Westminster Expungement Receiving Stolen Property (PC 496)

For those of us old enough to remember cable TV “boxes,” the following case summary will resonate.

 

Our client, then 19, was eager to make money to support himself.  Through a friend of a friend, he landed upon a job installing cable television “boxes” that would allow the purchaser access to any cable channel he or she wanted.  The job involved our client going to assigned homes and connecting certain wires to a television and then splicing the cable connection so as to allow an added current into the television, resulting in the television being able to show any channel available by cable.

If it seemed too good to be true, it really was.  One day in Fountain Valley our client was installing another such box when the police showed up and confiscated our client’s inventory of cable television boxes, arresting him on charges of receiving stolen property and then releasing him with a promise to later appear in the Westminster courthouse.  Our client later learned that the cable boxes were stolen by his friend of a friend, who worked at a legitimate cable provider, but had learned how to manipulate the cable box to gain access to any cable channel.

Our client ended up being represented by the public defender and accepting a plea bargain to misdemeanor receiving stolen property (Penal Code § 496(a)).

He then successfully completed three years of informal, or summary probation.  He also went onto earn an AA degree from Cypress College and then transferred to UCLA, where he earned his bachelors of science degree.

Ten years later, in 2009, he started a bail bond company in Orange County.  The business flourished with our client overseeing advertising, risk management, payroll and other marketing.  He married, had two children and supported his in-laws, who moved in with him.