State v. Reed

Citations

• 209 Conn. App. 873

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of larceny in the first degree, attempt to commit larceny in the first degree, larceny in the second degree and conspiracy to commit larceny in the first degree in connection with certain financial transactions involving an elderly victim, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant was hired as an in-home aide for the victim, and increasingly involved herself in the victim's life. A few months after the defendant was hired, the pastor of the defendant's church was granted power of attorney over the victim, and from that point forward the victim's banking activity began to diverge from several long-standing patterns. Increasing sums of money were being withdrawn from the victim's bank accounts and used by the defendant to pay for her various personal expenses. Following a trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of all four counts against the defendant. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on her claim that the trial court improperly instructed the jury as to the wrongfulness element of the offense of larceny, the charge to the jury having adequately conveyed the appro- priate levels of intent for both taking and retaining property in accor- dance with State v. Saez (115 Conn. App. 295), which outlined the state's obligation to show that the defendant acted with the subjective desire or knowledge that her actions constituted stealing: the court's charge to the jury, when considered as a whole and in light of the penal code's definition of larceny, was sufficient to adequately guide the jury; more- over, the language in the court's charge linking the requirement that the state must prove the defendant intended to permanently deprive the owner of his property with the requirement that the state must prove that the defendant took the property with an unlawful purpose adequately conveyed the requirement that the defendant must have intended to take the property wrongfully, such that the jury properly was apprised of the elements o