[Cite as State v. Blevins,
2016-Ohio-5049.]
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
CLARK COUNTY
STATE OF OHIO :
:
Plaintiff-Appellee : Appellate Case No. 2014-CA-47
:
v. : Trial Court Case No. 2013-CR-654
:
LISA BLEVINS : (Criminal Appeal from
: Common Pleas Court)
Defendant-Appellant :
:
...........
OPINION
Rendered on the 22nd day of July, 2016.
...........
AMY M. SMITH, Atty. Reg. No. 0081712, Clark County Prosecutor’s Office, 50 East
Columbia Street, Suite 449, Springfield, Ohio 45502
Attorney for Plaintiff-Appellee
JEFFREY T. GRAMZA, Atty. Reg. No. 0053392, Talbott Tower, Suite 1210, 131 North
Ludlow Street, Dayton, Ohio 45402
Attorney for Defendant-Appellant
.............
HALL, J.
{¶ 1} Lisa Blevins appeals from her conviction and sentence following a bench trial
on ten counts of forgery and two counts of theft. In her sole assignment of error, Blevins
challenges the legal sufficiency and manifest weight of the evidence to support the guilty
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verdict.
{¶ 2} The State’s evidence established that Blevins worked as a
bookkeeper/accountant for the Kreider Corporation in Springfield, Ohio. She was one of
four employees in the company’s business office. She began working there in the 1990s
and became responsible for paying bills and writing checks in 2003. Kreider vice-
president and general manager John Patton testified that he and owner Art
Gianakopoulous were the only people authorized to sign the checks written on behalf of
Kreider.
{¶ 3} In April 2013, the Capital One credit-card company contacted Patton and
advised him that five Kreider business checks had been used to pay a personal credit
card account in the name of Blevins and her daughter. The checks were payable to
Capital One and appeared to bear Patton’s signature. Patton testified, however, that the
signature was not his. He subsequently discovered that the checks falsely had been
entered into Kreider’s accounting system as having been issued to legitimate Kreider
vendors, not to Capital One. Patton called Blevins into his office and confronted her with
the checks. According to Patton, Blevins admitted that she had used the checks to pay
her credit card. She assured him that those five checks were all she had taken.
{¶ 4} Patton fired Blevins and commenced a thorough investigation. He ultimately
discovered more than 1,000 Kreider checks that had been issued without authorization.
Although each of the checks bore his signature, he testified that he did not sign any of
them. Some of them did not appear in Kreider’s accounting system. Others appeared in
the system but falsely were entered as if they were issued to pay bona fide business
expenses when, in fact, they were payable directly to Blevins, to her creditors, or to
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business entities with which she had a relationship. The checks had been completed
manually on a typewriter rather than being computer generated, which was the typical
practice at Kreider. After Blevins’ discharge, Patton found stacks of blank Kreider checks
in her desk drawers. Although the company used these checks when a manual check
was necessary, the blank checks normally were stored in a safe.
{¶ 5} Rebecca Barrett, an expert forensic document examiner, testified about her
review of the handwriting on all of the checks. She examined known signatures of Patton
and Blevins as well as the payor signatures authorizing payment of the checks and the
endorsing signatures on the reverse side. Barrett explained that she stated her findings
using a sliding scale of certainty regarding the authenticity of the signatures. The top end
of the scale was a positive “identification” of a particular person as the writer. The bottom
end was “elimination” of a person as the writer. In order of reducing certainty, the middle
levels of the scale included “probably written by,” “indications may have been written by,”
“no opinion,” “indications may not have been written by,” and “probably not written by.”
{¶ 6} With respect to Patton’s purported signature as payor, Barrett concluded that
the majority of the checks had “indications he may not have written them; and then the
rest of them were no opinion as to if he wrote them or not.” She explained that her
uncertainty stemmed from the quality of the check copies she examined, the fact that
many of the checks had stamps over the signatures, and the fact that she had a limited
sample of Patton’s actual signature to use for comparison. With regard to 387 of the
checks payable to the order of Blevins, Barrett concluded that 127 were positive
identifications, 131 were “probably written by” her, 87 had “indications” they were written
by her, 41 were “no opinion,” and one had “indications [it] may not have been written by”
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her.
