State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A20-0257

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Christopher Charles Ward,
Appellant.

Filed February 1, 2021
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-19-13322

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Jordan W. Rude, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Julie Loftus Nelson, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Segal, Chief Judge; Ross, Judge; and Bryan, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Police arrested Christopher Ward outside a department store and found stolen
checks, credit cards, and drivers’ licenses in his possession after a store manager reported
that, for the second time in three days, Ward was trying to buy merchandise with stole n
credit cards. Ward appeals from his conviction of identity theft, arguing that the state was
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required to charge him only with the lesser crime of financial-transaction-card fraud on the
theory that the elements of both crimes are identical and that he ca n be tried only for the
more specific charge. Because the crimes are not identical, we affirm.
FACTS
Video surveillance cameras at multiple retailers in Minneapolis and Edina recorded
Christopher Ward on a shopping spree spanning four days in April 2019. Ward’s
extravaganza in volved more than $3,000 in completed purchases and many failed
purchases, including one intended to book an Airbnb vacation. Other video cameras
recorded Ward lurking around or entering secured areas of other businesses, where more
than 24 employees or owners discovered that someone had stolen their cash, credit cards,
fuel cards, checks, insurance cards, and drivers’ licenses. These businesses included several
restaurants, a bakery, a bank, a dental office, and a chiropractic c linic. Ward went from
place to place —shopping and pilfering the transactional and identification cards —in a
Volkswagen stolen from St. Paul.
Ward’s excursion ended after a Macy’s manager report ed that the man who had
made fraudulent purchases three days e arlier was back making another one. Edina Police
caught up with Ward near the store and arrested him. He told police falsely that his name
is “Rory,” a name that matched a stolen license he was carrying. In addition to assorted
goods that Ward had just illegally purchased and the stolen driver’s license , Ward was
carrying eight stolen credit cards, two stolen insurance cards, and $745 in cash. The stolen
car that he drove there contained four blank stolen checks on four different accounts, four
stolen credit cards, one stolen casino card, a stolen Sam’s Club card, and $2,850 in cash.
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Another stolen license was on the ground outside the car. These assorted cards, checks, and
licenses in his possession had been stolen from at least 15 people.
The state charged Ward with identity theft, motor- vehicle theft, financia l-
transaction-card fraud, and possession or sale of stolen or counterfeit checks. Ward
unsuccessfully moved the distric t court to dismiss the identit y-theft charge, arguing that
this offense and the financial-transaction-card-fraud offense rest on the same elements but
carry different penalties, requiring that he be subject to prosecution only for the lesser of
the two, which is financial-transaction-card fraud. Ward pleaded guilty to auto theft , and
the state dismissed the charges for credit -card fraud and possessing stolen checks. The
parties agreed to hold a stipulated-evidence bench trial for identity theft, after which the
district court found Ward guilty and sentenced him to serve 132 months in prison.
Ward appeals.
DECISION
Ward challenges his conviction of identity theft, maintaining that the district court
should have dismissed the charge as a matter of law . We review this legal challenge de
novo. See State v. Murphy , 545 N.W.2d 909, 914 (Minn. 1996). Ward contends that the
state could not prosecute him for the “general” crime of identity theft because th at
offense is elementally the same as , but less circumstantially specific than,
financial-transaction-card fraud and carries a heavier penalty. The argument fails.
Ward’s challenge faces a presumption that the prosecutor generally has wide
discretion to charge a defendant “under any statute that the defendant’s acts violate.” State
v. Chryst, 320 N.W.2d 721, 722 (Minn. 1982 ). Ward’s contention hangs on an exception
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to that rule, which is that if two criminal statutes, “one general and one specific, conflict
because they have the same elements but differing penalties,” the prosecutor may not
charge the defendant under the general offense unless the legislature indicated its intent for
that approach. State v. Craven , 628 N.W.2d 632, 635 (Minn. App. 2001), review denied
(Minn. Aug. 15, 2001). This limit on prosecutorial-charging discretion occurs only when,
in every conceivable circumstance, the conduct that violates the more-specific statute also
would violate the g eneral statute. See Chryst, 320 N.W.2d at 772. We need not consider
any other conceivable circumstance here, because some of Ward’s criminal conduct
violates only the identity-theft statute.
It is true, as Ward argues, that the two offenses reflect some degree of overlap. But
they are fundamentally different. The financial -transaction-card-fraud statute involves
“any instrument or device . . . issued . . . for the use of the cardholder in obtaining credit,
money, goods, services, public assistance benefits, or anything else of value,” Minn. Stat.
§ 609.821, subd. 1 (2018), and a person violates it if he “ uses or attempts to use ” that
instrument or device “to obtain the property of another,” id., subd. 2(1) (2018). By contrast,
the identity-theft statute prohibits the mere possession of another person’s identification
“with the intent to commit, aid, or abet any unlawful activity .” Minn. Stat. § 609.527,
subd. 2 (2018). In a way, the identity-theft statute is, as Ward maintains, more general than
the statute prohibiting credit-card fraud, and this might merit further thought if credit-card
fraud were his only illegal conduct. But his misconduct was broader in a way that would
lead a prosecutor to recognize that the identity-theft statute is more suited to his crime.
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Only the identity-theft statute covers Ward’s possession or use of all of the stolen
items found in his possession. This includes his possession of those identifying items not
issued for financial transactions, such as the insurance cards and drivers’ licenses. Because
one of those licenses belonged to a man whose first name was Rory, the same name Ward
gave as his own, the prosecutor would reasonabl y infer that Ward possessed another
person’s identity intending to use it to aid in the unlawful activity of misidentifying himself
to police . See Minn. Stat. § 609.506, subd. 1 (2018) (criminalizing falsely identifying
oneself to law enforcement ). And although Ward’s possessing the stolen, blank checks
without yet having actually used or attempted to use them to obtain property likewise
would not by itself violate the credit -card-fraud statute, his possessing them with his
apparent intent to use them later arguably violated the identity-theft statute. The prosecutor
was therefore not restricted to charge only for the credit -card violations, and the district
court therefore appropriately rejected Ward’s legal theory.
Affirmed.