People vs. Ledesma

Separate misappropriations of an employer's funds committed on different dates, involving different items and amounts, constitute distinct estafa offenses and not a single delito continuado, so conviction for the first does not place the accused in double jeopardy for prosecution of the second.

Vicente Ledesma served as a sales agent of Conpinco Marketing Company with authority to sell appliances and to receive payments for them. The company entrusted merchandise to him for sale and collection, with the obligation to turn over proceeds and collections upon demand.

Vicente Ledesma was a sales agent of Conpinco Marketing Company, authorized to sell its appliances and to receive payments due thereon for turnover to the company. On December 18, 1963, he sold one Avegon radio for P230.00 and, despite repeated demands, failed to turn over the amount to the company. For that act he was charged with estafa before the Municipal Court of Victorias, Negros Occidental in Criminal Case No. 439 and, after trial, was found guilty as charged.

Thereafter, on June 4, 1964, Ledesma was again charged with estafa in the same Municipal Court in Criminal Case No. 1592 for having misappropriated two installments of P19.00 each, or a total of P38.00, received from Flaviana Bernardas as payments due on a sewing machine belonging to Conpinco Marketing Company, which he likewise failed to turn over despite repeated demands. He was sentenced to suffer three (3) months and one (1) day of arresto mayor, to indemnify the offended party P38.00 with fifteen (15) days subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay costs. He appealed to the Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental, where the Provincial Fiscal filed the corresponding information docketed as Criminal Case No. 627; upon arraignment Ledesma pleaded not guilty, and upon court order the Fiscal later filed an amended information.

On January 29, 1968, Ledesma moved to dismiss the amended information on the ground that his prior conviction in Criminal Case No. 439 for failure to turn over the Avegon radio proceeds barred the present prosecution under the principle of continued or continuing crimes. On January 13, 1969, the trial court granted the motion, dismissed Criminal Case No. 627, and cancelled his bond. The record established that the first conversion involved P230.00 from a radio sale on December 18, 1963, while the second involved P38.00 in sewing-machine installment payments in 1964, received from a named buyer under separate circumstances.

• Double Jeopardy and Continuing Crime: Whether conviction of Vicente Ledesma for estafa in Criminal Case No. 439 in 1963 is a bar to prosecution of the same accused for estafa in Criminal Case No. 627 committed in 1964 such that the second prosecution would place him in double jeopardy.
• Requisites of Double Jeopardy: Whether the requisites for protection against double jeopardy under Section 9, Rule 117 of the Rules of Court are present where the second charge involves a different misappropriation.

• Double Jeopardy and Continuing Crime: No. The first offense cannot be treated as a continuous crime embracing the second, the two conversions having occurred on different dates and under different circumstances without unity of criminal intent.
• Requisites of Double Jeopardy: No. Although jeopardy attached in Criminal Case No. 439 before a competent court under a valid information with plea and conviction, the second prosecution was for another and distinct estafa offense, not the same offense.

• Double Jeopardy and Continuing Crime: A continuous crime was defined as a single crime consisting of a series of acts arising from a single criminal resolution or intent not susceptible of division, following Cuello Calon where diverse delictual acts merely constitute partial execution of a single delict pursuant to unity of purpose and right violated. For it to exist there must be plurality of acts performed separately over time, unity of penal provision violated, and unity of criminal intent or purpose uniting the violations toward the same criminal aim. No such unity was present because, while both offenses consisted of conversion of sums belonging to Conpinco Marketing Company, the offense in Criminal Case No. 439 occurred on December 18, 1963 involving P230.00 from an Avegon radio, while Criminal Case No. 627 involved conversion in 1964 of two P19.00 installments totaling P38.00 on a sewing machine. Reliance was placed on People vs. Dichupa, where misappropriations in January 1955 to December 1955 and January 1956 to July 1956 were held separate because intent as to the first deposit could not be deemed intent as to the later deposit; on People vs. Cid, where malversations and falsifications in May, June, July and August 1936 were held to be as many distinct abstractions absent proof of one resolution; and on Gamboa et al. vs. CA et al., where daily abstractions from October 2, 1972 to December 30, 1972 were held not to proceed from a single criminal act under Article 18 because each day's conversion was a complete act with independent intent on variable dates.
• Requisites of Double Jeopardy: Protection under Section 9, Rule 117 requires in the first prosecution (a) valid complaint or information, (b) competent court, (c) plea by defendant, and (d) acquittal, conviction, or dismissal or termination without his consent. Those conditions attended Criminal Case No. 439, placing Ledesma in jeopardy only for failure to turn over the P230.00 radio proceeds. The later charge for failure to turn over the P38.00 sewing-machine installments was not the same offense nor an attempt, frustration, or necessarily included offense thereof, but another distinct estafa, so invocation of former conviction failed.

