QandAs: Legal

What Is Forgery?

Answer:
From a legal standpoint, forgery is the criminal act of creating or altering a written document with the intent of fraud or deceit.

An example would be signing someone else’s name to a check in order to get the money. Forgery would involve endorsing or signing a check that did not belong to you without the proper owner’s permission.

In common law, forgery was defined as “the fraudulent making and alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man’s right.” A more modern definition has been accepted as “a false making; a making malo animo, of any written instrument, for the purpose of fraud and deceit.”

Depending on the degree of offense, forgery can be a misdemeanor or a felony. There are many different types of forgery.

The creation of an entire document in another person’s name is obviously an example of forgery. Additionally, a fraudulent insertion, alteration, erasure (even a single letter), in any portion of the document will also amount to forgery, even if it later acted upon by someone who is not aware of the forgery. Applying a true signature to a falsified document for a purpose not intended is also considered to be a forgery. For example, if someone draws up a will for someone, and inserts things to their benefit, and then gets the person to sign their will, it is considered to be a forgery. Making a document under a non-existent person’s name or under a fictitious name is as much a forgery as making a document in a living person’s name. Forgery is a crime even if the forged document is not published. Forgery is also applied in the making of false or counterfeit coins.

In order to be forgery, the intent must be to defraud another person, but it does not have to have injured another person in order to be a violation. All that is necessary is that someone may have been injured.