Cases | State v. Smith, 169 P.3d 275 (Idaho 2007) | 2018
The defendant was convicted of three counts of grand theft, sentenced to time in prison, and ordered to pay $273,882.65 restitution to the victim, her employer, for losses sustained as a result of her theft while working as an office manager for an outdoor recreation store. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court decreased the restitution to $100,296.84, even though evidence asserted that the value of the equipment taken, less the items returned, plus the actual lost wages and out-of-pocket losses equaled $118,396.14. On appeal, the defendant argued that: 1) the court incorrectly calculated the restitution owed; 2) the court abused its discretion by not reducing the restitution award to reflect payments she allegedly made to the victim; 3) the state failed to demonstrate that one vehicle invoiced on her account ever existed; and 4) the court erred in ordering restitution for items the victim failed to prove were taken from the store and in not crediting the defendant with items that were allegedly returned. The court of appeals held: 1) that the district court did not err in calculating the amount owed for the stolen property by using the retail value of that property; 2) the defendant failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she wrote checks to the victim in return for stolen goods; 3) the court did not abuse its discretion by including the value of the missing vehicle in the restitution award because the state demonstrated that it was part of the victim’s economic loss; 4) the State failed to demonstrate that non-invoiced items were part of the economic loss suffered by the victim as a result of the defendant’s criminal activity. The order of restitution was reversed and remanded to the district court for recalculation of the financial loss.