Cengage Advantage Books: Business Law Today, The Essentials 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller

تمرين 4

Spotlight on White-Collar Crime
FACTS Lou Sisuphan was the director of finance at a Toyota dealership. Sisuphan complained repeatedly to management about another employee, Ian McClelland. The general manager, Michael Christian, would not terminate McClelland "because he brought a lot of money into the dealership." To jeopardize McClelland's employment, Sisuphan took and kept an envelope containing a payment of nearly $30,000 from one of McClelland's customers that McClelland had tried to deposit in the company's safe. Later, Sisuphan told the dealership what he had done, adding that he had "no intention of stealing the money" and returned it. Christian fired Sisuphan the next day, and the district attorney later charged Sisuphan with embezzlement. After a jury trial, Sisuphan was found guilty. Sisuphan appealed.
ISSUE Did Sisuphan take the funds with the intent to defraud his employer?
DECISION Yes. The appellate court affirmed Sisphan's conviction for embezzlement. Sisuphan had the required intent at the time he took the funds, and the evidence that he repaid the dealership was properly excluded.
REASON The court reasoned that evidence of repayment is admissible only if it shows that a defendant's intent at the time of the taking was not fraudulent. In determining whether Sisuphan's intent was fraudulent at the time of the taking, the main issue was not whether he intended to spend the funds that he had taken, but whether he intended to use the payment "for a purpose other than that for which the dealership entrusted it to him." Sisuphan's stated purpose was to get McClelland fired. Because this purpose was beyond the scope of his responsibility, it was "outside the trust afforded him by the dealership" and indicated that he had fraudulent intent.
CRITICAL THINKING-Legal Consideration Why was Sisuphan convicted of embezzlement instead of larceny ? What is the difference between these two crimes?