Carrie Anne Bezold v. The State of Wyoming ( 2021 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT, STATE OF WYOMING
2021 WY 124OCTOBER TERM, A.D. 2021
November 8, 2021
CARRIE ANNE BEZOLD,
Appellant
(Defendant),
v. S-21-0023
THE STATE OF WYOMING,
Appellee
(Plaintiff).
Appeal from the District Court of Carbon County
The Honorable Dawnessa A. Snyder, Judge
Representing Appellant:
Office of the State Public Defender: Diane Lozano, State Public Defender; Kirk A.
Morgan, Chief Appellate Counsel; Robin S. Cooper, Senior Assistant Appellate
Counsel. Argument by Ms. Cooper.
Representing Appellee:
Bridget Hill, Wyoming Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Deputy Attorney
General; Joshua C. Eames, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Timothy P. Zintak,
Senior Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Mr. Zintak.
Before FOX, C.J., and DAVIS, KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, and GRAY, JJ.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third.
Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne,
Wyoming 82002, of any typographical or other formal errors so that correction may be made before
final publication in the permanent volume.
DAVIS, Justice.
[¶1] Carrie Bezold was convicted of eight counts of forgery. She claims the evidence
was insufficient to show an intent to defraud, and that the district court erred in instructing
the jury on the required intent to defraud. We affirm.
ISSUES
[¶2] Ms. Bezold presents two issues, which we state as:
1. Did the district court err in denying Ms. Bezold’s
motion for judgment of acquittal?
2. Did the district court abuse its discretion when it
instructed the jury on the required element of intent to defraud?
FACTS
[¶3] Carrie Bezold and her husband Christopher Bezold are residents of Sinclair,
Wyoming. In June 2019, they went out of town and asked a family friend, Michael Lesco,
to house- and pet-sit for them. After they left, Ms. Bezold sent a text message to Mr. Lesco
asking that he fax some paperwork for her. She told him that it was on her desk in a padded
envelope addressed to him and that the document was already notarized but could not be
faxed until June 26. She also instructed him to fax the document from the Rawlins public
library and left him a key to their truck if he needed it for the trip.
[¶4] On June 26, 2019, Mr. Lesco went to fax the document, but instead of going to the
library in Rawlins as Ms. Bezold instructed, he went to the Sinclair town hall. Lezlee
Musgrave was the town clerk, and as part of her duties, she notarized and faxed documents
for members of the public. When Mr. Lesco gave Ms. Musgrave the document Ms. Bezold
had asked him to fax, she saw that it contained her notary stamp, with an indication that it
had been signed and notarized by her that same day. Because she knew that the signature
on the document was not hers and that she had not notarized the document, she contacted
the Sinclair chief of police, Jeff Sanders.
[¶5] Chief Sanders examined the document, which was an application for a medical
hardship withdrawal from Mr. Bezold’s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).1 The application
required that the account holder’s spouse sign it to indicate her approval of the withdrawal,
and it stated, “Your spouse’s signature must be notarized.” It also required that Mr.
Bezold’s signature be notarized and stated that “[n]o other acknowledgement is
acceptable.”
1
Mr. Bezold participated in the thrift savings plan through his federal employment.
1
[¶6] Chief Sanders took the application as evidence and opened an investigation. He
contacted the TSP program concerning the application and obtained copies of other
medical hardship withdrawal applications that the Bezolds had submitted. He also
interviewed Ms. Bezold three times, and over the course of those interviews, she eventually
admitted that between 2015 and 2019, she copied Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp onto eight
TSP withdrawal applications and forged Ms. Musgrave’s signature on the applications
before submitting them to the TSP program. The funds from those withdrawals were
placed in the Bezolds’ joint checking account.
[¶7] The State charged Ms. Bezold with eight counts of forgery for acts committed
between January 1, 2015 and June 30, 2019, and a jury trial was held from August 3, 2020
to August 5, 2020. After the State rested, defense counsel moved for judgment of acquittal
pursuant to Rule 29 of the Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure. Counsel did not dispute
the evidence that Ms. Bezold forged Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp and signature, but
claimed that the State failed to present evidence of an intent to defraud. The district court
took the motion under advisement, and the defense rested without presenting evidence.
[¶8] The State offered two instructions, which the district court pared down and
combined into a single instruction that it gave over defense counsel’s objection. The
disputed instruction, Jury Instruction No. 16, read:
Forgery requires an intent to defraud, but it does not
require that anyone actually be defrauded of money or
property.
