Upon trial de novo in superior court, the defendant in this case was convicted of misdemeanor injury to personal property for throwing a balloon filled with black ink onto a painting during a protest at an arts event in Asheville. The defendant received a suspended 30-day sentence and was ordered to pay $4,425 in restitution. On appeal, the defendant argued that her motion to dismiss the injury to personal property charge should have been granted due to a fatal variance, and argued that the restitution amount was improperly based on speculative value. The appellate court rejected both arguments.

The charging document alleged that the defendant had damaged the personal property of the artist, Jonas Gerard, but the evidence at trial indicated that the painting was the property of the artist’s corporation, Jonas Gerard Fine Arts, Inc., an S corporation held in revocable trust, where Jonas Gerard was listed as both an employee and the sole owner. Although this evidence established that the artist and the corporation were separate legal entities, each capable of owning property, the court held that the state’s evidence sufficiently demonstrated that the artist named in the pleading was nevertheless a person who had a “special interest” in the property and was therefore properly named in the charging instrument. The painting was not yet complete, it was still in the artist’s possession at the time it was damaged, and the artist regarded himself and the corporation as functionally “one and the same” and he “certainly held out the paintings as his own.” Finding the facts of this case analogous to State v. Carr, 21 N.C. App. 470 (1974), the appellate court held that the charging document was “sufficient to notify Defendant of the particular piece of personal property which she was alleged to have damaged,” and the trial court did not err in denying the motion to dismiss for a fatal variance.

The restitution amount was also supported by competent evidence. A witness for the state testified that a potential buyer at the show asked what the painting would cost when completed and was told $8,850, which was the gallery’s standard price for paintings of that size by this artist. The artist also testified that the canvas was now completely destroyed, and the black ink could not be painted over. The trial court ordered the defendant to pay half that amount as restitution. The appellate court held that the fact that the painting “had not yet been purchased by a buyer does not mean that the market value assigned by the trial court for restitution was speculative.” The evidence presented at trial was sufficient to establish a fair market value for the painting prior to it being damaged, and the trial court’s restitution order would not be disturbed on appeal.

(1) There was no fatal defect in an indictment charging the defendant with injury to personal property. The defendant asserted that the indictment was invalid because it failed to allege that the owner, a church, as an entity capable of owning property. In State v. Campbell, 368 N.C. 83 (2015), the Supreme Court held that alleging ownership of property in an entity identified as a church or other place of religious worship is sufficient to allege an entity capable of owning property. Here, count one of the indictment alleged breaking or entering a place of religious worship and identified the church expressly as “a place of religious worship.” The count alleging injury to personal property simply referred to the church by name. The court found that identifying the church as a place of religious worship in the first count and subsequently listing the church as the owner of the personal property in a later count was sufficient. A contrary ruling, requiring the church to be identified as a place of worship in each portion of the indictment, “would constitute a hypertechnical interpretation of the requirements for indictments.” (2) By failing to assert a claim of fatal variance between the indictment and the evidence with respect to a charge of injury to personal property, the defendant failed to preserve the issue for appellate review. Nevertheless, the court considered the issue and rejected the defendant’s claim. The indictment alleged that the defendant injured the personal property of the church, specifically a lock on a door. The defendant asserted that the evidence showed that the damaged device was owned not by the church but rather by the lessor of the property. The court concluded however that the evidence was sufficient to allow the jury to find that the church owned the lock and that it was damaged.

In this burning of personal property case where the indictment charged that the defendant set fire to the victim’s bed, jewelry, and clothing and the evidence showed only that he set fire to her bedding, no fatal variance occurred. The State was not required to show that the defendant also set fire to her jewelry and clothing. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that there was a fatal variance between the indictment’s allegation that he set fire to her bed and the evidence, which showed he set fire to her bedding. Any variance in this regard was not material, given that there was no evidence that the “bedding” was found anywhere other than on the bed. It concluded: “we are unable to discern how Defendant was unfairly surprised, misled, or otherwise prejudiced in the preparation of his defense by the indictment’s failure to identify the ‘bedding’ rather than the ‘bed.’”