Rogers v. State, 46691

• Decision Date: 19 June 1972
• Docket Number: No. 46691,46691
• Citation: 266 So.2d 10
• Parties: Leon T. ROGERS, Jr. v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 10

266 So.2d 10

Leon T. ROGERS, Jr. v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 46691.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 19, 1972.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 12, 1972.

Eaton, Cottrell, Galloway & Lang, Gulfport, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., by Guy N. Rogers and G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen. and John M. Kinard, and Edwin A. Snyder, Special Asst. Attys. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

PATTERSON, Justice:

This is an appeal from the Second Judicial District of Harrison County wherein Leon T. Rogers, Jr., Paul H. Sanders, Quentin Stringer and Thomas D. Dunn were indicted for obtaining money of the State of Mississippi in violation of Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated section 2149 (1956), commonly called the 'false pretense' statute. Upon motion Rogers was granted a severance for trial and after a prolonged hearing, was found guilty by the jury. He was sentenced to serve one year in the county jail and fined $30,000 and costs, with the jail term being suspended upon future good behavior and upon payment of the fine and costs. From this verdict and judgment Rogers appeals. We affirm.

Leon T. Rogers, Jr., a resident of Jackson, is an intelligent and successful realtor who deals in the purchase, sale and development of property throughout the state. In 1965 he was notified that certain lands in the Second Judicial District of Harrison County, owned by the Redding estate, might be available for purchase. At the time tentative plans of the Mississippi Highway Department indicated that Interstate 10 would traverse a portion of the Redding property. Rogers expressed an interest in the property and contacted Captain Enoch Niblack, the representative of the Redding estate, to negotiate for its purchase.

A Gulfport law firm was retained by Rogers to aid in acquiring the property with two young attorneys associated in the firm, Joseph Meadows and Donnie Riley, being directly involved in the negotiations. An agreement of purchase was reached in the spring of 1966 for the 110-acre tract at $1200 per acre. Title was passed by several deeds in June and July 1966 into the name of Joseph Meadows, defendant's attorney, and on July 15, 1966, Meadows conveyed to the defendant. The record does not reveal the exact cost of the purchase to the appellant. Rogers estimated his investment in the land to be between $170,000 and $175,000. This figure reflects extra expenditures necessary to the purchase which Rogers testified he paid above the agreed per-acre price.

At the time of the purchase Rogers maintained a close business relationship with Paul Sanders, a co-indictee, and real estate developer. In the past Rogers had financed the purchase of land to be developed by Sanders who would receive 45% of any profits which might ensue from future sales. There is testimony which suggests that a similar method of operation was to be followed with the lands here involved.

The transactions following the purchase of the Redding property by the appellant are complicated and do not lend themselves to concise statement. For brevity, we do not restate the unrelated and unimportant explanations of some of the witnesses to the various transactions, but attempt only to distill the record into an accurate statement of the substantive facts as we discern them.

On the day of the acquisition of the Redding property by Rogers, either he or Sanders contacted Attorney Joseph Meadows by phone in Harrison County and requested that two deeds be drawn for the signature of Rogers. The description of the properties to be conveyed was dictated over the phone to the secretary of Meadows. One of these deeds conveyed a lot on the former Redding property 120 220 feet to Joseph Meadows for a recited consideration of $9500 and the other conveyed a similar lot to Donnie Riley for a recited consideration of $7500. These deeds were prepared by Meadows in his office in Harrison County and forwarded to Rogers in his Jackson office for signature.

On July 15, 1966, the very date he acquired title to the Redding land, these deeds were executed by Rogers. On October 19, 1966, they were filed for record on the public rolls of the First Judicial District of Harrison County. It is without dispute that these two deeds, bearing revenue stamps initialled by Rogers, in an amount commensurate with the recited consideration, were in fact not bona fide transactions since no consideration was paid for either of them nor was title intended to be conveyed thereby. The grantees of the lots upon learning that the deeds had been filed for record promptly quitclaimed to Rogers.

