P. v. Bonner
Filed 6/21/13 P. v. Bonner CA4/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL
REPORTS
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
WILLIAM CHARLES
BONNER,
Defendant and Appellant.
E057350
(Super.Ct.No. RIF1105377)
OPINION
APPEAL from the Superior Court of
County. Jeffrey
Prevost, Judge. Affirmed.
Melanie K. Dorian, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
INTRODUCTION
On
January 3, 2012, an information charged defendant and appellant William Charles
Bonner with owning or operating a chop shop under Vehicle Code section 10801
(count 1), and receiving stolen property
under Penal Code section 496d, subdivision (a) (count 2).
On July 27, 2012, a jury found defendant guilty on count 2, but could
not reach a verdict as to count 1. The
trial court declared a mistrial as to count 1 and, ultimately, dismissed it.
On September 21, 2012, after denying without prejudice defendant’s motion
to reduce count 2 to a misdemeanor, the court suspended imposition of sentence
and placed defendant on formal probation for 36 months, with terms and
conditions. The trial court ordered that
defendant serve 60 days in home detention and imposed a number of fines and
fees, including victim restitution.
On October 19, 2012, defendant filed a timely
Prosecution Case
The
victim lived in an apartment in Riverside. On October 3,
2011,
he arrived home around 9:00 a.m. and parked his 2002
Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck in his assigned space. The following morning, around 7:30
a.m.,
he noticed his truck was gone. After
checking with a local security towing company to verify they had not mistakenly
towed his truck, he called the police and reported the truck missing. The victim did not give permission to anyone
to take his truck.
Miguel
Garcia, an auto theft investigator with the Riverside County Auto Theft Task
Force, a multi-agency task force, testified that on October
12, 2011, shortly after 3:00 p.m., he received a dispatch
call regarding a possible “chop shop.â€
newer vehicle, which had been cut into pieces, on a property located on Mazie Street, near Highway 74 in Perris.
Garcia
and three other investigating officers went to the location. The reported address did not exist; however,
Garcia was able to see another property in the same general area, on Highway
74. Garcia observed a large object,
which he believed to be a portion of a vehicle, loaded onto a trailer and
covered with a tarp. The investigators
entered the property through an unlocked gate, and Garcia knocked on the front door. There was no answer.
Garcia
believed the item in the trailer was either a front radiator or grill of a
truck. This made Garcia believe this was
the property the anonymous caller had reported as a chop shop. To confirm his suspicion, Garcia and the
other detectives remained in the area and conducted surveillance of the
property to see if anyone would arrive at the location.
About
an hour to an hour and a half later, a white Dodge Ram pulled onto the
property. The detectives went back to
the property, and Garcia again knocked on the front door. Defendant answered the door. Defendant confirmed that this was his
residence and the Dodge Ram was his truck.
He was very cooperative. Garcia
informed defendant about the reported chop shop, and requested permission to
search the property for any stolen vehicles, vehicle components, or any
paperwork for stolen vehicles.
Defendant
signed a consent form and authorized the detectives to search his
property. He walked alongside the
detectives; the detectives searched the entire property, including inside the
residence. Garcia testified that
defendant was walking slowly with the investigators, but he was not using a
cane. According to Garcia, defendant
walked around the property pretty easily.
Garcia
first checked the object he had seen covered with the tarp. When he removed the tarp, he saw a portion of
a truck. The bed of the truck was
missing, and the steering column had been removed. Garcia also noticed that the vehicle
identification number (VIN) and license plates were missing, and the ignition
had been damaged. Garcia testified that
in order to determine whether a vehicle is stolen, he would need to first find
the secondary VIN number on the vehicle, which is usually in a hidden place,
and then run that number in a database to retrieve the true identity of the
vehicle.
Garcia
testified that he did in fact verify that the vehicle was the victim’s missing
truck. Defendant eventually admitted
that even though he had noticed the missing VIN plate and the damaged ignition,
he had overlooked this information because he simply wanted to make some money.
Garcia
continued to search the property and found numerous items, including a gas tank
that appeared to belong to a large vehicle, tools in the garage, a trash can
containing what appeared to be the headliner of a vehicle, and a portion of an
interior of a vehicle. Garcia also
discovered two rims and tires in the back of defendant’s Dodge Ram.
