State of California VS Charles Ray Merritt: Part Four - Transcript of Charles Merritt Preliminary
2 Q Now, with regard to QuickBooks, did you become familiar
3 with the program, how to use it?
4 A Yes, I did.
5 Q How did you receive access to these records from Intuit?
6 A Intuit cloned Joseph's accounts and made me an authorized
7 user on the accounts. It was an online-based account, so I
8 signed in using my information, and I could view Joseph's
9 account. I couldn't alter it. I couldn't change it or modify
10 it. I could view and print the records, only.
11 Q And those are the records that we previously discussed
12 were maintained by QuickBooks and the entries were at or near
13 the time the events occurred?
14 A That's correct.
15 Q Okay. With regard to both of those accounts, both the
16 Contact and the Custom account, how were those divvied up in the
17 business? Was there two sides to the business, two separate
18 businesses? Or do you know?
19 A Yes, there was. The original account, the Contact
20 account that was created in 2004, had a mixture of Joseph's
21 personal finances as well as his business finances.
22
The Custom account was strictly business, but he was not
23
writing checks from that account.
24 Q When you write a check from QuickBooks, does it
25 automatically debit the money from an account?
26 A If the user has a credit card, a bank card, something
27 like that associated with QuickBooks, it can debit. It can be
28 linked to Pay Pal, those type of things. But Joseph basically
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1 used these accounts for an online ledger where he created
2 invoices, he wrote checks and kept track of his money coming and
3 going out. But it was not actually associated to a bank.
4 Q Did you also review or speak with someone who reviewed
5 Joseph's bank accounts?
6 A Yes.
7 Q Was that at Union Bank?
8 A Yes.
9 Q Which? Did you review it or --
10 A Yes, I reviewed it and spoke with Detective Ryan Smith.
11 Q
Okay. With regard to the Custom account, were any checks
12
from, you said it was opened in January of 2008, from January of
13
2008 until February 1st, 2010, were any checks listed on
14
QuickBooks or written from QuickBooks on the Custom side of the
15
account?
16
A On the Custom side, no.
17 Q
So, all the checks during that time period were listed on
18
the other account?
19 A
On the Contact account, yes.
....and continue reading the transcript, it will explain when checks started being written after the 1st of February and out of what account.
