Lewis v. State

60 S.E.2d 663, 82 Ga. App. 280
Court of Appeals of Georgia·Decided July 21, 1950·No. 32921·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

MacIntyre, P. J.

1. On a true bill, returned on April 22, 1949, Julian H. Lewis was indicted for larceny after trust under Code § 26-2809. He was convicted and sentenced to serve from two to five years in the penitentiary. His motion for a new trial was overruled and he excepted.

The jury was authorized to find that from March 1947 until June 1948, the defendant' was a bookkeeper employed by D. A. Eubanks, doing business as Eubanks Appliance Company, in a fiduciary capacity. The duties of the defendant were to keep books, to handle money, to make bank deposits, to make up pay rolls and to pay employees, including himself. In the course of his employment, the defendant was specifically entrusted as a fiduciary bailee with the money or funds of his employer which were paid into the Eubanks Appliance Company for the designated purpose of applying the same for the use and benefit of Mr. Eubanks. See Scarboro v. State, ante, p. 273. During the period the defendant was intrusted with such money in the prosecutor’s business, there accumulated an aggregate shortage in the cash account in the amount of $4,316.96, and an aggregate shortage in the pay-roll account in the amount of $174.97, as evidenced by the books kept by the defendant himself. The defendant had two personal bank accounts—in separate banks. He deposited $3,759.99 in the First National Bank and $7,828.96 in the Bank of Fulton County during the period from September 1947 through June 1948, making a total of $11,588.73, although he was earning only $200 and $220 per month during that ten-month period. The defendant made no deposits during June 1948, but he deposited $3,670.18 ($855.94 in the First National Bank and $2,814.14 in the Bank of Fulton County) during the month of March, 1948.

Concerning State’s Exhibit No. 1, which was a check in the amount of $147.04, drawn on the account of the Eubanks Appliance Company in the First National Bank of Atlanta by D. A. Eubanks, and payable to the order of W. L. Hamilton and endorsed by Hamilton and J. H. Lewis, W. L. Hamilton *282 testified that he was an employee of the Eubanks Appliance Company and that this check was his salary check which he asked Lewis to cash in order that he could pay the Eubanks Appliance Company $10.45 on a bill which he, Hamilton, owed for a pressure cooker. He stated that Lewis took the check, placed it in the cash register of the Eubanks Appliance Company and gave him from that cash register the difference between the amount of the check ($147.04) and the payment made ($10.45), namely, $136.59, and that Lewis gave him a receipt for the $10.45 payment. Hamilton stated unequivocally that Lewis did not cash the check out of his own pocket or personal funds, but that he cashed it out of the cash drawer of the Eubanks Appliance Company.

In explanation of this same transaction with Hamilton, the defendant in his statement to the jury replied that he had loaned Hamilton some money and that when Hamilton gave him the check to cash, he took the money out of his own pocket and put the check in his pocket, giving Hamilton the difference between the check and the amount which Hamilton owed him and that thereupon Hamilton then handed him the $10.45 in payment of the bill which Hamilton owed the Eubanks Appliance Company, and that he, Lewis, the defendant, went over to the cash register and wrote the receipt for the payment on Hamilton’s account. From the evidence and the defendant’s statement to the jury, which was in effect that this was his individual money and that he did not restore any part of it to the cash register of the Eubanks Appliance Company since he did not take it out of the cash register, but that he did place the $10.45 payment in the cash register, the jury was authorized to find from Hamilton’s version of the transaction that Lewis took the money from the cash register and that he did not restore any part except the $10.45 payment and to further find that he converted this money to his own use.

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Lewis v. State, 60 S.E.2d 663, 82 Ga. App. 280 (Ga. Ct. App. 1950).

60 S.E.2d 663 (Lewis v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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