Court Opinion

ID: 9458552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:55:11.007766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:48.352269
License: Public Domain

POWELL, District Judge
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent.
Early in the trial the district judge pointed out that the character of the funds disbursed under the poverty contracts was a question of law (RT 100). At the close of the ease the trial judge determined from the evidence as a matter of law that if the money was deposited in the City Treasurer’s account number 998020, it was the property of the United States (RT 834-35). And that the proceeds of a warrant issued on this account remained the property of the United States (RT 835-36).
Recent cases support this decision by the trial judge. United States v. Alessio, 439 F.2d 803, 804 (1st Cir. 1971); United States v. Jackson, 436 F.2d 39, 41 (9th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 906, 91 S.Ct. 2209, 29 L.Ed.2d 682 (1971); Brown v. United States, 334 F.2d 488, 491-492, 497-501 (9th Cir. 1964) (concurring opinion), aff’d on other *1166grounds, 381 U.S. 437, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 14 L.Ed.2d 484 (1965). The issue as to whether federal funds were actually deposited in account number 998020 was properly left to the jury (RT 844).
The majority opinion fails to recognize the crime was completed when the warrant was deposited in the UCB. For the purposes of this statute and the criminal law, conversion of a negotiable instrument, such as a warrant, presumably constitutes a conversion of the face value of the instrument. United States v. Lee, 454 F.2d 190 (9th Cir. 1972). See 52A C.J.S. Larceny § 60(2) b, at p. 491 (1968). See also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 242, and comment c (1966); U.C.C. § 3-419.
At further issue is the character of the proceeds of the warrant. No one has asserted that, as the majority states, UCB has paid the Government’s money to Collins. But Collins exercised his dominion over the funds, the proceeds of the warrant, when the UCB account was opened and the EOC lost control of the warrant and its proceeds. That act constituted an appropriation to a use inconsistent with the owner’s rights. See Ailsworth v. United States, 448 F.2d 439, 442 (9th Cir. 1971); Pina v. United States, 165 F.2d 890, 893-894 (9th Cir. 1948). Cf. Crabb v. Zerbst, 99 F.2d 562 (5th Cir. 1938).
Upon negotiating the warrant, the defendant converted property of the United States. This the statute seeks to prevent. The intermediate banking steps necessary before account 998020 was debited are irrelevant. If the view of the majority opinion is adopted, conversion of Government funds would never lie on a three-party instrument where the drawee is not itself a Government agency.
Review of the record supports the conclusion of the trial judge that it was beyond dispute that if funds were placed in the City Treasurer’s account, that the warrant and its proceeds belonged to the United States. The jury found that funds were so placed.
I would affirm.