By late 2002 police in various Norfolk County towns were investigating reports of a telephone scam that victimized older persons. Elderly people reported receiving telephone calls from males purporting to represent family members in trouble and in need of money. The callers would ask their targeted victims to send certain amounts of money to certain locations. Some of the victims agreed to meet the caller at the specified location. Upon arrival they were met by the caller and when they asked about the whereabouts of the relative in trouble they were assured that he or she would be along shortly. The victims surrendered the money requested, the caller left the area and the family member never showed up. When the victims returned home they contacted the relative who was supposedly in distress and quickly learned that they had been victims of a scam. The perpetrator was ultimately apprehended by an undercover police officer who replaced a targeted victim during one of the theft attempts.
The trial was conducted in Norfolk County. The defendant made the calls from Suffolk County and appealed claiming that the venue was inappropriate. The prosecution was brought in part pursuant to G.L. c. 277 sec. 59. That law makes the crime of larceny by false pretenses eligible for prosecution in any county where the false pretense was made or where the property obtained was carried or received by the defendant. Rejecting the challenge the Massachusetts Appeals Court held that since the Suffolk County acts were designed to produce detrimental effects in Norfolk County, that the elderly persons were victimized in Norfolk County and that the victims had withdrawn funds from within Norfolk County that venue in Norfolk County was proper. See Commonwealth v. Price, slip opinion July 29, 2008.
Larceny by false pretenses in Massachusetts is one of the many theft crimes the Law Offices of Stephen Neyman defends on a regular basis. This crime requires the prosecution to prove that you obtained the object through a false statement or representation and that you did so with the intent the defraud an individual or entity and that the victim relies on that false representation in parting with the object.
Call the Law Offices of Stephen Neyman today to discuss your theft crime case.
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