Vadde v. State

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Bernes
• Citation: Vadde v. State, 674 S.E.2d 323, 296 Ga. App. 405 (Ga. App. 2009)
• Decision Date: 26 January 2009
• Docket Number: No. A08A2062.,A08A2062.
• Parties: VADDE v. The STATE.

674 S.E.2d 323

296 Ga. App. 405

VADDE v. The STATE.

No. A08A2062.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

January 26, 2009.

Reconsideration Denied March 4, 2009.

Srinivas Vadde, pro se.

Patrick H. Head, Dist. Atty., Dana J. Norman, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.

BERNES, Judge.

A jury found Srinivas Vadde guilty of three counts of deposit account fraud and two counts of theft by deception. Following the denial of his motion for new trial, Vadde appeals, contending that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions. Because there was no evidence of present consideration, we reverse Vadde's conviction for deposit account fraud under Count 5 of the indictment. We affirm his remaining convictions.

On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, and [Vadde] no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence. We neither weigh the evidence nor assess the credibility of witnesses, but merely ascertain that the evidence is sufficient to prove each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Moreover, conflicts in the testimony of the witnesses are a matter of credibility for the jury to resolve. As long as there is some competent evidence, even though contradicted, to support each fact necessary to make out the [s]tate's case, the jury's verdict will be upheld.

(Footnote omitted.) Essuon v. State, 286 Ga.App. 869, 871-872(1), 650 S.E.2d 409 (2007). See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

The Wachovia Transaction. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence showed that on December 4, 2001, Vadde entered a Wachovia Bank in Cobb County and presented a check for $75,000 purportedly drawn on the account of a company called Encompass Insurance. Vadde did not have a bank account with Wachovia. However, Vadde had been to four other banks earlier that day in an effort to have the $75,000 check honored, and all four had rejected the check. The teller at Wachovia accepted the $75,000 check and exchanged it for a Wachovia cashier's check for the same dollar amount. Vadde then left Wachovia and deposited the check into his Bank of America account.

Shortly thereafter, the $75,000 check delivered to Wachovia was dishonored. As a result, on December 6, 2001, Wachovia asked Bank of America to freeze Vadde's bank account, which that bank did. By that time, Vadde had already withdrawn $5,900 of the proceeds from the cashier's check. Wachovia contacted Vadde by telephone and demanded that he return the withdrawn proceeds, but he never did so.

The SunTrust Transactions. On October 31, 2003, Vadde entered a SunTrust Bank in Cobb County and deposited into his account a check with a face value of $301,392 purportedly drawn on the account of a company called SGB Services Limited Group. Due to a procedural error, SunTrust immediately credited the face value of the check to Vadde's bank account. Over the next few days, Vadde withdrew $158,800 of the proceeds of the check from his account which he used for, among other things, paying off his personal debts and purchasing a car.

Like the check that had been delivered to Wachovia, the $301,392 check delivered to SunTrust was dishonored. SunTrust froze Vadde's account and mailed him a certified letter demanding that he tender the $158,800 in withdrawn proceeds within ten days. Vadde, however, never returned the proceeds. Rather, on November 19, 2003, Vadde presented a new check to SunTrust with the face value of $301,392 purportedly drawn on the account of a company called Ranmac Security Services. SunTrust did not credit Vadde's account for the second check, which also was dishonored.

Vadde subsequently was arrested, indicted, and tried on three counts of felony deposit account fraud (Counts 1, 3, and 5) and two counts of theft by deception (Counts 2 and 4). At trial, the state presented the testimony of several bank employees and introduced bank business records reflecting the events as set out above. The state also presented similar transaction evidence showing that on July 20, 2004, Vadde deposited two checks totaling $33,000 into his account with Citizens Trust Bank in Fulton County. The checks were later dishonored, but by that time Vadde had withdrawn $8,000 of the proceeds from his account. Upon demand, Vadde failed to return any of the proceeds to Citizens Trust Bank.