It is not necessary to establish an intent to defraud a
particular person or entity.
[¶9] The jury found Ms. Bezold guilty of all eight counts of forgery. Defense counsel
then renewed the motion for judgment of acquittal and requested a ruling. The district
court denied the motion but invited counsel to renew it in writing to allow more thorough
briefing on the question of intent. Defense counsel thereafter filed a written motion for
judgment of acquittal, which the court denied. It explained:
7. The State presented substantial evidence for the jury to
find Defendant intended to defraud as an element of Forgery.
Defendant used Lezlee Musg[r]ave’s notary stamp to submit a
retirement withdrawal form, both using the stamp to notarize
Defendant’s signature along with the spouse’s signature.
Defendant went through the effort to make sure she had current
notary stamps to copy. When the family was on vacation,
Defendant left explicit instructions on how the documents were
2
to be faxed. It was only because Ms. [sic] Lesco failed to follow
these instructions that the investigation ensued. Later, when
questioned by law enforcement, Defendant provided
contradictory explanations as to how the notary stamp got on
the documents. The false notary had been applied on multiple
application[s] over several years. Defendant was utilizing the
notary to complete an application to receive funds from her
husband’s retirement an [sic] account. In addition, the
paperwork required notarization to be accepted and order [sic]
for funds to be disbursed. Funds were dispersed based upon
these incomplete documents.
8. Based upon the evidence submitted the jury would be
able to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant intended
to defraud when she used a copy of the notary stamp for both
[her] and her husband’s signatures.
[¶10] The district court sentenced Ms. Bezold to concurrent three- to five-year prison
terms for the eight counts but suspended the sentence in favor of three years of supervised
probation. Ms. Bezold timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence on Intent to Defraud
[¶11] “The standard of review for a denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal is the
same as that used when an appeal claims insufficient evidence to convict because both
challenge the sufficiency of the evidence.” Childers v. State, 2021 WY 93, ¶ 19, 493 P.3d
168, 171 (Wyo. 2021) (quoting Hightower v. State, 2020 WY 152, ¶ 13, 477 P.3d 103, 105
(Wyo. 2020)).
We do not reweigh the evidence or reexamine the credibility
of witnesses, but examine the evidence in the light most
favorable to the State. We examine and accept as true the
evidence of the prosecution together with all logical and
reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, leaving out
entirely the evidence of the defendant in conflict therewith. In
other words, we simply determine whether any rational trier of
fact could have found that the essential elements of a charged
crime were proven beyond a reasonable doubt on the evidence
presented.
Id. (cleaned up).
3
[¶12] Forgery is statutorily defined as follows:
(a) A person is guilty of forgery if, with intent to defraud, he:
(i) Alters any writing of another without authority;
(ii) Makes, completes, executes, authenticates, issues or
transfers any writing so that it purports to be the act of another
who did not authorize that act, or to have been executed at a
time or place or in a numbered sequence other than was in fact
the case, or to be a copy of an original when no such original
existed; or
(iii) Utters any writing which he knows to be forged in
a manner specified in paragraphs (i) or (ii) of this subsection.
Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-3-602(a) (LexisNexis 2021).
[¶13] Ms. Bezold was convicted of eight counts of making a writing that purported to be
the act of another who did not authorize that act, as prohibited by subsection (a)(ii). She
concedes that she made the writings by copying Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp to the TSP
withdrawal applications and signing Ms. Musgrave’s name to them. She also admits that
she was not authorized to use the notary stamp or Ms. Musgrave’s signature. She
nonetheless claims that there was no evidence of an intent to defraud and that the evidence
was therefore insufficient to support her forgery conviction.
[¶14] As used in our forgery statute, an intent to defraud means “to act willfully and
deliberately and with the specific intent to deceive or cheat.” Luedtke v. State, 2005 WY
98, ¶¶ 29-32, 117 P.3d 1227, 1233 (Wyo. 2005). Despite our approved definition of an
intent to defraud, Ms. Bezold contends that such an intent cannot be found in the absence
of evidence that she intended her forgery to harm another. In particular, she asserts that
because the TSP withdrawal applications were used to transfer funds from one account
owned by her husband into another account owned by him, there was no harm to anyone
and thus no evidence of an intent to defraud.
