359 N.C. 246, 607 S.E.2d 599 (2005)
Defendant's parents started R & D, a plastic injection molding corporation, in 1979. Defendant's father, Robert Dennis Weaver, Sr. (Dennis Weaver), was R & D's sole owner and CEO, while defendant's mother, Shirley Weaver, served as R & D's secretary-treasurer.1 In 1996, defendant, his father Dennis Weaver, and two other individuals acquired International Color, a color compounding plant for plastic material, which was relocated near the R & D site and treated by the Weavers as an extension of R & D.2
Defendant married Kimberly Weaver, who was employed as a receptionist at R & D in 1986.3 In 1997 and 1998, when the misappropriation occurred, Kimberly Weaver was an employee of both R & D and International Color and was being trained by Shirley Weaver to become the accounting manager.4 Kimberly Weaver's duties at R & D included entering payables, making bank deposits, and entering data. Kimberly Weaver also ran the International Color office.5 Both Shirley and Kimberly Weaver testified that Kimberly had no authority to sign R & D or International Color checks. She had to have direct permission from either Shirley or Dennis Weaver to write a check or use the signature stamp, which was kept in a desk drawer in Shirley's office.6
During 1997 and 1998, while experiencing personal financial difficulty, Kimberly Weaver misappropriated over $450,000 from R & D and International Color from January 1997 through May 1998.7 She accomplished this by using counter checks, checks earmarked for shredding because they listed R & D's address incorrectly, or legitimate corporate checks, writing the checks and stamping them with Shirley Weaver's signature without authorization.8 The misappropriated funds were used by defendant or herself for personal expenses, including credit card bills, household expenses such as electricity bills, season tickets to Alabama football games, hunting dog purchases and training, hunting and deep-sea fishing trips, home improvements and landscaping, home furnishings and appliances, family vacations, and expenses incurred in buying or showing horses.9 Defendant founded Technicraft, Inc. in 1996, and Kimberly Weaver used it as a vehicle to conceal the misappropriation.10
Shirley Weaver first identified the breadth of accounting irregularities on May 29, 1998, when she was notified that eleven International Color checks had been returned by the bank stamped non-sufficient funds.11 On August 6, 2001, a Buncombe County grand jury indicted defendant for two counts of aiding and abetting Kimberly Weaver to embezzle funds from International Color, nineteen counts of aiding and abetting Kimberly Weaver to embezzle funds from R & D, and a single count of conspiracy to commit embezzlement from International Color and R & D.12
Defendant was tried at the November 26, 2001 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Buncombe County. On December 4, 2001, a Buncombe County jury returned a verdict finding defendant guilty on all twenty-two counts, and Judge Helms sentenced defendant to seven consecutive eight-to-ten month terms of imprisonment.13 On October 21, 2003, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed defendant's convictions on all counts. On November 24, 2003, the State filed a notice of appeal pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-30(2).14 This Court allowed certiorari on February 5, 2004, to review additional issues but later concluded that certiorari was improvidently allowed.
Whether the lawful possession or control element of the crime of embezzlement was satisfied when an administrative employee took a corporate signature stamp without permission and wrote unauthorized corporate checks, thereby misappropriating funds from her employer?15
Embezzlement under N.C.G.S. § 14-90 requires that the defendant must have been entrusted with and received into his possession lawfully the personal property of another by virtue of a fiduciary relationship or employment.16 Thereafter, with felonious intent, the defendant must have fraudulently converted the property to his own use.17 Trespass is not a necessary element.18 However, the initial possession must be lawful.19 Misappropriation by trespass supports larceny instead.20 This distinction preserves the historical separation between the common law crime of larceny and the statutory crime of embezzlement.21
No. Kimberly Weaver never lawfully possessed the misappropriated funds or exercised control over them by virtue of her employment.22 Kimberly Weaver had access to checks and the signature stamp through her position at R & D and International Color.23 Both she and Shirley Weaver testified that she lacked any independent authority to sign checks or use the stamp.24 The stamp remained in Shirley Weaver's desk drawer and required direct permission for each use.25 By taking the stamp without permission and writing unauthorized checks, Kimberly Weaver effected a trespassory taking rather than a lawful acquisition of possession or control.26
The funds therefore did not come into her possession or under her care as the embezzlement statute demands.27
The lawful possession or control element of embezzlement was not satisfied, so the evidence does not support defendant's convictions for aiding and abetting embezzlement and conspiracy to embezzle.28