Vadde chose to testify at trial and admitted that four banks had rejected the $75,000 check before he presented the check to Wachovia. Vadde also testified that the $75,000 check and the two $301,392 checks were loans to him from business partners in Nigeria to fund his business ventures, although he conceded that the names of those partners did not appear on any of the checks and that he had used check proceeds to pay off his personal debt and buy a car. Vadde further admitted that he had never met his alleged business partners. Notably, Vadde told a fraud investigator with Citizens Trust Bank a similar story that the two checks he had delivered to that bank had been loans from a business partner in Nigeria although again, the name of the partner did not appear anywhere on those checks.

1. There was sufficient evidence to authorize a reasonable jury to find Vadde guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of felony deposit account fraud under Counts 1 and 3 of the indictment. "A person commits the offense of deposit account fraud when such person ... delivers an instrument for the payment of money on any bank or other depository in exchange for a present consideration or wages, knowing that it will not be honored by the drawee." OCGA § 16-9-20(a). The offense rises to the level of a felony if the instrument was drawn on an account with "a bank of another state." OCGA § 16-9-20(c).

Count 1 alleged that Vadde committed deposit account fraud by delivering the $75,000 check to Wachovia on December 4, 2001 in exchange for the cashier's check, knowing that the $75,000 check would not be honored by the drawee institution. In turn, Count 3 alleged that Vadde committed deposit account fraud by delivering the first $301,392 check to SunTrust on October 31, 2003 in exchange for credit to his personal account with that bank, knowing that the check would not be honored by the drawee institution.

Vadde does not contest that he delivered the checks to the respective banks in exchange for present consideration. Nor does he challenge the fact that the checks were drawn on out-of-state bank accounts. Rather, his sole contention is that the prosecution failed to prove that he had knowledge that the drawee institutions would not honor the checks in question.

We are unpersuaded. The offense of deposit account fraud is committed if the defendant knew at the time he delivered the check that it would not be honored by the drawee. State v. Brannon, 154 Ga.App. 285, 286(1), 267 S.E.2d 888 (1980). And, like any other fact, guilty knowledge may be proven by circumstantial evidence, Thurman v. State, 249 Ga.App. 390, 392(2)(b), 547 S.E.2d 715 (2001), as it was in the present case.

With respect to the $75,000 check delivered to Wachovia, the jury was entitled to consider Vadde's admission that he shopped the check around to four other banks before he presented it to Wachovia, all of which rejected the check, which created an inference that Vadde knew the check would be dishonored when he delivered it to Wachovia. With respect to the first $301,392 check delivered to SunTrust, the jury was entitled to consider the fact that Vadde did not return the proceeds of the check within 10 days of receiving the demand letter from SunTrust as prima facie evidence that he knew the check would not be honored. See OCGA § 16-9-20(a)(2);¹ Porado v. State, 211 Ga App. 728, 728-729(1), 440 S.E.2d 690 (1994) (upholding deposit account fraud conviction after concluding that the state had made out a prima facie showing under OCGA § 16-9-20(a)(2)).

Furthermore, with respect to both checks, the jury was entitled to consider the similar transaction evidence for the purpose of showing Vadde's intent, knowledge, and bent of mind. See Lowery v. State, 282 Ga. 68, 70-71(3), 646 S.E.2d 67 (2007) (noting that "evidence of a defendant's commission of a similar transaction against one other than the victim is admissible for a number of purposes," including intent, knowledge, bent of mind, and "other matters dependent upon a person's state of mind") (citation and punctuation omitted). Finally, the jury was entitled to consider Vadde's implausible testimony concerning the source of the checks, which was contradicted by the face of the checks themselves, his admission that he did not use the proceeds for the business purposes for which the checks allegedly were intended, and his admission that he had never met his supposed business partners. Cf. Anderson v. State, 224 Ga.App. 608, 610(2), 481 S.E.2d 595 (1997) (upholding burglary conviction where, among other things, defendant's explanation of how he obtained the stolen goods was implausible).

In light of this combined circumstantial evidence, we conclude that a rational trier of fact was entitled to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Vadde acted with knowledge that the checks would be dishonored when...