[¶15] In support of her argument, Ms. Bezold relies on two cases: Ford v. State, 2011 WY
122, 259 P.3d 1178 (Wyo. 2011), and Dixon v. Williams, 584 P.2d 1078 (Wyo. 1978). We
conclude that both cases are distinguishable and that neither stands for the broad
proposition that intent to defraud cannot be found without evidence of intent to harm
another.
4
[¶16] In Ford, the defendant was a therapist who worked at Campbell County Memorial
Hospital (CCMH). ¶ 4, 259 P.3d at 1179. Over the course of a few years, she sent seven
letters to different governmental entities concerning her treatment of certain clients, the
services she had provided, and in some cases, her recommendations. Id. All of the letters
were sent on CCMH letterhead, though she did not treat the clients at CCMH and instead
treated them on her own time, in her own home, and without charge. Id.
[¶17] Ford was convicted of seven counts of forgery, and this Court reversed. Ford, ¶ 1,
259 P.3d at 1179. Our primary concern was that Ford’s conduct looked nothing like
forgery. First, we held that to be forged, a signature must purport to be that of another, and
since Ford had signed her own name to the seven letters, her signature could not be a
forgery. Id. ¶ 9, 259 P.3d at 1181. Second, we emphasized that with forgery, the focus is
on falsity as to the genuineness or authenticity of the document, rather than on the falsity
of any statement contained in a legitimate document. Id. ¶ 16, 259 P.3d at 1184 (quoting
10A Uniform Laws Annotated (ULA), § 224.1 (2001 and 2011 Cum. Supp.)). We
concluded that Ford’s use of the CCMH letterhead “was, at worst, some sort of ‘falsity’ of
a statement contained in a legitimate document.” Id. ¶ 16, 259 P.3d at 1185.
[¶18] In so holding, we rejected the State’s contention that by using CCMH letterhead,
Ford had falsely represented that the statements or opinions in the letters were those of
CCMH and came with its “guarantee of quality.” Id. ¶ 11, 259 P.3d at 1182. We observed:
[T]he State’s contention that a document written on CCMH
letterhead comes with some sort of special stature is not
supported by any evidence in the record, other than the
prosecutor’s having said it was so (argument is not evidence).
From the materials that are in the record on appeal, such a
document comes with no greater standing than that of a private
agency or person eligible to conduct such counseling. Indeed,
it is just as likely to be true that in many cases the assessments
made by private practitioners are given more weight than those
of a public hospital or other public agency.
Id. ¶ 11, 259 P.3d at 1183.
[¶19] Ford is easily distinguishable from Ms. Bezold’s case. First, as Ms. Bezold
concedes, she did not sign her own name as the notary to the applications; she signed Ms.
Musgrave’s. Second, whereas the letterhead in Ford came with no special stature that
would give the defendant’s letters in that case greater standing, the evidence in this case
was that notarization does give a document greater standing. Ms. Musgrave, a certified
notary, testified that persons rely on notarizations of legal and financial documents to verify
the authenticity of the signatures they carry, and the TSP withdrawal applications
themselves required notarization. Finally, the TSP applications in this case could not be
5
described as legitimate documents that at worst contained false statements, as was the case
in Ford. Instead, through her unauthorized use of Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp and
signature, Ms. Bezold held the documents out as genuinely notarized applications when
they in fact were not.
[¶20] On its facts, Ford is plainly distinguishable. Ms. Bezold nonetheless cites to the
specially concurring opinion for the proposition that an intent to defraud “requires proof
beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended ‘to cause injury or loss to (a person)
by deceit.’” Ford, ¶ 19, 259 P.3d at 1185 (Voigt, J., specially concurring) (quoting Black’s
Law Dictionary 488 (9th ed. 2009)). The majority in Ford did not adopt the rule advanced
by the specially concurring opinion, and Ms. Bezold’s reliance on it is thus misplaced.
[¶21] The majority in Ford did, however, agree with the special concurrence that the
record contained no evidence that the defendant acted with an intent to defraud. ¶¶ 13-14,
259 P.3d at 1183. In particular, it found no evidence of an intent to cause prejudice or
damage “that could serve to sustain the ‘intent to defraud’ requirement,” of the forgery
statute. Id. ¶ 14, 259 P.3d at 1183-84 (quoting Grable v. State, 649 P.2d 663, 676 (Wyo.
