farr argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to show that he violated

the terms of his community supervision by committing the offense of using or

possessing another’s identifying information. In particular, he argues that the State

did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he possessed another’s

identifying information with the specific intent to defraud or harm another.

                               Standard of Review

      We review a trial court’s decision to revoke deferred-adjudication community

supervision for an abuse of discretion. Leonard v. State, 385 S.W.3d 570, 576 (Tex.

Crim. App. 2012). In general, a trial court has the discretion to revoke community

supervision when a preponderance of the evidence supports one of the State’s

allegations that the defendant violated a condition of his community supervision. Id.

                                 Applicable Law

      A person commits the offense of fraudulently using or possessing identifying

information if, among other things, he, with the intent to harm or defraud another,

obtains, possesses, transfers, or uses an item of identifying information of another

person without the other person’s consent or effective consent. TEX. PENAL CODE

§ 32.51(b)(1). The general purpose of criminalizing this conduct is to prevent

identity theft. Jones v. State, 396 S.W.3d 558, 562 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013).

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      Identifying information is information that alone or in conjunction with other

information identifies a person, including a person’s name and date of birth or unique

electronic identification number, address, routing code, and financial institution

account number. PENAL § 32.51(a)(1)(A), (C). The unit of prosecution is “any piece

of identifying information enumerated in the statute that alone or in conjunction with

other information identifies a person, and does not mean each document containing

a group of identifying information,” such as each driver’s license or check. Cortez

v. State, 469 S.W.3d 593, 604 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); see also Grimm v. State, 496

S.W.3d 817, 822 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2016, no pet.) (citing Cortez for

proposition that “‘item of identifying information’ does not refer to the individual

record where the information appears” and observing that “an individual record may

actually contain more than one item of identifying information”).

      One is presumed to have the intent to harm or defraud another if he possesses

the identifying information of three or more other persons. PENAL § 32.51(b-1)(1).

The other persons must be real ones, not fictional persons. Jones, 396 S.W.3d at 563.

Otherwise, proof of intent to harm or defraud may be direct or circumstantial.

Sanchez v. State, 536 S.W.3d 919, 920–21 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017,

no pet.). To prove the element of intent, the State need not disprove exculpatory

explanations offered by the defendant that turn on his credibility. Id. at 921–22.

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                                       Analysis

      The sole element that Farr challenges on appeal is intent, arguing that the State

did not prove he had the intent to harm or defraud another. However, Officer

Frederick testified that Farr had in his wallet IDs or debit cards in six different names

other than his own: Camron Finney, Ikoreous Youngblood, Daniel Reyes, Christian

Saenz, Joshua Blackmon, and Danielle Lewis. Because Farr possessed the

identifying information of three or more other persons, the trial court was entitled to

presume that he did so with the intent to harm or defraud. PENAL § 32.51(b-1)(1).

      Moreover, even without the aid of the presumption, the trial court could have

reasonably inferred an intent to harm or defraud from the evidence. For example,

Frederick testified that Farr had claimed that Youngblood might be his sister’s

boyfriend, as a way of providing an innocent explanation for the possession of his

ID. But Youngblood’s testimony, which the trial court sitting as factfinder was

entitled to credit, refuted Farr’s explanation and detracted from Farr’s credibility.

See Bell v. State, 649 S.W.3d 867, 898 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2022, pet.

ref’d) (trial court, as trier of fact in revocation proceeding, assesses credibility of

witnesses and decides weight their testimony merits, and appellate court must

examine evidence in light most favorable to trial court’s revocation order on appeal).

      Similarly, if the trial court credited Frederick’s testimony, Farr himself

acknowledged that he possessed one of the IDs for the explicit purpose of fraud,

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stating that he obtained the Saenz ID under that name, rather than his own, to avoid

the disclosure of his true identity on account of his status as a convicted felon. Based

on this testimony, the trial court could have reasonably inferred that Farr also

possessed other IDs in different names for the purpose of committing identity fraud.

Though a factfinder is never bound to apply it, the adage “false in one, false in all”

is often very persuasive, especially when an evaluation of the truth turns in

significant part on credibility. See Tucker v. State, 150 S.W.2d 1025, 1029 (Tex.

Crim. App. 1941) (jury was entitled to avail itself of adage “false in one, false in all”

as to witness’s testimony and apparently did so, crediting nothing she said on stand).

      Finally, the trial court was not obliged to accept Farr’s contrary testimony at

the hearing, in which he denied having put the IDs and debit cards in his wallet. Nor

was the trial court obliged to accept the defense positions that the IDs and debit cards

may have belonged to Farr’s brother or that Officer Adams must have put them in

Farr’s wallet, both propositions for which there is no direct evidence in the record.

Nor was the State required to disprove exculpatory explanations of this kind to prove

that Farr had the intent to harm or defraud. See Sanchez, 536 S.W.3d at 921–22.

      We overrule Farr’s sole issue on appeal.

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                                 CONCLUSION

      We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                Gordon Goodman
                                                Justice

Panel consists of Justices Goodman, Landau, and Rivas-Molloy.

Do not publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).

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