Commonwealth v. J.G.

The complainant testified that after leaving the gym he observed the door handle to his car damaged and saw that his Iphone was missing. The complainant tracked his phone through a missing device app on his phone and soon began following a car down Roosevelt Boulevard to a house in North Philadelphia where he observed the car park, and someone go inside of a residence. The complainant then called police and told them that the tracking application indicated that the phone was inside of a specific location. Police knocked on the door and encountered J.G., who promptly turned over the stolen phone to police. J.G. informed the police that his father-in-law had left the phone at his house and left. Upon cross examination of the complainant, it became clear that he had informed police of the tag number of the car that was followed, and that tag number came back to the father-in-law. The police NEVER documented this information, nor was it ever provided to the defense as part of discovery. The defense focused in on this missing evidence at trial and destroyed the police officers on cross examination of the Philadelphia robbery offense. Furthermore, the defense argued that the DA had failed to establish that J.G. knew or should have known that the phone was stolen, and that there was evidence that the father-in-law had driven away. J.G. was acquitted of all charges after a trial.