Facts
- Willie Joe Moses and an accomplice carried out a fraud commonly known as the “Jamaican Switch.”
- Moses approached the victim in a feigned foreign accent and asked for directions to a boarding house.
- The accomplice offered to guide Moses, creating the appearance of a chance encounter.
- Moses displayed a large amount of cash and said he did not trust the accomplice.
- Moses persuaded the victim to hold Moses’s cash and to show “good faith” by placing the victim’s own money into the same handkerchief bundle.
- The handkerchief was placed in the trunk of the victim’s car.
- Without the victim’s knowledge, Moses switched the handkerchiefs so the victim later found folded paper instead of money.
- The victim could not locate Moses or the accomplice afterward.
- A jury convicted Moses of (1) obtaining money by a confidence game and (2) obtaining money by a scheme or artifice to defraud under former A.R.S. § 13-320.01.
- Moses appealed only the conviction and 5-to-10-year sentence under former A.R.S. § 13-320.01.
Issues
- Whether a conviction for obtaining money by a scheme or artifice to defraud under former A.R.S. § 13-320.01 requires proof that the victim intended to transfer title (not merely possession) to the defendant.
Decision
- The Court of Appeals of Arizona affirmed the conviction and sentence under former A.R.S. § 13-320.01.
- The court held the statute does not require proof that the victim intended to transfer title.
- It is sufficient that, pursuant to a scheme or artifice to defraud, the defendant knowingly and intentionally obtained (or attempted to obtain) money or property by false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.
- The victim’s intent to part only temporarily with possession did not defeat liability under the statute.
Legal Principles
- Under former A.R.S. § 13-320.01, the elements focus on fraudulent obtaining (or attempted obtaining) of money, property, or a thing of value pursuant to a scheme or artifice to defraud.
- The statute’s text does not impose a “title transfer” requirement; courts will not add that limitation absent statutory language.
- A defendant may be convicted even where the victim intended only to entrust property temporarily, so long as the defendant obtained the property through fraudulent pretenses as part of a scheme to defraud.
Conclusion
The court construed former A.R.S. § 13-320.01 broadly and affirmed Moses’s conviction, ruling that the State need not prove the victim intended to transfer title; proof that the defendant obtained money through a knowing, intentional fraudulent scheme is enough.