• Double jeopardy; requisites under Section 9, Rule 117 — Protection inures only when the first prosecution involved a valid complaint or information before a competent court, plea by the defendant, and acquittal, conviction, or dismissal or termination without his consent. Applied to hold that jeopardy in Criminal Case No. 439 attached only to the P230.00 radio conversion and did not extend to the later P38.00 conversion charged in Criminal Case No. 627 because the second charge was not the same offense.
• Delito continuado or continuous crime — A single crime consisting of a series of acts arising from a single criminal resolution or intent not susceptible of division; where the actor, there being unity of purpose and of right violated, commits diverse acts each merely constituting partial execution of a single delict. For it to exist there must be plurality of acts performed separately during a period of time, unity of penal provision violated, and unity of criminal intent or purpose uniting the violations toward the same criminal aim. Applied to reject continuity because the 1963 and 1964 conversions occurred on different dates under different circumstances, each constituting a complete act with its own intent, as illustrated by People vs. Dichupa, People vs. Cid, and Gamboa et al. vs. CA et al.

• "A "continuous crime" is a single crime consisting of a series of acts arising from a single criminal resolution or intent not susceptible of division." — States the controlling definition used to test whether successive estafa conversions merge into one offense.
• "For it to exist there should be plurality of acts performed separately during a period of time; unity of penal provision infringed upon or violated; unity of criminal intent or purpose, which means that two or more violations of the same penal provision are united in one and the same intent leading to the perpetration of the same criminal purpose or aim." — Lays down the three requisites of delito continuado whose absence negated the double-jeopardy claim.
• "it cannot be pretended that when the accused disposed of the palay deposit in January 1955 to December 1955, he already had the criminal intent of disposing what was to be deposited in January 1956 to July 1956." — Borrowed from People vs. Dichupa to show that intent at the time of an earlier misappropriation cannot be stretched to cover a later, separate deposit.

• People vs. Dichupa, L-16943, October 28, 1961, 3 SCRA 329 — Followed as direct authority that misappropriations on two different periods are separate offenses absent a single pre-existing intent covering the later deposit.
• People vs. Cid, 66 Phil. 354 (1938) — Followed to hold that successive monthly malversations and related falsifications are as many distinct offenses absent proof they sprang from only one resolution.
• Gamboa et al. vs. CA et al., G.R. No. L-41054, November 28, 1975 — Followed to hold that daily abstractions on variable dates are each complete acts with independent intent and not a continuous crime under Article 18.
• People vs. Ylagan, 58 Phil. 851; Mendoza vs. Almeda-Lopez, 64 Phil. 520; People vs. Galvez, L-14160, June 30, 1960; People vs. Acosta, 25 SCRA 823; People vs. Balisacan, 17 SCRA 1119; People vs. Obsania, 2 SCRA 1249 — Cited as basis for the requisites of former conviction, acquittal, or former jeopardy barring a second prosecution.
• Gauchero vs. Bellosillo, 28 SCRA 673; People vs. Zapanta, 88 Phil. 691 — Cited for the requisites and concept of delito continuado requiring unity of intent and provision violated.

• Section 9, Rule 117, Rules of Court — Provides that conviction, acquittal, or dismissal without express consent by a court of competent jurisdiction upon a valid charge after plea bars another prosecution for the offense charged, or for any attempt or frustration thereof, or for any offense necessarily including or included therein. Applied to find the bar inapplicable because Criminal Case No. 627 charged a different estafa from that adjudged in Criminal Case No. 439.

Teehankee, Chairman, Makasiar, Muñoz Palma and Concepcion Jr., JJ., concur. Concepcion, J., was designated to sit in the First Division.