1982), overruled on other grounds by Vlahos v. State, 2003 WY 103, ¶ 35, 75 P.3d 628,
637 (Wyo. 2003)). In so holding, the Court compared the circumstances in Ford with those
in Grable, where it had held that evidence Grable intended to prejudice or damage another
party was sufficient to sustain his conviction under the forgery statute then in effect. Ford,
¶ 14, 259 P.3d at 1183-84. Although this Court looked to Grable in Ford, our holdings in
Grable belie any suggestion that we intended to adopt a bright line rule that an intent to
defraud requires evidence of an intent to damage or prejudice another.
[¶22] In Grable, the defendant was convicted under a version of the forgery statute that,
like our current statute, required a specific intent. Grable, 649 P.2d at 676. Unlike the
current version of the statute and that in effect when we decided Ford, that intent did not
have to be an intent to defraud; it could be an “intent to prejudice, damage or defraud.” Id.
(quoting Section 6-17, W.S. 1957). In the portion of Grable that we relied on in Ford, the
Court had reviewed the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the then statutory requirement
of an intent to prejudice or damage. Id. The Court, however, separately considered the
sufficiency of the evidence to find an intent to defraud. Id. In doing so, it did not link an
intent to defraud to a finding of prejudice or damage, but instead held that “knowingly
passing a forged instrument as genuine is conclusive of an intent to defraud.” Id. (quoting
37 C.J.S. § 100, p. 104).
[¶23] Evidence of an intent to prejudice or damage another may very well show an intent
to defraud, and in Ford we looked for any such evidence. We did not, however, hold that
an intent to defraud cannot be found without it, and we did not depart from the holding in
Grable that “knowingly passing a forged instrument as genuine is conclusive of an intent
to defraud.” 649 P.2d at 676.
6
[¶24] Ms. Bezold’s reliance on Dixon is likewise misplaced. Dixon was a breach of
contract case. 584 P.2d at 1079. The plaintiff and defendant incorporated a business in
which they were the sole shareholders, and about a year later, the plaintiff offered to sell
his interest to the defendant. Id. at 1080. They reached an agreement, and among the terms
that the defendant requested was an agreement that the plaintiff would not institute or file
any civil or criminal action against the defendant for checks he wrote on the corporate
account. Id. Apparently, for some time the defendant had been signing the plaintiff’s name
to checks drawn on the corporate account in order to pay corporate debts. Id.
[¶25] The deal between the parties fell through, and the plaintiff brought an action against
the defendant to recover the amount he had agreed to pay the plaintiff for his interest in the
company. Dixon, 584 P.2d at 1080. In response, the defendant asserted that the contract
was void as against public policy because it contained an agreement to suppress the
investigation and prosecution of criminal activity. Id. In particular, the defendant asserted
that his signing of the plaintiff’s name on the corporate checks constituted forgery, and the
contract contained an agreement to suppress the prosecution of that forgery. Id. The
district court rejected the defense, and this Court affirmed. Id. at 1079, 1080-81. We
explained:
In this appeal, not only does the record lack any evidence
whatsoever of an intent on the part of defendant to defraud, it
in fact indicates exactly the contrary; that the checks written by
the defendant and signed with plaintiff’s name were used to
pay legitimate corporate debts arising from the daily operations
of the corporation itself. Nowhere is it even hinted, much less
alleged that defendant pursued his course of action with an
intent or desire to defraud anyone. With such evidence, there
is no way to infer an intent to defraud.
Id. at 1080-81 (citing State v. Grider, 74 Wyo. 88, 284 P.2d 400, reh. den. 74 Wyo. 111,
288 P.2d 766 (1955)).
[¶26] Ms. Bezold contends that the same reasoning should apply here. She asserts that
despite the unauthorized use of Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp and signature, the evidence
showed that the TSP withdrawals were made for legitimate medical hardship purposes and
therefore no intent to defraud may be found. We disagree.2
[¶27] At least somewhat implicit in Dixon was an understanding that because the debts
paid under the plaintiff’s signature were legitimate corporate debts from the daily operation
2
We note that while Chief Sanders testified that he had no reason to believe the withdrawn TSP funds were
not used for the medical hardship cited on the applications, Ms. Bezold’s text message to her house-sitter
stated that the June 26, 2019 application was for “money from dads retirement for Weston’s college and
[to] finish paying off the lady levi hit plus some extra vacation money.”
