State v. O'BRIEN

601 P.2d 341, 123 Ariz. 578, 1979 Ariz. App. LEXIS 593
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedSeptember 17, 1979
Docket2 CA-CR 1405
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 601 P.2d 341 (State v. O'BRIEN) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. O'BRIEN, 601 P.2d 341, 123 Ariz. 578, 1979 Ariz. App. LEXIS 593 (Ark. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION

RICHMOND, Chief Judge.

Defendant Thomas M. O’Brien was indicted on July 8, 1977, for conspiracy, securities fraud, and various violations of the Real Property Securities Dealers Act. After a jury trial, he was found guilty of 30 counts and was sentenced to concurrent prison terms of one to three years on each count. On appeal he contends:

1. The indictment was deficient in alleging the conspiracy count and the fraud counts.

2. Five counts charging him with unlawfully acting as a securities dealer and five counts charging him with selling securities *582 for which no permit had been obtained were multiplicious.

3. Counts charging him with failure to sign and deliver to the purchaser the statement required by the Real Property Securities Dealers Act and to retain an executed copy of the statement for four years are duplicitous.

4. He was improperly prosecuted for alleged fraud in the sale of real property securities under A.R.S. § 44-1991, the general antifraud section of the Securities Act.

5. His pretrial statements should not have been admitted in evidence.

6. Requiring two witnesses to claim the privilege against self-incrimination in front of the jury and then granting them immunity was prosecutorial misconduct requiring reversal.

7. His cross-examination of prosecution witnesses was unconstitutionally restricted.

8. Testimony regarding an undisclosed exhibit should have been stricken.

9. The trial court should have found his waiver of the attorney-client privilege was not knowing and intelligent.

10. His accountant should not have been permitted to testify.

11. State Real Estate Department closures should have been excluded.

12. Hearsay was improperly admitted.

13. The jury instructions improperly confused aiding and abetting with conspiracy.

14. Either he should have been permitted to introduce evidence on his lack of knowledge that his conduct was unlawful or it was error to instruct the jury on knowledge as an element of conspiracy.

Although he seeks dismissal of the conspiracy and 10 fraud counts and a new trial as to the remaining counts, he does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence and none of his arguments is directed to his conviction for failure to post a real property securities dealer’s bond or failure to file a real property securities dealer’s annual report. All of the charges arose from the advertising, offering for sale, or sale of mortgages by O’Brien as president of Equitable Mortgage Company, Incorporated. Initially, he attacks the indictment on various grounds.

INSUFFICIENCY

His first contention is that the conspiracy and fraud counts do not contain sufficient facts to inform him of the nature of the charges against him and thus violate the due process clauses of both the U. S. and Arizona constitutions. Though the counts contain the date of the event, the name of the victim, and the name of the defendant, he argues that they are deficient because they merely allege the language of the statute without describing the nature of the alleged conspiracy or the particular false statements or omissions that constitute each offense. The transcripts of the grand jury proceedings, however, include testimony about each alleged violation. Therefore, we need not reach the question of whether the charges in the indictment, taken alone, were sufficient to give him the notice and information guaranteed by the constitution. See State v. Colvin, 81 Ariz. 388, 307 P.2d 98 (1957); cf. State v. Hagen, 27 Ariz.App. 722, 558 P.2d 750 (1976) (bill of particulars unnecessary where transcript showed defendant aware of information required to prepare his defense). The transcripts provided “facts sufficiently definite to inform [him] of the offense charged.” 17 A.R.S. Rules of Criminal Procedure, rule 13.2.

MULTIPLICITY AND DUPLICITY

O’Brien also attacks the indictment on grounds of both multiplicity and duplicity. Multiplicity is defined as charging a single offense in multiple counts, whereas duplicity is charging multiple offenses in a single count. United States v. Lubomski, 277 F.Supp. 713, 716, n. 2 (N.D. Ill.E.D.1967). The indictment charges O’Brien with five counts of unlawfully acting as a securities dealer, A.R.S. § 44-2066.-03, and five counts of selling securities without a permit, A.R.S. § 44-2066.08. He *583 argues that the counts are multiplicious since he can only be convicted of one violation of each statute regardless of how many separate acts he engaged in. We disagree. A.R.S. § 44-2066.03 proscribes acting as a real property securities dealer without a permit. A.R.S. § 44-2066(2) defines a real property securities dealer as one who engages in the business of (a) selling or (b) offering to accept or accepting funds for continual reinvestment. The criminal act defined by § 44-2066.03 is, therefore, tied to a sale or transaction. Accordingly, each separate sale or transaction constitutes a separate offense. See State v. Cartwright, 20 Ariz.App. 94, 510 P.2d 405 (1973). In the case of § 44-2066.08, which prohibits selling securities without first obtaining a permit, it is equally clear that the proscribed conduct is the selling. Again each sale or transaction consummated without a permit constitutes a separate violation and therefore a separate offense. See State v. Cartwright, supra. See also Katz v. United States, 369 F.2d 130 (9th Cir. 1966), reversed on other grounds, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Robinson v. United States, 366 F.2d 575 (10th Cir. 1966), cert. den. 385 U.S. 1009, 87 S.Ct. 717, 17 L.Ed.2d 547 (1967); Mitchell v. United States, 142 F.2d 480 (10th Cir. 1944). Cases cited by O’Brien stand for the proposition that when a course of conduct is the object of a criminal statute and the statute is ambiguous as to the “unit of prosecution,’’ see, e. g., United States v. Universal C.I.T. Credit Corp., 344 U.S. 218, 73 S.Ct. 227, 97 L.Ed.

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Bluebook (online)
601 P.2d 341, 123 Ariz. 578, 1979 Ariz. App. LEXIS 593, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-obrien-arizctapp-1979.