CHRISTIA LEIGH BELLIS SPRANO Missouri Cases

Christia Leigh Bellis Sprano was convicted after a bench trial of attempted victim tampering for writing a letter to a victim instructing her to withhold information, claim the Fifth Amendment, and destroy evidence. On appeal, Sprano challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and argued the trial court plainly erred by relying on a defective verdict director. The Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, affirmed the conviction, finding sufficient evidence to support the trial court's inference of intent and concluding that no plain error occurred regarding the verdict director in a bench-tried case.