7
of the corporation itself, the plaintiff and defendant had the same interest in ensuring their
payment. That would suggest that the defendant was authorized to use the plaintiff’s
signature to pay those debts. See 4 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Law § 480 (15th
ed., Aug. 2020 update) (“If the instrument shows on its face that the defendant signed as
agent, he is not guilty of forgery.”). That reasoning cannot be extended to this case. Ms.
Musgrave obviously had no interest in ensuring that the Bezolds were able to make
withdrawals from Mr. Bezold’s TSP account, and she did not implicitly or explicitly
authorize Ms. Bezold to use her notary stamp and signature.
[¶28] More importantly, in addition to signing Ms. Musgrave’s name to the TSP
withdrawal applications, Ms. Bezold took other actions from which a jury could infer a
fraudulent intent. An intent to defraud, meaning a willful and deliberate intent to deceive,
could be inferred from evidence that Ms. Bezold asked Mr. Lesco to fax the June 26, 2019
application from the public library in Rawlins rather than from the more convenient
location at the Sinclair town hall where Ms. Musgrave worked. Additionally, the evidence
showed that one day after the notary stamp that she had been copying onto the applications
expired, Ms. Bezold, for the first time in over four years, took a new document to Ms.
Musgrave for notarization. An intent to deceive could certainly be inferred from this
willful and deliberate effort to obtain an updated copy of Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp,
particularly when Ms. Bezold copied that updated stamp onto another application just days
later.
[¶29] A fraudulent intent could also be inferred from Ms. Bezold’s lack of candor when
law enforcement interviewed her. Miller v. State, 830 P.2d 419, 424 (Wyo. 1992) (“The
fabrication of false accounts by an accused criminal for the sake of diverting inquiry or
casting off suspicion is a circumstance always indicative of guilt.”) (quoting Bennett v.
State, 377 P.2d 634, 638 (Wyo. 1963)); see also Vasquez v. State, 2016 WY 129, ¶ 15, 386
P.3d 350, 355 (Wyo. 2016). When Chief Sanders first interviewed Ms. Bezold, she denied
that she had intentionally used Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp and signature on the June 26,
2019 application and claimed that somehow multiple documents had ended up on her
copier and she unintentionally copied them together. In the next interview, she admitted
that she had copied the notary stamp and signed Ms. Musgrave’s name to the June 26, 2019
application and possibly one other application. In the third and final interview, she
admitted that she had done the same thing on eight occasions between 2015 and 2019. The
jury could infer from the misrepresentations that preceded Ms. Bezold’s ultimate admission
that she understood the deceitfulness of her conduct and tried to hide it.
[¶30] Additionally, Ms. Bezold’s TSP withdrawals gave her a measure of control over the
withdrawn funds, which further distinguishes this case from Dixon. In Dixon, the signed
checks went directly to pay legitimate corporate debts, with no potential for personal
benefit to the defendant. In this case, the funds were transferred from Mr. Bezold’s TSP
account to a joint account held by the Bezolds, which gave Ms. Bezold a personal benefit—
8
individual access to the funds.3 Again, we do not hold that an intent to defraud requires
evidence of an intent to benefit oneself, but such evidence is certainly relevant to the
question and may be evidence from which a jury could find an intent to defraud.
[¶31] Both Ford and Dixon are factually distinguishable, and neither case held that an
intent to defraud cannot be found in the absence of an intent to harm another or to achieve
personal gain. It remains our law that an intent to defraud means “to act willfully and
deliberately and with the specific intent to deceive or cheat.” Luedtke, ¶¶ 29, 32, 117 P.3d
at 1233. “[K]nowingly passing a forged instrument as genuine is conclusive of” such an
intent. Grable, 649 P.2d at 676; see also Grider, 284 P.2d at 407. Our decision in Lapp v.
State, 2004 WY 142, 100 P.3d 862 (Wyo. 2004), illustrates our adherence to these
principles.
[¶32] In Lapp, the defendant was charged with and convicted of forgery based on the
following events:
In February of 2002, Ms. Lapp asked a co-worker to notarize
an automobile title bearing the name Gary Evans on the front
and what Ms. Lapp represented to be Mr. Evans’ signature on
the back. A few months later, Mr. Evans attempted to obtain a
bank loan and was asked to provide the automobile title as
collateral. He searched his home and could not find the title.
Although Ms. Lapp helped Mr. Evans look for the title and
spoke to the bank loan officer, she did not reveal that she
previously removed the title from his home, represented the
signature on the back as being his and had it notarized. Mr.
