People v. Holt

JAMES, J.

Defendant was convicted of the crime of embezzlement and appeals from the judgment of imprisonment and from an order denying' his motion for a new trial.

The evidence offered in support of the charge showed that a woman named Grace M. Carter had delivered to defendant, who was a real estate agent, the sum of about one thousand one hundred dollars with which to erect for her a house; that instead of putting the money to the use for which it was delivered to him defendant expended it for his own purposes, a portion thereof being paid for an automobile. Prior to the filing of the original complaint, defendant was taken to the office of the district attorney and there interrogated as

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to the facts connected with the transaction. While it did appear that his visit to the district attorney’s office was not entirely voluntary upon his part, sufficient was shown to establish that whatever statement he there made, he made voluntarily and with full knowledge that it might be used against him in the event prosecution was instituted. The evidence showed that while in the district attorney’s office, in answer to questions asked him, defendant admitted receiving the money of the complaining witness for the purpose charged, and admitted having expended a portion of it in the purchase of an automobile for his own use and the remainder for some other purposes which he did not name but which he admitted had not to do with the erecting of a house for the complaining witness. On his own behalf defendant testified that the money had been given him by the complaining witness for the purpose of aiding him to engage in business for himself as a real estate agent. He testified that the complaining witness desired him to board with her at one time, and that the only restriction she placed upon the matter of the use to which he should put the money was that he should not expend it for liquor or upon women. He further testified that the complaining witness made no demand upon him for the return of the money until, happening to pass the office where he was employed, she observed a young woman at work there and that she then became enraged and inquired of him who the woman was and where she lived; that she had also visited the house where he lived without his knowledge and examined his belongings, all evidently for the purpose, as assumed by the defendant, of finding out whether the woman was living at the same place. Shortly after this alleged occurrence the complaining witness lodged her charge with the district attorney. There was ample evidence to sustain the conviction, and an examination of the whole record clearly shows that whatever irregularity there may have been or error committed during the course of the trial, none of these were of such a prejudicial character as to compel the conclusion that in this case there has been a miscarriage of justice.