People v. Ware CA2/8 ( 2024 )

Filed 2/14/24 P. v. Ware CA2/8
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION EIGHT
THE PEOPLE, B329514
Plaintiff and Respondent, Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. LA097808
v.
COBY MORGAN WARE,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Neetu S. Badhan-Smith, Judge. Affirmed.
Jolene Larimore, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief
Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Jason Tran, Supervising Deputy
Attorney General, and Taylor Nguyen, Deputy Attorney General,
for Plaintiff and Respondent.
____________________
Coby Morgan Ware used someone else’s identity to run a
tab at a hotel. He appeals a restitution order to repay the hotel.
We affirm.
Undesignated statutory citations are to the Penal Code.
Beginning on September 4, 2022, Ware rented hotel rooms
using Ronald Holloway’s identity. To check in, Ware used an
identification card and credit card with Holloway’s name. Ware
sometimes rented multiple rooms at a time. In total, he owed the
hotel nearly $12,000, which he attempted to pay using Holloway’s
and another person’s credit cards.
On September 27, 2022, the hotel called the police because
a credit card company had reversed charges for Ware’s rooms due
to fraud. Police arrested Ware. They found an identification and
credit card in Holloway’s name, as well as licenses and credit
cards in other people’s names.
The prosecution charged Ware with unauthorized use of
personal identifying information of Holloway on September 4,
2022 (§ 530.5, subd. (a)) (count one), and three counts of
possession of personal identifying information with intent to
defraud after an earlier conviction for unauthorized use of
personal identifying information on September 27, 2022 (id.,
subd. (c)(2)) (counts two, three, and four).
Ware pleaded no contest to the first count. He said a police
report was the factual basis for the plea. The court dismissed the
remaining counts and sentenced Ware to two days in jail and two
years of formal probation. One condition of Ware’s probation was
to make victim restitution.
The only victim to seek restitution was the hotel, which
requested $11,836.90 for more than 40 nights of unpaid room
rentals as well as food and drink charges. The hotel manager
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testified and submitted hotel records of the charges. No one had
paid the hotel for the charges Ware accrued.
The court granted the hotel’s request.
We affirm the restitution order.
We generally review a victim restitution order for abuse of
discretion. (People v. Giordano (2007) 42 Cal.4th 644, 663.)
Whether a purported victim is a “direct victim” is a legal issue
that we independently review. (People v. Saint-Amans (2005) 131
Cal.App.4th 1076, 1084.)
Under the California Constitution, courts must order
restitution when a crime victim suffers a loss. (Cal. Const., art. I,
§ 28, subd. (b)(13)(B).) Courts broadly and liberally construe
victims’ right to restitution. (People v. Mearns (2002) 97
Cal.App.4th 493, 500.)
There are two potentially relevant statutes: section 1202.4
and section 1203.1. The first statute says courts must require a
defendant to make restitution when a victim suffers economic
loss as a result of the defendant’s conduct. (§ 1202.4, subd. (f).) A
business can be a victim under this section if it is a “direct
victim” of a crime. (Id., subd. (k)(2).) To be a direct victim, an
entity must be an immediate object of the defendant’s offense.
(People v. Runyan (2012) 54 Cal.4th 849, 856.) The second
statute allows trial courts to impose restitution as a condition of
probation. (§ 1203.1, subd. (b).) This statute is broader and does
not incorporate section 1202.4’s definition of “victim.” (People v.
Anderson (2010) 50 Cal.4th 19, 28–31.)
Although restitution was a condition of Ware’s probation,
we analyze the restitution order under the first statute. The trial
court did not discuss section 1203.1 at the restitution hearing and
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the prosecution failed to cite or rely on it in the trial court or on
appeal.
The court properly ordered restitution for the hotel. The
object of Ware’s crime was not simply to take Holloway’s identity,
but to use it for unpaid services from the hotel. Ware does not
dispute that he used Holloway’s identity to charge $11,836.90 to
the hotel. No one paid the hotel for these charges. Ware
complains the harm to the hotel was too removed from his
criminal acts, and cites section 1202.4, subdivision (f)(4) and
People v. Jones (2010) 187 Cal.App.4th 418. That statutory
subdivision is about a presumption related to the Restitution
Fund, which is not part of this case. Jones discussed in dicta the
issue of proximate causation and intervening causes in the
context of restitution. (Jones, supra, at pp. 424–427.) Jones is
immaterial because the hotel’s losses were a direct and
foreseeable result of Ware’s criminal conduct of using someone
else’s identity to rent hotel rooms and there was no intervening
cause. The hotel was a direct victim and is entitled to restitution.
The court did not abuse its discretion by ordering
restitution for all of Ware’s days at the hotel. On this issue, Ware
offers a one-sentence statement: “The date alleged for the
commission of the offense charged in Count One does not include
the multiple dates of the [hotel] stays.” Ware concludes his brief
by asking us to remand so the trial court can order restitution for
“just one night stay at the hotel.” This request discredits Ware’s
assertion that the hotel was not a direct victim and therefore has
no entitlement to restitution. On the date issue, Ware’s single
sentence is not an argument or reasoned legal analysis. He has
not proven the court abused its discretion by ordering him to pay
the hotel for the services he took.
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Ware makes an unsupported argument about how the
order might negatively affect him. He says restitution was wrong
because the amount is so high that it will prevent him from
pursuing rehabilitative programs. He does not offer legal
authority for reversing a restitution order on this basis. This
argument appears to be about Ware’s ability to pay. By statute,
courts cannot consider a defendant’s inability to pay when
determining the amount of a restitution order. (§ 1202.4, subd.
(g).) This argument fails.
DISPOSITION
The order is affirmed.
WILEY, J.
We concur:
GRIMES, Acting P. J.
VIRAMONTES, J.
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