Garcia
asked defendant about the stolen truck.
Initially, defendant told Garcia that he saw the truck several days
before while he was driving home after leaving a friend’s house. Defendant said the vehicle was in the same
condition as Garcia had found it on defendant’s property. Defendant said the parts were already
missing, the doors had been removed, and defendant thought it was an abandoned
vehicle. Defendant decided to drive back
to the area to get the vehicle. He
brought it back to his house and was going to try to sell the parts and metal.
Upon
further questioning, defendant admitted that the gas tank on his property and
the tires in his Dodge Ram were from the stolen truck. He also told Garcia that he had removed the
bed and doors of the truck. Defendant
told Garcia that he had sold the bed of the truck for $150, and had sold the
doors to an unknown person. Defendant
did not recall how much he received for the doors.
During
the interview, defendant mentioned that he was disabled. This prompted Garcia to ask whether anyone
had assisted him in bringing the truck back to his property. Defendant then responded that his friend,
“Anthony,†told him about the truck, and helped him load and bring the vehicle
back to his property. Defendant also
said that he and Anthony had split the $150 they had received for selling the
bed of the truck. Defendant stated that
he did not know his friend Anthony’s last name.
Garcia later confirmed that Anthony’s last name was Ruelas.
Garcia
testified that removing parts from an abandoned vehicle and selling them was
not illegal. Rather, he stated that chop
shop violations occur when the vehicle involved is a stolen vehicle. Based on defendant’s statements and the fact
that the truck was stolen, Garcia arrested defendant and transported him to the
police station.
A
neighbor of both defendant and Ruelas testified that he was not friends with
defendant but considered him to be a “very polite gentleman.†He further testified that on or about October 12, 2011, Garcia came to his house looking for Ruelas
regarding a “missing car.â€
When
Garcia mentioned the car, the neighbor asked the detective whether his
investigation involved a Chevy Silverado pickup truck. The neighbor told Garcia that he had seen
Ruelas driving the Silverado on October 6, 2011. The neighbor stated that Ruelas drove a quad
and was known to borrow cars from people.
However, the neighbor found it unusual to see Ruelas driving the
Silverado because it was hard to believe that anyone would loan Ruelas such a
vehicle. The neighbor further testified
that he had seen the same truck in pieces on defendant’s property.
Eventually,
Garcia arrested Ruelas at defendant’s house, and Ruelas pleaded guilty to
running a chop shop.
Workers
at a recycling center in Perris testified that defendant and Ruelas would
occasionally bring scrap metal to the center for recycling. In October 2011, Ruelas tried to sell a Chevy
truck to one of the workers. That worker
testified that the truck was in “good condition†and was a “whole truck.†However, Ruelas could not provide proof of
ownership or any paperwork for the truck, so he was turned away. Ruelas said he would return with the proper
documents, but he never did.
Defense Case
Defendant
testified that he is 72 years old, receives social security and pension
benefits, and suffers from numerous
on both shoulders four times, and has been using a cane for walking since 1976.
Defendant
met Ruelas in 2011; they had mutual friends.
At one point, Ruelas asked defendant if he could move in with him. Defendant did not ask for Ruelas’s last name,
but wanted to know if Ruelas had a criminal record. Ruelas assured defendant that he did not, and
defendant allowed Ruelas to move in on the condition that he obtain a job.
Ruelas
told defendant that he was unable to find a job, but he could do recycling for
money. Ruelas asked defendant if he
could borrow his truck for his recycling; defendant refused. Eventually, the two agreed that defendant
would drive and Ruelas would collect any scrap metal they found. They collected items for recycling three or
four times a week. They got paid by the
weight of the items and always split the money equally between them.
A
week prior to defendant’s arrest, Ruelas told defendant about a truck he had
found in the hills. Ruelas asked
defendant for assistance in bringing the truck onto defendant’s property. That evening, around 7:00 p.m., defendant
picked up Ruelas and his trailer, and the two of them went to retrieve the
truck. When they arrived, there was no
one else around.
Defendant
walked toward the driver’s side of the truck.
