I’m trying to query and entitylist

Public Function CheckForDupe(ByVal itemid As String) As Boolean
Dim founditem As IEnumerable(Of VwRequistionQuickviewEntity) = From p In Me.EntityList Where p.ItemId.Trim = itemid.Trim Select p
If Not founditem Is Nothing Then
    If founditem.Count > 0 Then
           Return True
    End If
End If
Return False

I always get the following error
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
StackTrace:
at NYSTAX.APPDEV.ICS.Business.VwRequistionQuickview._Closure$__1._Lambda$__1(VwRequistionQuickviewEntity p) in D:\Projects\ICS\ICSBusiness\VwRequistionQuickview\VwRequistionQuickview.Partial.vb:line 28
at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectEnumerableIterator`2.MoveNext()
at System.Linq.Enumerable.Count[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
at NYSTAX.APPDEV.ICS.Business.VwRequistionQuickview.CheckForDupe(String itemid) in D:\Projects\ICS\ICSBusiness\VwRequistionQuickview\VwRequistionQuickview.Partial.vb:line 30

Any Idea what I’m doing wrong ?