Evans testified the signature on the title was not his and he did
not give Ms. Lapp permission to sign his name on the title. No
evidence was presented concerning what happened to the title
after it was notarized.
Lapp, ¶ 4, 100 P.3d at 864 (emphasis added).
[¶33] Lapp challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support an intent to defraud, and
we affirmed based on the following evidence:
3
The record indicates that the TSP program had on file a power of attorney in Ms. Bezold’s favor. The
record does not contain a copy of the power of attorney, so we do not know the extent of the authority it
granted Ms. Bezold or the circumstances under which she was permitted to exercise that authority. See
Miller v. Life Care Centers of America, Inc., 2020 WY 155, ¶ 19, 478 P.3d 164, 170 (Wyo. 2020) (“[I]t is
the policy of Wyoming courts ‘to construe powers of attorney strictly, and to hold the principal not bound
unless the authority is exercised within the undoubted limits prescribed by the principal.’”) (quoting Stone
v. First Wyo. Bank N.A., Lusk, 625 F.2d 332, 344 n.20 (10th Cir. 1980)).
9
Ms. Howe testified that Ms. Lapp brought the title to her and
asked her to notarize it for Mr. Evans. Mr. Evans testified he
did not authorize Ms. Lapp to sign his name and that he went
looking for the title and was unable to find it when the bank
requested it before processing his loan request. He testified that
although Ms. Lapp helped him search for the title, she did not
tell him she had previously taken it and had it notarized. The
bank loan officer testified that she also spoke to Ms. Lapp and
Ms. Lapp told her they could not find the title and might have
to apply for a new one. Ms. Lapp did not mention to her that
she previously had the title notarized.
Lapp, ¶ 21, 100 P.3d at 868.
[¶34] In Lapp, there was no evidence of what became of the vehicle title that the defendant
signed and represented as being signed by her friend, and there is no indication that the
Court considered whether the defendant intended to achieve some personal gain or cause
harm to her friend. ¶¶ 4, 21, 100 P.3d at 864, 868. The Court instead looked only to the
defendant’s unauthorized signing of the title, her passing of the signature as genuine, and
her covering of her actions, and based on that, found the evidence sufficient to sustain a
finding of an intent to defraud. Id. ¶¶ 21-22, 100 P.3d at 868.
[¶35] The evidence in this case is comparable. Ms. Bezold took steps to obtain a copy of
Ms. Musgrave’s notary stamp and ensured that she had a current copy of the stamp when
the original stamp expired. She used the notary stamp on eight TSP withdrawal
applications and signed Ms. Musgrave’s name to them without authority to do so. She
passed seven of the eight notarized applications as genuine and acted to keep her deception
from being revealed.4 Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the State,
we conclude that it was sufficient to support a finding of intent to defraud.
B. Jury Instruction on Intent to Defraud
[¶36] Ms. Bezold objected to the intent-to-defraud jury instruction that she challenges on
appeal, and we therefore review the district court’s decision for an abuse of discretion.
Bernal-Molina v. State, 2021 WY 90, ¶ 8, 492 P.3d 904, 907 (Wyo. 2021) (citing Haire v.
State, 2017 WY 48, ¶ 28, 393 P.3d 1304, 1311 (Wyo. 2017)). “The district court has
extensive discretion in tailoring jury instructions, so long as they correctly state the law
and fairly and adequately cover the issues presented.” Mackley v. State, 2021 WY 33, ¶ 17,
4
The eighth application was the one intercepted by Ms. Musgrave when she discovered the unauthorized
use of her notary stamp and signature. See Ford, ¶ 15, 259 P.3d at 1184 (“One who has never had a chance
to pass his forged document, or whose forgery is spotted when he tries to pass it, is nevertheless guilty of
forgery.”).
10
481 P.3d 639, 643 (Wyo. 2021) (quoting Farrow v. State, 2019 WY 30, ¶ 12, 437 P.3d
809, 815 (Wyo. 2019)) (cleaned up).
[¶37] Instruction No. 16 stated as follows:
Forgery requires an intent to defraud, but it does not
require that anyone actually be defrauded of money or
property.
It is not necessary to establish an intent to defraud a
particular person or entity.