The door was open. Looking from
outside the truck, he noticed that the dashboard was “tore up,†and the stereo
was “sitting where the speedometer was.â€
Otherwise, all parts, including the bed, were intact, and the truck
appeared to be in good condition.
Defendant did not recall whether there was a front grill.
Defendant
further testified that he did not know if the truck was able to start. He also did not notice whether the license
plates were missing; he said that he was not paying attention. Defendant also testified that he has a
background in mechanics, although he had no formal training. He knew that a VIN plate appeared on the
driver’s side, but did not consider looking for the plate on the truck. The possibility that the truck may have been
stolen did not cross his mind, as there were always abandoned vehicles in that
area. This was not the first time
defendant had seen one.
Defendant
testified that Ruelas loaded the truck onto his trailer, and they drove the
truck back to defendant’s house. The
following morning, defendant found the bed of the truck cut off and placed on
the trailer. The back tires and wheels
had also been removed.
Ruelas
and defendant discussed recycling the parts of the truck. The next day, they took the bed of the truck
to the recycling center. Ruelas received
$150 for the bed, which he split with defendant.
The
following day, defendant and Ruelas returned to the recycling center to sell
the cab. Defendant exited his vehicle
and waited for Ruelas, who went to speak with one of the workers. After speaking briefly with the worker,
Ruelas returned and said that they would not accept the cab because Ruelas did
not have the proper paperwork. Defendant
asked Ruelas where the paperwork was.
Ruelas hesitated for a few minutes, and then admitted that the truck was
stolen.
Defendant
became angry and told Ruelas he did not want the truck or the cab on his property. Defendant also asked Ruelas why the recycling
center would accept the bed, but not the cab.
Ruelas did not respond. Ruelas
told defendant he knew a friend who would take the cab. The two drove by this person’s house, but
Ruelas said the friend was not home.
Defendant
testified that he drove home, dropped off the trailer, and drove to an
appointment at the social security office.
Defendant had not been receiving his benefits and needed to attend the
appointment in order to resolve the issue.
He testified that he did not think about calling the police. When he left his home at 2:30 p.m., there was
no tarp over the cab of the truck, and Ruelas had already left defendant’s
house.
Defendant
arrived back home around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m.
When he pulled up, he saw a tarp over the cab. Defendant was inside his home, when Garcia
knocked on his front door. Garcia asked
defendant’s for his name. When defendant
asked why, Garcia said he had received a report regarding a stolen vehicle.
Garcia
asked defendant, “‘Do you know a person named Anthony [Ruelas],’†and defendant
answered, “‘I don’t know. I just know a
person that’s Anthony.’†Garcia then
asked permission to search defendant’s home and property. Defendant testified that he did not change
his story, as Garcia had earlier testified.
He specifically denied the statement about selling the doors, and
insisted that he had no idea how or when the doors had been removed. Defendant also denied telling Garcia that he
had noticed the missing VIN plate, but had overlooked it.
Defendant
further testified that as he was being arrested, Ruelas “came by on his quad
and he saw the sheriffs and he went flying out across the fields and
stuff.†After defendant’s arrest and
while in custody, defendant identified Ruelas in a photograph Garcia had shown
him. About a week after defendant was
released, Ruelas knocked on defendant’s front door and asked him, “‘What
happened?’†Defendant knew Garcia was in
the area, watching his property, so he did not contact the police. About 10 to 15 minutes later, Garcia showed
up at defendant’s house and arrested Ruelas.
ANALYSIS
After defendant
appealed, and upon his request, this court appointed counsel to represent
him. Counsel has filed a brief under the
authority of
and Anders v. California (1967) 386
U.S. 738, setting forth a statement of the case, a summary of the facts and
potential arguable issues, and requesting this court to undertake a review of
the entire record.
We
offered defendant an opportunity to file a personal
supplemental brief, but he has not done so.
Pursuant to the mandate of People
v. Kelly (2006) 40 Cal.4th 106, we have conducted an independent review of
the record and find no arguable issues.
The
judgment is affirmed.
NOT
TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
McKINSTER
J.
We concur:
RAMIREZ
P. J.
CODRINGTON
J.
title=""> [1] “Chop
shop†refers to the process of removing parts of stolen vehicles and selling
them for scrap.
