People v. Moreno

Opinion

THAXTER, Acting P. J.

After a bench trial, the court convicted appellants, Jose Manuel Moreno and Jose Luis Cuevas, of one count of burglary (count 3, Pen. Code, § 459) and three counts of receiving stolen property (counts 2, 4, & 6, Pen. Code, § 496). On appeal, Moreno contends the evidence is insufficient to sustain his receiving stolen property conviction in count 2. Cuevas contends that the court improperly convicted him in count 4 of receiving stolen property. In the unpublished portion of this opinion, we reject Moreno’s sufficiency of the evidence claim. In the published portion, we reject Cuevas’s claim.

Facts

The evidence at trial established that on July 8, 1997, someone burglarized Rocio Rojas’s home in Arvin.

On July 22, 1997, someone burglarized Nancy Garcia’s house and Steve Rodriguez’s house in Arvin. Later that day Arvin Police Officer Daniel Andre went to the trailer where Cuevas lived. After obtaining Cuevas’s consent to search the trailer, Officer Andre entered and found Moreno, Eduardo P. and Cuevas’s wife, Natividad, inside. On a couch, he found several items that had been stolen during the Garcia and Rodriguez burglaries, including two televisions and a VCR.

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In a bedroom, Officer Andre found other stolen items, including two gold chains, which were found in Moreno’s wallet, and three cowboy hats.

1

Cuevas, Moreno and Eduardo had been staying in the room where the hats were found. Officer Andre also confiscated a pair of sandals belonging to Moreno. One sandal matched a shoe print found outside a window at the Rodriguez residence.

During a postarrest interview, Moreno stated that he and Eduardo were riding with Cuevas in Cuevas’s van when a man named “Mario” flagged them down and asked them to help him move some things from his sister’s house. After going to a house on Meyer Street,

2

Mario entered the house through a window because he did not have a key. Moreno denied knowing anything about the Garcia burglary.