Background
Following accusations that Terry Lee Romero stole Larry Garcia-Prudente’s work truck and shot at him, prosecutors charged Romero with offenses including conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, aggravated robbery, aggravated motor vehicle theft, menacing, criminal attempt to commit second degree assault, theft, and a crime-of-violence sentence enhancer. Romero pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated motor vehicle robbery in exchange for dismissal of the other charges. He admitted liability, stipulated to causation, and agreed to pay restitution for all victims’ pecuniary losses on all charged counts, including dismissed counts.
The prosecution requested $7,857.62: $6,557.62 for missing work tools and $1,300 for towing and storage expenses incurred to retrieve the truck. It submitted thirty Amazon screenshots listing replacement-tool prices. At the restitution hearing, Garcia-Prudente testified through a Spanish-language interpreter that his everyday work tools were missing when he recovered the truck and that replacing them cost $6,557.62. The admitted Amazon exhibit was blurry and lacked readable prices for six items, but the clearer attachment in the record contained every price.
Garcia-Prudente also testified that the depicted truck rack was on the stolen truck, although he bought a more expensive trailer and sought only the rack’s lower price. He clarified that his own power lock was stolen and that his boss temporarily loaned him another until he could replace it. A bank statement corroborated payments of $1,000 and $300 to Red’s Towing. He described a friend’s $1,000 advance as a loan. The district court credited the evidence, used replacement value, and awarded the full $7,857.62.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the evidentiary basis for restitution but reversed the tools award’s amount and remanded for correction. It declined to decide whether Romero preserved his fair-market-value argument, assuming preservation because the replacement-value ruling was not an abuse of discretion. The court rejected his proposed bright-line rule requiring prosecutors always to prove that stolen property cannot readily be replaced at fair-market value before using replacement cost. It explained that People v. Stafford and People v. Henson imposed no universal prerequisite, as clarified by People v. Knapp. Here, the victim testified that he replaced the tools, while Romero presented no witnesses or evidence of an active used-tool market.
The court separately reviewed the sufficiency challenge de novo, asking whether the evidence as a whole, viewed favorably to the prosecution, supported the award by a preponderance. It emphasized that restitution hearings do not require trial-quality evidence and that the rules of evidence are relaxed. The victim’s testimony adequately supported the tools award, and appellate courts defer to the trial court’s credibility and weight assessments. The clearer Amazon attachment also filled the admitted exhibit’s pricing gaps because courts may rely on record documents even if not admitted at the hearing.
The $1,300 towing-and-storage award likewise had testimonial and documentary support. Garcia-Prudente’s repeated description of the friend’s advance as a “loan” supplied evidence of an intent to repay; the court used dictionary definitions explaining that lending contemplates return of the same thing or its equivalent. Finally, the People conceded that the listed tool prices total $6,533.86, not $6,557.62. The court therefore reversed the $6,557.62 tools award and directed the district court to correct it to $6,533.86, while otherwise affirming the restitution order.
Key Takeaways
- Replacement value is not categorically conditioned on affirmative proof that stolen items are unavailable at fair-market value.
- Sufficiency-of-evidence challenges to restitution receive de novo review, distinct from abuse-of-discretion review of valuation methodology.
- Victim testimony, record documents, and relaxed evidentiary rules can collectively support restitution despite an unclear admitted exhibit.
- The concession required a $23.76 reduction in the tools component, not rejection of the underlying restitution findings.
Why It Matters
The opinion distinguishes the standard governing a restitution court’s valuation choice from the standard governing appellate review of evidentiary sufficiency. It also limits readings of Stafford and Henson that would impose an inflexible prosecution prerequisite to replacement-cost awards, while grounding this ruling in the particular record: replacement testimony and no defense evidence of a broad, active used-tool market.
For practitioners, the case underscores the value of placing clear supporting documents in the record and separately challenging credibility, valuation, and arithmetic. The unpublished decision, issued under C.A.R. 35(e), also illustrates that a concession concerning calculation can produce a narrow remand without disturbing otherwise sufficient restitution findings.