Furnishing Alcohol to Minors

This week’s Friday story makes me think that the following cities are pretty safe when it comes to violent crime: El Segundo, Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. This is because officers spent this week in a sting operation to – wait for it – cite people for buying alcohol for minors. Seriously?!

Officers enlisted minors to work undercover and stand outside stores in those three cities and ask 232 adults to buy alcohol for them. Only 13 people were cited. Wow, right? I know what you are thinking, “Isn’t that entrapment?” Well, first let’s deal with the Selling or Furnishing Alcohol to Minors situation.

Giving alcohol to or purchasing it for a person under 21 years of age is a misdemeanor in California and violating this law subjects the defendant to jail time and fines. One of the most common ways to violate California’s “furnishing alcohol to a minor” law occurs at grocery or liquor stores near college campuses. That is, an underage individual will give an adult money and ask that they please buy the underage person some alcohol. Then as the adult returns, an officer busts you either because they were using the minor as one of their agents – or a youthful looking officer – in an undercover sting operation; or they observed the adult furnishing the alcohol to the minor.

Moreover, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has announced that beginning in January of 2011 it will provide money to local law enforcement agencies that employ these type of undercover operations. This may explain the recent stings in three Southbay cities. Such stings are typically known as “shoulder tap” operations.

One defense that can be asserted here would be a Mistake of Fact defense which means that if the judge or jury believes that the defendant honestly and reasonably thought that the minor was of legal drinking age, they could choose to acquit the defendant of the charge. And, then there is Entrapment.

Entrapment serves as an absolute legal defense in California if the defendant can prove that he only committed the charged offense because the police lured him into doing so. A defendant would have to show that this was a situation where a normally law abiding person is induced to commit a crime that he otherwise would not have committed. This only applies to police conduct that is overbearing such as forms of pressure, harassment, fraud, flattery, or threats. Now, herein “lies the rub” because entrapment will not serve as a defense if the officer merely offers you the opportunity to participate in an illegal activity. This is because the law believes that reasonable people presented with a similar situation to commit a crime will resist the temptation to do so.

This rational for the law is a big hurdle to overcome for the 13 defendants in this Southbay sting because hundreds of other people actually did resist the temptation to purchase alcohol for a minor when presented with the opportunity to do so. It will also be difficult to convince a judge or jury that a minor standing outside a liquor store presented himself as overbearing to the defendant, so much so that it rose to the level of entrapment. Prosecutors will argue that the actions of the minors as “agents” of the officer was permissible conduct not subject to California entrapment law because it was merely presenting an opportunity to participate in criminal activity. Undercover operations have typically been deemed as permissible conduct not subject to entrapment laws.

If convicted of furnishing alcohol to minors, the defendants face a maximum $1,000 fine and will be required to perform no less than 24 hours of community service in either an alcohol or drug treatment facility or at a county coroner’s office. If the minor consumed the alcohol and caused either himself or another person to suffer great bodily injury or death, the defendant would face a six-month to one-year county jail sentence and the $1,000 fine.

You can read the story here.

Friday Favorite Flirty Criminals

This week’s favorite is about a flirty but dangerous mother-daughter team. This mother daughter duo allegedly conned a 90-year-old El Segundo man to give them $20,000 and to buy them a Mercedes-Benz. Police believe this duo likes to run cons and take advantage of elderly people. The mother was arrested this week, but the daughter remains at large, so be careful who you flirt with this weekend at the bars. The 29-year-old daughter is known to frequent areas in and around Harbor City, Downey, and Riverside.

The 90-year-old man was also conned into buying the duo a $2,000 mattress. They would also take him into banks, and tell him what to do, in order to get their money. The mother-daughter team was discovered after employees at an El Segundo Bank of America considered it suspicious that a 90-year-old man said he was withdrawing money to give it to someone but couldn’t remember their names.

The duo are facing charges for felony elder abuse and felony conspiracy to commit elder abuse. California "elder abuse" law covers a variety of crimes and can occur in a variety of situations. In this situation, elder abuse will be alleged to be in the form of financial fraud. It is considered “elder abuse” when it is directed at anyone over 65 years of age. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Elder Abuse Unit only prosecutes allegations of financial elder abuse if the monetary amount reportedly taken is either in the "thousands of dollars" range or involved a very sophisticated level of fraud or theft. Well, too bad for this mother-daughter team. They should have aimed low…..or not have defrauded an elderly man to begin with. ;)

Simply put, financial elder abuse is the theft or embezzlement of money or other property from an elder. This type of senior fraud is penalized in California Penal Code sections 368(d) and 368(e). In order to convict a defendant of senior fraud, the prosecutor must prove the following facts: 1) that defendant committed a "financial" crime (that is, theft, fraud, forgery, or embezzlement), 2) that the property involved in the crime belonged to an elder, and 3) in this case, that defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the individual was an elder.

The mother-daughter duo is going to face an uphill battle in their defense. It appears that the 90-year-old man is a very confused man. He doesn’t remember giving away that much money or even purchasing those expensive vehicles.

As for the conspiracy charge, a criminal conspiracy takes place when one agrees with one or more other people to commit a crime, and one of them commits an overt act in furtherance of that agreement. Any member of the conspiracy may commit the overt act which doesn't need to be criminal in and of itself. The act does need to be performed before the commission of the agreed upon offense. Maybe the daughter can argue that she never agreed with her mom to fraud this old man. She was just a victim of her mom too; she should utilize many available defenses to conspiracy.

Some of these defenses include: there was no agreement, there was no overt act, she withdrew from the conspiracy, she operated under a mistake of law, or she was falsely accused. Again, it will be tough for prosecutors to prove an agreement between mother and daughter. This will be especially tough if the daughter was never seen at any of the banks or the car dealership.

If they are convicted of committing felony conspiracy to commit elder abuse they face the same penalties that are imposed in connection with that felony. If convicted of felony senior fraud (“elder abuse”), they face the following penalties: formal probation; two, three, or four years in the California State Prison; and a maximum $10,000 fine.

In conclusion, that must have been some intense flirting by the duo with the elderly man. They got him to give them thousands of dollars in cash and gifts! Whether you are young or old, beware of these two.