Forgery

The elements of forgery are that the state shows that the defendant: 1: with the intent to defraud or harm another; 2: passed; 3: a writing; 4: that purported to be the act of another; and 5: that the other person did not authorize the act.

An intent to defraud or harm may be established by circumstantial evidence.

The Penal Code does not define “commercial instrument”, but football tickets can be considered commercial instruments for purposes of forgery.

An indictment for passing a forged instrument does not suffer from a fatal variance when the store manager rather than the sales person is named as the passee.

Much like theft, forgery is a crime of moral turpitude. Future employers are loathe to hire someone who has been convicted of or arrested for a forgery allegation. The reason is because employers want to be confident that their employees are not stealing from them.

If you do not successfully defend a forgery case then it can have dire consequences on your employment future. Accordingly, it is important to win a forgery case and go to the next step to get an expunction of your criminal records so that future employers cannot see that you were arrested for such an allegation.