Mark Thomas v. Commonwealth ( 2002 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Bumgardner and Humphreys
Argued at Richmond, Virginia
MARK THOMAS
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 0738-02-2 JUDGE RUDOLPH BUMGARDNER, III
DECEMBER 10, 2002
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND
Robert W. Duling, Judge Designate
Craig W. Stallard, Assistant Public Defender
(Office of the Public Defender, on brief),
for appellant.
Kathleen B. Martin, Assistant Attorney
General (Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General,
on brief), for appellee.
The trial court convicted Mark Thomas during a bench trial
of receiving stolen property, Code § 18.2-108. He contends the
evidence is insufficient to prove that the items were stolen or
that he knew they were stolen. Concluding the evidence was
sufficient, we affirm.
We view the evidence and all reasonable inferences
therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth.
Commonwealth v. Taylor, 256 Va. 514, 516, 506 S.E.2d 312, 313
(1998). The defendant sold 2,240 pounds of aluminum pipe and
plates to a scrap metal firm for $1,008. He explained he was
* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not
designated for publication.
"cleaning up a yard and . . . this was surplus material." The
pipe was "brand new material," and though unbundled, it still
had the banding and labels attached. On the labels and stamped
in ink on the pipes was the name and address of Industrial Alloy
Fabrications.
The scrap dealer called the plant manager at Industrial
Alloy Fabrications and asked if he had recently disposed of a
lot of heavy wall pipe. The manager checked the inventory and
discovered that about 9 - 12 pieces of pipe were missing from
the fenced storage yard. Each pipe was 12 - 14 feet long but
weighed between 150 to 200 pounds. The total weight was about
2,000 pounds, and the total value was about $3,000. The pipes
were part of a special order fabricated for a job in Waynesboro
and were "very, very odd material." The plant manager had seen
the pipes a week earlier. Within that week, the lock on an old
gate had been broken, and the gate, which had not been opened in
years, had been forced open.
As the trial court noted, "these goods are not everyday
household goods." They were "a special run of [heavy] pipe."
They bore the name and address of the owner and were
specifically identified by the owner as being stolen within a
week. The owner could identify these nearly unique pipes, and
the evidence supported a finding, beyond a reasonable doubt,
that they had been stolen.
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The defendant did not deny possessing the pipes within a
week of being stolen. Possession of recently stolen property
"constituted prima facie evidence that the defendant received
the stolen goods with guilty knowledge and cast upon him the
burden of going forward with evidence in explanation." Roberts
v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 264, 271, 337 S.E.2d 255, 260 (1985).
The defendant told the purchaser he was cleaning a yard, but the
trial court is not required to accept his explanation. Schaum
v. Commonwealth, 215 Va. 498, 501, 211 S.E.2d 73, 75 (1975).
The pipe looked brand new, still bore the markings of the
owner, and was a special form of unusually heavy aluminum pipe.
The trial court could reasonably infer that the pipes the
defendant sold as surplus scrap were not found while cleaning a
yard. "When the defendant's hypothesis of innocence is
[rejected as] unreasonable, evidence of possession of recently
stolen goods is sufficient to support a conviction for the crime
of larceny . . . or the crime of larceny by receiving stolen
goods." Westcott v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. App. 123, 127, 216
S.E.2d 60, 64 (1975) (citation omitted). See also Stapleton v.
Commonwealth, 140 Va. 475, 488-89, 124 S.E. 237, 241-42 (1924)
("'when goods are shown to have been stolen, recent possession
of them is evidence against the possessor, tending to show . . .
a guilty receiving by him'"). Accordingly, we affirm.
Affirmed.
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