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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A20-1002

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Kristiana Elena Beavers,
Appellant.

Filed May 3, 2021
Affirmed
Worke, Judge

McLeod County District Court
File No. 43-CR-19-1131

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

Kenneth G. Janssen, Glencoe City Attorney, Gavin, Janssen & Stabenow, Ltd., Glencoe,
Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Richard Schmitz, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Jesson, Presiding Judge; Worke, Judge; and Reyes,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
WORKE, Judge
Appellant argues that the state provided insufficient evidence to prove that she
intentionally took her ex-boyfriend’s property with the intent to permanently deprive him
of possession. We affirm.
2
FACTS
Appellant Kristiana Elena Beavers was charged with one count of misdemeanor
theft pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 609.52, subd. 2(a)(1) (2018), and one count of misdemeanor
tampering with a vehicle and entering withou t the owner’s permission pursuant to Minn.
Stat. § 609.546(2) (2018).1
At trial, R.H. testified that he shares a child with Beavers. They had a “fairly on-
and-off-again” relationship that began in the fall of 2015. In May 2019, the couple was “in
a transitional period to where [R.H.] called th ings off entirely” after they stopped living
together earlier that year. R.H. and Beavers jointly owned two car seats, but both preferred
one of them that was nicer than the other. On May 21, 2019, the preferred car seat was in
R.H.’s pickup truck that he drove to his brother’s house in Glencoe. Beavers knew where
R.H.’s brother lived because R.H. previously shared the address with her.
A little before 11:00 p.m., R.H. went out to his truck “to pick up [his] stuff to go to
bed” and found that his “doors were unlocked, the car seat was gone, [and his] bag of
clothes . . . were all gone.” His belongings had been in a plastic Vans shopping bag that
belonged to Beavers. It was a “typical shoppi ng bag” that cannot seal. R.H.’s apartment
key and two phone chargers were also in the bag. He testified that the back sliding window
over the bed of his truck “looked like somebody had scratched it open.”

1 Beavers was also charged w ith second-degree burglary in a separate matter for events
relating to and occurring on the same night as the events of this appeal. The parties agreed
to try the two cases at the same time while keeping them separate, and Beavers challenged
that conviction in a separate appeal. State v. Beavers, No. A20-1003, 2021 WL 1522474
(Minn. App. Apr. 19, 2021).
3
R.H. testified that he di d not tell Beavers where he was that evening, but she had
called him and accused him of be ing on a date and getting hi gh. She later messaged him
about court documents to modify custody a nd parenting time that were sitting on the
kitchen table of his apartment. She did not have a key for, or permission to be in, his
apartment, and he did not discuss pursui ng custody or parenting time through legal
proceedings with Beavers “anywhere within six months to nine months of that time frame.”
R.H. called law enforcement and told the re sponding officers that he suspected that
Beavers entered his truck and took his things. R.H. then went to his apartment. Inside, he
noticed “missing items, both items that . . . Beavers had bought and items that . . . Beavers
had not purchased, and [he] fo und [his] keys on [his] tabl e and the petition for parenting
time gone.” He knew that the keys on his tabl e were the same as the keys from the Vans
bag because of the tape measur e on the key ring. R.H. did not recover any of his other
possessions from the Vans bag.
The following morning, Beavers called R.H. R.H. recorded the conversation, and
the recording was played for the district court. Beaver s admitted she went into R.H.’s
unlocked truck to grab her things.
One of the officers who responded to R.H .’s call testified that he noticed “some
scratch marks on . . . the sliding door on the back” of R.H.’s truck.
Beavers testified that R.H. told her that he was at hi s brother’s house and that she
could come and take the car seat. She rang the brother’s doorbell, but there was no answer.
She then walked past R.H.’s truck and noticed that the keys were in the ignition. When
she grabbed the car seat, she “realized that there was a—a Vans bag that he had taken from
4
[her] apartment sitting on top of the car seat . And due to it raining and being dark, [she]
didn’t look into the bag; [she] just grabbed th e car seat and [she] ran to [her] car.” When
she cleaned out her car later that night, she “rea lized that there was, like, a sweatshirt and
some hygiene products in the bag, and [she] went to go return them to . . . R.H.’s
apartment.” She claimed that the bag did not include phone chargers or the keys to R.H.’s
apartment. She entered R.H.’s apartment usin g the key that he gave her a couple months
prior and left the contents of the bag on his living room couch. She then left his key on the
table.
The district court found Beavers guilty of tampering with a motor vehicle and
misdemeanor theft. The district court found that R.H. was more credible than Beavers and
that Beavers
took property that belonged to R.H. from his vehicle including
his clothes and phone chargers. [Beavers] purposefully took
these items and knew the property belonged to R.H. after she
opened the Vans bag. [Bea vers] knew she did not have
permission or a right to take the items and sh e intended to
permanently deprive R.H. of th ese items as [Beavers] did not
return the clothing or phone chargers to him.

