Commonwealth v. Succi, 173 A.3d 269

Background

John J. Succi, a Bucks County contractor, was convicted after a jury trial of multiple counts: home improvement fraud, deceptive/fraudulent business practices, theft by deception, and one count of insurance fraud, for long-running deficient and incomplete construction projects and related misrepresentations to many clients (2005–2013).
Victims testified projects were delayed, substandard, left incomplete, materials paid for were not delivered, mechanic’s liens were filed, and Succi threatened or intimidated clients; losses and remediation costs were substantial.
Succi obtained commercial insurance after misrepresentations on the application.
He was sentenced to an aggregate term (reduced under RRRI), and appealed raising statute-of-limitations, jurisdiction/venue, and Eighth Amendment/sentencing claims.
Trial court ruled many offenses timely prosecuted by applying the fraud-discovery tolling provision (42 Pa.C.S. § 5552(c)(1)), rejected treating disparate victimizations as a single continuing offense under § 5552(d), found Pennsylvania courts had subject-matter jurisdiction (venue challenge largely waived), and held the sentence was not an illegal Eighth Amendment violation.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether 14 convictions are time-barred by statute of limitations	Commonwealth: prosecutions timely because fraud was discovered within tolling period; some offenses continued into limitations window	Succi: offenses were discrete, occurred earlier than limitations window and not part of a continuing course of conduct	Court: §5552(d) (continuing conduct) does not apply to aggregate different victims; but §5552(c)(1) (fraud discovery tolling) applies — prosecutions timely back to Feb 10, 2006
Whether Bucks County courts lacked jurisdiction over crimes in Philadelphia/NJ	Commonwealth: courts of common pleas have statewide subject-matter jurisdiction over Crimes Code offenses	Succi: crimes in other counties/states fall outside Bucks County’s jurisdiction	Court: subject-matter jurisdiction proper (statewide); Succi’s argument was really about venue, not jurisdiction; claim rejected
Whether venue in Bucks County was improper for out-of-county/out-of-state crimes	Succi: trial in Bucks prejudiced him because some acts occurred elsewhere	Commonwealth: venue dispute procedural; remedy is transfer, not dismissal; no prejudice shown	Court: venue objections waived/without prejudice showing; denial of dismissal proper
Whether sentence was illegal/Eighth Amendment violation (effectively life sentence)	Succi: aggregate lengthy sentence is grossly disproportionate to non-violent, first-offender conduct	Commonwealth: sentence within statutory limits and warranted by scope and harm; trial court found aggravating conduct	Held: claim is discretionary (waived for failure to preserve); even on merits, not grossly disproportionate — no Eighth Amendment violation

Key Cases Cited

Cardonick v. Commonwealth, 292 A.2d 402 (Pa. 1972) (statutes of limitation construed in favor of defendant)
Riding, 68 A.3d 990 (Pa. Super. 2013) (statute-of-limitations question is a question of law)
McSloy v. Commonwealth, 751 A.2d 666 (Pa. Super. 2000) (application of fraud-discovery tolling)
Fisher, 682 A.2d 811 (Pa. Super. 1996) (theft-by-deception statute of limitations runs from last deception as to each victim)
Volk, 444 A.2d 1182 (Pa. Super. 1982) (Section 5552(d) applied to continuing conspiracies)
Stewart, 544 A.2d 1384 (Pa. Super. 1988) (continuing-offense analysis applied to kidnapping/retention)
Farrar, 413 A.2d 1094 (Pa. Super. 1979) (receiving/retaining stolen property as continuing offense)
Bethea, 828 A.2d 1066 (Pa. 2003) (courts of common pleas have statewide subject-matter jurisdiction over Crimes Code offenses)
Gross, 101 A.3d 28 (Pa. 2014) (dismissal is not a remedy for improper venue; transfer is appropriate)
Robinson, 931 A.2d 15 (Pa. Super. 2007) (narrow application of "illegal sentence" doctrine; many challenges are discretionary)