{¶ 7} Detective Edward Icehour also testified for the State and linked the checks
at issue to accounts associated with Blevins or her children. Sometimes Blevins’ account
number was written on the front. Other times her account number was stamped on the
check. On other occasions, a Kreider check was paid to a business on a date and in an
amount that corresponded to a bill that had been sent to Blevins. The Kreider checks had
been used to pay Blevins’ mortgages, her car payments, her credit cards, her utilities, her
cell phone bill, and other things. In particular, the checks had been used to pay bills from
Home Depot, Columbia Gas, Pier 1, Macy’s, J.C. Penny’s, Lowes, Capital One, TJ Maxx,
Cififinancial, Ohio Edison, Kohl’s, Dell, Victoria’s Secret, Navy Federal Credit Union,
AT&T, SBC, Sprint, Verizon, Nationstar, Bank of America, Taylor Bean & Whitaker, Wells
Fargo, the Clark County Treasurer, GM, National City/PNC Bank, Jeff Wyler Automotive,
U.S. Bank, Ally Bank, Chase, GMAC, Toyota, Hyundai, Fifth Third, and Security National
Bank. In addition, Icehour traced directly to Blevins’ checking account 390 Kreider checks
that were payable to her. These checks were in addition to Blevins’ normal payroll checks,
which Icehour also identified.
{¶ 8} Based on the evidence presented, the trial court found Blevins guilty of first-
degree-felony theft in violation of R.C. 2913.02(A)(1), first-degree-felony theft in violation
of R.C. 2913.02(A)(3), and 10 counts of forgery in violation of R.C. 2913.31(A(1), as
charged in the indictment. The trial court also found that the dollar amount involved with
respect to each theft count was more than $1.5 million. At sentencing, the trial court found
all of the convictions subject to merger and proceeded to sentencing solely on count one,
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which involved theft in violation of R.C. 2913.02(A)(1). The trial court imposed an eight-
year prison term and ordered Blevins to pay court costs and restitution. This appeal
followed.
{¶ 9} In her sole assignment of error, Blevins challenges the legal sufficiency and
manifest weight of the evidence to support the trial court’s verdict. She stresses that a
theft conviction required proof that she knowingly obtained or exerted control over Kreider
property valued at more than $1.5 million. She argues that the only way she allegedly did
so was by forging Kreider checks. She points out, however, that she only was charged
with forging 10 checks that had a value nowhere near $1.5 million. Although the total
value of the more than 1,000 checks at issue was well over $1.5 million, Blevins contends
the State failed to prove that she forged them.
{¶ 10} Blevins’ argument on the issue is as follows:
The problem with the Government’s version of events is that it failed
to present sufficient evidence that Appellant forged the writings of another
to the extent that she obtained $1.5 million of an owner’s property or
services. There was circumstantial evidence presented that Appellant made
deposits, made payments on debt, made purchases, etc. with money that
possibly was taken from Kreider Corporation. There was certainly not
sufficient evidence—not sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt—
that Appellant forged checks amounting to $1.5 million.
The fact of the matter is that Appellant is not even alleged in this case
to have forged checks that resulted in her obtaining that much money. At
the outset, she was alleged in this case to have forged ten checks. The
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Government, of course, did present evidence at trial that someone forged
checks—1,059 of them—and that Appellant had and spent money in
amounts that she maybe should not have had the opportunity to obtain on
her bookkeeper’s salary. The Government also presented evidence—via
the testimony of its forensic expert—that Appellant forged a number of
checks. The problem with the Government’s case is the insufficiency of
proof that: 1) Appellant forged checks in the amount of money alleged to
have been taken from the owner, and 2) where the amounts of money she
had and spent came from, i.e., how she actually obtained those amounts.
Each and every element of an alleged offense must be proven
beyond a reasonable doubt in order to sustain a conviction. To be proven
guilty of theft, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
Appellant obtained or exerted control over the property of Kreider to the
tune of $1.5 million. Without also proving beyond a reasonable doubt that
Appellant forged checks in that amount, there is simply no way to prove that
she obtained the alleged amount of money from the alleged victim, Kreider
Corporation.
