Court Opinion

ID: 9567752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:57:22.839729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:20:35.091746
License: Public Domain

Smith, Judge.
Scott Scarber was indicted for felony theft by conversion and convicted of misdemeanor theft by conversion. OCGA §§ 16-8-4; 16-8-12. His motion for new trial was denied, and he appeals, contending in his sole enumeration of error that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. We agree and reverse.
Thomas, the State’s only witness at trial, testified that she knew Scarber, who is in the furniture refinishing business. He had done work for her and her former husband, but she also had a personal relationship with him. Scarber agreed to sell several pieces of antique furniture for Thomas, and she testified that she was to receive $500 from the sale of the furniture. After Scarber, with her assistance, took the furniture to his shop, Thomas did not hear from him for some unspecified time. According to Thomas, Scarber assured her that he would pay her the money, but when she visited his shop “he would never be there.” Thomas testified that she spoke with Scarber’s employees, but a hearsay objection as to what they told her was sustained. After speaking to the employees and a furniture dealer on U. S. Highway 41, she swore out a warrant against Scarber. Neither Scarber’s employees nor the furniture dealer testified, and Thomas did not testify to the content of those conversations.
OCGA § 16-8-4 is intended to punish fraudulent conversion, not breach of contract, and in order to avoid the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt, the State must prove fraudulent intent. Smith v. State, 229 Ga. 727 (194 SE2d 82) (1972). The statute cannot properly be employed in the enforcement of civil contract rights. Baker v. State, 135 Ga. App. 500, 501 (218 SE2d 171) (1975).
In the recent decision of Barrett v. State, 207 Ga. App. 370 (427 SE2d 845) (1993), this court reversed a conviction for theft by conversion under very similar circumstances. In Barrett, the defendant rented equipment from a store and failed to return it. The store was unable to contact him, even after he was served with a criminal warrant. We held that this evidence was insufficient, because “[the State] presented no evidence regarding what happened to the equipment and failed to show that appellant knowingly and with fraudulent intent appropriated it for his own use.” Id.
Here, as in Barrett, there was no evidence of what happened to Thomas’s furniture or her money, or why; nor was there evidence of Scarber’s involvement in their ultimate disposition. The jury cannot *261properly infer fraudulent intent from the mere fact that Thomas had conversations with persons who did not testify, conversations as to which nothing is known beyond Thomas’s testimony that they affected her decision to swear out a warrant. Nor can the jury infer fraudulent intent from the witness’s belief that Scarber was “putting [her] off.” Tchorz v. State, 197 Ga. App. 185, 186 (397 SE2d 619) (1990).
In the absence of competent admissible evidence beyond the fact of a breach of contract, showing conversion of the property to Scarber’s own use, the State failed to prove an essential element of the offense charged, and Scarber’s conviction must be reversed.

Judgment reversed.

Pope, C. J., McMurray, P. J., Birdsong, P. J., Cooper and Johnson, JJ., concur. Blackburn, J., concurs specially. Beasley, P. J., and Andrews, J., dissent.