California Court of Appeal

Conviction for violating Penal Code sec. 424 prohibiting those charged with control over the expenditure of public moneys from keeping false accounts or making false entries in accounts is reversed where: 1) the trial court properly the trial court instructed the jury that it was not necessary for the prosecution to prove defendants Aldana and Matney had an intent to deceive; 2) there was insufficient evidence to support defendant Aldana's conviction, as he was not an officer who fell under the statute and there was insufficient evidence he knowingly kept a false account or knowingly made a false entry on his timesheets; and 3) there was insufficient evidence of defendant Matney's guilty knowledge to support her conviction, as the prosecution failed to prove that Matney knew her actions constituted criminal conduct or that she was criminally negligent in lacking such knowledge.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/08/2009
• Published 06/08/2009

Judges

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• David Joseph Macher, for Defendant and Appellant Daniel Aldana., Law Office of E. Thomas Dunn, Jr., and E. Thomas Dunn, Jr., Anaheim, for Defendant and Appellant Donna Matney., Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, James D. Dutton, Sabrina Y. Lane-Erwin and Vincent La Pietra, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.