[¶38] Ms. Bezold contends that the district court erred in giving this instruction because
it “obviated the need of the [S]tate to prove intent to cause injury or loss with the
conveyance of the document.” (Emphasis in original.) She further contends that the
instruction undermined “the necessity of the State to prove that the writing was passed off
specifically with the intent to defraud someone, and specifically the person the State
identified as a victim, and who testified as the victim, Ms. Musgrave.” We disagree that
the instruction was deficient in this regard. As we discussed above, an intent to defraud
does not require evidence of an intent to cause injury or loss, and Instruction 16 is otherwise
consistent with our law.
[¶39] The first part of Instruction No. 16, which stated that “[f]orgery requires an intent
to defraud, but it does not require that anyone actually be defrauded of money or property,”
was drawn from Ford:
Forgery, like false pretenses, requires an intent to defraud, but,
unlike false pretenses, it does not require that anyone be
actually defrauded of his money or property. One who has
never had a chance to pass his forged document, or whose
forgery is spotted when he tries to pass it, is nevertheless guilty
of forgery.
¶ 15, 259 P.3d at 1184 (quoting 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 19.7(j)(5)
(2d ed. 2003 and 2010-11 Supp.)).
[¶40] In context, the statement drawn from Ford refers to the situation where a document
is forged but no transaction is completed with the document. Nonetheless, the statement
is also more broadly consistent with the holdings we have already discussed. An intent to
defraud means “to act willfully and deliberately and with the specific intent to deceive or
cheat.” Luedtke, ¶¶ 29, 32, 117 P.3d at 1233. It does not require an intent to harm or that
someone be harmed. For example, in Lapp, we found the evidence sufficient to support a
forgery conviction where the defendant signed the vehicle title without authority and
11
represented the signature to be genuine when she presented it for notarization. ¶¶ 21-22,
100 P.3d at 868. There was no evidence that the forgery deprived the owner of his property
or that he suffered any harm as a result of the forgery, and we did not look to whether the
defendant intended such a result.5 Id. ¶ 4, 100 P.3d at 864. The first part of Instruction No.
16 was therefore an accurate statement of law, and the district court did not abuse its
discretion in so instructing the jury.
[¶41] The second part of the instruction, which stated that “it is not necessary to establish
an intent to defraud a particular person or entity,” is likewise consistent with our law. With
respect to forgery, we have said that the “gravamen of this offense is an intent to defraud.
The identity of the victims is not an essential element of the crime.” Thomas v. State, 667
P.2d 658, 660 (Wyo. 1983). Lapp again illustrates our continued adherence to this
principle. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of intent to
defraud, our focus was on the defendant’s deceitful actions, not the impact on others or
their identities. Lapp, ¶¶ 21-22, 100 P.3d at 868.6 The second part of Instruction No. 16
was therefore also an accurate statement of law, and the district court did not abuse its
discretion giving it.
[¶42] Affirmed.
5
The owner of the title in Lapp suffered the inconvenience of being required to replace the title, but that
was a loss caused by the defendant’s physical taking of the title, not her forgery. Lapp, ¶ 21, 100 P.3d at
868.
6
It makes sense that our law does not focus on the identity of the victim(s) of a forgery. “Forgery is a crime
aimed primarily at safeguarding confidence in the genuineness of documents relied upon in commercial
and business activity.” Ford, ¶ 15, 259 P.3d at 1184 (quoting LaFave, supra). In keeping with that goal,
our law focuses on the willful and deliberate intent to deceive, and knowingly passing a forged document,
rather than on the impact to and identity of any purported victim. See Luedtke, ¶¶ 29, 32, 117 P.3d at 1233
(intent to defraud means “to act willfully and deliberately and with the specific intent to deceive or cheat”);
Grable, 649 P.2d at 676 (“[K]nowingly passing a forged instrument as genuine is conclusive of an intent
to defraud.”). Additionally, in any given act of forgery, parties may be affected differently. There may be
instances where a party is both deceived and suffers a loss, or there may be instances where one party is
deceived and another suffers a loss. Or, as in this case and in Lapp, there is a party who is deceived, but not
one who suffers a discernible loss. In Lapp, the co-worker who was asked to notarize the signature the
defendant represented to be genuine was deceived. ¶ 21, 100 P.3d at 868. In this case, the TSP program was
deceived when Ms. Bezold submitted TSP withdrawal applications that she represented to be genuinely
notarized documents. In any event, the pivotal showing is not the identity of the “victim” or the impact on
that party; it is the willful and deliberate intent to deceive.
12