Former Theater Manager Loses Box Office Theft Appeal

CAPE MAY — A woman who was in trouble several years ago for not depositing box office receipts for a local theater lost a recent appeal.
Frank Theatres, owners of the Beach Theatre in Cape May, accused Hope R. McCarthy, general manager of the theater, of failing to make the night deposits for June 18, 2004. The official charge was theft by failure to make required disposition.
The court said McCarthy worked at the theater on that date from 3:30 p.m. to after midnight. She signed a ledger entry indicating cash receipts $1,400 for the night, but that cash was never deposited in the company’s bank account.
When questioned by her supervisor William Kinney, McCarthy said she made the deposit, however she told police that she would need more time to pay back the money. She said she had just learned that someone very close to her had just died and she left work without paying close attention to what she was doing.
A Herald story at that time reported that 30-year-old Dean M. Piro, of Erma, died in a two-car collision under the Garden State Parkway overpass on Route 47 in Rio Grande on June 16. A police report stated he was driving west on Route 47 when his vehicle crossed the median, struck a guard rail, and then collided with another vehicle.
Kinney testified that during his employment with Frank Theatres more that 9,000 deposits had been prepared and all had been reported as deposited in the appropriate accounts except those in question here.
According to the appeal, a jury found McCarthy guilty of committing that crime. At sentencing, a judge suspended imposition of sentence for a term of one year and imposed the appropriate fines, penalties and assessments.
On April 28 this year, McCarthy appealed her conviction. She contended that the trial court erred by denying a motion for a retrial, denying a motion for an acquittal, allowing improper remarks from the prosecutor, allowing a verdict that was against the weight of the evidence, allowing the state to ask objectionable questions which violated her due process rights, and by levying a sentence that was manifestly excessive and should be reduced.
On July 24, Appellate Division judges Donald Collester and Jane Grall denied her appeal. In their decision, the judges said, “The evidence was adequate to support the conviction for theft by failure to make required disposition.”
The decision explained that to secure a conviction the state had to prove McCarthy purposely obtained property, dealt with it as her own and failed to make the required disposition of the property.
“Defendant’s responsibility for and obligation to deposit cash receipts were established by Kinney’s testimony,” the decision stated.
“Her signature in the ledger permitted the inference that she assumed control of the cash received on June 18, 2004. The absence of a record of a deposit in the theater’s bank account in the amount defendant recorded in the ledger, especially when viewed in light of Kinney’s testimony that defendant initially told him she had made the deposit, was sufficient to permit the jurors to infer that defendant dealt with the cash she had obtained on June 18, 2004 as her own.”
The appeals judges, therefore, decided that the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal.
They said McCarthy’s other appeal arguments lacked sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com