State v. Thorne

Citations

• 204 Conn. App. 249

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of six counts of the crime of wilful failure to pay sales tax, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. There was insufficient evidence to support the defendant's conviction of wilful failure to pay sales tax as charged in count four of the operative information, the state having presented no evidence that the defendant failed to pay the sales tax allegedly due on the date specified in that count. 2. There was sufficient evidence to support the defendant's conviction of wilful failure to pay sales tax as charged in the remaining counts of the operative information: the state presented sufficient evidence by which the jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, as the person responsible to pay sales tax for her husband's sole proprie- torship, was a person who was required by law to pay sale taxes and that she wilfully failed to do so; moreover, although the information technically charged that the defendant wilfully failed to pay sales tax as the owner of a different business entity, the name of the business entity was not an essential element of the crime, the evidence proved that the defendant wilfully failed to pay sales tax that was owed for the sole proprietorship, and the defendant made no claim of variance at trial, did not object to the admissibility of the evidence regarding the sole proprietorship on the ground of variance and did not claim that she was prejudiced in her defense and that substantial injustice had been done because of the language in the information. 3. The defendant could not prevail on her unpreserved claim that the trial court misled the jury by giving an improper jury instruction that diluted the state's burden of proof and weakened her presumption of innocence; the defendant conceded that she waived her claim, and, contrary to her contention, her conviction did not warrant reversal under the plain error doctrine, as she failed to carry her burden of demonstrating that the cou