Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

Questions regarding grand larceny
If a person that works at a convience store lets a customer walk out of the store with merchandise saying they are charging the merchandise to there charge account and then later this person who believed the employee and took the items find out this person was fired and charged with multiple counts of grand and petit larceny and conspiracy for doing this for other customers other than this person can the other people and the one who believed the items were being charged be in trouble too for anything?

Asked on 3/28/04, 11:48 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Jonathon Moseley Jonathon A. Moseley

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Re: Questions regarding grand larceny

I'm not sure I understand what happened exactly, but what you describe sounds like the following to me: During the time when the person worked for the store, he was acting for the store. So it is irrelevant that he is now gone. At the time he worked there, he gave permission for payment later. The problem would be that the store would deny what happened and say it never happened that way. So the problem would be proving that permission was given. It's not a problem of the law, but that the store would say it never happened. The best thing to do is to go ahead and pay on the account. This is best in several ways. It tends to prove and confirm that the deal was "pay later," if the buyer ACTS like that was the deal. Also, if the store has not lost anything because the account is paid, then the losses are $0.00 and this affects both the type and seriousness of any possible legal charges as well as the desire of either the government or the store to pursue it. It also tends to confirm the idea of an innocent mistake (if there was any mistake at all). "Intent" may be an important question in whether this is perfectly innocent or a criminal problem. So going ahead and paying shows that the intent was innocent, not criminal.

Answered on 4/03/04, 11:41 am

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