STATE v. JACKSON
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,
v.
JAMES MADISON JACKSON.
No. COA09-1346.
Court of Appeals of North Carolina.
Filed July 6, 2010.
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General Ann Stone, for the State.
Don Willey for defendant-appellant.
UNPUBLISHED OPINIONERVIN, Judge.
On or about 27 March 2008, a criminal summons was issued charging defendant James Madison Jackson with drawing a worthless check in violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-107(a). On 7 November 2008, defendant was convicted as charged in Forsyth County District Court. The district court imposed a 45 day suspended sentence, placed defendant on 18 months unsupervised probation, and ordered defendant to pay $1,750.00 in restitution. Defendant appealed his conviction to the superior court for a trial de novo. The case against defendant came on for trial at the 27 April 2009 criminal session of Forsyth County Superior Court.
Defendant is the member-manager of Green Pointe Construction, LLC, a general contracting company, which was primarily engaged in the construction of condominiums in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Green Pointe had two bank accounts with the Bank of Granite, one of which was a checking account from which Green Pointe paid its operating expenses. During the relevant time period, defendant was the only authorized signatory on the account.
In 2007, Green Pointe hired Carolina Garage Doors ("Carolina Garage") to install garage doors and openers on certain structures. Carolina Garage performed work of this nature for Green Pointe on two occasions. Alice Medlin, a bookkeeper at Carolina Garage, testified that Carolina Garage was paid for the first of these two installations, but not the second. Vincent Marino, the general manager for Carolina Garage, identified defendant as the individual from Green Pointe with whom he met.
The second installation that Carolina Garage performed for Green Pointe took place on 16 November 2007. According to Ms. Medlin, Carolina Garage billed Green Pointe for the November 2007 installation, with the invoice for that work totaling $1,750.00. On 14 December 2007, defendant wrote check number 3132 to Carolina Garage in the amount of $1,750.00 to pay for work performed on 16 November 2007. The check in question was drawn on an account maintained by Green Pointe at the Bank of Granite and was made payable to Carolina Garage. However, the account lacked sufficient funds to cover the check at the time that it was presented for payment, so the Bank of Granite refused to provide payment. The dishonored check was eventually returned to Carolina Garage.
John Williams, a senior auditor with the Bank of Granite, offered testimony based on Green Pointe's account records. According to Mr. Williams, defendant had signed the account's signature card. The signatures on the signature card and the bounced check matched. Mr. Williams testified that the beginning balance in Green Pointe's account for November 2007 was negative $41,103.89 and that the deficit balance had increased to negative $200,675.81 by the end of the month. By the end of December, 2007, the negative balance had climbed to $246,000.09. The account never had a positive balance during December 2007. On 14 December 2007, the balance of Green Pointe's account was negative $225,000.