The district court sentenced Beavers to a stay of imposition with one year of
probation for each conviction, to be served concurrently, as well as 30 days of community
service for the tampering-with-motor-vehicle conviction. This appeal followed.
DECISION
Beavers argues that the state provided insu fficient evidence to support the theft
conviction because there is no ev idence that she took R.H.’s pr operty with the intent to
5
permanently deprive him of it.2 Beavers makes four arguments on appeal: (1) she and R.H.
jointly owned the car seat, (2) the district court did not find that Beavers took R.H.’s
melatonin, (3) the evidence did not establish that Beavers pe rmanently deprived R.H. of
his apartment keys, and (4) the state provided insufficient evidence that Beavers intended
to permanently deprive R.H. of his clothes a nd phone chargers. The district court found
Beavers guilty based on the theft of R.H.’s clothes and phone chargers; therefore, the first
three arguments are not relevant. The dispositiv e issue in this appeal is whether the state
provided sufficient evidence to prove that Beavers intended to permanently deprive R.H.
of his clothes and phone chargers.
When reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we review the record
“to determine whether the evidence, direct a nd circumstantial, viewed most favorably to
support a finding of guilt is sufficient to permit the [fact-finder] to reach that conclusion.”
Francis v. State, 729 N.W.2d 584, 589 (Minn. 2007) (quotation omitted). Appellate courts
will not overturn a verdict if the district cour t, “upon application of the presumption of
innocence and the [s]tate’s burden of proving an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, could
reasonably have found the defendant guilty of the charged offense.” State v. Griffin, 887
N.W.2d 257, 263 (Minn. 2016). “We do not retry the facts; we assume the [fact-finder]
believed the state’s witnesses and disb elieved the defendant’s witnesses.” State v. Thao,
649 N.W.2d 414, 420 (Minn. 2002).

2 Beavers does not challenge her conviction for tampering with a motor vehicle.
6
The state generally proves intent with circumstantial evidence. See State v.
Bahtuoh, 840 N.W.2d 804, 809 (Minn. 2013). We review the sufficiency of circumstantial
evidence with a two-step analysis. State v. Moore, 846 N.W.2d 83, 88 (Minn. 2014). “The
first step is to identify the circumstances proved.” Id. “The second step is to determine
whether the circumstances proved are consis tent with guilt and inconsistent with any
rational hypothesis except that of guilt.” Id. (quotations omitted).
The district court convicted Beavers of misdemeanor theft. A person who
“intentionally and without claim of right ta kes, uses, transfers, conceals or retains
possession of movable property of another with out the other’s consent and with intent to
deprive the owner permanently of possession of the property” is guilty of theft. Minn. Stat.
§ 609.52, subd. 2(a)(1).
The circumstances proved are that Beavers entered R.H.’s truck without permission
and took, among other things, a Vans shopping bag. Inside the bag, among other items,
were R.H.’s clothes and two phone chargers. Beavers recognized that this was not her
property when she looked inside the bag. Beavers never returned the clothes or chargers.
These circumstances are consistent with a finding that Beavers intended to permanently
retain R.H.’s property without his consent, and they are inconsistent with any rational
hypothesis except guilt.
Beavers argues that the evidence is in sufficient to establish the intent-to-
permanently-deprive element because it is unclear whether R.H. asked for the items back,
and because he was never aske d about why Beavers would have taken and kept his work
clothes. But whether R.H. asked for the items back is not probativ e to whether Beavers
7
intended to deprive him of those items, and a lack of evidence regarding Beaver’s motive
does not establish a rational hypothesis of innocen ce. Beavers also argues that there is a
reasonable inference inconsistent with guilt, but only argues that that inference is that she
“did not intend to deprive R.H. of this property.” But that inference is not reasonable in
light of the circumstances proved.
Affirmed.