Thomas v. Commonwealth
| Docket Number | 0613-21-3 |
| Decision Date | 16 August 2022 |
| Parties | MELVIN AVON THOMAS v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF AUGUSTA COUNTY W. Chapman Goodwin, Judge
Dana R. Cormier (Dana R. Cormier, P.L.C., on brief), for appellant.
Timothy J. Huffstutter, Assistant Attorney General (Jason S Miyares, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Chief Judge Decker, Judges Humphreys and Friedman Argued at Lexington, Virginia
The Augusta County Circuit Court convicted appellant of conspiracy to commit grand larceny and two counts of grand larceny, in violation of Code §§ 18.2-22 and 18.2-95, respectively, following a February 2021 bench trial. The court sentenced appellant to a total of fifteen years of incarceration with eight years and six months suspended. On appeal, appellant argues that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of "other crimes" that occurred in Hagerstown, Maryland, Hanover, Virginia, and Campbell County, Virginia. He also asserts that the trial court erred in admitting certain business records because they lacked sufficient indicia of trustworthiness. Finally, appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his convictions.
This case provides a stark reminder that our lives are constantly "tracked" via our cell phones, GPS devices, and social media postings. Appellant, Melvin Avon Thomas, left a trail of evidence in the ether that abundantly supports his convictions. The question at hand is whether the evidence against him was reliable and properly admitted at trial.
In accordance with familiar principles of appellate review, we state the facts "in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party at trial." Gerald v. Commonwealth, 295 Va. 469, 472 (2018) (quoting Scott v. Commonwealth, 292 Va. 380, 381 (2016)). In doing so, we discard any of appellant's conflicting evidence, and regard as true all credible evidence favorable to the Commonwealth and all inferences that may reasonably be drawn from that evidence. Id. at 473.
On the night of December 28, 2018, surveillance cameras recorded the theft of property from the Beverage Tractor dealership in Augusta County, Virginia. At approximately 8:30 p.m., two men wearing dark clothing walked onto the lot and loaded a tractor on one trailer and two Kubota skid steers onto another trailer.[1] The men then departed in two white pickup trucks stolen from the premises, a Dodge and a Ford F-350 each bearing the dealership's logo and towing a trailer. Collectively, the stolen property totaled $150,000 in value.
The Dodge that was taken was equipped with a GPS tracking device that recorded its movements. The GPS data revealed that, immediately after the theft, the Dodge traveled north along Interstate 81 before stopping at a gas station in New Market, Virginia at approximately 10:01 p.m. Surveillance video from the gas station depicted the suspects fueling one of the stolen trucks after using cash to pay for gas. The truck displayed the Beverage Tractor dealership logo and towed a trailer, although its load was outside of view. After leaving the gas station, the Dodge continued traveling north on Interstate 81 before stopping on the shoulder at 10:48 p.m. The following morning, on December 29, police discovered the truck abandoned near mile marker 296. The trailer with the two Kubota skid steers was still attached and had a flat tire. Police did not immediately locate the other stolen truck or equipment.
"Other Crimes" and the Related Police Investigation
In the early morning hours-at 3:08 a.m. on December 29-following the Augusta County theft, surveillance cameras recorded two men stealing a Kubota skid steer from a heavy equipment dealership in Hagerstown, Maryland. The men loaded the equipment onto a trailer and towed it away using a white pickup truck displaying the Beverage Tractor dealership logo.
On January 25, 2019, Hanover County Sheriff's Investigator Matthew Gathright arrived at a heavy equipment dealership in Hanover, Virginia in response to a reported "larceny of a Kubota skid steer." From his review of surveillance video from the incident,[2] Gathright determined that the perpetrators loaded the skid steer onto a trailer attached to the same Beverage Tractor pickup truck that was used to commit the theft in Hagerstown, Maryland.
