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This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by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
A23-0567

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Samuel Morton Post III,
Appellant.

Filed March 11, 2024
Affirmed
Wheelock, Judge

Hubbard County District Court
File No. 29-CR-21-483

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Jacob Campion, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota; and

Jonathan Frieden, Hubbard County Attorney, Park Rapids, Minnesota (for respondent)

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

Considered and decided by Wheelock, Presiding Judge; Smith, Tracy M., Judge;
and Gaïtas, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
WHEELOCK, Judge
In this appeal from a final judgment of conviction for perjury, appellant argues that
there was insufficient evidence to prove that his false testimony at a
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child-support-modification hearing was material. Because the evidence proves beyond a
reasonable doubt that the false statements were material, we affirm.
FACTS
In September 2020, appellant Samuel Morton Post III moved for a modification of
his child-support obligations, citing as the bases a substantial change in his gross income,
a change in his receipt of public assistance, and a change in the residence of the children.
With his motion, he filed an affidavit in support of motion to modify child support on a
form produced by the Minnesota Judicial Branch. The form includes a section regarding
the property the affiant owns, which lists a variety of property types and asks for their
value. Post identified the value of two types of property he owns, but he did not write
anything in the blank space next to “Checking/savings.”
At the November 18, 2020 hearing on the child-support-modification motion, the
attorney for Hubbard County questioned Post about whether he had any money in his bank
account:
COUNTY: [Y]ou had mentioned um, of not having any other
income. Do you have any—do you have any bank accounts
with any money in them?
POST: I provided, ah, as Exhibit—let’s see, I believe Exhibit
11 had my bank account information, sir.
COUNTY: Okay, um—
POST: And that was back when I was working. Since then, it
has had the same, like what, $42, or you know, something like
that, dollars. But there’s nothing coming in or out.
. . . .
COUNTY: And so, you’re saying you’ve got a total of about
$42 in the bank?
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POST: Ah, maybe—maybe a hundred , I don’t know, I’ve got
something like that.

Post was under oath at the time he made this statement. At that same hearing, a Hubbard
County Social Services employee with the child-support office testified that she had
requested information from Post’s bank, and the bank informed her that Post had two
accounts containing money. Specifically, the county employee testified that, when Post
filed the affidavit, he had a checking account with $124.12 and a savings account with
$17,500. On the day of the hearing when the county attorney questioned him, Post had
roughly $13,000 in his savings account.
Based on his statements under oath about his account balances, respondent State of
Minnesota subsequently charged Post with two counts of perjury. The first charge was
based on Post’s affidavit, and the other was based on his testimony during the
child-support-modification hearing. The perjury case proceeded to a court trial at which
the district court received testimony from the county attorney who had questioned Post at
the child-support-modification hearing. When questioned by the prosecutor about the
importance of the court in the family proceeding having accurate financial information
relating to the parties, the county attorney answered:
Well with child support, both with the calculations and the
collections, an accurate number in terms of what people not
just have as income but what they have in assets, child support
essentially works in a formulaic way, and assets determine in
part what child support is ordered. It also in part determines
whether or not a modification is appropriate depending on the
assets someone has available. And finally in terms of
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collections, what social services or child support can collect is
based of course on what they’re aware exists.
On cross-examination, the county attorney stated that it was not his belief “that the amount
in a savings account could be used to calculate a current obligation.”
The district court then found Post guilty of one count of perjury relating to his
testimony at the child-support-modification hearing and acquitted him on the count related
to his affidavit. The district court convicted Post, stayed imposition of his sentence pending
a five-year probation period, and imposed a $300 fine.
Post appeals.
DECISION
Post challenges his conviction for perjury, arguing that the evidence was insufficient
to prove that his false statements were “material.” This court uses the same standard for
evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence in a bench trial as it does for the evidence in a
jury trial. State v. Burnett, 867 N.W.2d 534, 537 (Minn. App. 2015), rev. denied (Minn.
Oct. 20, 2015). We do so by viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
conviction and determining whether the evidence is “sufficient to permit the [fact-finder]
to reach the verdict which [it] did.” State v. Webb, 440 N.W.2d 426, 430 (Minn. 1989). In
reviewing the sufficiency of evidence, we “carefully examine the record to determine
whether the facts and the legitimate inferences drawn from them would permit the
fact-finder to reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
of the offense of whic h he was convicted,” and we will not overturn the verdict “if the
fact-finder, upon application of the presumption of innocence and the State’s burden of
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proving an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, could reasonably have found the defendant
guilty of the charged offense.” Burnett, 867 N.W.2d at 537-38 (quotation omitted); accord
State v. Al-Naseer, 788 N.W.2d 469, 473 (Minn. 2010).
A person is guilty of perjury when they “make[] a false material statement not
believing it to be true . . . in or for an action, hearing or proceeding of any kind in which
the statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath or affirmation.” Minn.
Stat. § 609.48, subd. 1(1) (2020). Materiality is an element of the offense of perjury that
must be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Burnett, 867 N.W.2d at 536-37; see
also Minn. Stat. § 609.48, subd. 1 (2020) (requiring that the perjurious statement be both
false and material). A statement is “material” within the meaning of the statute if it “has a
natural tendency to influence, or is capable of influencing, the decision of the
decision-making body to which it is made.” Burnett, 867 N.W.2d at 537. It is not a defense
to perjury that the declarant did not know the statement was material, that they believed
the statement to be immaterial, that the statement “was not used,” or that it “did not affect
the proceeding.” Minn. Stat. § 609.48, subd. 2(3), (4) (2020). Thus, the question here is
whether Post’s false statements about his accounts were capable of influencing the
magistrate’s decision on Post’s motion for child-support modification.
The evidence at trial established that Post had moved to modify his child-support
obligation, that the magistrate’s focus at the hearing was determining how much support
should be ordered, and that the magistrate admitted evidence relating to Post’s bank
accounts—including the county attorney’s cross-examination of Post relating to the bank
accounts and the county employee’s testimony detailing the amounts Post had in his
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accounts. The evidence at trial also included the county attorney’s testimony that “assets
determine in part what child support is ordered.” We thus conclude that the evidence was
sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Post’s false testimony about his bank
accounts was material because it was capable of influencing the magistrate’s decision.
Affirmed.