State v. Spontini

                                    215

 Submitted February 11, affirmed March 9, petition for review denied July 28,
                             2022 (

)


                    STATE OF OREGON,
                     Plaintiff-Respondent,
                               v.
                DONOVAN JOSEPH SPONTINI,
                     Defendant-Appellant.
                 Douglas County Circuit Court
                   19CR12071, 19CR15432;
                  A172856 (Control), A172857
                                

   George William Ambrosini, Judge.
   Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Anna Belais, Deputy Public Defender, Office
of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
Donovon Spontini filed the supplemental brief pro se.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Paul L. Smith, Deputy Solicitor
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before James, Presiding Judge, and Egan, Judge, and
Kamins, Judge.
   PER CURIAM
   Affirmed.
216                                             State v. Spontini

         PER CURIAM
         Defendant appeals from judgments of convictions,
in two consolidated cases, for a variety of crimes involving
a three-month property-crime spree. On appeal, defendant
only challenges the supplemental judgment imposing restitution related to the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle
and possession of a stolen motor vehicle, specifically, a motor
home. We affirm.
         ORS 137.106(1)(a) authorizes a trial court to impose
restitution and provides:
       “When a person is convicted of a crime … that has
   resulted in economic damages, the district attorney shall
   investigate and present to the court, at the time of sentencing or within 90 days after entry of the judgment, evidence
   of the nature and amount of the damages. … If the court
   finds from the evidence presented that a victim suffered
   economic damages, in addition to any other sanction it may
   impose, the court shall enter a judgment or supplemental
   judgment requiring that the defendant pay the victim restitution in a specific amount that equals the full amount of
   the victim’s economic damages as determined by the court.”
         Pursuant to ORS 137.106(1), there are three prerequisites to the imposition of criminal restitution: (1) criminal activities, (2) pecuniary damages, and (3) a “causal
relationship between the two.” State v. Edson, 

, 

 (1999). Criminal activities means any
offense “with respect to which the defendant is convicted
or any other criminal conduct admitted by defendant.” ORS
137.103(1). The record must demonstrate that the defendant’s criminal activities are a “but-for” cause of the victim’s economic damages and that the damages are a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant’s criminal activities.
State v. Ramos, 

, 

 (2016).
         For purposes of ORS 137.106(1),
   “ ‘[e]conomic damages’ means objectively verifiable monetary losses including but not limited to reasonable charges
   necessarily incurred for medical, hospital, nursing and
   rehabilitative services and other health care services,
   burial and memorial expenses, loss of income and past …
   impairment of earning capacity, reasonable and necessary
Cite as 

 (2022)                                 217

   expenses incurred for substitute domestic services, recurring loss to an estate, damage to reputation that is economically verifiable, reasonable and necessarily incurred costs
   due to loss of use of property and reasonable costs incurred
   for repair or for replacement of damaged property, whichever is less.”
Former ORS 31.710(2)(a) (2019), renumbered as ORS 31.705(2)(a)
(2021).
         A “[d]efendant cannot be required to pay restitution
for [economic] damages arising out of criminal activity for
which he was not convicted or which he did not admit having committed.” State v. Seggerman, 

,

 (2000) (holding that the court could not order restitution for stolen merchandise based on defendant’s plea of
guilty to the crime of conspiracy to commit theft because he
was not convicted of theft and did not admit to committing
theft). Here, defendant disputes the award of $23,699 in restitution for what the insurance adjusters deemed a “totaled”
motor home. According to defendant he admitted to stealing
and possessing the vehicle, but not damaging it. We rejected
a nearly identical argument in State v. Stephens, 

, 

 (2002):
       “Here, defendant was convicted of criminal activities,
   and he does not dispute that the car was damaged when the
   wheels and tires were taken. Thus, the only issue on appeal
   is whether a causal connection exists between the criminal
   activities of which defendant was convicted and the damage
   for which he is being held responsible. Defendant points out
   that he was convicted only of unauthorized use of a vehicle, ORS 164.135(1), and possession of a stolen vehicle, ORS
   819.300. Defendant asserts that he was not charged with
   the theft of the wheels and tires and that he did not admit
   to taking them. Accordingly, he reasons that there is no
   causal connection between his criminal activities and the
   loss of the wheels and tires, which occurred after defendant
   left the stolen car parked at his friend’s house.
      “Defendant is correct that there must be a causal connection between the criminal activities and the pecuniary
   damages on which an award of restitution is based. We
   have not, however, required that the damage must always
   be the direct result of the defendant’s criminal activity.
   For example, in State v. Doty, 

, 

218                                            State v. Spontini

   (1982), the defendant was originally indicted for a burglary
   in which the victim claimed the loss of guns, jewelry, and
   silver that had a value of more than $3,000. The defendant
   eventually pleaded guilty to the theft of guns and jewelry
   that had a value of less than $200. The trial court imposed
   $2,000 in restitution, based on the value of a number of
   stolen items that the defendant denied taking and that
   were not the basis of the defendant’s conviction. It was the
   defendant’s position that someone else must have taken the
   items in a later burglary.”

 (footnotes omitted).
         The reasoning of Stephens compels the same result
here. There was testimony that the motor home was in perfect
shape and “neat as a pin” prior to the theft but was severely
damaged when recovered from defendant. Accordingly, the
trial court did not err in imposing restitution.
        Affirmed.