Huett v. State

970 S.W.2d 119, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 2861, 1998 WL 242411
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 14, 1998
Docket05-96-01287-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 970 S.W.2d 119 (Huett v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Huett v. State, 970 S.W.2d 119, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 2861, 1998 WL 242411 (Tex. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

OPINION

CHUCK MILLER, Justice.

Appellant Deborah Huett was charged by indictment with the offense of misapplication of fiduciary property of an aggregate value of at least $20,000 or more, but less than $100,-000. 3 On June 10, 1996, she entered a plea of not guilty to a jury, and trial commenced. At the conclusion of the guilt/innocence stage of the trial, she was found guilty. Appellant elected to have the trial court set punishment, and the court sentenced her to serve ten years’ confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Imposition of sentence was suspended, and Huett was placed on community supervision for a period of ten years. On appeal, Huett brings four points of error, all challenging the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

The victims named in the indictment, Harry Simon and Eric Kostbade, both invested money jn Offshore Resources Corporation, hereinafter referred to as “ORC.” Each received stock certificates for amounts of stock commensurate with his investment. The certificates were signed by W. Michael Huett, President, and Deborah Huett, Acting Secretary. 4

Simon testified that the $75,000 he invested was to be used solely for securing oil leases on land for the purpose of drilling. Simon never met Deborah Huett, but he did have telephone conversations with her.

Kostbade testified that on the face of his stock certificates was written that the money he invested, $25,000, was to be used solely for venture capital. 5 Kostbade, through personal meetings with Deborah Huett and others, was convinced that Deborah Huett knew *122 the money from investors was to be used solely for obtaining drilling leases and for developing those leases. Kostbade had the opportunity to observe the relationship between Deborah Huett and Michael Huett, and he concluded that Deborah Huett was knowledgeable of ORC’s business, was a decision maker in the corporation, and was involved in ORC’s finances. Upon being shown bank statements from ORC’s commercial bank account at trial, Kostbade testified that he never authorized the specific expenditures or those types of expenditures. 6 He added that such expenditures were not venture capital expenditures and were in fact a breach of fiduciary duty. Deborah Huett signed many of the cheeks referred to by Kostbade.

Mona Lisa Camarillo was an employee of ORC who worked in the Huett’s home office. The Huetts hired her as a fund raiser and told her that ORC’s fund raising was for the purpose of oil lease acquisitions and that investors were to get part of the properties in which ORC invested. Deborah Huett was, in Camarillo’s opinion, in charge of everything from the issuance of ORC stock to the handling of ORC’s checking accounts. Deborah Huett wrote all the checks, issued the stock, and was a major decision maker in the corporation. Over time, Camarillo saw some of the investors’ money used for house payments, although the home office only occupied one room in the house, and for personal jewelry. After six months of employment and seeing several hundred thousand dollars raised from investors but used for purposes other than oil lease acquisitions, Camarillo confronted Deborah Huett and demanded that future monies be put in escrow accounts. Deborah Huett’s reaction was anger and defiance. Deborah Huett stated that the money was hers and that she could do with it what she wanted. Camarillo then left ORC’s employ.

Shiela Powell, a securities investigator with the State of Texas Securities Board, testified that she reviewed ORC’s bank records and checking accounts before testifying. She summarized the commercial checking account, for which Deborah Huett and Michael Huett were signatories for the months of September and October 1994. Powell’s summary revealed that ORC’s deposits from that period amounted to $25,000 from Kostbade (the deposit that opened the account), $67,-500 from Simon, and $700 from Camarillo. Total deposits were in excess of $93,000. Powell’s summary also revealed that Deborah Huett wrote all but ten of the ORC cheeks during the period; Michael Huett wrote the remaining ten checks. Expenditures for the period that could arguably have been for business purposes, in Powell’s opinion, amounted to about $20,000. None of the expenditures for the period went to acquire oil leases. Non-business expenditures that were attributable to Deborah Huett, because her signature was on the ORC checks for these expenditures, were in the aggregate sum of $61,786.51. These checks included the ones shown to Kostbade for Rolls Royce car payments, church donations, and personal and food items. With this evidence, the State rested.

Deborah Huett was the only defense witness. She testified that her husband controlled all of the ORC operations and the money ORC spent and that everything she did was at his direction or with his permission. She added that she was only a signatory on the accounts for a brief time and was corporate secretary in name only. She admitted to being a corporate officer for a short time, but she reiterated that her actions were entirely directed by her husband, Michael Huett.

With this evidentiary review complete, we now turn to the challenges to the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence. In reviewing the legal sufficiency of the evidence, the question that a reviewing court must determine is whether, considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. *123 Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Emery v. State, 881 S.W.2d 702, 705 (Tex.Crim.App.1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1192, 115 S.Ct. 1257, 131 L.Ed.2d 137 (1995). In such an attack on the legal sufficiency of the evidence, an appellate court acknowledges that the trier of fact is the sole judge of the credibility of the witnesses and of the weight to be given their testimony. See Bonham v. State, 680 S.W.2d 815, 819 (Tex.Crim.App.1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 865, 106 S.Ct. 184, 88 L.Ed.2d 153 (1985); Moreno v. State, 755 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Tex.Crim.App.1988). The fact finder is free to believe or disbelieve the testimony of all witnesses, to reconcile or not reconcile conflicts in testimony, and to accept or. reject any or all of the evidence produced by the respective parties. See Upton v. State, 853 S.W.2d 548, 552 (Tex.Crim.App.1993); Adelman v. State, 828 S.W.2d 418, 421 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).

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Bluebook (online)
970 S.W.2d 119, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 2861, 1998 WL 242411, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/huett-v-state-texapp-1998.