People v. Jennings
Court of Appeals of New York
69 N.Y.2d 103 (1986)
Sentry Armored Courier officers, including John Jennings (defendants), engaged in three financial schemes: first, a repurchase arrangement where Sentry temporarily invested client Chemical Bank's money in bonds through cashier John Finnerty (defendant), earning about $17,000 in interest before returning the exact principal to Chemical after 72 hours; second, depositing about $100,000 of Chemical's inventory into a compensatory-balance account at Citibank, which then froze the account, leaving Chemical short $97,000; and third, keeping excess insurance proceeds meant to reimburse three robbery-victim clients, reimbursing only one and retaining the rest. All charges were dismissed at trial and on intermediate appeal, and the state sought further review of all three schemes.
Whether temporarily investing a client's funds and retaining the resulting interest constitutes larceny, and whether creating an actual risk that client funds cannot be recovered, or retaining insurance proceeds a company itself legally owned, constitutes criminal misapplication of property.