Background
Gregory Arthur Thompson held a dealer’s license and in 2017 began buying used cars for Triple Star Auto (TSA), a South Carolina dealership operated by Joey Vick through his agent Tony Ellis. Under their arrangement, Ellis would deliver personal checks from TSA payable to North Carolina dealerships, and Thompson would purchase specified vehicles for TSA to resell. The checks identified each vehicle (including a partial VIN) on the memo line and were made out solely to the dealerships.
Instead of purchasing the vehicles, Thompson deposited thirteen TSA checks — totaling $61,000 — into a “Thompson Auto” account he had opened jointly with his mother at Providence Bank, adding himself as an additional payee by writing “Thompson Auto” or “TA” on the checks after the dealership’s name. He never delivered any of the vehicles or their titles to TSA. Ellis was required to repay TSA from his own wages. Ellis sued Providence Bank for accepting the altered checks and received a $5,000 settlement, which he testified covered only his attorney fees.
Thompson was indicted in 2019 on thirteen counts of obtaining property by false pretenses and thirteen counts of uttering a forged instrument in Nash County. At trial, over Thompson’s objection, the State also introduced three checks from a pending Wake County case: Thompson had received a TSA check to purchase a Subaru from Southern States, cashed it, and then written three insufficient-funds checks to Southern States. The trial court admitted this evidence but granted a motion in limine to exclude other prior convictions. The jury convicted Thompson on all counts, and he was sentenced to multiple consecutive suspended terms and ordered to pay $53,150 in restitution to Ellis/TSA (the court deducted $8,200 for a vehicle Thompson did repay, but not the $5,000 Providence Bank settlement).
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals found no error and affirmed on all four issues.
Rule 404(b) — Wake County checks. The trial court did not err in admitting evidence of the pending Wake County charges. Under Rule 404(b), other crimes or acts are admissible for purposes other than character, including to show knowledge, intent, absence of mistake, and a common plan or scheme. The Wake County conduct — Thompson receiving TSA funds for a vehicle purchase, cashing the check, and then issuing insufficient-funds checks to the dealership while the vehicle sat uncollected — was sufficiently similar to the Nash County scheme to satisfy the Rule 404(b) threshold. Both involved Thompson receiving TSA money intended for vehicle purchases and using those funds for himself. The events occurred within one year of each other, satisfying the temporal-proximity requirement. The trial court also properly balanced probative value against unfair prejudice under Rule 403 and, notably, excluded other prior convictions while allowing this evidence — demonstrating it exercised its discretion carefully rather than admitting everything.
Restitution — civil settlement. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by ordering $53,150 in restitution to Ellis despite the $5,000 settlement Ellis had received from Providence Bank. The Court of Appeals reaffirmed the rule from State v. Williams, 265 N.C. App. 657 (2019): prior civil settlement agreements do not limit the amount of criminal restitution. Civil settlements neither usurp the State’s ability to enforce criminal statutes nor impede the distinct goals of the criminal justice system. Section 15A-1343(d) grants the trial court statutory authority to order restitution as a condition of probation. Here, Ellis testified that the $5,000 settlement went entirely toward his attorney fees — not toward recovering his actual loss from Thompson — and the restitution amount was supported by record evidence.
Motion to dismiss — “person within the State.” Thompson argued that “person within the State” is an essential element of obtaining property by false pretenses under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-100(a), and that the State failed to prove it. The Court of Appeals rejected this. The North Carolina Supreme Court has consistently defined the offense’s essential elements as: (1) a false representation of a subsisting fact or future fulfillment; (2) calculated and intended to deceive; (3) which does in fact deceive; and (4) by which one person obtains or attempts to obtain value from another. See State v. Parker, 354 N.C. 268 (2001); State v. Mostafavi, 370 N.C. 681 (2018). Thompson relied on language from State v. Pierce, 279 N.C. App. 494 (2021), but the Pierce court explicitly stated it was “presuming without deciding” whether “person within the State” was an essential element — classic obiter dicta not entitled to precedential weight. The Court of Appeals is bound by Supreme Court precedent and will not deviate based on dicta from its own prior opinions.
Plain error — jury instructions. Thompson’s fourth argument, unpreserved at trial, sought plain error review of the jury instructions on the grounds that the court omitted “person within the State” as an element. Having affirmed on the merits that the phrase is not an essential element and that the court used the proper pattern jury instructions, the Court of Appeals discerned no plain error.
Key Takeaways
- A prior civil settlement received by a crime victim does not reduce or cap the amount of criminal restitution a court may order; civil and criminal proceedings serve distinct purposes and are governed by independent legal frameworks. State v. Williams, 265 N.C. App. 657 (2019); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1343(d).
- Evidence of other uncharged or pending criminal conduct is admissible under Rule 404(b) where it is sufficiently similar to the charged offense (sharing “some unusual facts” indicating the same person committed both) and occurs within close temporal proximity; the evidence need not rise to the level of “unique and bizarre.” State v. Pabon, 380 N.C. 241 (2022).
- The essential elements of obtaining property by false pretenses under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-100(a) are the four elements articulated by the Supreme Court in State v. Parker and subsequent decisions; the statutory phrase “person within the State” is not an additional element, and dicta from Court of Appeals opinions suggesting otherwise is not binding.
- A trial court’s Rule 403 balancing is evidenced not only by its decision to admit challenged evidence but also by its willingness to exclude other evidence in the same motion in limine proceeding — selective admission demonstrates that the court genuinely exercised its discretion.
Why It Matters
State v. Thompson addresses two recurring issues in North Carolina criminal practice. The restitution holding is a clean application of Williams: defense practitioners should not expect that a victim’s civil recovery — particularly a nuisance settlement that covers only attorney fees — will reduce a criminal restitution order. The criminal justice system’s interest in making victims whole operates independently of whatever civil resolution the victim and a third party may have reached.
The “person within the State” holding clears up a recurring ambiguity that defendants have tried to exploit since Pierce. That decision’s qualified language created an opening for sufficiency challenges premised on a statutory phrase that the Supreme Court has never treated as an essential element. Thompson firmly closes that opening by labeling the Pierce discussion as dicta and reaffirming the four-element framework from the Supreme Court’s own precedents.