Rogers denied that he called Meadows requesting the preparation of the deeds and argues that since Sanders did not testify, the record reveals as an absolute that he, Rogers, made no such call. He explained his execution of the deeds by testifying that Sanders was handling all development of the Redding property and that he was only remotely involved in this aspect of the business and therefore, when Sanders presented the deeds to him indicating they were part of a proposed apartment complex being developed by Riley and Meadows, he executed them without investigation. The attorneys, the grantees in the deeds, testified that while they discussed an apartment project in another area of the county, they had never proposed to either Rogers or Sanders that such development be constructed on the Redding property or that they urged them to participate in any such project.

Quentin Stringer, the Chief of the Right-of-Way Division of the Mississippi Highway Department, co-indictee, had the responsibility of assigning appaisers to determine the value of property to be purchased for the construction of Interstate 10. On May 3, 1966, the acquisition of property for the proposed highway was formally authorized and Stringer assigned Thomas Dunn, a staff appraiser for the highway department, and O. H. Burns, an independent appraiser of Gulfport, to make an appraisal of the former Redding property needed for highway purposes.

Thereafter, Burns went upon the tract with Dunn and while on the property, Dunn, a co-indictee, disclosed the sale of the two lots by Rogers to Meadows and Riley and indicated they should be used as comparatives in appraising the value of the right-of-way to be acquired by the State. Burns later learned in discussing the matter with Meadows that the sales were not bona fide transactions, were without consideration, with the result he did not use them in his appraisal of the property. In the course of conducting his appraisal, however, Burns contacted Rogers to ascertain the purchase price of the property. Burns testified that he was advised by Rogers that he had $256,000 invested in the property. Counsel for the appellant and the State debate the degree of impact this figure had upon the appraisal of Burns. Regardless of the degree of impact the figure appears several times in the appraisal report prepared for use by the highway department. It reflects a value of $165,000 for the 35.21 acres to be acquired by the highway department out of the 110 acres formerly belonging to the Redding estate.

The second appraisal was made by Dunn, an employee of the highway department, with offices in Jackson, and who also engaged himself in appraisal work for Rogers and Sanders on a parttime basis. He appraised the property for $181,700 and his report reflected the false deeds to Riley and Meadows under the section entitled 'Property Transaction during the Last Five Years to Date.' His appraisal report states these sales were verified and valid. The consideration stated in them was directly related to his appraisal value of $181,700.

Significantly this appraisal also included a plat which contained several fictitious lots. The land purchased included a platted portion called Redding Ridge Addition, as well as some unplatted acreage. Basil Browning, an employee of the Right-of-Way Division of the State Highway Department, was requested by Sanders, the business associate of Rogers, both of whom were frequest visitors to the office of the department, to draw in some additional lots on the unplatted acreage on the map for the highway department's files. Browning was reluctant to make this addition, but on the assurance of Dunn that Stringer had authorized their inclusion, the nonexistent lots were included in the plat, thus falsifying it. The drawing was then delivered to either Dunn or Sanders. The inclusion of the lots portrayed the property to be acquired for the right-of-way, or the property adjacent to it, to be developed to a greater extent, and hence more valuable, than it actually was. This plat was an integral part of Dunn's appraisal which was submitted to the highway department on November 2, 1966.

In January 1967 Rogers was contacted by Earl Goodwin, the Chief Negotiator with the Right-of-Way Division of the highway department, for the purchase of the right-of-way. A question arose concerning the title to the land acquired from the Reddings since it had been inadvertently conveyed to Leon T. Rogers rather than to his son, Leon T. Rogers, Jr., the appellant. However, once this impediment was removed by a quitclaim deed of January 11, 1967, recorded in the Chancery Clerk's office of Harrison County on January 17, 1967, bargaining was renewed.

Goodwin testified that the negotiations were pressed for conclusion by Stringer. A preliminary offer of the department was rejected by Rogers. Goodwin was then advised by Stringer, the Chief of the Right-of-Way Division, and his superior, that he should offer $174,000 for the property since it was a figure about midway between the appraisals of Dunn and Burns. The offer was made by Goodwin to Rogers who agreed to accept the sum of $174,000 for the right-of-way. The figure was approved by Goodwin on January 17, 1967, and thereafter on January 23, 1967, Rogers conveyed the 35.21 acres to the State of Mississippi for right-of-way. Goodwin then authorized the...