Jordan v. State

Doretha Jordan, also known as Doretha Johnson or Barbara Carol Hall, was found guilty of 37 counts of forgery in the first degree, one count of theft by taking, and five counts of financial transaction card fraud. The trial court ultimately granted defendant’s motion for directed verdict with respect to six forgery counts. Defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction and sentence entered on the jury’s verdicts. In two related enumerations of error, she challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to convict. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, the evidence adduced at trial revealed the following:

Patricia P. Parlato hired defendant under the name Doretha Johnson to be the office manager for Parlato’s pediatric speech therapy practice in DeKalb County. Defendant’s responsibilities included payroll, client billing, payment of bills, purchase of supplies, and banking. Defendant’s authorized salary was never more than $368 for a 32-hour week. For the last ten years, Ms. Parlato had a business checking account with Tucker Federal Savings & Loan, whose main branch is in DeKalb County, using exclusively the Doraville branch in DeKalb County, a mile from her business. Ms. Parlato was the only authorized check signer on this account. During the five months that defendant was office manager, Parlato continued her earlier practice of signing up to ten blank business checks at a time and defendant would draw them to pay for business expenses, as needed. Defendant persuaded Ms. Parlato to rent a post office box in Doraville, for which defendant held the only key.