Levon E. Coleman v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)

Indiana Court of Appeals·Decided June 11, 2019·No. 18A-CR-2784·Published

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision shall not be FILED regarded as precedent or cited before any Jun 11 2019, 8:42 am

court except for the purpose of establishing CLERK the defense of res judicata, collateral Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals

and Tax Court

estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Stephenie K. Gookins Curtis T. Hill, Jr. Cate, Terry & Gookins LLC Attorney General of Indiana Carmel, Indiana Matthew B. MacKenzie

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Levon E. Coleman, June 11, 2019 Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No.

18A-CR-2784

v. Appeal from the Hamilton Superior Court

State of Indiana, The Honorable J. Richard Appellee-Plaintiff. Campbell, Judge Trial Court Cause No.

29D04-1512-F6-10158

Robb, Judge.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-2784 | June 11, 2019 Page 1 of 17

Case Summary and Issues

[1] Following a jury trial, Levon Coleman was convicted of three counts of fraud,

all Level 6 felonies. Coleman appeals his convictions, raising two issues for our review: (1) whether the trial court abused its discretion when it denied Coleman’s motion for a mistrial; and (2) whether the evidence sufficiently supports Coleman’s fraud convictions. Concluding the trial court did not abuse its discretion and the evidence was sufficient to prove Coleman committed the offenses, we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History [2] On August 11, 2015, Stephen Nason, a loss prevention specialist at the Hobart

Best Buy, received a phone call from Thomas Garcia, one of the store’s employees who was working that day. Garcia informed Nason of “a problem with a credit card transaction in the computer department and asked if [Nason] could come over and take a look.” Transcript of Evidence, Volume 2 at 72. Garcia described the nature of the problem to Nason. The credit card transaction for computer equipment totaling $1,800 or $1,900 had been declined and required an authorization code but the customer, Shaquita Jones, “insisted on using a pre-obtained authorization number.” Id. at 73. As is typical store policy in these instances, Nason instructed Garcia to ask the customer for another form of payment and told Garcia he would assist.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-2784 | June 11, 2019 Page 2 of 17

[3] Nason walked to the register where he encountered Jones and Coleman. Nason requested another form of payment but Jones insisted on using the declined card, stating she already spoke with her bank and had an approval code. Jones’ name and “netSpend Debit Visa” were printed on her card, ending in 5731. Appellant’s Appendix, Volume 2 at 22. Nason asked Jones to swipe her card a second time so he could call the bank for authorization.1 Jones swiped the card and “call for authorization” appeared on the register screen. Tr., Vol. 2 at 88. When Nason stated he could call the bank for authorization, Jones handed him a “post-it with a number on it[,]” told him she had “already gotten an authorization code from her bank[,]” and the bank had instructed her to use “this code.” Id. at 78.

[4] Suspicious because a bank would not provide an authorization code to a customer ahead of time without having the transaction available, Nason asked Jones to see the card. Jones handed Nason the card, he examined it and recognized several suspicious physical features: the numbers were worn and

1 Nason explained the authorization process at trial:

[S]ometimes on large purchases, when a customer is using a credit card, if it’s an unusually large amount for the person’s account, sometimes either the bank or our system will flag it and our computer will stop the transaction and say, please call bank for authorization. So, from there the associate is supposed to call the bank [and] the associate explains over the phone to the operator what the situation is, the dollar amount of the sale, confirms [the customer’s] identity, then they would hand the phone over to the customer. The customer would prove their ident[ity] and then the operator on the phone, if they approve the sale, they would give us an authorization number or they would just decline the sale and then we would apologize.

Tr., Vol. 2 at 77. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-2784 | June 11, 2019 Page 3 of 17 appeared to be “artificially embossed”; the spacing was different; and the plastic appeared to be stretched. Id. at 79. Nason also performed a bank identification number (“BIN”) search by checking the first six digits of the card, which indicate the bank or financial company that issued the card. The search revealed that the BIN belonged to Nordstrom and was associated with a Nordstrom credit card rather than a “netSpend Debit Visa.” Appellant’s App., Volume 2 at 22. While Nason inspected the card and performed the BIN search, Jones sat at a computer desk and Coleman stood nearby.

[5] Suspecting the card was fraudulent, Nason intended to step behind the customer service area to discretely call the police for assistance. Nason informed Jones and Coleman that he was going to step away to call the bank to obtain an authorization code himself but assured them that he would come right back. When Nason stepped away from the register, Coleman followed him briefly, and then walked back and spoke with Jones. While Nason was on the phone with the police department in the customer service area, Coleman came around the front of the desk, approached Nason, and began shouting, “give me her card back, give me it back.” Tr., Vol. 2 at 90. After Nason refused to return the card, Coleman told Jones they should go, and then he exited the store and got into a white van.

[6] Nason provided the police with a description of the van and its location. Jones asked Nason “what was going on” and he told her the police were on their way and he had identified the incident as fraud. Id. at 91. Jones left the store and Nason went outside “to keep an eye on her[.]” Id. Officer Kenneth Williams Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-2784 | June 11, 2019 Page 4 of 17 of the Hobart Police Department (“HPD”) arrived on the scene where a Best Buy employee pointed out the van that Nason described to police, which, at this point in time, was headed toward Route 30. Officer Williams located the van Coleman was driving and initiated a traffic stop. After discovering Coleman was driving with a suspended license, Officer Williams wrote him a ticket, requested a tow truck to impound the van per HPD policy, and began an inventory of the vehicle. Coleman was placed under arrest at the scene of the traffic stop and Jones was arrested in front of the store.

[7] After obtaining a search warrant the following day, HPD officers searched the van and discovered various electronic items, including a TV, multiple tablets, a MacBook Pro, prepaid T-Mobile and Verizon cards, and other merchandise. Three credit cards were also located in the cupholder of the van, one in Jones’ name and two containing the name Stephanie Brown. HPD Detective Nicholas Wardrip contacted Nason and provided him with the serial numbers for the electronic items recovered from the van and numbers of the re-encoded credit cards. At Detective Wardrip’s request, Nason ran the serial numbers for the electronic items through Best Buy’s “electronic journal,” allowing him to obtain duplicate receipts from other Best Buy stores. Id. at 93. Nason was able to match several purchases made on August 11 in Marion and Hamilton Counties to the items recovered from the van. See id. at 126. Nason’s review revealed that at 12:11 p.m., the same day Nason encountered Jones and Coleman in his store, the two had purchased $2,065.07 worth of merchandise from the Carmel Best Buy, with a credit card ending in 6167. Later that day, at

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