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Criminal Liability To Commit Credit Card Fraud

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In order for a person to commit credit card fraud they need to knowingly obtain, possess, use, or transfer a means of identification or financial information of another person. That person can be either living or dead, and they must do this with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any crime. Either the accused or an accomplice can use the credit card and if the total accumulated from credit, money, goods, services, or anything else in value is greater than one thousand five hundred dollars than it constitutes identify theft in the first degree which is a class B felony (Leagle, 2004). If the total is less than one thousand five hundred dollars in value, or no credit, money, goods, services, or anything of value is obtained it constitutes …show more content…

168). To use the common law rule, an honest mistake or ignorance of fact is a proper defense if it negates the existence of a state of mind essential to the crime. The mental element of a crime of theft is taking property of another with intent to deprive the owner of their property. If the person did honestly make the mistake it negates the intent and they are not guilty of the …show more content…

Furthermore, each time that person uses the credit card they can be charged with the crime. The separate charges of identity theft for each use does not violate double jeopardy, because the unit of prosecution for identity theft is each use of stolen personal information, not each piece of stolen information (Leagle, 2004). Each time the person used the stolen card it is a separate charge against them. It doesn’t get grouped into one charge of identity theft. The focus of this statute suggests the emphasis is on each use of the stolen information. This means the person can be charged with the crime of identity theft each and every time they use the

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