State v. Bisanti

• Decision Date: 04 May 1943
• Docket Number: 46241.
• Citation: 9 N.W.2d 279,233 Iowa 748
• Parties: STATE v. BISANTI.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

9 N.W.2d 279

233 Iowa 748

STATE v. BISANTI.

No. 46241.

Supreme Court of Iowa

May 4, 1943

Rehearing Denied June 18, 1943.

Geo J. Dugan, of Perry, for appellant.

John M. Rankin, Atty. Gen., of Iowa, Jens Grothe and Don Hise Asst. Attys. Gen., of Iowa, and Edward C. Schroeder, Co. Atty., of Boone, for appellee.

BLISS Justice.

In March 1930, the defendant sold the equipment with which he was operating an establishment for the cleaning, pressing, and tailoring of clothes, at Perry, Iowa. The purchaser was the Hawkeye Laundry Company, a corporation, with its principal place of business at Boone, Iowa. As part of the consideration of sale, the defendant's business was to be continued by the purchaser and the defendant was to remain as manager and operate it as a branch of the purchaser's business at Boone. Defendant continued in this capacity for eleven years. It was his duty to collect all money earned by the Perry branch, deposit it as directed by his employer, send the deposit slips to the Boone office, and make reports and an accounting to that office. Perry is in Dallas County and Boone is in Boone County. The defendant had been fraudulently taking and converting to his own use, money paid in by customers, for several years to the amount of several thousand dollars. He had almost complete active charge of the business. He hired and discharged employees under him. It was his practice, a number of times each week, to steal money from the cash drawer or from the safe. These withdrawals would amount to from $100 to $300 a month. During a part of July and a part of August, 1941, he admitted that he took $436.81. The money was usually taken in by an office girl who placed it in the cash register or safe, and later deposited it in the bank. When the bookkeeper told the president of the Laundry Co. that the books at the Perry branch showed $16000 in bills receivable, he employed an accountant, and the defendant's shortages were discovered. The defendant readily admitted his pilferings, both in writing and orally. He signed a written confession on April 11, 1942, that he had embezzled $3,320.71 of his employer's money over a period of about sixteen months. This instrument was witnessed by the president of his employer, an adjuster of the company on defendant's bond, and by a lawyer of Adel. On the 13th of the same month he signed a more complete confession, which was witnessed by the deputy sheriff, and the County Attorney of Boone County, and the president of defendant's employer. In this confession the defendant stated that he had made it voluntarily and of his own free will without any threats or promises from anyone, and that it was true. He offered to plead guilty to the charge, but the trial court was not willing to accept such plea. Defendant was not a witness, and he put on no witness except the county attorney who was merely asked if he had not dictated the last mentioned confession. He answered that he had. The court was meticulous in its care to fully protect the rights of the defendant throughout the trial, and in its instructions. The defendant was fairly tried and we find no merit in the assignments of error, and no error in the record, justifying a reversal of the judgment.

I. By motions to direct a verdict for defendant, and to discharge the jury, and otherwise, the appellant challenged the jurisdiction of the District Court of Boone County to try the defendant, because the money was unlawfully appropriated by him in Dallas County. Error is assigned because of the adverse rulings of the Court on this issue. The rulings of the court were right. Contrary to the appellant's contention, the record amply shows that the defendant was to account for the receipts of the business at Perry, to the home office of the Laundry Company at Boone. While the original contract of 1930 does not expressly state that defendant was to so account, it did provide that the receipts were to be deposited in the bank at Perry, subject to withdrawal only by the home office. The testimony of the...