What proof was presented at trial that Appellant forged checks? John
Patton said that he definitely did not sign a majority of the checks that he
examined in the course of the investigation of the case. Rebecca Barrett
said that, on the majority of the checks she examined, there were
indications that John Patton may not have signed the check as payor. She
further asserted her certainty that just 127 of the 387 checks she examined
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were endorsed by Appellant. Ms. Barrett could not say with any degree of
certainty that Appellant had signed any checks as payor, with Mr. Patton’s
or anyone else’s name.
The proof presented at trial that Appellant forged checks in the
amount of $1.5 million or more fell far short of the beyond-a-reasonable-
doubt standard. It follows, then, that if the Government did not prove that
Appellant forged checks in that amount, the Government must prove how
else she obtained that amount from Kreider Corporation. No proof
whatsoever was presented to show any other means that she may have
obtained the money. If it can be argued that the Government proved that
Appellant forged ten checks, or even 127 checks, there is no viable
argument that she forged anywhere close to 1,059 of them.
(Appellant’s brief at 7-8).
{¶ 11} Upon review, we find Blevins’ argument to be unpersuasive. Patton testified
that he did not sign any of the checks at issue. (See, e.g., Tr. Vol. 9 at 2674, 2710, 2712).
His testimony on that issue is not inconsistent with Barrett’s testimony that she either
found “indications” he may not have signed the checks or had no opinion in that regard.
Common sense also supports a determination that Patton’s testimony about not signing
the checks was credible. He had no conceivable business purpose for signing more than
1,000 Kreider checks for more than $1.5 million payable directly to Blevins or to accounts
associated with her. Therefore, the evidence supports a finding that someone forged all
of the disputed checks bearing Patton’s signature.
{¶ 12} The trial court reasonably could have inferred from the record that the
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person who forged all of the checks was Blevins. When she was fired, she essentially
admitted forging the few checks Patton had discovered at that point, acknowledging that
she had stolen the money. As for the other checks, Blevins is the only Kreider employee
who benefitted from the forgery of the checks. All of them were payable to her or to
accounts associated with her. This fact supports an inference that she is the person who
stole the checks and forged Patton’s signature. Indeed, we see no plausible reason why
another Kreider employee, or anyone else, would have forged Patton’s signature on more
than 1,000 checks over a 10-year period solely for Blevins’ benefit.1
{¶ 13} In addition, the record reflects that Blevins was well positioned to carry out
the large-scale theft over an extended time. As set forth above, blank Kreider checks were
found in her desk. (Id. at 2663-2664). The checks at issue were completed manually on
a typewriter rather than computer generated. Kreider’s business office had two
typewriters, one of which was located on Blevins’ desk. (Id. at 2665). The other was
located on the desk of receptionist Carolyn Black. (Id. at 2681). But Black did not benefit
financially from any of the forged checks, and she did not have Blevins’ job, which
included processing accounts payable. That task involved matching a purchase order
with an invoice, recording the information, and issuing a Kreider check for Patton’s
signature. (Tr. Vol. 2 at 338). Because she handled accounts payable, Blevins was
uniquely situated to enter the forged checks into Kreider’s accounting system as having
been issued to bona fide vendors, which is how the theft was perpetrated for so long
1 We suppose Blevins conceivably could have aided and abetted an unidentified
accomplice such as a family member who actually wrote Patton’s name on the stolen
checks as payor. Regardless, based on the reasoning set forth above, the evidence still
would support a finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Blevins participated in the
forgery and theft of the checks at issue, making her guilty of the charged offenses.
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without detection.
{¶ 14} Although the case against Blevins may have been largely circumstantial, it
is beyond dispute that “[c]ircumstantial evidence and direct evidence have the same
probative value.” State v. Peterson, 2d Dist. Champaign No. 2014-CA-1, 2015-Ohio-789,
¶ 20. Here, the circumstantial evidence strongly supports the trial court’s verdict finding
Blevins guilty of theft of more than $1.5 million and forgery. Viewing the evidence in a
light most favorable to the State, the trial court could have found the crimes proven
beyond a reasonable doubt. This is not an exceptional case in which the trial court clearly
lost its way and created a manifest miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, we overrule
Blevins’ assignment of error.
{¶ 15} The judgment of the Clark County Common Pleas Court is affirmed.
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DONOVAN, P.J., and FROELICH, J., concur.
Copies mailed to:
Amy M. Smith
Jeffrey T. Gramza
Hon. William B. McCracken
(sitting by assignment)
