Orange County Counterfeiting & Forgery Lawyer Protecting Your Rights

If you have been accused of felony counterfeiting or illegal forgery, you need to speak with criminal defense lawyers experienced with representing clients charged with these sorts of fraud offenses. Often, counterfeiting and forgery charges are accompanied by other violations, such as insurance fraud or the theft of personal identity. If state or federal prosecutors can prove that the defendant knew and willingly committed fraud, they could face harsh consequences for their actions.

However, before you enter a guilty plea, it would be wise to consult with a lawyer experienced in defending clients in counterfeiting and forgery criminal cases.

Criminal defense attorney Diane C. Bass has spent years of her career defending the rights of clients in and out of courtrooms. Over those years, Ms. Bass has defended clients accused of white-collar crimes, drug crimes, sexual battery, violent crimes, and criminal accusations of fraud. Her winning record is impressive, and she has long held a sterling reputation for her professionalism and knowledge of complicated laws.

What Are the Elements of a Crime of Counterfeit and Forgery?

Anyone who intentionally passes, attempts to pass, sells, publishes, conceals, or brings into the United States any falsely made, forged, counterfeited, or altered financial instrument can be charged with counterfeiting. Most commonly, counterfeiting refers to the imitation of paper money or coins, but the crime can also involve checks, tickets for public transit, sports trading cards, and a variety of other items.

Forgery involves the making, altering, use, or possession of false writing to commit fraud. Forgery can occur in many forms, such as signing another person’s name on a check or falsifying one’s own academic transcript. When forgery involves currency, it is also called counterfeiting.

So, to prove a case of forgery, a prosecutor must:

• identify a written instrument;
• show that the defendant made the written instrument, materially altered an existing written instrument, or falsely signed a written instrument; and
• prove that the defendant acted with an intent to defraud.

More specifically, a core element of criminal forgery is that a person makes, alters, uses, or possesses a false writing. Keep in mind that to serve as the basis for forgery charges, the writing in question must have a legal significance and be false, where the false statement changes the fundamental meaning of the writing.

Additionally, to be punishable as forgery, the writing in question must have apparent legal significance. This includes government-issued documents like drivers’ licenses and passports; transactional documents like deeds and receipts; financial instruments like currencies and stock certificates; and other documents, such as wills, patents, medical prescriptions, and works of art. Note that to have legal significance, a document must simply affect legal rights and obligations. So, while forging a physician’s signature is forgery, signing another person’s name to a letter to a friend would probably not constitute forgery because, in most cases, the letter does not have legal significance.

Lastly, to be guilty of forgery, the defendant must have intended to defraud someone or some entity like a government agency. The purpose of this rule is to protect those who possess or sign fraudulent documents without knowing that the documents are false so that they will not be subject to criminal liability. As a result, a common defense to forgery or counterfeiting charges is that the accused lacked intent to defraud.

What is the Difference Between Forgery and Counterfeiting?

All forgeries and counterfeits are fakes — something made to pass as real or authentic. But not all fakes qualify as counterfeits or forgeries — just because it isn’t real doesn’t mean there is an intent to defraud others.

A forgery is a fake or illegal copy. Examples of forgery-based fraud include signing someone else’s name on a written document without their consent in order to pass off the document as genuine or copying a signature for a promissory note. Forgery charges are often accompanied by fraud charges for identity theft, mail fraud, check fraud, insurance fraud, securities fraud, and credit card fraud offenses.

A counterfeit is something that was made to appear real but is, in fact, not, such as a fake bank bill, lottery ticket, or public seal. Counterfeit charges can also be filed against those who have made illegal imitations of copyright, trademark, or patent-protected works with the intent to defraud others for financial or personal gain.