People v. Yrigoyen

GIBSON, C. J.

— A jury found defendant guilty of issuing a check with intent to defraud and with knowledge that there were not sufficient funds or credit for its payment upon presentation in violation of section 476a of the Penal Code.

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He appeals from the judgment of conviction, claiming that

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the evidence does not show guilty knowledge or intent to defraud and that the trial court erred in failing to give an instruction on circumstantial evidence.

On October 7, 1950, defendant gave Pierre Mendiboure a check drawn on a Healdsburg bank in the sum of $11,260 as final payment on the purchase price of cattle. At the time the cheek was issued, and also when it was presented for payment on October 14, there was less than $1,100 in the account which defendant maintained in that bank. The check was dishonored because of insufficient funds.

After contracting with Mendiboure to purchase the cattle, defendant agreed to resell them to John Lucas. Defendant and Lucas testified that they went to the Healdsburg bank on October 5, where Lucas made out a cheek in defendant’s favor for $8,000, as a partial payment, and that defendant instructed the manager to deposit the check in the account for the purpose of covering the check to be given to Mendiboure. Lucas took delivery of the cattle on October 9 and "that afternoon gave defendant’s bookkeeper a check in the sum of $5,566 for the balance of the resale price. The bookkeeper testified that the next morning he went to the bank to deposit the $5,566 check, that he there saw the $8,000 check which had not yet been deposited, and that he then deposited both checks.

The bank manager testified that to his knowledge defendant made no credit arrangement to honor the Mendiboure check. The only day in October on which there were sufficient funds in the account to pay the check in question was the 10th when the sum of $13,566 received from Lucas was deposited. Several checks drawn on the account were cashed between the 10th and the 14th including two totaling over $10,000 issued by defendant to the Modoc Auction Company and paid at the bank in Healdsburg on the 11th and 13th. It is not clear from the record whether these two checks were drawn before or after the check in question.