Two days later, on January 27, Maryland Detective Ryan Minnick received a call reporting that appellant had attempted to sell the caller a stolen Kubota skid steer.[3] The caller provided police with appellant's name, cell phone number, and the address of a lot in Bowie, Maryland where the caller had inspected the stolen skid steer. Minnick traveled to the Bowie address the same day, where he found the skid steer from the Hanover dealership on a trailer attached to the Ford F-350 pickup truck that was stolen from Beverage Tractor. Minnick could not confirm the origin of the trailer, however, because its "VIN plate"[4] had been removed; he also observed that the stolen Ford displayed a Maryland license plate that was not registered to the vehicle.
The following day, police executed a search warrant at the Bowie, Maryland lot. Inside of a camper on the property, Minnick found a box holding numerous documents containing appellant's name and contact information. A handwritten document resembling a lease listed appellant's name, the Bowie address, the name of the property's landlord, and the landlord's address. A letter from December 2017 included appellant's name and email address and identified a nearby residence in Severn, Maryland as his home address. Other documents found on the Bowie, Maryland lot included a 2017 bank statement, an expired vehicle registration, and insurance documents from 2018 which similarly contained appellant's name and the same Severn, Maryland address. A 2017 repair invoice and a business card for a construction company found at the scene also displayed appellant's name and a cell phone number matching the number police obtained from the initial caller who had notified police.[5] On the opposite side of the lot, Minnick discovered a Ford F-150 pickup truck containing expired vehicle insurance and registration documents that listed appellant as the truck's registered owner and identified the same Severn, Maryland address as his residence.
In total, police discovered six vehicles, seven trailers, and two pieces of heavy equipment on the Bowie lot. One of the vehicles, a stolen Ford F-450 tow truck, had been "re-painted black" from its original color and was towing a sedan with a "punched out ignition." Two other vehicles on the lot also had "punched out" ignitions. Minnick ultimately determined that half of the vehicles on the premises were stolen. Other vehicles could not be identified because their VIN plates had been removed.
On March 1, 2019, Jed Campbell reported the theft of a Kubota skid steer, a Ford F-250 pickup truck, and a trailer from his heavy equipment dealership in Campbell County, Virginia. The stolen Ford had a GPS tracking device that recorded its location. From the vehicle's GPS data, Campbell County Sheriff's Investigator Curtis Rice determined that the Ford left the dealership and traveled north to a gas station following the theft. At 9:37 p.m., gas station surveillance cameras recorded the Ford's arrival as it towed the stolen equipment to a fuel pump. The truck's driver and sole occupant used cash to pay for gas and fueled the truck before driving away with the stolen property. Rice developed appellant as a suspect in this Campbell County theft. Rice later used the stolen Ford's GPS location data to trace its route northward to an address in Baltimore, Maryland, where he eventually "recovered" the stolen vehicle.
During his investigation, Gathright obtained a "Google geofence warrant" to identify specific cellular devices that were in the vicinity of the dealerships in Augusta, Hagerstown and Hanover at the time of the thefts.[6] In response, Google identified "two anonymized suspicious device IDs that were in the immediate area of the three [dealerships] during the requested timeframe." From that information, Gathright concluded that "the same device . . . was [present] at all three of [the dealership] locations" during each theft. Gathright subsequently submitted a "secondary search warrant" to Google requesting the identity of the subscriber associated with the two "anonymized device IDs." Google responded with business records identifying appellant as the subscriber and disclosing his name, email address, and cell phone number.[7]
Gathright later forwarded appellant's name and cell phone number to Virginia State Police Trooper Jared Martin. Using that information, Martin identified a Facebook social media account displaying photographs that matched known images of appellant. Martin subsequently submitted a "preservation request" and a search warrant to Facebook "for any and all identifying information related to that account." In response, Facebook provided business records identifying appellant as the account's owner and disclosing his name, date of birth, email address, and cell phone number.[8] In response to a subsequent search warrant seeking "account information" associated with appellant's cell phone number, Google disclosed appellant's unique Google account number. At trial, Martin testified that no other person or phone number was associated with that Google account.
Martin obtained "a plethora of information" from Google pertaining to appellant's Google...
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