no more than inform the authorities and lay in wait for the suspect. If the owner originates the criminal plan, for the purpose of testing the trustworthiness of an employee, the courts uniformly hold that an owner by his or its conduct has consented to the taking, and that no crime has been committed."[24]
In another case testing employee honesty, People v. Frank,[25] the employer, a furrier, set up a plan in which one employee, Antonelli, would ask another employee, Frank, to "do him a favor" and take three pieces of fur belonging to the employer to a friend's store where Antonelli could pick them up that evening. Frank put the fur pieces under his topcoat but before he could leave the employer stopped him and the fur wasintroduced the nature-of-the-consent theory in a larceny case which did not involve a sting operation but which illustrates how that approach affects liability for theft by larceny. Davis entered a Mervyn's department store, picked out a shirt and took it to the sales counter. He told the sales person he had purchased the shirt as a gift for his father but it didn't fit and he wanted to return it. A store security agent who had observed Davis's conduct instructed the sales person to give him the credit. Davis was arrested as he left the sales counter and convicted of petty theft.[42] Our Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, rejecting Davis's argument he was guilty at most of attempted petty theft.
Davis argued he was not guilty of theft of