Wilds v. State, F--74--672
| Decision Date | 14 January 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. F--74--672,F--74--672 |
| Citation | 545 P.2d 779 |
| Parties | Alton J. WILDS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Oklahoma, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Appellant, Alton J. Wilds, hereinafter referred to as defendant, was charged, tried and convicted by a jury in Oklahoma County, Case No. CRF--73--3235, of the offense of Making False Entries on Accounts Relating to Monies Received on Behalf of the City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in violation of 21 O.S. 1971, § 341. He was sentenced to one (1) year in the Penitentiary and a fine of One Hundred ($100.00) Dollars, and a timely appeal has been made to this Court.
The lengthy record before us evidences the prolonged and complicated nature of this trial, which lasted some four and one-half days with 42 witnesses and over 50 exhibits. The witnesses and exhibits introduced by the State can be divided generally into two parts: Those showing the proper and usual bookkeeping procedures of the Utilities Division of The City of Oklahoma City, and those showing evidence of a similar plan or scheme to that of the offense charged.
The only portion of the bookkeeping practices that concern this case is that surrounding payments made at the office of the Utilities Service Division at City Hall. Generally, that procedure is as follows. Payment is made to a cashier and the customer is given a receipt, which may take the form of a receipt written by the cashier, a carbon of which becomes the portion used to credit the payment to the customer's account, or it may be a stub from the customer's water bill, in which case the bill itself is used to credit the account. At the same time, the cashier maintains a tally sheet where the transaction is recorded. At the end of the working day, the tally sheet, the money received and the portions of the bill retained by the cashier are placed in a box. All the cash boxes are then placed in a safe in an inner office of the Utilities Service Division. During at least a portion of the period in question, this safe was in the office of the defendant. The following morning, the office manager (the defendant for the period in question) totals the money and balances it against the receipts. (In the absence of the defendant, other employees of the Utilities Service Division performed this function.) The two almost always balance, the only variance being that of a few dollars or cents, generally chargeable to errors in making change. In the event there is a great discrepancy, the tally sheets are examined in an attempt to reconcile the two totals. After reaching a balance, the money and the receipts are delivered to the office of the City Treasurer where another balance is made. Then the money is deposited to the City's account and the portions of the bill and the carbons of the receipts are forwarded to Data Processing where they are used to give credit to the customers paying the bills.
There was testimony that it was possible to remove money from the cash box or safe and at the same time remove a bill for a like amount and the amounts forwarded to the City Treasurer would balance. To make sure the balances coincided with the actual amount received by the Utilities Service Division, it would be necessary to check them against the tally sheets. The tally sheets for the time period involved in this case are missing.
Occasionally an error occurs in this bookkeeping process, and a payment is credited to the wrong account. Generally, the error is caused when numbers are copied incorrectly by a cashier preparing a duplicate bill or by a keypunch operator in the posting of payments to the customer's account. When errors are brought to the attention of the Utilities Service Division, corrections are made by completing Two journal entry cards, one to debit the account credited in error, and another to credit the proper account. These two journal entries are cross-referenced by name and account number so that the transaction can be double checked. From time to time the department is unable to discover where an account was not credited. In those instances, the proper account is credited and no debit is made to another account. However, in these cases a notation to that effect is made on the single journal entry card.
The charge against defendant in this case was that he knowingly made a false entry to the account of J. N. Warren, a customer of the Utilities Service Division. The state's case showed that Mr. Warren paid $100.00, by check, to the Utilities Service Division, on March 19, 1973. He did not have his bill with him, so a duplicate bill was made and Mr. Warren was given the original as his receipt. Mr. Warren's draft was deposited on March 21, 1973, by the City Treasurer's Office. Mr. Warren testified that he never notified the Utilities Service Division of any error in his account. However, on March 27, 1973, the defendant prepared a Single journal entry card which credited $100.00 to Mr. Warren's account. The explanation of the transaction reads: 'payment applied to wrong account see Debit JE & Cash Stub.' Proper office procedure required that in addition to the term 'see Debit JE' the explanation should have shown the name and account number of the account debited by that journal entry. This did not appear on the card and there was testimony that no debit journal entry of that time period, debiting that amount, could be found. There was testimony that making such a card without the money having First been erroneously credited constituted a false entry.
Other testimony was presented showing that the identical transaction occurred with the accounts of 14 other customers who paid their bills, never reported errors in their accounts, and subsequently, without their knowledge, had their accounts credited with a single journal entry card carrying an explanation identical to that on the card crediting the account of Mr. Warren.
There was also testimony that such errors rarely came to the attention of the Utilities Service Division personnel unless the customer whose account was not credited called about the error, or a customer whose account was erroneously credited notified them. Neither of these events had occurred in the instances introduced at trial. There was also testimony that these single entries could be used to insure no complaints would be made by customers whose accounts were never credited. The entries could have been made necessary if someone had removed a sum of money from the funds received by the Utilities Service Division and had also removed a receipt used to credit the accounts. The removal of these two items would keep the day's totals in balance, but would have meant an account would not have been credited. It was the State's theory that defendant had, in fact, made the false entry to cover up his removal of funds from the Utilities Service Division. The State also introduced as evidence two items taken from defendant's desk drawer after his resignation. These two items were the portions of the bill used to credit customers' accounts and were several weeks old. There was testimony that there was no reason for these billing stubs to have been in the desk of the defendant rather than forwarded to Data Processing.
The defendant introduced a number of witnesses who testified to his reputation for honesty. The defendant himself took the stand and admitted the journal entry card relating to Mr. Warren's account was in his handwriting. He stated that occasionally journal entries were completed in just the manner as Mr. Warren's when they had not yet located the account which had been improperly credited. He further testified that all the entries made by him were done in good faith. He further testified that it was his responsibility to make these entries when errors came to his attention, whether the error was reported by one of the customers of the Department or by one of the clerks. It was also the testimony of defendant that prior to May, 1973, it was not his responsibility to balance the money received with the billing stubs, and that after that time he usually, but not always, did so. He also testified that he was uncertain of the date the office safe was placed in his office, but that it had not always been there.
Defendant brings four assignments of error. The first two will be considered together as they are related. Defendant alleges that the information is defective because it fails to allege facts showing all the material elements of the offense, and that a demurrer to the evidence at trial should have been sustained for the same shortcoming. We do not agree.
Defendant is charged under Section 341 of Title 21. This particular section delineates crimes against the revenue and property of the State by officers thereof. It reads, in pertinent part:
'Every public officer of the State or any county, city, town, . . . and every deputy or clerk of any such officer and every other person receiving any money or other thing of value on behalf of or for account of this State or any department of the government of this State or any bureau or fund created by law and in which this State or the people thereof, are directly or indirectly interested, who either:
* * *
* * *
'Third: Knowingly keeps any false account, or makes any false entry or erasure in any account of or relating to any moneys so received by him, on behalf of the State, city, town, district or county, or the people thereof, or in which they are interested * * *
'. . . shall upon conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a felony . . ..'
In the information, the State fails to allege receipt by defendant of the monies in question. It does, however, show his connection with and access to the money which was shown to have been...
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