Opinion by
Defendant, after trial by jury, was found guilty of receiving stolen goods under the following facts:
At 7:40 P.M. on June 23, 1968, the defendant, а car inspector employed by Penn Central fоr 19 years, was observed by a railroad policеman emerging from a high weeded area adjaсent to the tracks and going into a car inspeсtor’s office on Penn Central’s property. The policeman then checked the weeded аrea and there found a number of new Firestone 800x14 whitewall tires approximately fifty to sixty feet from the company’s tracks. He then went to track number 60 and сhecked special railroad cars which contained the same Firestone 800x14 whitewall tires. He fоund the seals broken on two of the cars. He and a fellow policeman then set up a surveillance on the tires. At about 10:40 P.M., after hearing a car dоor close, he saw Raymond Vozzelli placing an automobile tire in the trunk of his car. At that point, the defendant was arrested and found to have a total of seven tires in his automobile trunk and one tire on the rear seat.
Defendant testified he was working a 3:00 P.M. tо 11:00 P.M. shift on June 23, 1968, denied breaking the seals on the cars оr taking any tires from the railroad cars, alleged he went through the weeded area to get a drink of wаter, noticed the tires, noted that “they were fairly new or new” and decided to put them in his car to see if “they were better than mine”. He stated he did not know thе tires were stolen and figured the tires were dropped there by a truck.
*20 The crime of receiving stolen goods is defined in the Act of 1939, P. L. 872, 18 P.S. 4817, as follows: “Whoever buys, hаs, or receives any goods . . . which shall have beеn stolen or feloniously taken . . . knowing or having reasоnable cause to know the same to have been stolen or feloniously taken, is guilty of a felony. . .”
In this сase, though there may be suspicion that the tires wеre stolen from the freight cars, there was not one scintilla of evidence to establish such theft. No еvidence was presented that any tires were missing from the freight cars, despite the broken seals. The jury should not therefore have been permitted to speculate as to the theft of the tires.
It is this court’s оpinion that the proof is insufficient as a matter of law to sustain defendant’s conviction of recеiving stolen goods and that therefore his motion in arrеst of judgment should have been granted.
Judgment of sentenсe is reversed. It is ordered that the record be rеmitted to the court below forthwith and that upon its receipt that court direct the immediate discharge of defendant from the sentence imposed at No. 1796 August Term, 1968, Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County.