Breanne Browning entered a negotiated guilty plea to theft by receiving stolen property a vehicle and was sentenced to first offender treatment. Following a hearing, she was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $4,330.17, at the rate of $100 a month. She appeals, arguing in related enumerations of error that the restitution award was based on inadmissible hearsay, that the trial court erred in admitting certain opinion evidence and that the State failed to meet its burden of proving the amount of damages awarded as restitution. We agree and reverse the portion of the restitution order which is unsupported by sufficient evidence. The principles governing an order of restitution are well-established and in large part statutory. OCGA § 17-14-7 b provides that “the burden of demonstrating the amount of the loss sustained by a victim as a result of the offense shall be on the state.” Pursuant to OCGA § 17-14-9, “the amount of restitution ordered may be equal to or less than, but not more than, the victim’s damages.” Citation and punctuation omitted. In the Interest of E.W. , 290 StateplaceGa.App. 95, 97 3 658 SE2d 854 2008. And as used in this context ” ‘damages’ means all special damages which a victim could recover against an offender in a civil action . . . based on the same act . . . for which the offender is sentenced.” OCGA § 17-14-2 2. “ For this purpose, determination of the amount of damages must be based upon fair market value, which must be determined exactly. On review of a restitution order, the appellate court has the duty of reviewing the transcript to determine whether each party has met his or her specified burden and determining whether a restitution award was supported by the preponderance of the evidence.” Punctuation and footnote citations omitted. McClure v. State , 295 StateplaceGa.App. 465, 466 673 SE2d 856 2009.
As to the specific crime in this case, “because theft by receiving is analogous to the civil tort of conversion, the court may award the victim of this crime the value of the property at the date it was converted plus the rental value of the vehicle from that date until the date of trial. Hodges v. State , 201 StateGa.App. 729, 730 2 731 411 SE2d 775 1991; Lomax v. State , 200 StateplaceGa.App. 233, 234 407 SE2d 462 1991.” In the Interest of C. B. , 221 StateplaceGa. App. 102 1 470 SE2d 493 1996. Thus, a trial court in a case involving a theft or theft by receiving case is authorized to award damages in an amount equal to the fair market value of the stolen goods as demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence, said value being determined as of the time of the conversion. Loggins v. Mitchell , 201 Ga. App. 358 1 411 SE2d 98 1991 holding that the measure of damages of converted property is the market value at the time of conversion.
