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A man convicted of impersonating a law enforcement officer failed to show that a trial court erred in the admission of evidence, the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled Monday.
According to court records, on Aug. 31, 2021, Cassandra Miller and Ashley Wagner were working at the Fundae’s Ice Cream Shop in Speedway when a man, later identified as Kenyonn Sincere, came in and indicated that he “was looking for a missing person.”
Sincere claimed to be a detective with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and asked Miller for the “security footage that [the Shop] had and receipts and just any information that we had from the day prior.” Sincere was wearing a polo shirt with the words “Marion County” and/or “detective” printed on it, as well as a badge on his waist.
Miller showed surveillance footage to Sincere, who indicated that he was looking for a specific woman. When Sincere saw the woman on the surveillance footage, he asked to see the receipt from her purchase — specifically, a copy of the receipt that had a signature on it.
Miller provided Sincere with a copy of the receipt but explained that the shop no longer required signatures for credit or debit purchases. Sincere “seemed surprised and disappointed that there wasn’t a signature.”
Sincere then asked for a copy of the surveillance footage and provided Miller with a telephone number and an email address where she could send the footage. The email address was “[email protected],” and Sincere wrote “Sgt.” next to it.
After Sincere left, Miller conducted a Google search and discovered that although an individual named Duncan Flagg worked for Marion County, he was not the same person who had visited the shop. She thus contacted the Speedway Police Department.
Speedway Police Detective Michael Hart called the number that Sincere had provided to Miller. No one answered, but the number went to a voicemail that said the caller had reached “Kenyonn Sincere Marion County Sheriff’s Department.”
The state charged Sincere with Level 6 felony impersonating a law enforcement officer.
At trial, Sincere objected to various statements made by Hart during his testimony. The Marion Superior Court overruled Sincere’s objections.
A jury found Sincere guilty as charged, and the trial court subsequently entered judgment of conviction as a Class A misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 365 days suspended and was ordered to pay a $500 fine.
Sincere appealed, arguing the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence during trial.
Specifically, he challenged the admission of testimony relating to Miller and Hart’s determinations that Sincere was not Duncan Flagg, claiming that the admission violated various evidentiary rules.
He also contended that the deputy prosecutor committed prosecutorial misconduct, and that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in full, with Judge Cale Bradford writing.
Bradford pointed to the voicemail message indicating the caller had reached Kenyonn Sincere, not Duncan Flagg.
“This statement was a statement by a party-opponent as it was made by Sincere and was communicated via the telephone number that he had claimed to be his. The statement, therefore, was not inadmissible hearsay,” Bradford wrote.
Sincere also claimed Hart’s testimony was inadmissible as it was “almost entirely about what other people told him” and was “introduced to bridge gaps in the State’s case.”
But Bradford noted the trial court made it clear that the challenged testimony was being admitted solely as course-of-the-investigation testimony, not for the truth of the matter asserted.
“Without deciding whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting Detective Hart’s testimony, we conclude that its admission was, at most, harmless. Detective Hart’s testimony was largely duplicative of Miller’s and Wagner’s testimony,” Bradford wrote.
The COA also rejected Sincere’s argument that the deputy prosecutor committed prosecutorial misconduct.
“To the extent that Sincere’s prosecutorial-misconduct claim is based upon his assertion that the State relied on inadmissible evidence in its opening and closing arguments, Sincere cannot prove error, much less fundamental error given our conclusion that the challenged evidence was either admissible or that its admission was harmless,” Bradford wrote.
The appellate court also dismissed Sincere’s contention that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction, as well as his claim that the state was required to prove that he is not a law enforcement officer.
The appellate court pointed out that Sincere acknowledged that “[c]aselaw is silent on this point.”
“Upon review, we have found nothing in Indiana law to support Sincere’s assertion that the State should have also (been) required to disprove that he was a law-enforcement officer before it could prove that he had violated Indiana Code section 35-44.1-2-6, and we reject Sincere’s invitation to adopt such a requirement,” Bradford wrote.
Judges Leanna Weissmann and Peter Foley concurred in Kenyonn Sincere v. State of Indiana, 23A-CR-1172.
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