State of Tennessee v. Robin Blaskis

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 8, 2010
DocketM2009-01154-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Robin Blaskis (State of Tennessee v. Robin Blaskis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Tennessee v. Robin Blaskis, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE May 18, 2010 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. ROBIN BLASKIS

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Putnam County No. 06-0867 Leon Burns, Judge

No. M2009-01154-CCA-R3-CD - Filed December 8, 2010

In November 2006, the Putnam County grand jury indicted Appellant, Robin Blaskis, for one count of theft over $60,000. Following a jury trial, Appellant was convicted as charged. The trial court sentenced Appellant to ten years as a Range I, standard offender. On appeal, Appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion to dismiss based upon the violation of her right to a speedy trial and that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction. After a thorough review of the record, we conclude that the trial court’s denial of her motion to dismiss was correct because the four factors set out in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), did not weigh in her favor. We also conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support her conviction. Therefore, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Criminal Court is Affirmed.

J ERRY L. S MITH, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which D AVID H. W ELLES and R OBERT W. W EDEMEYER, JJ., J OINED.

Samuel J. Harris, Cookeville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Robin Blaskis.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter, Lacy Wilber, Assistant Attorney General; William C. Whitesell, Jr., District Attorney General, and Anthony Craighead, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Factual Background

Alan Tatum, the victim, was a pharmacist in Putnam County. He owned two pharmacies, Payless Family Pharmacy and Cookeville MedPlus Pharmacy. Appellant was Mr. Tatum’s accountant and also a personal friend. Because Appellant had completed Mr. Tatum’s personal tax returns, he hired her as the accountant for the business when he opened his first pharmacy in 1993. Appellant’s work for Mr. Tatum was without problems from 1993 until 2004.

In 2003, Mr. Tatum could not keep up with the paper work required for his business. He asked Appellant to process the payrolls for both of his pharmacies. There were about twenty hourly employees and a pharmacist on salary. Appellant walked Mr. Tatum through the process and told him that she had a system of checks and balances in place. Mr. Tatum sent the payroll information to Appellant’s office on a weekly basis. Appellant would transfer funds electronically out of Mr. Tatum’s business checking account for each pharmacy’s payroll and place it in Appellant’s escrow account. The checks to Mr. Tatum’s employees would be paid out of Appellant’s escrow account.

This payroll process began in January 2004. Mr. Tatum’s bank called in late January 2004 and informed him that he had an overdraft. Mr. Tatum was shocked. He knew that the pharmacies were doing $8 million dollars in business. At this time, Appellant was receiving Mr. Tatum’s bank statements. He would not see them until two months later. He spoke with Appellant at least three times about his concerns over cash flow issues. Appellant gave him different excuses for the cash flow issues in his account. At one point, Mr. Tatum noticed that the monthly payroll report seemed a little high, but it was not so much higher that it caused concern. Also, he noticed there were several small transfers of funds every month but some of those were to pay taxes.

In 2004, Mr. Tatum went at least twice a month to Appellant’s office, and each time she told him that she was the only one handling his account. By November 2004, Mr. Tatum became concerned enough to enroll in online banking. As he monitored the activity in his account online, he began to see that money was going out of his account to unknown places. Initially, he believed that the bank had been making mistakes. He asked the bank to track where the money was going, and the bank told him it was going into Appellant’s escrow account. Mr. Tatum blocked his accounts from Appellant so that money could not be moved from his account to her escrow account.

Mr. Tatum confronted Appellant. She became nervous and said she would find out what was happening. She told him that she would make it right and that she had insurance. However, she later informed him that she did not have insurance. Mr. Tatum demanded his files, records, and checks. He told Appellant that she was no longer going to process his payroll. Appellant returned his checks and a computer disc containing payroll information. Appellant did not return any other files or records despite Mr. Tatum’s almost daily requests. Eventually, Mr. Tatum took a letter to Appellant’s office formally requesting his files. He

-2- still did not received his records. The records were eventually received by a bankruptcy trustee when Appellant went into bankruptcy. Mr. Tatum never received his records.

Mr. Tatum took the computer disc with the payroll information to Mr. Robert Duncan. After reviewing the computer disc, bank statements, and payroll sheets, Mr. Duncan concluded that $415,000 was missing from Mr. Tatum’s funds. Appellant did not have Mr. Tatum’s permission to remove these funds from his account. Subsequently, Mr. Tatum filed a civil law suit against Appellant to recover the missing $415, 000, even though he knew that Appellant had declared bankruptcy in 2005.

Mr. Duncan stated that Mr. Tatum hired him in 2004 to lookover payroll records and money transferred out of his business account to Appellant’s escrow account. With regard to the Payless Pharmacy account, each month from January 2004 to November 2004 Mr. Duncan found a discrepancy between the amount of payroll and the amount of money transferred to the escrow account. He also discovered that statements showed that on several days multiple withdrawals would be taken out of Mr. Tatum’s accounts. For example, on January 21, 2004, out of five withdrawals two went to pay taxes and three went to Appellant’s escrow account. Mr. Duncan concluded that with regard to the Payless Pharmacy records, the payroll totaled $467,877 and the amount transferred to the escrow account totaled $797,825.13. Mr. Duncan discovered that the records showed similar activity and transfers for the MedPlus Pharmacy. Each month from January 2004 to November 2004, Mr. Duncan found a discrepancy between the payroll amount and the amount actually transferred to Appellant’s escrow account. The MedPlus Pharmacy payroll totaled $141,488.72 from January 2004 to November 2004. The amount of funds withdrawn and placed in Appellant’s escrow account totaled $233,453.40. Mr. Duncan found that the total amount taken above the amount necessary for payment of payroll and taxes equaled $414,989.04.

Mr. Duncan stated that he did not have access to Appellant’s escrow account when he was compiling his information. He did not know if Appellant’s escrow account was just for Mr. Tatum or included other clients. He stated that it was not unusual for an accounting firm to use one escrow account for many clients. Mr. Duncan testified that the scheme to take the money out of the business account and place it in the escrow account was not elaborate. It would be easy to see the discrepancies in the account. Mr. Duncan stated that he did not know where the money went after it went into Appellant’s escrow account.

Angie Pippman began working for Appellant in 2004. She had a degree in accounting. Initially, her main task was bookkeeping for another one of Appellant’s clients, J. R. Gaw Produce. Later on, she handled payroll transfers to Appellant’s escrow account for I-Light Technologies. Appellant and Ms. Pippman were the only employees at

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Barker v. Wingo
407 U.S. 514 (Supreme Court, 1972)
Doggett v. United States
505 U.S. 647 (Supreme Court, 1992)
State v. Lawson
291 S.W.3d 864 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 2009)
State v. Tuggle
639 S.W.2d 913 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1982)
State v. Morgan
929 S.W.2d 380 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1996)
State v. Utley
956 S.W.2d 489 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1997)
State v. Simmons
54 S.W.3d 755 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 2001)
State v. Matthews
805 S.W.2d 776 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1990)
State v. Jefferson
938 S.W.2d 1 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1996)
State v. Cazes
875 S.W.2d 253 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1994)
State v. Kolb
755 S.W.2d 472 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1988)
State v. Harris
839 S.W.2d 54 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1992)
State v. Wood
924 S.W.2d 342 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1996)
State v. Bishop
493 S.W.2d 81 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1973)
State v. Pruett
788 S.W.2d 559 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1990)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
State of Tennessee v. Robin Blaskis, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-robin-blaskis-tenncrimapp-2010.