State v. Edwards

Citations

• 202 Conn. App. 384

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crime of larceny in the second degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant's conviction stemmed from his alleged reception of stolen property in the form of one Rolex watch, taken from the victims, D and S, during a break-in of their home by the defendant's brother. During the break-in, three Rolex watches were stolen, valued by D at $11,000, $5000 and $16,000. Over the defendant's objection, the trial court admitted a portion of a police detective's testimony regarding a surveillance video that showed the defendant, in a business that provided jewelry appraisals, in possession of one of the Rolex watches. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that the value of the watch in his possession was more than $10,000 or that he knew the watch was stolen as required by statute (§ 53a-123). Held: 1. The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of larceny in the second degree: a. There was sufficient evidence that the value of the property was more than $10,000 as required by § 53a-123 (a) (2): although D testified that one of the stolen watches had been worth only $5000, his description of that watch did not include diamonds, and D testified that the watch seen with the defendant in the surveillance video was his diamond Rolex, recognizable by its dial and condition, which he had valued at $16,000, a clerk on the surveillance video examined the watch and confirmed the authenticity of diamonds on it to be genuine, and the jury was entitled to weigh the credibility of conflicting evidence that S had valued all three watches below $10,000, and, thus, the jury could have found that the defendant possessed the $16,000 watch; moreover, the state established that D owned the watch and D's testimony as to the value of his watch was sufficient to put the question of value before the jury, which was entitled to weigh that evidence in finding the value of the