People v. Steinberg

SHINN, J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction on two counts of receiving stolen property after a trial before the court pursuant to an indictment. He bases his appeal upon the alleged insufficiency of the evidence. Upon the trial he admitted having received the goods described in the first count of the indictment but denied any criminal intent (Pen. Code, sec. 496) and denied having received the goods described in the second count. The case on appeal turns upon the credibility of witnesses, as it did in the trial court, although, of course, under entirely different rules.

On the night of March 15, 1941, four men entered the storage room of a dealer in lubricating oils and greases and stole a large quantity of oil in quart cans and drums and some cans of grease. The oil was contained in 284 cartons, comprising 6816 quart cans and was of the value of $957.43. All of the men had been drinking heavily on the day of the burglary. Three of them, Boroff, hartley, and Wilkinson, were arrested and entered pleas of guilty to burglary and applied for and received probation. While their applications were pending they made statements to the probation officer, and after being granted probation they testified before the grand jury and at the preliminary examination of a fourth man, Roy Long, who also was charged with the

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burglaries. The three testified against defendant Steinberg and the account they gave of his receipt of the property was substantially as follows: Boroff, who was employed by a sign truck display company and who had known defendant for at least several months, talked with him a day or two before the burglary about disposing of oil and grease, and in reply to a question by the prosecutor as to what defendant said on that subject, he answered, “Well, they asked him if he could use any of it if we got some and he said ‘Yes.’ ” No mention was made in the conversation of the type of oil, the brand or the quantity. About midnight Saturday, March 15, the first load was taken from the storeroom and was immediately delivered by automobile and a truck taken from the oil company’s garage to defendant’s service station on North Spring Street. The quantity so delivered was of the value of $426.60. When the men reached the service station with the oil and grease defendant was at his home. He came to the service station upon a telephone call from an employee at the station, arriving before the truck was unloaded. The oil and grease were unloaded into a shed on the premises and defendant at that time gave Boroff $50 in cash and said he could use some more oil and grease at his service station on Brooklyn Avenue. The thieves then returned to the storage room of the oil company, stole another load of oil and grease and delivered that in another truck of the oil company to defendant’s Brooklyn Avenue station. Defendant was there when it was delivered and stored in a shed on the premises. The cans of oil and grease and some drums of oil delivered at this address made a pile some four feet by five feet by nine feet. The $50 received from defendant Saturday night was divided equally among the four burglars. The following day defendant paid Boroff $100 in cash, which likewise was divided among three or perhaps the four men. On Monday, after an argument over the price of the oil and grease, defendant finally agreed to pay $400 for the two lots delivered and gave Boroff three cheeks for $50 each, postdated, which Boroff cashed at a cafe. This money was likewise divided. Defendant stopped payment on these checks when the bank opened on Tuesday morning.